Belated September mini-reviews

Finished Since Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen, a 1940 social history of the U.S. from September 3, 1929— the day the stock market peaked, before it crashed— to September 3, 1939, the day that Britain declared WWII. I was not expecting to like this book more than Allen's previous book on the 1920s, and I would have said I knew more about the 1930s, going into this, than I had about the 1920s, but I found myself surprised on both counts. I found this book even more fascinating than Only Yesterday, in part because it seems like the 1930s are when a lot of things changed to the way they currently are: the shift from small family-run farms to industrialized agriculture, for example, or the idea that the government is responsible for economic prosperity. I also learned that my mental timeline of the Great Depression was skewed— e.g., the slide from stock market crash to widespread bank failure was longer than I'd thought— and about events I'd never even heard of, like the "Bonus Army" protests in 1932.

Read The Square of Sevens by Laura Shepherd-Robinson: in 1740s England, an orphaned fortune-teller ingratiates herself with a wealthy family to assert her claim as their long-lost heir, and finds more intrigue and dark secrets than she bargained for. Confession: a third of the way in, I skipped ahead to the end and read the last few chapters before continuing. I'm really glad I did! I enjoyed reading this book while In The Know as to, say, who was lying to whom and what skeletons were hidden in which closets.

Read An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James, which kore recommended for James' descriptive writing about Britain— specifically, in this one, Cambridge. There are mystery novels and there are novels that happen to have mysteries in them; this strikes me as one of the latter, thinly disguised as the former. (I mean this in a good way!) At one point, I found myself thinking of Donna Tartt's The Secret History, partly because I suspect it will always be my personal touchstone for college campus murder novels, but also, something in Cordelia's near-seduction by the victim's group of wealthy friends rang that particular bell.

Read Why Didn't They Ask Evans? by Agatha Christie, whose flippant amateur detectives— Bobby, a vicar's son at loose ends, and Frankie, a Bright Young Thing-type socialite— felt so much like a prototype for Tommy and Tuppence that I was surprised to discover this book came out a full decade after The Secret Adversary (1922). Tremendously fun, with multiple elaborate schemes to go undercover for information and a reveal about the significance of the title that genuinely made me laugh out loud.