Reading Recs

The life of Laura Ingalls Wilder is a compelling American saga, whether or not you are a fan of her Little House books. This biography, a 2018 Pulitzer Prize winner, traces her life from her childhood on the frontier to her success as a writer. She was born in 1867 in Wisconsin to a family with a difficult life. They moved westward and finally settled in the Dakota territory. At the age of 15, Laura taught in a one-room school to supplement the family’s income. At 18, she married Almanzo Wilder. After searching for a place to settle, they moved to Mansfield, Missouri, where he farmed and she developed her writing talent. She spent the last 63 years of her life in Missouri, where she died in 1957 at the age of 90. Her house and gravesite are now a National Historic Landmark. ~Lice Strange, Communication Studies and Modern Languages, Emerita

Flood was Melissa Scholes Young's first book. It's a beautiful novel about the way a flood changed the lives of a group of characters in Hannibal, Missouri. The author is a native of Hannibal and describes the town Mark Twain grew up in with the precision of a native. As a Twain scholar, she also manages to reference his work and life in fascinating ways. ~Laura Hatcher, Political Science, Philosophy, and Religion

The author, Daniel Woodrell, is from and currently lives in MO. He customarily takes the names of small towns in Missouri and combines them to make factious towns, like West Plains and Popular Bluff become West Bluff. Winter's Bone is set in the Ozark Mountains and is about the life that comes with hard-core drug use, poverty, and mental health. But it also about the resiliency of family and using a future goal to get through difficult times. The book has been made into a movie--but I have never watched it because the book was so good, I didn't want to ruin what my characters look like in my mind with Hollywood's version. It is rough and raw book--so be warned--this is not a bed time story for children!! ~Dana C. Branson, Social Work

This book is set in Cape Girardeau, and written by a Missouri native. It is also going to become a series on one of the streaming platforms. The story is about four sisters who live in Cape and are left with their father's exterminating business. Amazing characters, and lots of deep thoughts about family, feminism, and grief. ~Laura Hatcher, Political Science, Philosophy, and Religion

Published in 1907, The Shepherd of the Hills was one the first novels to sell over one million copies in the United States. This best seller, written by Harold Bell Wright, had profound impact on tourism in Branson, Missouri and the Ozarks. Its beautiful descriptive passages of the Ozarks exemplify the national conservation movement of the times, expressing nature as an aesthetic/spiritual resource. The book has been adapted a number of times for film and established the author as a commercially successful American novelist. It is one of my favorite reads! ~Mary Bangert, Kent Library

There is no other book out there like Naked Lunch just like there is no one like its St. Louis author, William Burroughs. Popping up throughout our culture from being on the cover of the Beatles’ “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” to being featured in Rolling Stones Magazine with David Bowie, Burroughs’s unique style and mind has made him one of the most influential members of the Beat generation. People like Anthony Bourdain, Patti Smith, Kurt Cobain, the Dead Kennedys, Lou Reed and even Bob Dylan have all enjoyed this seminal work of William S. Burroughs. Put on trial in 1965 for obscenity along with being banned in Boston and LA, Naked Lunch has come to be loved and hated. Ranked in Time Magazines “All-TIME 100 Novels”, it’s a schizophrenic satire embarking on a drug fueled quest to the center of your subconscious with loosely strung vignettes for chapters that can be read in any order. Naked Lunch is just what it intends to be a moment when everyone sees what’s on the end of everyone’s fork. You will never be the same after reading this Missouri man's magnum opus. ~Austin Miller, Student

This book was inspired by the life of Reverend John Berry Meachum who tirelessly fought for African American rights and education. After purchasing his own freedom, he came to Missouri to free his wife. There he secretly began a school for African Americans in a church basement. Following a new Missouri State law in 1847 that stated, "no person shall keep any school for instruction of negroes or mulattoes, reading or writing," he moved his school to a steamboat on the Mississippi since the river did not belong to any state. Told from the perspective of a young boy attending the school, this beautifully illustrated books includes additional resources to explore information about Meachum as well as his wife's involvement with the Underground Road. ~Stephanie Hallam, Kent Library