Books from or about 1926-1951 (America250 Challenge)Unpublished

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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER "It is one of the best narrative histories I've read." --The Wall Street Journal A New York Times Notable Book of 2025 * One of Barack Obama's Favorite Books of 2025 * Named a BEST BOOK OF 2025 by The Washington...

New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award-winner Daniel Stashower returns with American Demon, a historical true crime starring legendary lawman Eliot Ness. Boston had its Strangler. California had the Zodiac Killer. And in the depths of the Great...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER * FINALIST FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD * From Pulitzer finalist, MacArthur Fellowship recipient, and bestselling author of Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove Karen Russell: a gripping dust bowl epic about five characters whose fates...

ANew York Times Bestseller A dramatic, intimate narrative of how Ford Motor Company went from making automobiles to producing the airplanes that would mean the difference between winning and losing World War II.   In 1941, as...

In 1928, a young social worker and hobby pilot named Amelia Earhart arrived in the office of George Putnam, heir to the Putnam & Sons throne and hitmaker, on the hunt for the right woman for a secret flying mission across the Atlantic. A partnership - professional and soon otherwise - was born. The...

Raised on tales of her revolutionary ancestors, Frances Perkins arrives in New York City at the turn of the century, armed with her trusty parasol and an unyielding determination to make a difference. When she's not working with children in the crowded tenements in Hell's Kitchen, Frances throws...

Illuminating and captivating, New York Times bestselling author of Tinseltown and Bogart offers the first definitive account of the Black Dahlia murder--the most famous unsolved true crime case in American history--which humanizes the victim and situates the notorious case...

RECOMMENDED BY DOLLY PARTON IN PEOPLE MAGAZINE! A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER A USA TODAY BESTSELLER A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER A PBS BOOK PICK The bestselling historical fiction novel from Kim Michele Richardson, this is a novel following Cussy...

Now a Major Motion Picture Directed by George Clooney The #1 New York Times-bestselling story about the American Olympic rowing triumph in Nazi Germany--from the author of Facing the Mountain. For readers of Unbroken, out of the depths of the...

One of the last, great untold stories of World War II-kept hidden for decades-even after most of the World War II records were declassified in 1972, many of the files remained untouched in various archives-a gripping true tale of courage and adventure from Bruce Henderson, master storyteller,...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY * "A glorious sweep of a novel" (Ann Patchett) that weaves the intimate lives of two midwestern families across generations, from World War II to the late twentieth century. "Mesmerizing."--...

NAMED A MOST ANTICIPATED BOOK OF 2026 BY THE NEW YORK TIMES, GOODREADS, TOWN & COUNTRY, MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE, GARDEN & GUN, AARP, WOMAN'S WORLD, COUNTRY LIVING, AND OPRAH DAILY "So immersive, exciting, and downright fabulous, you never...

ONE OF THE NEW YORKER'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR * Told against the backdrop of the Korean War as a small Appalachian town sends its sons to battle, The Caretaker by award-winning author Ron Rash ("One of the great American authors at work today" --The New York Times) is a...

Inspired by historical events, Clark and Division infuses an atmospheric and heartbreakingly real crime fiction plot with rich period details and delicately wrought personal stories Naomi Hirahara has gleaned from thirty years of research and archival work in Japanese American history.

Born into the steam and starch of a Chinese laundry, Anna May Wong (1905-1961) emerged from turn-of-the-century Los Angeles to become Old Hollywood's most famous Chinese American actress, a screen siren who captivated global audiences and signed her publicity photos-with a touch of defiance-...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "Magisterial...A stunning account that brings to the fore the nuclear saga's surreal combination of ingenuity, fate, and terror." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) * "If you are an intelligent person, or at the very least think you are, you have to...

The daughter of formerly enslaved parents, Mary McLeod Bethune refuses to back down as white supremacists attempt to thwart her work. She marches on as an activist and an educator, and as her reputation grows she becomes a celebrity, revered by titans of business and recognized by U.S. Presidents....

"The Bestselling Hardcover Novel of the Year."--Publishers Weekly From the number-one bestselling author of The Nightingale and The Great Alone comes a powerful American epic about love and heroism and hope, set during the Great Depression, a time when the...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * The master of military historical fiction turns his discerning eye to the Korean War in this riveting novel, which tells the dramatic story of the Americans and the Chinese who squared off in one of the deadliest campaigns in the annals of combat: the Battle of...

Winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Biography Winner of the 2022 National Book Critics Circle Award in Biography, the 2023 Bancroft Prize in American History and Diplomacy, and the 43rd LA Times Book Prize in Biography | Finalist for the 2023 PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld...

The New York Times bestseller, now available in paperback--an incredible true story of the top-secret World War II town of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and the young women brought there unknowingly to help build the atomic bomb. "The best kind of nonfiction: marvelously reported,...

