Great Depression

When someone tries to put all their ideas and research into one novel

The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett

August 5, 2026 by Jen K Leave a Comment

Bingo Square: Justice (there’s systemic oppression, a character unjustly punished for crime, ideas about legality vs morality) Southern Lit Book club is starting back up for the fall session and this was the first book. While I enjoyed The Help when it came out, I also think the later critiques were valid, and wasn’t exactly in a huge hurry for this one but book club was a nice excuse to read this. And it’s a bit of mixed reaction – it’s fine but I was […]

The Great Depression, a Road trip, and Giraffes?

West with Giraffes by Lynda Rutledge

March 24, 2026 by The Chancellor Leave a Comment

West with Giraffes was my book club’s February pick. I had also been hearing coworkers talk about this so it seemed only a matter of time before I read it. The publishers say the book is “part adventure, part historical saga, and part coming-of-age love story” and I think that’s a pretty accurate description of what this book is about. Set during the Great Depression in the midst of the Dust Bowl, an orphan from Texas makes his way to New York only to find […]

It’s Only a Matter Of…

Trust by Hernan Diaz

September 8, 2022 by Jake Leave a Comment

Read as part of CBR14Bingo: Dough. The book involves a man who makes a lot of money (“dough”) off the stock market in the 20s and 30s and how stories revolve around him. I was excited to get this one given both the premise and reviews. I have a yen for these kinds of neo-Gatsby stories set in the early part of the 20th century that examine finance and/or gangsterism juxtaposed with the American Dream. Legs by William Kennedy qualifies for this label, as does Jennifer Egan’s Manhattan […]

Despite the title of the book, this was not a good time

Bacchanal by Veronica G. Henry

September 9, 2021 by Mobius_Walker 1 Comment

BINGO – Travel The G. B. Bacchanal Carnival is a travelling carnival that makes stops all around the Great Depression Era South. They have everything a carnival should: tasty treats, games that may or may not be rigged, dangerous feats from dazzling performers, and oddities from around the world. This carnival just happens to be owned by a demon from the underworld who feeds on children’s souls trying to find the one person who can stop her. Liza Meeks is the newest addition to the […]

Mine eyes have seen the glory

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

January 7, 2019 by thewheelbarrow 3 Comments

Buckle up, this one is pretty long. I finished this book a few days ago and the impression it made on me was so visceral, I had to wait to write about it. When I consider what it takes to be a classic, regardless of the medium, my first thought is timelessness. Will this item stand the test of time and all that entails? I believe that the term classic is bandied about too often and too frivolously. We call anything that we like […]

The Outsiders

April 4, 2018 by Ale Leave a Comment

Capital ‘L’ literature puzzles me as I often feel that it’s a giant waste of time while I’m in the middle, but then I get to the end and reflect on it, and I realize that having read the book was worthwhile. This sentiment couldn’t be more true than my feeling on finishing “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter.” On a surface perspective, I read 350 pages in which nothing really happened and the characters went nowhere. But on a deeper inspection, the pages roil with […]

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