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Non-Fiction Discussion Group

  • Kepler's Books 1010 El Camino Real Menlo Park, CA, 94025 United States (map)
Strangers In Their Own Land.jpeg

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right by Arlie Hochschild

The National Book Award Finalist and New York Times bestseller that became a guide and balm for a country struggling to understand the election of Donald Trump

When Donald Trump won the 2016 presidential election, a bewildered nation turned to Strangers in Their Own Land to understand what Trump voters were thinking when they cast their ballots.

Arlie Hochschild, one of the most influential sociologists of her generation, had spent the preceding five years immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold. As Jedediah Purdy put it in the New Republic, "Hochschild is fascinated by how people make sense of their lives. . . . [Her] attentive, detailed portraits . . . reveal a gulf between Hochchild's 'strangers in their own land' and a new elite." Already a favorite common read book in communities and on campuses across the country and called "humble and important" by David Brooks, Hochschild's book has been lauded by Noam Chomsky, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu, and countless others.

The paperback edition will feature a new introduction by the author reflecting on the election of Donald Trump and the other events that have unfolded both in Louisiana and around the country since the hardcover edition was published, and will also include a readers' group guide in the back of the book.

Earlier Event: May 12
Big Ideas Reading Group
Later Event: May 14
Spanish Book Discussion Group