Behind the Beautiful Forevers

National Book Award WinnerNew York Times best seller.Named one of Time’s 10 best nonfiction books of the decade.One of the 10 best books of the year by The New York Times The Washington Post O: The Oprah Magazine USA Today New York The Miami Herald San Francisco Chronicle Newsday.In this breathtaking book by Pulitzer Prize winner Katherine Boo a bewildering age of global change and inequality is made human through the dramatic story of families striving toward a better life in Annawadi a makeshift settlement in the shadow of luxury hotels near the Mumbai airport.As India starts to prosper the residents of Annawadi are electric with hope. Abdul an enterprising teenager sees “a fortune beyond counting” in the recyclable garbage that richer people throw away. Meanwhile Asha a woman of formidable ambition has identified a shadier route to the middle class. With a little luck her beautiful daughter Annawadi’s “most-everything girl” might become its first female college graduate. And even the poorest children like the young thief Kalu feel themselves inching closer to their dreams. But then Abdul is falsely accused in a shocking tragedy; terror and global recession rock the city; and suppressed tensions over religion caste sex power and economic envy turn brutal.With intelligence humor and deep insight into what connects people to one another in an era of tumultuous change Behind the Beautiful Forevers based on years of uncompromising reporting carries the listener headlong into one of the 21st century’s hidden worlds - and into the hearts of families impossible to forget.Named one of the best books of the year by The New Yorker People Entertainment Weekly The Wall Street Journal The Boston Globe The Economist Financial Times Foreign Policy The Seattle Times The Nation St. Louis Post-Dispatch The Denver Post Minneapolis Star Tribune The Week Kansas City Star Slate and Publishers Weekly.