My book of the year...."The Worst Hard Time..." by Timothy Egan

[TightEnd]

I've just finished this in the past week, and it is a remarkable book. It had been at the bottom of a big pile of books on my bedside shelf, I plucked it out at random and now and I wish I had got to it sooner!

The dust storms that terrorised the High Plains in the Great US Depression of the 1930s were unprecedented, before or after. Timothy Egan's book is a historical reportage of this era. Following a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, Egan tells of their attempts to carry on through blinding dust, crop failure, and the death of loved ones. Describing the terrifying drama of catastrophe, Egan does equal justice to the human characters who become his heroes, "the stoic, long-suffering men and women whose lives he opens up with urgency and respect" (quoted from back cover).

Egan tells how America's great plains turned to dust, and how the plains winds stirred up an endless series of 'black blizzards' that were like a biblical plague: 'Dust clouds boiled up, ten thousand feet or more in the sky, and rolled like moving mountains' in what became known as the Dust Bowl. But the plague was man-made, as Egan shows: the plains weren't suited to farming, and plowing up the grass to plant wheat, along with a confluence of economic disaster — the Depression — and natural disaster — eight years of drought — resulted in an ecological and human catastrophe.

In a modern era that brings ever-greater and seemingly more frequent natural disasters together with the prospect of further climactic change, The Worst Hard Time is a very powerful story of the greatest environmental disaster ever to be visited upon the US and a huge warning about the dangers of trifling with nature.

[tikay]

Nice review Tighty. Do you only read Non-Fiction? (PLEASE say yes!).

[TightEnd]

No, to be honest I don't. However I do seem to have gravitated more towards non fiction, particularly historical and military biography, in the past few years. An all time favourite is Gilbert's mamoth biography of Churchill for example.

I'd still be queueing up to buy a new Ian Rankin or Michael Connelly though and have a lot of time for reading Ian McEwan. However there's less and less that gets me excited these days

One of the reasons why I wrote my own novel this year, which I hope to get published next year.

[tikay]

No, to be honest I don't. However I do seem to have gravitated more towards non fiction, particularly historical and military biography, in the past few years. An all time favourite is Gilbert's mamoth biography of Churchill for example.

I'd still be queueing up to buy a new Ian Rankin or Michael Connelly though and have a lot of time for reading Ian McEwan. However there's less and less that gets me excited these days

One of the reasons why I wrote my own novel this year, which I hope to get published next year.

Stick to Non-Fiction Rich. Truth is stranger than.....

You wrote a novel? Wow! You'll be telling us you appeared on Mastermind next.

[gmoneyAK]

i recently finished "the yes man" by danny wallace. Its great true story about a guy who decides to just say yes to everything after feeling sorry for himself.

[julian]

can't remember whether it was 'east of eden' or 'the grapes of wrath', but both were a great read and at least one was based in and around the depression/dustbowls.

prey tell us more about the book tighty...

[TightEnd]

Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck. Fabulous book


my opus is a dark tale of middle aged angst and a man's struggle to escape the patterns of the past. No, its not autobiographical!

[DesD]

Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck. Fabulous book

Springsteen was heavily influenced by Steinbeck when writing his 1995 album the Ghost of Tom Joad..  I recommend it highly if you find the dustbowl era fascinating and are interested in finding parallels with the 'migration' of Mexicans into the US in recent years.   

[tantrum]

last few books that i have read turned out to be real gems.

Small Island by Andrea Levy - a beautifully written novel about 1940s Britain and its attitudes towards immigration; it follows a story of four protagonists, evenly handed, powerful, moving and funny, the book deserves all the accolades it has received.

Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell - Unbelievably inventive, it spans across 19th century to the future.  The author's command of language is just superb.  The ability to create different worlds and voices and at the same time seamlessly linking them together is a sign of literary excellence.

Failed States by Noam Chomsky- focused exposure of United States as a super power

[Tonji]

I have had the privilege of owning some Dorothea Lange photographs, she worked for the Farm Security Administration during the 30s Depression, powerful photographs that say alot about poverty.

[Sark79]

Other than School books, I have never read a fiction book since I was about 10.  I love non-ficition books, especially fact books. 

[booder]

i was recently in my library and stumbled across      "Representing my County" by T.Kendall

[Sark79]

i was recently in my library and stumbled across      "Representing my County" by T.Kendall

This was about the Steam Train quiz champion

[Dewi_cool]

Table Football?