The Long Darkness : Surviving the Great American Dust Bowl

The storms that terrorised America's high plains in the darkest years of the Depression were like nothing ever seen before or since, and the stories of the people who held on have never been fully told.

Pulitzer-prize winning "New York Times" journalist and author, Timothy Egan follows half a dozen families and their communities through the rise and fall of the region, going from sod homes to new framed houses to huddling in basements with the windows sealed by damp sheets in a futile effort to keep the dust out.

He follows their desperate attempts to carry on through blinding black blizzards, crop failure and the deaths of loved ones.

Drawing on the voices of those who stayed and survived, those who are now in their eighties and nineties, Egan tells a story of endurance and heroism against the backdrop of the Great Depression.

This fascinating account of how people lived and died through one of the blackest periods in history is told with sensitivity and understanding.