Ten Lives
How What We Have Shapes Who We Are
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Ten Lives
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Narrated by:
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By:
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Mona Chalabi
About this listen
Anna has a comfortable life in a mansion in Maine thanks to her husband (well, his parents, really) until he suddenly asks for a divorce. In Arizona, Hunter is a U.S. veteran, feeling ashamed about claiming disability benefits. Then there’s Levi, who is trying to pay off his debts from a gambling addiction, one social media video at a time. And Christian, stifled by his job at an Amazon warehouse before a union-organizing effort offers a way out for his comrades and his young kids. Ten people, ten different incomes, all of them afraid for their futures.
For five years, data journalist Mona Chalabi followed them all, documenting how wealth shaped their feelings, their choices, their identities, and their insecurities. She researched the data behind their taxes, groceries, inheritances, and so much more to understand the systems that keep people stuck. But then, she too found herself facing the same fears, when her mother’s sudden illness and subsequent medical bills threatened her own financial safety and made the questions she had been writing about all too real. How much money is enough? To live a “good” life? To protect the people you love in an emergency?
Interweaving her own story with those of her interviewees and illustrated throughout with the data visualizations for which Chalabi is renowned, Ten Lives asks how much wealth it takes to be safe in the United States. It explores how difficult it is for us to be honest and open about what we have and argues that until we get better at it, we will never be able to address the underlying problems that drive inequality and insecurity for us all.
Critic reviews
“This is an astonishing book. Chalabi’s taboo-busting transparency about peoples’ financial lives is revolutionary enough. But it’s the pellucid clarity of her data visualizations that will really change how you understand capitalism. I was riveted from start to finish.”—Alison Bechdel, bestselling author of Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic
“Mona Chalabi writes with frank, engaging precision about what we’re all really wondering about: Money, and all the big, sinister financial machinery that makes each of our lives ‘just happen to be’ what they are. Ten Lives is Jane Austen without all the boring romance stuff, and with a sweeping lens that feels like finally looking up from your own narrow little corner. Or like eating something utterly satisfying you weren’t expecting. And the diagrams—both informative and funny. I️ recommend this book enthusiastically to everyone. I️ can't wait to reread it.”—Liana Finck, author of Let There Be Light
“Ten Lives is a brilliant melding of rage, empathy, and tactical rigor that maps the emotional intimacy of income inequality. Chalabi has a rare ability to bring statistics to life, teasing out the human stories buried within data to illuminate uncomfortable societal truths. Ten Lives cuts cleanly through the numbers, sharpening how we see the world.”—Tessa Hulls, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Feeding Ghosts
“In Ten Lives, Mona Chalabi does the seemingly impossible: She turns economic analysis into gripping human drama. Chalabi brings empathy and critical rigor to this essential topic, shining light where obfuscation usually reigns. Through memoir, reporting, infographics, and visual narrative, Chalabi brings the reader into intimate corners of the lives of her subjects. Ten Lives is eye-opening, infuriating, and visually sumptuous.”—Lauren Redniss, National Book Award finalist and author of Oak Flat
“Mona Chalabi writes with frank, engaging precision about what we’re all really wondering about: Money, and all the big, sinister financial machinery that makes each of our lives ‘just happen to be’ what they are. Ten Lives is Jane Austen without all the boring romance stuff, and with a sweeping lens that feels like finally looking up from your own narrow little corner. Or like eating something utterly satisfying you weren’t expecting. And the diagrams—both informative and funny. I️ recommend this book enthusiastically to everyone. I️ can't wait to reread it.”—Liana Finck, author of Let There Be Light
“Ten Lives is a brilliant melding of rage, empathy, and tactical rigor that maps the emotional intimacy of income inequality. Chalabi has a rare ability to bring statistics to life, teasing out the human stories buried within data to illuminate uncomfortable societal truths. Ten Lives cuts cleanly through the numbers, sharpening how we see the world.”—Tessa Hulls, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Feeding Ghosts
“In Ten Lives, Mona Chalabi does the seemingly impossible: She turns economic analysis into gripping human drama. Chalabi brings empathy and critical rigor to this essential topic, shining light where obfuscation usually reigns. Through memoir, reporting, infographics, and visual narrative, Chalabi brings the reader into intimate corners of the lives of her subjects. Ten Lives is eye-opening, infuriating, and visually sumptuous.”—Lauren Redniss, National Book Award finalist and author of Oak Flat
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