Journalism award finalists include books with rural angles on the opioid epidemic, fracking and for-profit prisons - Entrepreneur Generations

Three of the five finalists for the 2019 Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism have significant rural resonance. The prize, established in 1988, is awarded by the New York Public Library to a journalist "whose work brings clarity and public attention to important issues, events, or policies," Gwen Glazer reports for the NYPL. The winner, who receives a $15,000 cash prize, will be announced on April 16.

In American Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment (Penguin Press), award-winning investigative journalist Shane Bauer offers a "blistering indictment of the private prison system, and the powerful forces that drive it," Glazer writes. Bauer details the history and politics of for-profit prisons, punctuated with anecdotes from his four-month stint as a private prison guard.

Amity and Prosperity: One Family and the Fracturing of America, (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) tells the story of how the fracking boom impacted a small Appalachian town. Award-winning poet and journalist Eliza Griswold draws on seven years of immersive reporting to bring the story to life.

Beth Macy's Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors, and the Drug Company That Addicted America (Little, Brown and Company) is a comprehensive history of the opioid epidemic in America over the past 20 years that provides "an unforgettable portrait of the families and first responders on the front lines," Glazer writes.

from The Rural Blog https://ift.tt/2SMLJGv Journalism award finalists include books with rural angles on the opioid epidemic, fracking and for-profit prisons - Entrepreneur Generations

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