Twenty-one years ago, I moved off the grid. As a city-dweller who didn't even go camping, I'd never considered myself a country woman, but I felt called to the woods. I wanted to learn practical skills like how to split wood and bake bread, and I wanted to reduce my carbon footprint. Now, because of our lifestyle, we don't run microwaves, toasters, or dishwashers, and it’s been 20 years since I’ve had a clothes dryer. Living this way has changed me. My relationship with the environment has evolved over the years, and I don’t think I’ll ever stop learning about the different ways experiences in nature can help us humans to grow.
Although set in a near-future America, I related to the way these two sisters had to live, conserving electricity and resources, running a generator, and always having to think carefully about whether to drive the 30 miles into town. Most haunting to me were the scenes where Eva, a dedicated dancer, practiced over and over an audition routine without the benefit of music, having to rely on the soundtrack in her head.
These two women were at the precipice of their adult lives, just beginning to actualize their talents, when they experienced a societal collapse. As the reader going along with them, it made me think about priorities, relationships, and who I would be without modern technology.
NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • Set in the near-future, Into the Forest is a powerfully imagined novel that focuses on the relationship between two teenage sisters living alone in their Northern California forest home.
Over 30 miles from the nearest town, and several miles away from their nearest neighbor, Nell and Eva struggle to survive as society begins to decay and collapse around them. No single event precedes society's fall. There is talk of a war overseas and upheaval in Congress, but it still comes as a shock when the electricity runs out and gas is nowhere to be…
This story emphasizes the inner wilderness—those places in ourselves where we are sometimes afraid to go.
We first meet the main character, Lib Hart, as she runs barefoot in a street, her silver hair trailing out, trying to outpace her shameful past. I love how Lib is so fiercely independent—she’s living in her own house despite being married for nearly three decades. I related to Claire Taylor’s struggle, a young mother trying to balance the love she has for her son with the love she once had for a journalism career. The plot deftly leads Claire to reckon with the drinking problem that she hasn’t yet admitted to herself.
Most of all, I love how this small town takes care of these women in a book with a setting where my heart wanted to live.
One summer evening, Lib Hanson is confronted by her painful past when Matt Marlow, the forty-year-old son she abandoned as an infant, shows up on her porch. Fiercely independent, Lib has never revealed her son's existence-or her previous marriage-to her husband, Jack. Married nearly three decades but living in separate houses (to the confusion but acceptance of their neighbors), they enjoy an ease and comfort together in small-town Anthem, Wisconsin. But Jack is a stickler for honesty, and Lib's long-dormant secret threatens to unravel their lives.
When ten-year-old Charlie Taylor arrives at Jack's workshop shortly thereafter, he's not the first…
When I first heard about the Michelin-starred chef living in the remote upper peninsula of Michigan who forages and cooks for city-slicker guests, I was totally inspired. When I read her memoir, I became a diehard fan.
Regan is a fierce and evocative writer who boldly explores the wild terrains of Indiana farmland, inner-city kitchens, national forests, and gender identity. This is my one nonfiction recommendation because it goes satisfyingly deep into Regan’s struggles with how to belong.
A singular, powerfully expressive debut memoir that traces one chef's struggle to find her place and what happens once she does.
Burn the Place is a galvanizing memoir that chronicles Iliana Regan's journey from foraging on the family farm to running her Michelin-starred restaurant, Elizabeth. Her story is raw like that first bite of wild onion, alive with startling imagery, and told with uncommon emotional power.
Regan grew up the youngest of four headstrong girls on a small farm in Northwest Indiana. While gathering raspberries as a toddler, Regan preternaturally understood to pick…
My central preoccupation as a woman is to ask, how do we come back from places of darkness? In this book, we are led into the dark heart of a jungle where a headstrong scientist is studying the bizarre rituals of indigenous women who eat the bark of a certain tree. (Tree eating? I’m down.) Her former student, research scientist Dr. Marina Singh, is sent into the jungle to investigate what’s going on after a scientist dies, and I love the tense dynamic between these two women.
Marina’s sensory-rich journey made me feel like I was in the jungle, and the plot had me turning pages with my heart pounding. Not only did the story lead me back out into the light again, but it also deeply moved me, with an ending that I will never forget.
SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORANGE PRIZE FOR FICTION
There were people on the banks of the river.
Among the tangled waterways and giant anacondas of the Brazilian Rio Negro, an enigmatic scientist is developing a drug that could alter the lives of women for ever. Dr Annick Swenson's work is shrouded in mystery; she refuses to report on her progress, especially to her investors, whose patience is fast running out. Anders Eckman, a mild-mannered lab researcher, is sent to investigate.
A curt letter reporting his untimely death is all that returns.
Now Marina Singh, Anders' colleague and once a student of…
I love how this book starts—a young mother escaping her seemingly perfect life in the middle of the night, wearing a nightgown with infant in tow. Rachel Clayborne drives through the night to her grandmother’s lake house in northern Wisconsin, where we learn all the ways that being reasonable has led her to a miserable life.
Hassinger is particularly skilled at describing those intimate moments between a nursing mother and her young, and her protagonist, Rachael, is achingly aware of what she gave up to gain this wonderful experience of motherhood. One of my favorite scenes between Rachel and her first love, Joe, culminates with him telling her, “Did it ever occur to you that you can’t always get what you want? Even if you know what that is?” I love a story that grapples with that.
Undone by motherhood, judged by her husband, thirty-two-year-old Rachel Clayborne flees with her baby in the middle of the night for the one place on earth that's been her refuge: her grandmother's lakehouse in northern Wisconsin. Hoping to reconnect with a former, healthier self, she instead faces a confused and dying grandmother, her ever-present nurse who seems bent on thwarting each of Rachel's desires, and a changed ex-boyfriend-her first and most passionate love. As a constant rain threatens the nearby dam, Rachel struggles to discern what's happened to the past, who she's become, and what kind of a life she…
Told over the course of a year, The Net Beneath Us is a lyrical exploration of loss, marriage, parenthood, and self-reliance. In the aftermath of her husband’s logging accident, Elsa Arnasson is determined to carry on while caring for their two small children in the unfinished house he was building for them in the woods of rural Wisconsin.
To cope with the challenges of winter and the near-daily miscommunications from her in-laws, she forges her own relationship with the land, learning from and taking comfort in the trees her husband had so loved. If she wants to stay in their house, she must discover her own capabilities and accept help from the people and places she least expects.
A retired English teacher has come home to Appalachia, a land of industrial disaster and natural beauty. He has been enticed with stories of Wildcat’s transformation: of the collective action embodied in Hotel Wildcat as well as the artisanal pursuits springing to life in the old iron mill. But in returning, he must confront his dark memories: the lost love of his hippie chic girlfriend not to mention the lost trust between his middle-class family and working-class Wildcat.
Written in the lyrical grit so characteristic of America’s Rust Belt, Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance is a testament to the redemptive potential…
Journey into Appalachia's Heart: Love, Loss, and the Resilience of a Forgotten Land
Discover the captivating allure of the Appalachian region as Jeffrey Dunn skillfully weaves a tale of love, loss, and redemption in his exquisitely crafted literary fiction masterpiece, Wildcat: An Appalachian Romance. Immerse yourself in the depths of the rust belt's rugged landscapes, where the echoes of industrial disaster intertwine with the sublime beauty of nature, all while the characters navigate the delicate dance between past and future.
In this poignant narrative, our protagonist, a retired English teacher, returns to his roots, lured back to the once-shuttered Hotel…
