Our March/April book club selection for Now Read This is Jessica Bruder's "Nomadland," which chronicles the growing community of transient older Americans who have taken to the road in search of seasonal work.
Watch Bruder's conversation in the video player above.
The nomads Bruder followed were usually workers who did not completely recover from the 2008 Recession. Without enough saved for retirement, and unable to pay off their mortgages, they moved their lives into RVs and trailers, congregating in camps stretching from North Dakota to California to Texas.
"Nomadland" served as inspiration for the new film of the same name, directed by Chloé Zhao and starring Frances McDormand. It won a Golden Globe for best picture in the drama category, and Zhao won best director — the first Asian woman to do so in the show's 78-year history. But the film has also received criticism for underplaying the harsh realities of working for big-box retailers such as Amazon, particularly following an unsuccessful effort by workers at the company's warehouse in Bessemer, Ala., to unionize.
Bruder, a journalist, spent three years speaking to folks on the road to write the book, and lived briefly as a nomad herself. She joined PBS NewsHour's Jeffrey Brown on Thursday to answer your questions about her reporting.
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