Book cover of The Trouble Up North

Book description

An NPR Best Book of the Year 2025

An atmospheric, haunting novel about the Sawbrooks, a family of bootleggers with a troubled history and a deep connection to the Michigan land that binds them.

The Sawbrooks have spent decades crisscrossing the waterways and vast forests between Northern Michigan and Canada…

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Why read it?

1 author picked The Trouble Up North as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

I loved this book because of the Northern Michigan setting and the accurate portrayal of land use controversies: an issue facing rural communities everywhere.

What a family will do to protect their land from monied interests and commercial development, especially when their land has become prime real estate. And what happens when siblings go against one another and their mother’s wishes.

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Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!

On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…

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