Book cover of Listen

Book description

*WINNER! 2024 Oklahoma Book Award*

Stripped of opportunity by the Great Depression, educated and ambitious Liam takes a low-paying job with the Federal Writers' Project, assigned to collect stories of rural life for the Library of Congress in a hot, poverty-stricken Dust Bowl town in Oklahoma. He'll take his government…

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Why read it?

1 author picked Listen as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

What I loved about Listen was reading about the perspective of one character, who benefited from the Federal Writers’ Project, part of Roosevelt’s New Deal to help Americans during the Great Depression. 

Liam doesn’t have a job and takes a job in a rural area in Oklahoma as part of the Federal Writers’ Project—his job is to listen to the stories of locals in the town and write them up as reports. The stories that Liam “collects” also give a reader a sense of how crushing the Great Depression was for many Americans.

An added twist to the story is…

If you love Listen...

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These Blue Mountains by Sarah Loudin Thomas,

A moving story of love, betrayal, and the enduring power of hope in the face of darkness.

German pianist Hedda Schlagel's world collapsed when her fiancé, Fritz, vanished after being sent to an enemy alien camp in the United States during the Great War. Fifteen years later, in 1932, Hedda…

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