Whether you’re participating in our Decades Reading Challenge or found this post looking for the best books set in the 1930s, we know you’ll fill your TBR list with these highly-rated reads.
We’ve compiled a list of highly-rated books about the Thirties, including classic literature, historical fiction novels, and non-fiction reads about fascinating topics.
The 1930s were a time of immense change and upheaval around the world. The Great Depression and Dust Bowl ravaged economies, the rise of fascism cast a shadow over Europe, and international tensions led to World War II. But within that uncertainty lie stories of resilience, courage, and hope.
Other books feature a glimpse into life in 1930s America, including Hollywood, sports, crime, and high society. The genres range from emotional family dramas to spy thrillers, so you should find a book to suit any mood. Overall, our must-read books set in the 1930s provide a unique window into this era’s unique challenges and triumphs.
As the Dust Bowl drought gripped the Great Plains, millions were out of work, crops failed, water dried up, and farmers fought to keep their land. This is the story of Elsa Martinelli, who is forced to make an agonizing choice: fight for her land in Texas or move west to California in search of a better life.
Like so many of her neighbors, Elsa courageously faces the hardships and sacrifices that came to define an entire generation during the Great Depression as they fought for the American Dream.
The Book Girls Say…
We love books that truly transport you to another time and place, and few books do that quite as well as The Four Winds. You feel the dirt and the direness that so many experienced.
We knew people from Oklahoma and Texas fled looking for a better life in California during the Dust Bowl years, but this novel opened our eyes to how poorly they were treated and how much they were discriminated against when they arrived, no matter how hard they were willing to work.
Gloria needs to reinvent herself after a family scandal. She’s ready for a makeover, and when she meets another young woman named Estée, their encounter will change Gloria’s life forever.
Estée dreams of being a household name like Elizabeth Arden, and together, they accomplish more than most women could imagine. However, the world is not used to women with their own voice and power, so there are prices to pay for success.
The Book Girls Say…
We can’t wait to pick up this historical fiction about the founding of the Estée Launder company!
Photojournalist Dorothea Lange created some of the most iconic photos of the 20th century. She is best known for her work in the 1930s during the Dust Bowl. In this riveting historical fiction, we get to see the world through her lens.
Dorothea arrived in San Francisco at 22, determined to make her way independently as a woman. However, she soon married a talented but volatile painter, Maynard Dixon. By the early 30s, her marriage was floundering as much as the economy. So, she took to the road with her camera, creating images that inspired, reformed, and defined the era.
The Book Girls Say…
While we weren’t very familiar with Dorothea Lange before finding this book, we’ve seen one of her most famous works, Migrant Mother, many times. It’s a lasting reminder of the human suffering that came during the Dust Bowl years. We can’t wait to learn more about the woman who bravely captured this history in a way that helps us better understand it nearly 100 years later.
Set in 1932 during the Great Depression, This Tender Land follows four orphans, including 12 year old Odie, who have escaped the abusive Lincoln Indian Training School in Minnesota.
The kids set off down the Mississippi River and have to survive the environment while being pursued by the school. The group must decide whether to trust each stranger they encounter, and each character discovers more about themselves along the way.
The Book Girls Say…
This Tender Land spent nearly six months on the New York Times bestseller list. Equal parts adventure and heart, this book is often described as a modern classic and compared to Huckleberry Finn.
Each summer, the Adler family rents out their Atlantic City home to vacationers and moves into the cramped apartment above their bakery. Their daughters are now young adults, with Florence home from college and Fannie on bed rest during pregnancy following the loss of a baby. Florence plans to spend the summer training for her plan to swim the English Channel.
The small space becomes even more crowded when the father, Joseph, takes in a woman he helped emigrate from Nazi Germany. When a tragedy strikes, mom Esther begins a web of lies in an attempt to protect her daughter Fannie, but will this really help in the long run?
