Hitting the Books with Gary Thorne: "The Worst Hard Times"

Can we even begin to understand what people went through in the Great Depression, World War I, World War II or the Dust Bowl?

Are we so concentrated on the now that we fail to see how the "then" screams at us to learn from history?

Timothy Egan's award -winning book on the Dust Bowl, "The Worst Hard Times," will touch you deeply if you will let it. You can feel the ravage of the wind, the dust, the locust and the agony of all lost.

These were people who went to what would become the Dust Bowl for a new life, a farming life, on the land that was so fertile.

They were hard-scrabbled, workers without complaint. Yet they were their own demise. It was not Mother Nature that would lead to their plight, but their own self-absorption of want for more.

The never-ending attitude that the good life would only be better if they did more of the same - more planting, more ravaging of the land, more defying what they were told could not be sustained.

This book is history in the context of wheat fields.

The subject matter changes from bison to wheat to cattle to steel to social media. The result is greed and a denial of reality and hardship?

Their personal heartache is heartbreaking.

The love of reading is shared with us from those at the Enoch Pratt Free Library in Baltimore, for which we are always grateful.

This recommendation is from librarian Judy Cooper, the libary's programs and publications coordinator. Her selection, "All American Boys" by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, is also the 2016 One Maryland One Book selection.

"In 'All American Boys,' the unforgettable new novel from Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, two teens--one black, one white--grapple with the repercussions of a single violent act that leaves their school, their community, and, ultimately, the country bitterly divided by racial tension. Written in tandem by two award-winning authors, this tour de force shares the alternating perspectives of Rashad and Quinn as the complications from that single violent moment, the type taken from the headlines, unfold and reverberate to highlight an unwelcome truth."

Judy, thanks so much for a most timely read.

Gary Thorne is the play-by-play voice of the Orioles on MASN, and the 2016 season is his 10th with the club and 31st covering Major League Baseball. His blog will appear regularly throughout the season. The Canton Branch of the Enoch Pratt Free Library will host a screening of "Julie and Julia" as part of the Canton Saturday Matinee: Films for Foodies program on Saturday, July 2 at 2 p.m. at the meeting room of the library, 1030 S. Ellwood Ave.

* Hitting the Books with Gary Thorne. © Copyright 2016 Gary F. Thorne. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog's author is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Gary F. Thorne and MASNsports.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.