Here are 76 books that Leaning Into The Wind fans have personally recommended if you like
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I grew up in Minnesota, and although I have not lived there for most of my adult life, it will always be home for me. I miss the prairie, the lakes, and the wide open skies; I even miss the winters. So I love reading good books set in the Midwest. To me these five books exemplify all that is best about Midwesterners: their honesty, their modesty, their connection to the land; their belief in themselves, and in the interesting and good people in this part of the country. Each of these writers shows that sometimes you can go home again: and that it canbe worth it to do so.
Cheri Register grew up in Albert Lea, Minnesota in the 1950s and 60s, in a working-class home.
When she was 14, a strike in a meatpacking plant created deep divisions within the town and brought national attention when the National Guard was called out to maintain order. As a teenager Register felt acutely the social tensions and class conflicts inherent in such a situation.
In this book she elegantly weaves together her personal coming-of-age story and her own family’s history with details of the strike gathered from archives as well as conversations with those who lived through it.
With sensitivity, humor, affection, and respect for the people of her hometown Register has written a classic American story with a focus on class issues that remain to be resolved.
A unique blend of memoir and public history, Packinghouse Daughter, winner of the Minnesota Book Award, tells a compelling story of small-town, working-class life. The daughter of a Wilson & Company millwright, Cheri Register recalls the 1959 meatpackers' strike that divided her hometown of Albert Lea, Minnesota. The violence that erupted when the company "replaced" its union workers with strikebreakers tested family loyalty and community stability. Register skillfully interweaves her own memories, historical research, and oral interviews into a narrative that is thoughtful and impassioned about the value of blue-collar work and the dignity of those who do it.
It is April 1st, 2038. Day 60 of China's blockade of the rebel island of Taiwan.
The US government has agreed to provide Taiwan with a weapons system so advanced that it can disrupt the balance of power in the region. But what pilot would be crazy enough to run…
I grew up on the high plains of eastern Montana. Like most rural folks, we lived close to the bone, even in the best of times. Then, when I was nine, my father died—and things got even harder. We finally had to put our acres up for lease, and I made a goal to leave that hard place. Though I worked hard for this new life I find myself leading—I studied, won scholarships, earned an MFA, and became a professor—ever since I left Montana, I’ve been trying to understand the distance between there and where I find myself now. I’ve been trying to understand rural America.
This book takes on class, gender, and addiction, plus a host of other contemporary issues facing rural America and the nation—and Smarsh still manages to craft a compelling, human memoir.
This book might be the antidote to all the easy, anodyne, partisan conclusions the talking heads offer about rural America. As someone who grew up in rural America but now lives in a small city on the West Coast, I felt challenged reading this memoir.
Smarsh is the best kind of rabble-rouser; she’s telling it straight no matter who is listening.
*Finalist for the National Book Award* *Finalist for the Kirkus Prize* *Instant New York Times Bestseller* *Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, New York Post, BuzzFeed, Shelf Awareness, Bustle, and Publishers Weekly*
An essential read for our times: an eye-opening memoir of working-class poverty in America that will deepen our understanding of the ways in which class shapes our country and “a deeply humane memoir that crackles with clarifying insight”.*
Sarah Smarsh was born a fifth generation Kansas wheat farmer on her paternal side, and the product of generations of teen mothers on her maternal side. Through…
I grew up in Minnesota, and although I have not lived there for most of my adult life, it will always be home for me. I miss the prairie, the lakes, and the wide open skies; I even miss the winters. So I love reading good books set in the Midwest. To me these five books exemplify all that is best about Midwesterners: their honesty, their modesty, their connection to the land; their belief in themselves, and in the interesting and good people in this part of the country. Each of these writers shows that sometimes you can go home again: and that it canbe worth it to do so.
Ian Frazier’s exploration of his own family’s history takes the reader on a fascinating deep (and broad) dive into American history.
What begins as a chance discovery of letters written between his parents as a young couple leads him inexorably back into the far-reaching branches of his family tree, and a unique perspective on American life from the eighteenth century to the twentieth.
David McCullough called this book a ”remarkable history of an unremarkable family.” The author’s keen curiosity, masterful storytelling, and elegant prose kept me spellbound. I read this book when it first came out, and it was one of those books that for a while I couldn’t stop telling everyone to read.
I’ve never forgotten it, and now I think I’m about to read it again.
Family tells the story of Ian Frazier's family in America from the early colonial days to the present. Using letters and other family documents, he reconstructs two hundred years of middle class life, visiting small towns his ancestors lived in, reading books they read, and discovering the larger forces of history that affected them.
A Duke with rigid opinions, a Lady whose beliefs conflict with his, a long disputed parcel of land, a conniving neighbour, a desperate collaboration, a failure of trust, a love found despite it all.
