The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies

Reading List

Here are a few of the many documents I found useful as background reading for this book in the Darling Dahlias series and a very brief explanation of the reasons for their inclusion.

Daily Life in the United States 1920-1940: How Americans Lived Through the Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression, by David E. Kyvig. Helpful period background.

Dry Goods, Butler Brothers 1934 general merchandise catalog. What people were wearing and using during the early thirties.

Everyday Fashions of the Thirties as Pictured in Sears Catalogs, edited by Stella Blum. Helpful period descriptions of clothing styles, fabrics, materials.

Get Capone: The Secret Plot That Captured America’s Most Famous Gangster, by Jonathan Eig. The real story of how the Feds nabbed Al Capone. Detailed, highly evocative of the life and times of gangland Chicago.

Happenings in Old Monroeville, Vol. 2, by George Thomas Jones. Monroeville local history from the thirties.

Mae West: It Ain’t No Sin, by Simon Louvish. Life as a vaudeville burlesque queen (before becoming a movie star) wasn’t easy, even for Mae West.

Month-by-Month Gardening in Alabama, by Bob Polomski. What Alabama gardeners might be doing at different seasons of the year. The Ponder Heart, by Eudora Welty. Wonderful Southern voice.

To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee. Harper Lee grew up in Monroeville (the source for her descriptions of Maycomb, where TKM is set). Monroeville is only fifteen miles from Darling.

Ziegfeld 101, Biography Part III, by John Kenrick: http://www.musicals101.com/ziegbio3.htm. Last accessed 6.27.2010. The story of Ziegfeld’s Frolics (yes, the overhead glass walkway is real!).

Historical Documents Relating to Al Capone: http://www.irs.gov/foia/article/0,,id=179352,00.html. Background documents (letters, reports) written by the investigators who dug up the dirt on Al Capone, released and published online by the IRS in 2008.

Newspaper Archives: http://www.newspaperarchive.com/. A subscription website that allows you to search, read, clip, and save newspapers from the United States and around the world.