In 1932, Charles Lindbergh was America’s golden boy. He had broken barriers by flying across the Atlantic and had a lovely, wealthy wife. The family made headlines in a new way when their toddler, Charles Jr. was kidnapped from the family home in New Jersey.
The boy’s nanny, a Scottish immigrant named Betty Gow, found comfort in caring for the boy after a hard romantic break-up. When Charles Jr. disappeared, the media and public made Betty, aka the Lindbergh Nanny, the prime suspect. Betty was determined to find the truth, both to clear her name and to protect the child she adored.
You probably read this classic back in high school (or at least you were supposed to), but we recommend you give this famous book another read. Chances are you’ll get even more out of it this time around!
If you aren’t familiar with the story, it’s set in Alabama in 1933 and told from the perspective of a 6-year-old girl called Scout. Her widowed father, Atticus Finch, is a crusading local lawyer who risks everything to defend a black man accused of a terrible crime.
The Book Girls Say…
In the vote for our readers’ favorite classic novels, it was a decisive victory! A full one-third of our readers submitted To Kill a Mockingbird as one of their three all-time favorites, with the majority of those readers listing it first.
Fifty-five years after the publication of this classic, Harper Lee published a Go Set a Watchman. Harper Lee actually penned this novel in the late 50s (the decade in which the story was set), but her early publisher had reservations and recommended she take a different approach – resulting in To Kill A Mockingbird. People either love or hate Go Set a Watchman. If you adore Atticus Finch, you might be happier not reading this book, but it does tackle the important reality of the racial tensions brewing in the South in the 1950s.
In Depression-era Kentucky, Del is the wife of the most celebrated preacher in Harlan County. She tries to lay low in her rigid life but can’t keep the status quo amid her husband’s infidelity. When a coal train comes through town, Del bravely jumps aboard in what she sees as her only chance for freedom.
As she travels across the country, she finds a new community among the other transient outcasts. Nomadic single mom Louisa quickly befriends Del and helps her learn how to live life on the rails. But the Depression is taking its toll, and desperate circumstances threaten their close bond.
The impoverished residents of Troublesome Creek struggle for nearly everything, but thanks to Roosevelt’s Kentucky Pack Horse Library Project, they aren’t lacking books.
Book woman Cussy Mary Carter is not only Troublesome Creek’s own traveling library but also the last living female of the rare Blue People ancestry. But not everyone approves of Cussy’s family or the government Library Project. Cussy wants to bring the joy of books to the hill folks, but she has to confront prejudice and suspicion as old as the Appalachians.
Looking to escape his circumstances, Jacob Jankowski jumps onto a passing train and suddenly finds himself thrust into the world of a circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression.
Because Jacob is just shy of his veterinary degree, he’s put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. He becomes enamored with Marlena – the star of the equestrian show. But Marlena is married to the circus’s cruel animal trainer. Jacob also meets Rosie, an elephant that everyone had hoped would help save the circus, but who appears to be untrainable.
The Book Girls Say…
As was common with any circus of this time period, the animals are not always treated with care in this book. Be prepared for scenes highlighting the mistreatment of animals (and humans).
If you’ve already enjoyed Water for Elephants and would like another book about a traveling circus, try The Circus Train by Amita Parikh, which is set in 1938 Europe amid WW2.
Spanning from 1933 to 1939, and from the streets of Toronto to the shores of Hong Kong, this Canadian historical fiction novel tells the story of a little-known chapter of WWII history.
With the Depression crippling Toronto, 18-year-old Molly puts aside her journalism dreams to work any job she can to help her family get by. But, as the summer of 1933 stretches on, the terrible wave of hate and anti-Semitism sweeping the globe reaches Toronto in the form of “Swastika Clubs” and “No Jews Allowed” signs. On a fateful night in August, tensions reached a boiling point between the local Irish and Jewish communities. The resulting riot has devastating consequences for Molly’s family and that of her best friend, Hannah.
Six years later, Molly is now working as a reporter for the local paper. With the war on the horizon and many people she loves in danger, Molly is forced to confront what happened on that terrible night back in 1933.
