Three Fantastic, Little Known Books About America

I guarantee you've never heard of (most) of these

Before you start thinking you don’t like nonfiction, or that history is too dull to read about, or that you haven’t read anything like this since high school with good reason, bear with me for a sec: I promise these are no ordinary, dreary, lengthy, bores.

Today we’re revisiting some books focused on American history, the bulk of which I read years ago but have stuck with me long (long) after the final page. I promise not a single one of these will have you feeling like you’re in class, and most of them do actually read more like fiction than the rote tedium we’ve been fed in our school years. Trust me on this.

Get ready to head back in time, and as always, happy reading.

The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl

by Timothy Egan
Read it if you’re interested in: The Great Depression, Southern American history, environmental disasters, farm life

Timothy Egan chronicles the havoc wrought by the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression by following a group of families and their attempts to survive this unprecedented disaster.

I read this book almost ten years ago and it still lives rent free in my head as one of the greatest pieces of historical reporting I’ve ever come across. It’s a rare feat for a nonfiction book to be as compelling and propulsive as a work of fiction, but that’s exactly what happens here. From the very first page I was captivated. The author’s ability to write about this is second to none: it is elegant and striking and makes you feel like you are actually inside a swirling, black cloud of dust making unbearable decisions about your own and your family’s survival. Egan addresses the question all readers inevitably will think: Why stay in this horrible place during this horrible time? I knew relatively little about the Dust Bowl before reading this, but Egan covers an astonishing range in a fairly short book.

Here is Where: Discovering America’s Great Forgotten History

by Andrew Carroll
Read it if you’re interested in: Travelogues, hidden parts of history, learning about anything and everything

"History's most overlooked value is its ability to influence the way we live our lives and how we treat one another on a day-to-day basis. At its best, history nurtures within us humility and gratitude. It encourages respect and empathy. It fosters creativity and stimulates the imagination. It inspires resilience. And it does so by illuminating the simple truth that, whether due to some cosmic fluke or divine providence, it's an absolute miracle that any one of us is alive today, walking around on this tiny sphere surrounded by an ocean of space, and that we are, above everything else, all in this together."

This is another book I read a while back, almost five years ago at this point, but it stuck with me so much that I remember exactly where I was when I read it (sitting in front of a fire at my parent’s house). Andrew Carroll is an unbelievably gifted storyteller. This book is fascinating in that it will teach you things you cannot believe you didn’t already know. Rarely did a page pass where I didn’t come across something I wanted to share, and I finished it thinking this should be required reading in American schools, because it shows so clearly how utterly interesting history can be.

One Summer: America, 1927

by Bill Bryson
Read it if you’re interested in: Great American heroes, the feeling of being taken out to a ball game, vignettes about interesting people

A stunning look at one season in American history, as told through the varied and fascinating events that occurred throughout.

I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: if you haven’t yet read anything by Bill Bryson, start now. He is a truly masterful writer with the ability to inject humor and levity into any subject. In this book, he sets his sights on one particular, consequential summer. It is the summer of Charles Lindberg, Babe Ruth, Al Capone and Calvin Coolidge: the precursor to an unprecedented economic depression, a time when American life was full of exuberance and change. Bryson brings to life the many events that transpired that fateful summer by effortlessly and beautifully depicting the lives of those involved.

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