Here are 53 books that The Gift of the Deer fans have personally recommended if you like
The Gift of the Deer.
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I have always loved the unbridled life of the natural world. Long before I knew the term ‘forest bathing,’ I wandered the wild country around my home, where green became my favorite color and I bathed in the verdure of its fields and woods. And I have always been drawn to compelling stories. One of the first books I remember was about a WWII pilot downed in the Pacific who survived for weeks on a raft. Finally, my sophomore year in college introduced me to the love of language and good writing that has continued to deepen and become more profound. To put it simply, I love a good story well-told.
In the Summer of 1932, the orphan Odie O’Banion commits a terrible crime and is forced to flee the terrible institution where he is, in a very real sense, a prisoner. He and three of his young companions steel away in the night and begin to search for a new, better way of life.
This book has everything: an epic tale well told, a heroic journey, a paddle down a wild river, poignant adventure, and the growth of the soul. Think The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Odyssey.
I loved it from the very first page and could not put this book down.
1932, Minnesota-the Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to an orphan named Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits earn him the superintendent's wrath. Forced to flee, he and his brother Albert, their best friend Mose, and a brokenhearted little girl named Emmy steal away in a canoe, heading for the mighty Mississippi and a place to call their own.
Over the course of one unforgettable summer, these four orphans will fly into the unknown and cross paths with others…
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…
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.
I’ve read and deeply admired nearly everything Erdrich has written, from Love Medicine to The Roundhouse. Erdrich’s language is always incantatory, and her stories are full of magic, landscape, and history. But this one is my absolute favorite. Even the title is amazing!
The story moves back and forth across the decades, and characters shift and transform before your eyes. Erdrich reminds me of Faulkner or even Homer; though deeply rooted in the lives and experiences of the Ojibwe communities of eastern North Dakota, Erdrich’s novels have a timeless, mythic feel.
A powerfully involving novel from one of America's finest writers, and winner of America's prestigious National Book Award for Fiction 2012
Sister Cecilia lives for music, for those hours when she can play her beloved Chopin on the piano. It isn't that she neglects her other duties, rather it is the playing itself - distilled of longing - that disturbs her sisters. The very air of the convent thickens with the passion of her music, and the young girl is asked to leave. And so it is that Sister Cecilia appears before Berndt Vogel on his farm, destitute, looking for…
After more than 30 years in daily journalism in Minnesota, I moved to a trout stream near Durango, Colo., to stage a second act. Editors at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where I worked for 26 years, gave me a freelance contract to write a Minnesota History column every Sunday. It’s morphed into a popular crowd-sourcing of history with readers feeding me delicious family stories. I’m the lucky one who gets to weave these stories—enriching my knowledge of what being Minnesotans is all about.
A master of nonfiction crime writing, William Swanson uses his W.A. Winter pen name for fictional works, including this 2022 book that clung to my thoughts weeks after the last page. Based loosely on a Minnesota crime spree in the 1950s, Winter takes readers into the mind of Joe Lavoie—the wheelchair-bound lone survivor of three brothers who engaged in a shootout with police in 1953. Set in 1991, 38 years after the crippling police gunshot, the taut writing takes you into Joe’s mind and explores his dysfunctional family on what turns out to be his last stand.
Minneapolis, 1953—A wild crime spree stuns the Upper Midwest, leaving a trail of blood and betrayal that terrifies a region and shatters the family at its core.
Thirty-eight years later, the tattered remnants of the notorious LaVoie crime family—sisters, brothers, and children too young to remember or understand—gather for an edgy reunion in a Minneapolis suburb. Among the guests is Joe LaVoie, sole survivor of the fraternal gang behind the ’50s bloodshed, a convicted cop-killer crippled by a police bullet during the final shootout. Now, an old man facing his own death, Joe is both desperate and terrified to learn…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
After more than 30 years in daily journalism in Minnesota, I moved to a trout stream near Durango, Colo., to stage a second act. Editors at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where I worked for 26 years, gave me a freelance contract to write a Minnesota History column every Sunday. It’s morphed into a popular crowd-sourcing of history with readers feeding me delicious family stories. I’m the lucky one who gets to weave these stories—enriching my knowledge of what being Minnesotans is all about.