The Book Girls Say…
This book was a crowd among readers in previous years because it combines page-turning fiction with facets of WW2 history that were unknown to those in our group, even those who were very well-read in the subject!
West With Giraffes is a charming tale of adventure that takes you on the ride of a lifetime from the East Coast of the US to the West, alongside a rowdy 17-year-old, a grumpy older man, and two giraffes. The year is 1938, and no American zoo has successfully housed giraffes before. The female zoo director of the San Diego Zoo believes she can do it. The giraffes have just survived a hurricane en route to the East Coast, and Riley Jones, the curmudgeonly head zookeeper, is responsible for safely transporting the giraffes from New York City to San Diego.
America is still in the throes of the Great Depression, and the Dust Bowl conditions continue to ravage the drought-stricken Southern Plains states. A coast-to-coast trek with giant animals is no easy feat. Jones begrudgingly teams up with a starving teenager named Woody to help him make the journey. The adventures along the way include run-ins with circus con artists, being tailed by a female photographer looking for a big scoop, an emotional visit to Woody’s hometown, and so much more.
At its heart, this is a coming-of-age story. Now, at the age of 105, Woody recounts his 12-day cross-country trip with Jones and the giraffes and how it shaped his life.
The Book Girls Say…
After we both gave this book 5 stars, we recommended it to others in a variety of age ranges. Everyone else has loved it too! In fact, Angela’s husband recently listened to the audiobook, and her 10 and 11-year-old sons begged to listen with him. It’s now a family favorite!
From the insights it gives to life across America in the late 1930s to the growing relationships between characters, including the humans and the giraffes, we can’t recommend this book highly enough!
1938, Hollywood; Late 19th & Early 20th Centuries, South Dakota
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
100% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This novel tells the story behind The Wonderful Wizard of Oz through the eyes of Maud, the wife of author L. Frank Baum. The book follows two storylines: one tells the story of Maud’s youth as the rebellious daughter of a leading suffragette and the early years of Maud and Frank’s marriage on the prairie.
The second storyline takes place in 1930s Hollywood when Maud learns that MGM is adapting The Wonderful Wizard of Oz into a movie. Then 77, Maud finagles her way onto the set in hopes of ensuring the producers stay true to the spirit of the book. She meets Judy Garland and recognizes in the young woman the yearning that defined her own life story.
The Book Girls Say…
One of the highlights of 1939 was the release of the endearing film The Wizard of Oz. While the timeline in this book is split between the late 1800s/early 1900s and the 1930s, the backstory is important to the film’s release in the 1930s.
On the evening of April 5, 1936, atornado ripped through Tupelo, Mississippi, which was already suffering at the height of the Great Depression. More than 200 people were killed, with the exact numbers unknown because Black citizens made up ⅓ of the Tupelo population, but were not counted in casualty figures.
Dovey, a Black grandmother barely survived being thrown into a lake by the winds. As she tries to make her way home through the destroyed streets, she stops at the home of the despised McNabb family and finds a White teenager, Jo, with a terrible head wound.
Over the next few hours, Dovey and Jo struggle to navigate the town and the demons that connect them. The story is said to be a reminder of the power and promise that come when we reconnect.
This is the non-fiction story of nine working-class boys – sons of loggers, shipyard workers, and farmers – who beat all the odds to become the American rowing team. They weren’t expected to win at home, let alone defeat others on the international stage. Out of the depths of the Depression, these unlikely young men shocked the world by defeating the German team at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.
In writing this story, Brown drew upon the boys’ own journals and vivid memories to paint a portrait of an era.
The Book Girls Say…
If you enjoy sports-related non-fiction, you may also like Seabiscuit by Laura Hillenbrand. It tells the incredible story of a racehorse with crooked legs who was written off until three unlikely men changed his fortunes in 1938.
