On this day in ...
... 1939 (70 years ago today), John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath was published. Sold at $2.75 a copy, it became both an immediate bestseller and an immediate target for banning and burning. But the timeless Depression-era story of the Joad family, driven from their dust-bowled home in Oklahoma into unwelcoming migrant labor camps in California, outlasted critics. These seem good economic times to (re)read Grapes -- or, for that matter, the excellent nonfiction account of the same phenomenon, Factories in the Field, written by Carey McWilliams the very same year.
... 2009 (today), are celebrated New Year's festivals in Thai and Cambodian cultures. (credit for 2003 photo of Thai New Year festivities in Australia)(Prior April 14 posts are here and here)
