Great Plains

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Ted Kooser

"Ted Kooser describes with exquisite detail and humor the place he calls home in the Bohemian Alps of southeastern Nebraska. Like many other people in this rural area, he has what he calls "wolf vision"--He sees every change in the landscape around him. Nothing is too big or too small for his attention. Memories of his grandmother's cooking are juxtaposed with reflections about the old-fashioned outhouse on his property." "In the end, what makes life meaningful for Kooser are the ways in which his neighbors care for one another and how an afternoon walking with an old dog, or baking a pie, or decorating the house for Christmas can summon memories of his Iowa childhood. This writer is a seer in the truest sense of the word, discovering the extraordinary within the ordinary, the deep beneath the shallow, the abiding wisdom in the pithy Bohemian proverbs that are woven into his essays. And when casting his eye on social progress, Kooser reminds us that the closing of local schools, thoughtless county weed control, and irresponsible housing development destroy more than just the view. At stake are communities, as well as families, our health, and arguably our very souls."--Jacket.

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Rachael Weiss

The bestselling author of Me, Myself & Prague looks for a new life in one of Europe's most beautiful and idiosyncratic cities. A smart and very funny memoir about the highs and lows of trying to establish a life in a place that values beer and potatoes above everything else!

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Peter Genovese

"U.S. 1 runs through Boston, New York, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Miami, in addition to Caribou, Maine; Quonochontaug, Rhode Island; and Alma, Georgia.". "Genovese spent two years on U.S. 1, talking to everyone from doughnut makers, dolphin trainers, and swamp guides to real Miami vice cops and the keeper of the National Parasite Collection. With his unerring eye for detail, sense of humor, and understanding of human nature, Genovese takes readers on a sometimes funny, sometimes sad, always illuminating 2,450-mile journey from Fort Kent, Maine, to Key West, Florida."--BOOK JACKET.

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Norman Henderson

"The North American Plains is one of the world's great landscapes - perhaps the signature landscape of the continent. Today, the most intimate experience most of us have of the great grasslands is from behind the window of a car or train. It was not always so. In the earliest days, Plains Indians traveled on foot across the vastness, with only the fierce, wolflike Plains dogs as companions. Later, with the arrival of the Europeans, horses and canoes appeared on the Plains. In Rediscovering the Great Plains, Norman Henderson, a leading scholar of the world's great temperate grasslands, revives these traditional modes of travel, journeying along two hundred miles of Canada's Qu'Appelle Valley by dog and travois (the wooden rack pulled by dogs and horses used by Native Americans to transport goods), then by canoe, and finally by horse and travois.". "Henderson interweaves his own adventures with the exploits of earlier Plains travelers, such as Lewis and Clark, Francisco Coronado, La Verendrye, and Alexander Henry. Lesser-known experiences of the fur traders and others who struggled to cross this strange and forbidding landscapes also illuminate the story, while Henderson's often humorous description of his attempts to find and train old Plains breeds of dogs and horses highlight the difficulties involved in re-creating traditional travel methods. He also draws on the history of the world's other great temperate grasslands: the South American Pampas and the Eurasian Steppes. Recalling the work of Ian Frazier and Jonathan Raban, Henderson's captivating account of his three journeys of exploration will foster a better appreciation for, and deeper understanding of, the natural and human history of the North American Plains."--BOOK JACKET.