FRIDAY: Forgotten Book

Our pal, and recent Derringer winner, Patti Abbott, has suggested that on Fridays some of her blog buddies post a reminder of a book that caught us when we read it, but now may be forgotten by the reading public.

Most of the participants in Forgotten Books have revisited novels, which makes sense since many of Patti’s blog buddies are fiction writers. You know I write fiction. I certainly read fiction, but I am also an enthusiastic non-fiction reader and a huge fan of oral histories. I want to read how people felt and what they thought as history swirled around them.

Today my forgotten book is The Great Divide, Second Thoughts on the American Dream, by Studs Terkel. Like many of Terkel’s books, this one is a series of oral histories, essays if you will, on conditions in the United States at the end of the Reagan Era. The stories point out the divides among us: social, racial, religious, political, and, most starkly, economic. In a time when unemployment hovered around ten percent, and when the national debt was far too large, when unions were busted and farmers abused, many Americans seemed not to understand how it happened or how it could be fixed.

The Great Divide was published in 1988. If you can find a copy, pick a few sections at random. Compare then and now. Could be interesting.

Patti would also like me to “tag” one of you to tell us about a Forgotten Book on your blog next Friday. Since I don’t generally “tag,” I am hoping that someone will volunteer in the comments of this blog. It’s a refined “tag.” Just think of a book you read and tell us why you liked it. And since this is not a school book report, there is no required number of sentences.

This link will bring you to Patti’s list of today’s Forgotten Book participants.

Terrie