Alexander Cavendish, Duke of Ravensworth, returned from war to find that his father and brother had…
I grew up in Minnesota, and although I have not lived there for most of my adult life, it will always be home for me. I miss the prairie, the lakes, and the wide open skies; I even miss the winters. So I love reading good books set in the Midwest. To me these five books exemplify all that is best about Midwesterners: their honesty, their modesty, their connection to the land; their belief in themselves, and in the interesting and good people in this part of the country. Each of these writers shows that sometimes you can go home again: and that it canbe worth it to do so.
In this collection of essays, Bill Holm honors the history, the heritage, the people, and the land surrounding his hometown of Mineota, Minnesota. After extensive travels and life in other places, he ends up back in a town that he never wanted to return to; but having landed there, he finds his way to an appreciation of that place and its people.
In this book he pays tribute to the depth and richness that can be found—given the right attitude—anywhere on earth, including in a small town on the prairie.
Growing up, Bill Holm knew what failure was: “to die in Minneota.” But after returning to his hometown (“a very small dot on an ocean of grass”) after 20 years’ absence, he wasn’t so sure.
Finding pleasure in the customs and characters of small-town life, in The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth he writes with affection about the town elders, seen by those in the outside world as misfits and losers.
“They taught me what to value, what to ignore, what to embrace, and what to resist.”
In his trek through the heartland, Holm covers a satisfyingly wide…
As an Anishinaabe writer, my award-winning/nominated books, Murder on the Red River andGirl Gone Missing, feature Cash Blackbear; a young, Native woman, who solves crimes for the county sheriff. Oprah Magazine 2020 listed me as a Native American Author to read. I received Minnesota's 2020 McKnight Distinguished Artist Award. My script, Say Their Names, had a staged reading with Out of Hand Theater, Atlanta, 2021. Vazquez and I received the Loft’s 2017 Spoken Word Immersion Fellowship for work with incarcerated women. I have been a friend, colleague, and peer with the authors recommended. We might currently be a small crew writing but we are a mighty, award-winning crew.
Jim Northrup, Fond du lac Ojibwe author, was my writing mentor from the time I met him in 1991 until he passed away in 2015. He would always ask, “What are you writing today?” That was his way of encouraging me to keep writing.His crime novel, Dirty Copper is the story of Luke Warmwater, who returns to the Reservation after serving in Vietnam. Luke becomes a deputy sheriff on the Rez and sees firsthand the war raging below the appearance of peace.
I would listen to Jim talk about his writing and the progress he was making on his story as he wrote it. Listening to him encouraged me to keep going with my writing. Jim’s way of storytelling through the written word is something I have tried to emulate.
Dirty Copper, the prequel to Walking the Rez Road, tells the story of Luke Warmwater, an Anishinaabe soldier, as he returns to the Reservation after serving in Vietnam. Once again, Luke is torn between duty and morality as he becomes a deputy sheriff on the Rez and sees firsthand the war raging below the appearance of peace.
I’m a writer who grew up in the Midwest, moved away for a while, and has now raised my own kids here. I love reading other writers' takes on what kinds of stories they see unfolding here. As I get older, I realize that great stories can grow out of the ground anywhere, with the right amount of sunshine, darkness, and water.
I'm not usually much for food writing. (I mean, it's good, or it's bad, right ?). But this novel, which centers around food and what it means to us, kept me riveted all the way through.
It's hard to explain exactly why the book is so compelling, but it's by turns funny and moving, and the plot sort of spirals inward in a way I’ve never seen before.
“An impressive feat of narrative jujitsu . . . that keeps readers turning the pages too fast to realize just how ingenious they are.”—The New York Times Book Review, Editor’s Pick
From the New York Times bestselling author of The Lager Queen of Minnesota, Kitchens of the Great Midwest is a novel about a young woman with a once-in-a-generation palate who becomes the iconic chef behind the country’s most coveted dinner reservation.
When Lars Thorvald’s wife, Cynthia, falls in love with wine—and a dashing sommelier—he’s left to raise their baby, Eva, on his own.…
The Duke's Christmas Redemption
by
Arietta Richmond,
A Duke who has rejected love, a Lady who dreams of a love match, an arranged marriage, a house full of secrets, a most unneighborly neighbor, a plot to destroy reputations, an unexpected love that redeems it all.
Lady Charlotte Wyndham, given in an arranged marriage to a man she…
I was attending graduate school in Mankato, Minnesota when I first discovered that 38 Dakota men were hanged there on December 26, 1862. I was shocked to find out that the largest simultaneous mass execution in United States history happened right where I lived and I knew nothing about it. Since then, I’ve dedicated myself to learning, understanding, and sharing the history of the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862. Over the years, I’ve discovered not just the history, but the legacy of that history for us today. Someday, I hope we all come to understand, and eventually break down, that legacy.
Set before, during, and after the U.S. – Dakota War of 1862, The Night Birds by Thomas Maltman uses fiction to effectively convey the trauma of one of Minnesota’s most tragic events. Using well-developed, relatable characters, Maltman works hard to intertwine people and places in a way that is emotionally moving. Maltman includes numerous historic facts along with culturally relevant details that work to make the novel incredibly interesting, while making the characters and their journeys very compelling. Finally, he manages to capture the pain and suffering of Dakota and white characters alike. It’s a slow, but highly rewarding read.
