Why am I passionate about this?
I’m a writer and history buff who loves to make fiction out of facts. For me, the best stories are imagined out of truths we have all lived, real places that are mapped in our memories, real people whose names conjure events, past times that are prelude to our own. I like to read books built on plots and puzzles, so I write mysteries. I love books about real people, so I write biographical novels bent around the secret selves of people we only thought we knew: Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Georgia O’Keeffe.
Susan's book list on America’s toughest time: life in the dirty thirties
Why did Susan love this book?
I’m a huge fan of books that are packed with compelling details. In Since Yesterday, Frederick Allen covers everything about the Thirties, from fashion to food to politics, music, and movies—and everything in between. A powerful story, sometimes dark but rich with odd little treasures that will make you smile. I especially like the searchable digital edition. Example quote: “Dance orchestras were blaring ‘The Music Goes ’Round and ’Round.’ Major Bowes was the current radio sensation, so warmly did he inquire into the life histories of the yodelers and jews-harp-players on his Amateur Hour. At the movie houses Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers were dancing nimbly in ‘Follow the Fleet.’ Seven-year-old Shirley Temple was becoming the rising star of Hollywood.”
1 author picked Since Yesterday as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
A “wonderfully written account of America in the ’30s,” the follow-up to Only Yesterday examines Black Tuesday through the end of the Depression (The New York Times).
Wall Street Journal Bestseller
Opening on September 3, 1929, in the days before the stock market crash, this information-packed volume takes us through one of America’s darkest times all the way to the light at the end of the tunnel.
Following Black Tuesday, America plunged into the Great Depression. Panic and fear gripped the nation. Banks were closing everywhere. In some cities, 84 percent of the population was unemployed and starving. When Franklin…