When Scottish teen Ella gets a chance to spend the summer of 1937 on the French Île de Ré, it changes the trajectory of her life. She meets the charming Christophe and they spend their days exploring the many beaches of the island. For the first time, Ella feels truly free.
However, with the start of WW2, Ella must return to Scotland. She jumps into volunteering for the war effort, but feels herself drifting further away from the person she was on the Île de Ré. Will she ever be able to recapture that magic in her life?
The Book Girls Say…
Sea of Memories also has a minor present day timeline with Ella in a nurising home and recounting her life story to her granddaughter, Kendra. The book is more romance than war story and includes detailed descriptions of each setting.
Memphis, Tennessee, 1939, and present day South Carolina
Book Girls’ Readers Rate This Book
98% Would Recommend to a Friend
Book Summary
This book is based on the true story of Georgia Tann’s “adoption” agency that claimed to help orphans, but instead kidnapped poor children and trafficked them to wealthy families.
Twelve-year-old Rill Foss and her four younger siblings have a wonderful life on the Mississippi River aboard their family’s shanty boat. But on a stormy night when their father has to take their mother to the hospital, Rill is left in charge. Unfortunately, strangers arrive, and the kids are thrown into the Tennessee Children’s Home Society orphanage. They are assured that they will soon be returned to their parents – but quickly realize the dark truth.
In present-day South Carolina, Avery Stafford returns home to help her father during a health crisis. When she stumbles upon the possibility that her grandmother may be harboring a dark family secret, Avery becomes obsessed with her mission to uncover the truth.
The Book Girls Say…
Melissa read this heart-breaking tale and hated that it was based on true events. It was worth reading, but she recommends grabbing your tissues and keeping them handy!
This novel is set in 1985 Alabama as gray-headed Mrs. Threadgoode recounts her younger years to middle-aged Evelyn. Her stories transport you back to the 1930s when her friends Idgie and Ruth opened a cafe in tiny Whistle Stop, Alabama. While serving up good coffee and barbecue, the café was a place for friendship … and the occasional murder.
The Book Girls Say…
While many people have seen the movie adaptation of this novel, as is often the case – the story in the book unfolds differently, and most agree the book is better. Because the book is partially set in segregated 1930s Alabama, there is some unfortunate but historically accurate language.
The Color Purple portrays the lives of African American women in the Deep South throughout the first half of the twentieth century, though most of the story takes place in the 1930s between the two world wars. Separated when they are young, sisters Celie and Nettie maintain their relationship through a series of letters spanning twenty years. This book broke the silence around domestic and sexual abuse, while taking readers on a journey of love and redemption.
Set against the backdrop of the Great Depression, this book transports readers to the turpentine camps and pine forests of the South. North Carolina earned its nickname – the Tar Heel State – from the thick, sticky sap that laborers extracted from the trees. It was hard and dangerous work, often in inhumane conditions.
When Rae’s husband, Warren, is hurt and cannot do the job, Rae disguises herself as a man and heads to the Swallow Hill turpentine camp in Georgia. There she meets Del, who is on the run from the mistakes of his past, and Cornelia, the browbeaten wife of the camp’s commissary owner. As the three form a stronger friendship, they begin to envision a path out of the camp and a better future.
The Book Girls Say…
This book is described as Where the Crawdads Sing meets The Four Winds. The descriptive writing does a good job of setting the time and place, and the story shows the characters’ determination and grit in the face of the hate and racism that abounds.
William Dodd, a professor from Chicago, is named America’s ambassador to Germany at the rise of the Third Reich. His family joins him in Berlin, and his outgoing daughter, Martha, is immediately drawn into the parties, pomp, and handsome young men of the Third Reich.
While Martha becomes enamored with the “New Germany,” her father grows increasingly concerned by what he witnesses all around him as Adolf’s true character and ambition become more clear. By the end of 1933, however, even Martha finds herself living in terror.
The Book Girls Say…
We’ve read a lot of books about WWII, but many have left us questioning how the world did not recognize the darkening atmosphere in Germany for so long. This book shines a light on that question from an eyewitness perspective.
