Lauren Markham

"This stunning meditation on nostalgia, heritage, and compassion asks us to dismantle the stories we've been told--and told ourselves--in order to naturalize the forms of injustice we've come to understand as order." --Leslie Jamison, author of The Empathy Exams When and how did migration become a crime? Why does ancient Greece remain so important to the West's idea of itself? How does nostalgia fuel the exclusion and demonization of migrants today? In 2021, Lauren Markham went to Greece, in search of her own Greek heritage and to cover the aftermath of a fire that burned down the largest refugee camp in Europe. Almost no one had wanted the camp--not activists, not the country's growing neo-fascist movement, not even the government. But almost immediately, on scant evidence, six young Afghan refugees were arrested for the crime. Markham soon saw that she was tracing a broader narrative, rooted not only in centuries of global history but also in myth. A mesmerizing, trailblazing synthesis of reporting, history, memoir, and essay, A Map of Future Ruins helps us see that the stories we tell about migration don't just explain what happened. They are oracles: they predict the future.

The deeply reported story of identical twin brothers who escape El Salvador's violence to build new lives in California--fighting to survive, to stay, and to belong. Growing up in rural El Salvador in the wake of the civil war, the United States was a distant fantasy to identical twins Ernesto and Raul Flores--until, at age seventeen, a deadly threat from the region's brutal gangs forces them to flee the only home they've ever known. In this urgent chronicle of contemporary immigration, journalist Lauren Markham follows the Flores twins as they make their way across the Rio Grande and the Texas desert, into the hands of immigration authorities, and from there to their estranged older brother in Oakland, CA. Soon these unaccompanied minors are navigating school in a new language, working to pay down their mounting coyote debt, and facing their day in immigration court, while also encountering the triumphs and pitfalls of teenage life with only each other for support. With intimate access and breathtaking range, Markham offers an unforgettable testament to the migrant experience. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW WINNER OF THE RIDENHOUR BOOK PRIZE SILVER WINNER OF THE CALIFORNIA BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR THE LOS ANGELES TIMES BOOK PRIZE SHORTLISTED FOR THE J. ANTHONY LUKAS BOOK PRIZE LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN/BOGRAD WELD PRIZE FOR BIOGRAPHY

Cheap Bastard's Guide to San Francisco details endless free and inexpensive opportunities available in the City by the Bay from theater, concerts, and museums to wine tastings, yoga classes, haircuts, and massages––for native and visiting cheapskates alike. Written in a fun, humorous tone, this unique guide offers sound advice on how to live the good life on the cheap!