Intelexual Book Club Vote #7 (Patreon)

For the month of May we're back to non-fiction, so lets read a piece of investigative journalism.

Option #1: Reefer Madness: Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in The American Black Market

Synopsis: America’s black market is much larger than we realize, and it affects us all deeply, whether or not we smoke pot, rent a risqué video, or pay our kids’ nannies in cash. In Reefer Madness the best-selling author of Fast Food Nation turns his exacting eye on the underbelly of the American marketplace and its far-reaching influence on our society. Exposing three American mainstays — pot, porn, and illegal immigrants — Eric Schlosser shows how the black market has burgeoned over the past several decades. He also draws compelling parallels between underground and overground: how tycoons and gangsters rise and fall, how new techonology shapes a market, how government intervention can reinvigorate black markets as well as mainstream ones, and how big business learns — and profits — from the underground. Reefer Madness is a powerful investigation that illuminates the shadow economy and the culture that casts that shadow.

Pros: Relevant to discussions around immigration, capitalism, and the human trafficking market. 

Cons: It's from 2003

AverageReadTime: 4-6 Hours (238 Pages)

FirstPublished: 2018

AveragePricing:$13 on Amazon, $4 on Thriftbooks,Audiobook free on scribd.com with your $9/mo subscription

Option #2: Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic 

Synopsis: In 1929, in the blue-collar city of Portsmouth, Ohio, a company built a swimming pool the size of a football field; named Dreamland, it became the vital center of the community. Now, addiction has devastated Portsmouth, as it has hundreds of small rural towns and suburbs across America—addiction like no other the country has ever faced. How that happened is the riveting story of Dreamland.

With a great reporter's narrative skill and the storytelling ability of a novelist, acclaimed journalist Sam Quinones weaves together two classic tales of capitalism run amok whose unintentional collision has been catastrophic. The unfettered prescribing of pain medications during the 1990s reached its peak in Purdue Pharma's campaign to market OxyContin, its new, expensive—and extremely addictive—miracle painkiller. Meanwhile a massive influx of black tar heroin—cheap, potent, and originating from one small county on Mexico's west coast, independent of any drug cartel—assaulted small towns and midsized cities across the country, driven by a brilliant, almost unbeatable marketing and distribution system. Together these phenomena continue to lay waste to communities from Tennessee to Oregon, Indiana to New Mexico.

Introducing a memorable cast of characters—pharma pioneers, young Mexican entrepreneurs, narcotics investigators, survivors, and parents—Quinones shows how these tales fit together. Dreamland is a revelatory account of the corrosive threat facing America and its heartland.

Pros: Relevant to discussions about the drug crisis facing America today

Cons: I personally dont think there is one 

AverageReadTime: 5-7 Hours (353 Pages)

FirstPublished: 2015

AveragePricing:$12 on Amazon, $8 on Thriftbooks, Free Book with $9/month Scrib'd Subscription

Book Club Tip: if you love reading, Scrib'd is an amazing online resource that grants you unlimited access to books, magazines, newspapers, and audiobooks. If you click this link, you'll receive two free months of Scrib'd! 

After mulling over the pros and cons, be sure to cast your vote by May 3rd! If you're a $5+ patron and you'd like to be entered to win a copy of the selected book, simply leave a comment saying, "I Voted!"