THIS WEEK: NONFICTION

Worst hard time: the untold stories of those who survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan
One of the worst man made disasters in recent history, the “black blizzards” of the dust bowl were caused in part by unscrupulous land speculators who enticed immigrants and farmers to the great plains. The land there was unsuitable for farming, and coupled with eight years of drought, caused untold misery. Egan interviews survivors of those hard times.

If you enjoyed this book, here are some others that you may like.

Hard Times: an oral history of the Great Depression by Studs Terkel
Terkel interviewed men and women who lived through the Depression of the 1930s. Included were the rural poor, sharecroppers, gangsters, immigrants, and politicians. Pulitzer Prize winner. More stories of personal lives affected by the Depression, in their own words—and not all were stories of hardship. Terkel was a master interviewer.

Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Pulitzer Prize winning epic tale of the Joads and their journey from Oklahoma to California. One of the jewels of American literature—it will fill the reader with many emotions, and paints a vivid picture of the times.

Following the harvest: a novel by Fred Harris
Harris, a former Senator from Oklahoma and author of two previous novels, writes a coming of age story. Sixteen year old Will joins a wheat-harvesting crew with his father, and travels to North Dakota. Lots of period detail. Harris’s style is plain-spoken and forthright; a comfortable read.

Dust bowl descent by Bill Ganzel
Photographer Ganzel revisits the subjects of the famous photos of the Farm Security Administration for an update on the faces of the Dust Bowl. Putting faces to the stories of the Dust bowl, this book includes some of the images that immediately come to mind when the Dust bowl is mentioned.