Nick Danziger's book is about his travels around the UK in 1994, meeting and listening to people living in poverty who are marginalised. He visits urban and rural areas in his trip. He reports stories from all ages and clearly has a gift for engaging with young people; meeting them on their terms on the street. He makes a good attempt to report what he hears without judgement and he is very thorough in the different tales he records. By the end of the book the stories are familiar, of drug taking, serial unemployment and training schemes, family break-ups and squalor and it is a book you can dip in to, reading about places you know or live near. For anyone unfamiliar with the poorer areas of the UK, this book is a massive revelation. ( )

Disturbing account of modern Britain. ( )