1920s

6 Scintillating Novels That Reveal the Dark Side of the Roaring ‘20s

It wasn’t all flappers and Great Gatsby-esque parties. We may think of the Roaring Twenties as a time of frivolous fun, but our ideas of sequined dresses and sparkling champagne flutes are tinted by rose-colored glasses. The truth of the 1920s was far grittier — a time of revelry, yes,…

Cameron KimballSeptember 30, 2024

Podcasts

Books & Looks Podcast: Dramatic Shadows: A Conversation with Craig Russel on “The Devil’s Playground” and Early Hollywood Mystique

Books & Looks: Real Books for Real Readers was started as a podcast to supplement Blaine Desantis’ website, ViewsOnBooks.com, and expand into audio interviews with authors. With Books & Looks, Blaine’s goal is to focus on real books that real people will read. At least half of the books he reviews are either…

Blaine DesantisJune 28, 2023

Nonfiction Podcasts temp-delete

Books & Looks Podcast: The Master Manipulator: Dean Jobb and the Empire of Deception

Books & Looks: Real Books for Real Readers was started as a podcast to supplement Blaine Desantis’ website, ViewsOnBooks.com, and expand into audio and video interviews with authors. With Books & Looks, Blaine’s goal is to focus on real books that real people will read. At least half of the books he reviews…

Blaine DesantisMarch 6, 2024

Fiction Miscellany

Biographical Historical Fiction Tells the Story Behind the Headlines

In the summer of 2019, I met with my then-editor at Kensington Books, and she mentioned Alice Beatrice Jones and Leonard 'Kip' Rhinelander and their headline news story from the 1920s. It was a passing comment that I took to heart because I’d never heard of Alice or Kip and…

Denny S. BryceJuly 23, 2024

Historical Fiction Books About the 1920s Jazz Era

Miscellany

Jazz Age Magic Lights up the 2020s

In this Tall Poppy Writers article, author Denny S. Bryce shares her fascination with the Jazz Age, some sensational headlines from the era, the research and archive-combing required to write a novel set in the 1920s, and some recommendations of other great books set in the era. What is it…

Denny S. BryceJuly 15, 2024

Nonfiction

The Klan Comes to the Midwest: Brutality, Power and Terror in 1920s Indiana

American history is replete with horrors that have been buried over time. Like an ancient skeleton that may never be discovered, the stories remain untold unless someone comes along to excavate. That is exactly what occurred when Timothy Egan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, decided to write about the Ku Klux…

Claudia KeenanJune 28, 2024

Miscellany Pop Culture

Colette’s Rules: Her 10 Tips for Success as Movie Debuts

“Colette,” the movie starring Keira Knightley as the tradition-smashing French writer, comes to theaters Sept. 21. It’s a well-done period biopic with a great pedigree: Director Wash Westmoreland and his late husband Richard Glatzer, who worked together on “Still Alice,” wrote the screenplay. After its premiere earlier this year at…

Joanna PoncavageSeptember 10, 2018

Nonfiction Nonfiction - Featured

Discover How One Woman Transformed Costume Design in the Golden Age of Hollywood

This is the story of how Marianne Dunat left her small village in the south of France, arrived in Hollywood in 1919 thinking she would stay for a year, and wound up carving out a magnificent career as a fashion designer at a time when costume design started taking off…

BookTribNovember 19, 2021

Fiction Young Adult Young Adult - Featured

“A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions” Wears Its Own Ambitions On Its Sleeve

Right off the bat, Sheena Boekweg’s A Sisterhood of Secret Ambitions (Feiwel & Friends) is a real go-getter of a novel: five main characters are introduced in the first two pages, the stakes instantly raised as they attempt to save a woman from her abusive husband. The year is 1926,…

Savannah CordovaJune 16, 2021

Fiction Fiction - Featured

“Trust” Defies Narrative Convention in its Incisive Look at American Wealth and Power

In a worthy follow-up to his outstanding debut, In the Distance, Pulitzer Prize Finalist Hernan Diaz presents a story that begins with the accumulation of extraordinary wealth and ends with an illusion of power. A monumental piece of storytelling told in four overlapping sections, Trust (Riverhead Books) defies conventional narrative…

Michael FerryMay 18, 2022

Book Club Network Book Club Network - Featured2 Fiction

Kristin Hannah’s “The Four Winds” Braves Dust Bowl in Sweeping Family Saga

"Epic and transporting, a stirring story of hardship and love ... Majestic and absorbing." — USA Today —∞— "A timely novel highlighting the worth and delicate nature of Nature itself." — Delia Owens, author of Where the Crawdads Sing —∞— The Four Winds (St. Martin’s) by Kristin Hannah is a sweeping…

Jodé MillmanFebruary 9, 2021

Fiction

Pursuing the Dragon Lady in Italy, London and Rhodesia

Louisa Treger's The Dragon Lady (Bloomsbury) offers a nuanced perspective on British and African cultures during precarious times, the 1920s through the 1950s. It’s a wonderful mystery, love story and odyssey, all rolled into one. What's even more incredible is that this story is based on a real person. Yes,…

Claudia KeenanAugust 13, 2019

Nonfiction Nonfiction - Featured

Investigative Hot Take on Murder Trial that Confounded 1920s America

In May 1924, the headlines blared and the public became transfixed by a kidnapping that ended in a gory murder. Lured into a car a block from his home in the elegant south Chicago neighborhood of Kenwood, 14-year old Bobby Franks stopped breathing 20 miles away in a nature preserve.…

Claudia KeenanSeptember 29, 2022

Fiction Recommended

Historical Fiction Weaves Two Timelines of Modern Womanhood

If you ever kept a diary or journal, you probably thought about what would happen if someone else read it. And what if that reader was a family member dealing with the same issues you were, generations apart? This is the premise of A Matter of Happiness (Lake Union Publishing) by Tori Whitaker. INTERGENERATIONAL…

Laura McCaffertyNovember 8, 2022