This is one I've had on my bookshelf for years & always will have:
Weevils in the Flour, written by
Wendy Lowenstein. An oral history of the 1930s depression in Australia.
What I love about this book is that it it so accessible. It's full of stories & anecdotes of the lives of ordinary Australians (Lowenstein interviewed hundreds of them while researching the book) & how they personally fared in the depression. Not only the desperate aspects of their lives, there are also funny stories, stories of taking on the "authorities" & the landlords ... some pretty amazing details of what people actually
did to get by, records of quite a bit of political activity, etc, etc ...
What I really like is that she lets people speak for themselves.
I've used it a quite a bit in my classrooms because it is so accessible to older students, in fact actually invited her to talk with some of my students once. (Which was a pretty amazing experience. She was a "larger than life" sort of person. Extremely candid, full of interesting information & very entertaining, too.)
http://www.scribepublications.com.au/book/weevilsintheflour