This 2008 biography of a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher follows Charles Albert Bender from the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota to his heyday with the Philadelphia Athletics in the early-1900s. While fans know about Minnesota baseball stars like Dave Winfield, Paul Molitor, and Jack Morris, Bender’s amazing life has been all but forgotten. Swift breathes new life into a man with a foot in both his Indian and white worlds.
The greatest American Indian baseball player of all time, Charles Albert Bender, was, according to a contemporary, "the coolest pitcher in the game." Using a trademark delivery, an impressive assortment of pitches that may have included the game's first slider, and an apparently unflappable demeanor, he earned a reputation as baseball's great clutch pitcher during tight Deadball Era pennant races and in front of boisterous World Series crowds. More remarkably yet, "Chief" Bender's Hall of Fame career unfolded in the face of immeasurable prejudice. This skillfully told and complete account of Bender's life is also a portrait of greatness of…
I’m an award-winning children's book author-illustrator. I’ve spent the last fifteen years dreaming up stories that I hope will inspire curiosity and wonder in kids of all ages. I’m also a life-long learner! I can’t get enough info about this amazing world we live in. The more I learn, the more I realize that being a noticer, someone who slows down to observe the tiny details around them, will inspire questions and the need to find some surprising and fascinating answers. When my daughter asks a question (and there are many), my mantra has become, “I don’t know, let’s find out!” I hope this list inspires your own adventurous inquiries.
You will never look at an oak tree in the same way after reading The Nature of Oaks.
Tallamay shares so much fascinating info about a tree most of us take for granted. No other tree species supports so many different kinds of animals. From tiny wasps to white-tailed deer, everyone in the forest relies on oak trees.
Whenever I walk past a tall oak tree, I feel like I know so much more about its life and the hidden world it supports. I’m in on a huge secret that started with a tiny acorn.
With Bringing Nature Home, Doug Tallamy changed the conversation about gardening in America. His second book, the New York Times bestseller Nature's Best Hope, urged homeowners to take conservation into their own hands. Now, he is turning his advocacy to one of the most important species of the plant kingdom - the mighty oak tree.
Oaks sustain a complex and fascinating web of wildlife. The Nature of Oaks reveals what is going on in oak trees month by month, highlighting the seasonal cycles of life, death, and renewal. From woodpeckers who collect and store hundreds of acorns for sustenance to…
I’ve passionately pursued the art of screenwriting for decades now, with all the ups and downs that go with that—from the peaks of Hollywood projects winning big awards (I was a writer-producer on HBO’s Band of Brothers), to scripts nobody wanted to read and when they read them, they didn’t want to do anything with them. And everything in between. It’s been my career my entire adult life—doing it, teaching it, and helping others understand the requirements of good screenwriting.
I’ve long been inspired by this manual for fiction writers on what makes good writing.
“Be a lion, a pirate when you write” is one of the chapter headings, dealing with the boldness a writer needs. It also gets into how detailed specificity on character and emotion taken from real-life observation makes a good piece of writing shine.
Originally published in 1938, this classic by Brenda Ueland is considered by many to be one of the best books ever written on how to be a writer. Part a lesson on writing and part a philosophy on life, Ueland believed that anyone could be a writer and everyone had something important to say. Heavily influenced by the ideas of William Blake, Ueland outlines 12 points to keep in mind while writing and encourages writers to find their true, authentic selves and write from there. Born in Minneapolis in 1891 to a progressive household, Ueland’s father was a lawyer and…
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
My passion for this theme comes from my own long marriage and my passion for it. Having heard the phrase “I wouldn’t put up with that” so many times, it’s a relief to me to read that yes, many people do. Instead of giving up on something as important to them as a life partnership, they don’t give up until all hope is gone. Marriage resurrected is all about hope.