If you enjoy history and non-fiction, Erik Larson’s books are a wonderful choice because of his detailed research; however, keep in mind that his writing style moves slowly and deliberately.
On New Year’s Eve 1937, a young woman has a chance encounter with a handsome banker. She suddenly finds herself thrust into a yearlong journey into high society.
You’ll be drawn in by the characters and the sparkling depiction of New York’s social strata. As one review put it, “If a novel could win an award for best cinematography, this would take home the gold.”
Imagine being an average expectant mother in 1934, expecting a single baby, and then delivering five. When Yvonne, Annette, Cécile, Émilie, and Marie were born, they defied medical expectations and captured the attention of the world. However, the required medical care was extremely expensive and unaffordable for the parents.
The Canadian government took custody of all five babies and put them in a privately built hospital. However, for the following nine years, the government exploited the children, turning them into an attraction called Quintland that became more popular than Niagara Falls.
The Book Girls Say…
While The Miracle and Tragedy of the Dionne Quintuplets is a highly rated nonfiction account of the Dionne Quintuplets’ lives, there is also a historical fiction novel about the girls called The Quintland Sisters. Our readers have enjoyed that novel but reported wishing it covered more about the progression of their lives.
Three women’s stories intertwine in the Florida Keys as a powerful hurricane approaches over the Labor Day weekend of 1935.
Key West native Helen Berner yearns to escape her abusive husband. Elizabeth Preston has traveled down from New York in search of a veteran of the Great War. Mirta Perez’s family suffered great losses in the Cuban Revolution of 1933, and now they have arranged her marriage to a man in a dangerous business, followed by a honeymoon in Key West.
The approaching storm is not the only danger that these women face as their paths unexpectedly cross.
The Book Girls Say…
Some of our readers have reported not loving the audiobook narrator, so consider listening to a sample before choosing this format.
During the 80 years leading up to the Great Depression, so-called Orphan Trains transported children from cities on the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest. The fates of the children on board – whether they would end up with loving families or end up with a childhood of hard labor – were determined by pure luck.
Vivian – now 91 – was one of those children, and the memories of her childhood are now tucked inside trunks in her attic. Eighteen-year-old Molly is aging out of the foster care system and is assigned community service helping the elderly Vivian clean out her home. She will soon learn that the two have much more in common than she ever expected.
The Book Girls Say…
Melissa read Orphan Train a few years back and was shocked to learn about the Children’s Aid Society trains. While some have criticized the book as seeming like a young adult novel, Melissa enjoyed the story and characters.
Jewish ballet dancer Lilli hopes to leave Germany behind to escape the growing Nazi party, but before she can leave for Hollywood, she has a whirlwind romance with German Army Captain Marco Zeiller. After her heart is broken, she resumes her plan and makes it to Hollywood where she’s able to dance with Fred Astaire.
He introduces her to high society, including Prince Edward, and life is glamorous and exciting for a while. But when Lilli is injured, ending her career, Nazi sympathizers Prince Edward and his mistress Wallis Simpson have new plans for Lilli. With war looming, Macro reinters Lilli’s life and tests her loyalties one by one.
It’s Memorial Day 1938, and New York socialite Lily Dane has returned with her family for another summer in the oceanfront community of Seaview, Rhode Island. But when Lily’s former best friend shows up at the beach, newly married to Lily’s former fiance, the summer no longer looks to be as peaceful and relaxing as planned.
Amid gossip and an impending hurricane, buried emotions and unexpected truths bubble to the surface.
The Nightingale tells the story of French sisters Vianne and Isabelle, who have always been at odds. Vianne is a rule-follower, and Isabelle is more rebellious and willing to speak her mind. With WWII escalating, Isabelle intends to fight for France, while Vianne simply wants to survive the war with her family intact – even if it means allowing a German officer to live in her home.
