Dust Bowl

Hello all,
I just finished the 2014 One Book One Community selection for south-central Pennsylvania.  This year's selection, The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan follows a different format from previous selections. The book was selected by readers from a list of three titles. I believe those who voted for this title were expecting a sequel to the Steinbeck's classic The Grapes of Wrath.  However, Egan' treatment of the Dust Bowl takes a different track.  Egan is a Pulitzer-prize winning New York Times investigative reporter.  As such, he investigates the causes of the Dust Bowl. He holds nothing sacred as he describes in cold detail the improper farming methods, ineffective USDA policies, land speculation, profiteering and virtual displacement and extermination of native Peoples, plants and animals.  The Dust Bowl is arguably the worst man-made ecological disaster in US history.  As such, this book has more in common with Rachel Carson's Silent Spring than The Grapes of Wrath. 


Egan includes vignettes with various people who were victims of the Dust Bowl.  Many of us do not realize that the dust caused health issues and death in addition to  bankruptcy and displacement. 


The purpose of book discussion programs such as One Book One Community is to engage readers in a book that is often outside their comfort zone in order to promote discussion and civic engagement.  In that respect, The Worst Hard Time was a good selection. 


However, for those of you looking for a book with more readability and memorable characters, I am starting Christina Baker Kline's Orphan Train which will be the topic of the next entry.