The definitive history of World War II from the African American perspective, written by civil rights expert and Dartmouth history professor Matthew Delmont. Over one million Black men and women served in World War II. Black troops were at Normandy, Iwo Jima, and the Battle of the Bulge, serving in...

From Robert Dugoni, Jeff Langholz, and Chris Crabtree comes an epic and inspiring novel--based on true events--about love, heroism, and resilience during the darkest chapters of World War II. Sam Carlson is a projectionist in small-town Minnesota, where fantasies unspool in glorious...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * "An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut that explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle era during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love."--Lisa...

Winner of the Southern Book Prize for Literary Fiction Named a Best Book of 2017 by the Chicago Public Library and the American Library Association "Wiley Cash reveals the dignity and humanity of people asking for a fair shot in an unfair world." - Christina Baker Kline,...

"A tour de force."--Publishers Weekly starred review "A great read."--Library Journal starred review "A must-read literary triumph."--Booklist starred review Jimmy Propfield joined the army for...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * Winner of the David J. Langum, Sr. Prize in American Historical Fiction * The epic tale of a brilliant woman who must reinvent herself to survive, moving from Mussolini's Italy to 1940s Los Angeles--a timeless story of love, deceit, and sacrifice from the...

A Chicago Tribune Noteworthy Book A GoodReads Reader's Choice In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life. The summer of 1927 began...

California, 1938 - When she loses her parents in an accident, sixteen-year-old Rosanne is taken in by the owners of the vineyard where she has lived her whole life as the vinedresser's daughter. She moves into Celine and Truman Calvert's spacious house with a secret, however - Rosie sees colours...

A National Bestseller A New Yorker Best Book of 2022 Fifteen years after the publication of Evidence of Things Unseen, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist Marianne Wiggins returns with a novel destined to be an American classic: a...

For 75 years, Route 66 has been the highway of dreams. It began in the early 1920s with a vision of a paved highway that would connect Chicago to Los Angeles and the West. By the time of its completion, the road would cover over 2400 miles, three times zones and eight states. More than simply a...

One body. Five suspects. Total darkness. A tense, claustrophobic historical mystery set almost entirely underground at the onset of the Great Depression about the discovery of a 150-foot waterfall in the middle of a mountain, the unthinkable crime that happens in its caves...

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of The Lincoln Highway and A Gentleman in Moscow, a "sharply stylish" (Boston Globe) book about a young woman in post-Depression era New York who suddenly finds...

From the acclaimed, best-selling author Adam Hochschild, a sweeping history of the Spanish Civil War, told through a dozen characters, including Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell: a tale of idealism, heartbreaking suffering, and a noble cause that failed ...

"Lively and entertaining . . . Those fearlessly determined female pilots are the professional forebears of the women who would slowly break down barriers in the U.S. military in the decades that followed . . . And what forebears those women were." -The Washington Post

James Beard Foundation Book Award Winner From the author of the acclaimed 97 Orchard and her husband, a culinary historian, an in-depth exploration of the greatest food crisis the nation has ever faced--the Great Depression--and how it transformed America's culinary culture. The...

Most anticipated by USA Today, W Magazine, New York Post, Parade, Bustle, Buzzfeed, Reader's Digest, and PopSugar and named one of the best historical fiction books of the year by Cosmopolitan! "A beautifully rendered portrait of a young woman finding her courage and her voice."--Lisa...

From the New York Times bestselling author of Cold Mountain and Varina, a stunning new work of historical fiction that paints a vivid portrait of life in the Great Depression Hurtling past the downtrodden communities of Depression-era America, WPA painter Val...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * From the acclaimed author of Seabiscuit comes the incredible true story of survival and salvation that is the basis for two major motion pictures: Unbroken and Unbroken: Path to Redemption. "Extraordinarily moving . . . a...

National Bestseller * Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist A groundbreaking new history of the role of American servicewomen in WWII, illuminating their forgotten yet essential contributions to the Allies' victory, hailed as "an ingenious look at WWII" (Publishers Weekly,...

WITH A FOREWORD BY LISA M. FINE, MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY--Michigan's Upper Peninsula is known for its natural beauty and severe winters, as well as the mines and forests where men labored to feed industrial factories elsewhere in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But there were factories in...

Finalist for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice, a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Selection, an Indies Choice Debut Pick, an Amazon Best Book of the Month, and winner of two New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards.The "haunting . . . impressive"...

Girl, Interrupted meets The Handmaid's Tale in 1940s North Carolina, as a young woman is accused of "promiscuity" and unjustly incarcerated at The State Industrial Farm Colony for Women... Based on the long-buried history of the American Plan, this powerful and shockingly...