Isabelle, who refuses to live passively under German authority, joins the French resistance and guides Allied airmen out of France after their planes are shot down – work for which she adopts the codename the Nightingale. As the war wages on, both sisters learn who they are and what they can do.
Cold Mountain Penitentiary is home to the Depression-worn men of E Block. All of them are convicted killers awaiting their time to walk the Green Mile – the path that leads to the electric chair known as “Old Sparky.”
Death row guard Paul Edgecombe has walked the mile with a lot of convicts, but he’s never met anyone else like John Coffey – a giant man with the mind of a child who has been condemned for a terrifyingly violent crime.
The six Mitford sisters were fixtures in British society between World Wars. Each sister was a strong-minded individual, but they also had a tight bond with each other until Diana divorced her husband to marry a fascist leader, and sister Unity followed her lead. Unity was even rumored to be Hilter’s mistress.
Novelist sister Nancy is the only one to remain in contact with Diana and Unity, so it’s up to her to act when she learns that the sisters have become spies for the Nazi party.
The story is told from the alternating viewpoints of Diana, Unity, and Nancy.
The Book Girls Say…
This is largely a slow-paced, character-driven book about a family torn apart by political ideologies. Some reviewers wish there had been more plot over character study.
Nitta is a young girl taken from her Japanese fishing village at the age of 9 and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. The city of Kyoto in the 1930s is a world in which appearances are paramount, where a girl’s virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder, where women are trained to attract the most powerful men, and where love is scorned as an illusion.
The Book Girls Say…
Memoirs of a Geisha is one of the best-selling books set in Japan of the last few decades, but keep in mind that this is a novel written by an American author that never gained the same level of popularity in Japan.
For additional historical context, check out the timeline of major world events included at the end of the post.
You are welcome to choose any book that you’d like to read for the challenge, but we hope that this list of books has given you a good starting point.
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We compiled this list of major events of the 1930s to provide some historical context for your reading. We hope you enjoy learning a bit more about this period in history.
Following the Wall Street Crash of 1929, the majority of the 1930s would be defined by The Great Depression. In 1932, nearly 25% of the US population was unemployed, which rose to nearly 33% in early 1933.
Beginning in 1931, the US suffered the worst drought in its history, leading to the Dust Bowl years. Strong winds stripped the topsoil from the ground, devastating farms throughout the Great Plains. This forced many to move in search of work and better living conditions.
The Empire State Building was completed in 1931.
During the 1930s, many bank robbers and murders gained celebrity status – a strange phenomenon unique to this decade.
The Third Reich rose to power in 1933 and began instituting a series of measures to persecute Jewish citizens. Throughout the decade, Hilter undermined the post-WWI international order, withdrawing from the League of Nations and building up the German army. When Germany attacked Poland in 1939, it marked the start of World War II.
The 21st Amendment passed in 1933, repealing the 18th Amendment and ending prohibition.
Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary (aka “The Rock”) opens near San Francisco. It is used to hold some of the most dangerous and well-known US criminals.
Penguin Books produced their first paperback books in 1935, making affordable literature accessible to the masses.
The US Social Security Act was signed into law in 1935.
The 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin, Germany amid a very tense political atmosphere. Hilter viewed the games as an opportunity to prove his theory of Aryan racial superiority. However, he was humiliated when African-American sprinter and long jumper Jesse Owens won four gold medals for the US.
The Spanish Civil War began in 1936, and continued until 1939, when Franco conquered Madrid.
Amelia Earhart became the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean in 1932. Sadly, she disappeared over the Pacific Ocean in 1937 during an attempt to circumnavigate the globe.
In 1937, the Hindenburg, a German Zeppelin airship, was scheduled to make 10 round trips between Europe and the US. On the first of these flights, the Hindenburg caught fire while attempting to land in New Jersey, killing 35 of the 97 people aboard.
In 1938, Seabiscuit beat War Admiral in what came to be called the “Race of the Century.”
The Wizard of Oz, starring Judy Garland, premiered in 1939.
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