A “luminously written and harrowing” historical saga of three generations of German immigrants to the Midwest (Minneapolis Star Tribune).
“Set in the 1860s and ’70s, Maltman’s superb debut evokes a Midwest lacerated by clashes between European and Native American, slaveowner and abolitionist, killer and healer, nature and culture. Asa Senger, a lonely 14-year-old boy, is at first wary when his father’s sister, Hazel, arrives at his parents’ Minnesota home after a long stay in a faraway asylum, but he comes to cherish the mysterious Hazel’s warmth and company. Through her stories, Asa learns of his family’s bitter past: the lore…
I have always been the ‘observing individual’ and deeply interested in knowing the connection between mind and soul. This always led me to the question what are the roots of happiness and content? Since materialism has a strong, complex, and intricate impact on our lifestyle and choices, my observation led me to conclude that despite unparalleled access to wealth, people still struggle with concepts of serenity, peace, happiness, and contentment. This disconnect prompted me to explore the various socio-psychological dimensions of materialism. While writing this book my objective was to highlight subtle yet profound materialistic omnipresence on our life choices, often at the expense of genuine well-being.
Every philosophical orientation is matched by the hardcore facts that lead to it. I love this book and recommend as it is a serious discussion on how Hyper-capitalism draws from contemporary values, well-being, and consumerism that are based on corporate power, free trade, privatization, deregulation and the associated reactions developed in the system.
The profound cartoon narratives provide a deep exploration of the global economy and the movements seeking to change it. The graphics, I feel, give it a different texture and connectivity to the reader compared to other books, and the hilarious rendition takes it to another level.
Bestselling 'overeducated cartoonist' Larry Gonick has delighted readers for years with sharp, digestible, and funny accounts of everything from the history of the universe to the intricacies of calculus. Now Gonick teams up with psychologist and scholar Tim Kasser to create an accessible and pointed cartoon guide to how global, privatising, market-worshiping hypercapitalism threatens human well-being, social justice, and the planet. But Gonick and Kasser don't stop at an analysis of how the economic system got out of whack - they also point the way to a healthier future.
I’m a writer who grew up in the Midwest, moved away for a while, and has now raised my own kids here. I love reading other writers' takes on what kinds of stories they see unfolding here. As I get older, I realize that great stories can grow out of the ground anywhere, with the right amount of sunshine, darkness, and water.
This is one of the seminal works of American literature, which happens to be set in the Midwest.
The characters' lives are filled with pointless rebellion and recreational drugs. For those of us who grew up in small-town Midwest in the 1980s, this dredges up a lot of nostalgia. We may not have been quite as debauched, but we all knew someone like Shithead, the main character, and remember them fondly.
Jesus' Son is a visionary chronicle of dreamers, addicts, and lost souls. These stories tell of spiralling grief and transcendence, of rock bottom and redemption, of getting lost and found and lost again. The narrator of these interlinked stories is a young, unnamed man, reeling from his addiction to heroin and alcohol, his mind at once clouded and made brilliantly lucid by these drugs. In the course of his adventures, he meets an assortment of people, who seem as alienated and confused as he; sinners, misfits, the lost, the damned, the desperate and the forgotten. Our of their bleak, seemingly…
This book follows the journey of a writer in search of wisdom as he narrates encounters with 12 distinguished American men over 80, including Paul Volcker, the former head of the Federal Reserve, and Denton Cooley, the world’s most famous heart surgeon.
In these and other intimate conversations, the book…
In my teenage years, it was sci-fi (and later fantasy) comedies that made me fall in love with reading. There was just something about exploring worlds where anything could happen mixed with the joy of laughter that kept drawing me back in. Naturally, in the many...many...years that followed, I've read countless novels from a wide variety of genres, but sci-fi comedy will always hold a special place in my heart.
Tired of spaceships and A.I.? Then how about a humorous take on sci-fi horror? If Twin Peaks were a comedy…and also a book…it would’ve been Anomaly Flats. Weird, disturbing events abound in this quaint Midwestern town where an ancient evil lurks behind the canned goods at the local Walmart, and–since they weren’t trying to kill me personally–many of them were hilarious. Or at least the way the characters reacted to them were hilarious. And in the end, isn’t that close enough?
Sci-fi gets wickedly fun in Anomaly Flats, the deliciously dark comedy from the author of Apocalypticon!
What readers are saying:
"Clayton Smith's work is imaginative, unique, and ridiculously entertaining. I didn't think anything could top Apocalypticon, but I was SO wrong."
"Its ongoing charm is hypnotic."
"Shove over, Christopher Moore…Weird Fun has a new author king!"
Somewhere just off the interstate, in the heart of the American Midwest, there’s a quaint, quirky town where the stars in the sky circle a hypnotic void….where magnetic fields play havoc with time and perception…where metallic rain and plasma rivers and tentacles in the…