I could cheerfully “pick” any one of Kathleen Gilles Seidel’s books as a recommendation.
I have read, loved, and reread them all. In my reading mind, she has the purest voice in both romantic fiction and women’s fiction. Her characters are all fascinating, all different, and all relatable. They make you care.
Within this writer’s voice lies tenderness that is never wordy, never sappy, never tired. I don’t have enough words to explain it, so by all means, read hers for yourself.
In a small Minnesota mining town, young Krissa is sheltered from her violent father by Danny, the brother she idolizes. Danny, a budding musician, is determined to escape with his sister in tow.
When the pair finally succeed, they meet Quinn, a privileged and wealthy college student. Drawn together by a passion for music, Danny and Quinn set up a successful pop group. As their stars begin to rise, Danny falls in love with fame, and Quinn and Krissa fall in love with each other. But the higher Danny, Quinn and Krissa climb, the faster their worlds crumble, until they…
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.
Mixing the magical with everyday life is part of my Louisiana culture. Our history is a rich gumbo of legends from Indigenous peoples, Africa, the Caribbean, Spain, and France. So, as a child, hearing stories of the supernatural didn’t seem abnormal at all. I was ten years old when I became hooked on supernatural suspense. I voraciously read Agatha Christie's mysteries and spooky comic books. The comic book sleuths were sometimes as scary as the villains they chased. And I loved every page. What fun I had during summer school breaks! If you’re like me and love mysteries with paranormal twists, dive in. You won’t be disappointed in this list.
The unique protagonist is the main reason I loved this novel. Cash Blackbear is a young Objibwe woman in North Dakota with a strong sixth sense that leads her to clues. Cash gets visions that she can’t ignore. She teams with local Sheriff Wheaton, who trusts her insights even though he doesn’t understand them. Wheaton has been a father figure/mentor since she was a child left adrift in one abusive foster home after another.
I loved their sometimes awkward yet tender interactions. The author, who is Native American, expertly weaves in the rich tapestry of American indigenous culture and life. Additionally, this is a great whodunnit with plot twists that I thoroughly enjoyed.
Introducing Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman whose visions and grit help solve a brutal murder in this award-winning debut.
1970s, Red River Valley between North Dakota and Minnesota: Renee “Cash” Blackbear is 19 years old and tough as nails. She lives in Fargo, North Dakota, where she drives truck for local farmers, drinks beer, plays pool, and helps solve criminal investigations through the power of her visions. She has one friend, Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, who helped her out of the broken foster care system.
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I'm an avid reader, lover of history, and newly-published author of The Real History of Thanksgiving (with more projects in the works!). I'm a mother of two and come from a large family at Gaa-waabigaanikaag, White Earth Reservation. I'm enrolled citizen of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe. I'm also an Oneida descendent with Irish, French, and Black ancestry. Much of my journey as a writer has been exploring the threads of our humanity and histories. It's powerful to think that we are still here, through time, distance, love, pain, and survival. There is immense beauty in being human and being Indigenous, and these books have been a source of connection and learning in my journey.
In college I majored in American Indian Studies and became very familiar with the term “survivance”. First used by Anishinaabeg writer Gerald Vizenor, survivance, defined is survival that transcends victimhood, that resists generations of oppression, and carves meaning out of great pain.
Peter Razor embodies survivance in his autobiography, which recounts his childhood as a ward of the State of Minnesota in the 1930s. His story is one of many that shines a light on a dark period when many Native American children were taken from their homes and families, forced to uproot their identity and existence to the unforgiving world of white America.
Through transcendent prose, an Ojibwe man chronicles his survival of abuse and bigotry at a state orphanage in the 1930s and the brutal farm indenture that followed.
In stark, haunting prose, first-time author Peter Razor recalls his early years as a ward of the State of Minnesota. Disclosing his story through flashbacks and relying on research from his own case files, Razor pieces together the shattered fragments of his boyhood into a memoir that reads as compellingly as a novel.
Abandoned as an infant at the State Public School in Owatonna, Minnesota, Razor was raised by abusive workers who thought…
