Here are 100 books that After the Dam fans have personally recommended if you like
After the Dam.
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As a reader, I’ve always been attracted to novels that are character-driven, filling my shelves with books about people who seize the day and fight for what they want, who are interesting, relatable, and flawed but who don’t let those flaws define them. As a writer, I like to put my own flawed characters in situations that force them to face who they are and either come to terms with it or overturn themselves and their lives entirely, and all the novels I’ve listed have a hint of this, too. I hope you enjoy them!
I love novels that really spark the imagination and transport you into another world, and this is one of the best I’ve read. The characters are so intricately crafted you feel like you could be them as you’re reading, even though the setting is quite literally thousands of miles away from where you’ll likely be reading it. You truly walk the line between pure wonder and mortal danger in this novel, and you’ll never forget it.
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…
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.
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…
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…
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.
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…
I’ve been working professionally as a writer for twenty-five years. I’m nothing close to a household name, but a number of my articles have gone viral throughout the years. I’ve had educators reach out to mention they’ve taught my work at both the high school and college levels. Writing is an occupation of passion, and the authors I’ve mentioned are all talented and passionate about their craft. It’s rare to find people who speak the truth anywhere in our society. These writers don’t just speak the truth, they make it sing.
Dan Woll is an exceptional author who writes about outdoor life in Northern Wisconsin. He’s an avid runner, cyclist, and climber. This collection features an account of the Barneveld tornado that blew through Wisconsin back in 1984. Woll’s work is filled with both humor and wisdom. This is a great book for anyone with a passion for the outdoors.
Dan Woll, co-author of Death on Cache Lake is back with more tales of adventure in the Northwoods. This time, they’re true! You will love this book if you’ve ever paddled a canoe on a wild river, climbed a mountain, cycled lonely country roads, or sat by a roaring campfire while a solitary loon cries on a moonlit lake.
I’ve only ever lived in small Midwestern towns. I grew up there, raised my kids there, recovered from a divorce there, remarried there. I’ve had the same best friends for 40 years. I’ve paid and bartered for my classmates’ trade services. I’ve argued with them in churches and cafes, rooted for and against their kids at high school basketball and football games all over the state. We’ve celebrated and buried each other’s loved ones. I’ve run hundreds of miles of Wisconsin trail, soaked in her waters, marveled at her sunsets. It’s as home to me as my own body, and I’ll never tire of reading about it.
I’m a sucker for gorgeous prose, Wisconsin landscape as a character, strong female protagonists, small-town community dynamics, and the complexities of found family—Carol Dunbar’s debut novel checks all of these boxes and then some.
I got so excited when I read this book. The prose crackles. The sensory details are vivid. It’s a literary slow-burn with just enough sizzle to keep you turning pages, and I savored every word. What would you do if you were a young wife and mother living off-grid in Northwoods, Wisconsin, and your partner suddenly became incapacitated? Dunbar left me feeling like I now know.
He promised her he would never let go. She's willing to risk everything to hold on.
In the aftermath of her husband's logging accident, Elsa has more questions than answers about how 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 home,…
I retired from a district attorney’s office as a victim witness specialist and a paralegal, where I saw a disturbing side of humanity with too many female victims. There were rarely any winners on either side. Reading mysteries with strong female leads gave me hope. A dash of humor didn’t hurt, either. After a long day of vicarious trauma, it was a treat to hide behind my computer in the evenings and write cozy mysteries, where I tied up the end of the story with a pretty pink bow and where there was a winner. I’m hooked!
This mystery had all the elements I enjoy—a strong female lead who becomes the village sheriff, a mix of interesting and well-developed characters, a quaint but unusual village— Whispering Pines—that made me long to be there, a good mystery, and a dog as a sidekick.
It’s a paranormal cozy with lots of “witchy” activity that I typically won’t read, but I loved this one! It captivated me from beginning to end.
If you love small-towns with quirky characters, slow-burn romances, and witchy mysteries this is the series for you.
Welcome to Whispering Pines, Wisconsin. A place for those who don't belong.
Sixteen years after a family feud drove her from the cozy Northwoods village of Whispering Pines, Wisconsin, former detective Jayne O'Shea returns to prepare her grandparents' lake house for sale. Once there, not only does she find that the house has been trashed, her dog discovers a dead body in the backyard. Jayne intends to stay out of it, but when it becomes obvious the sheriff isn't interested in investigating…
Author Greil Marcus’ phrase “the old, weird America” gave me exactly the right words for something I’ve always felt: that there is a specific weirdness to the American landscape, an uncontrollable current of strange that runs beneath the carefully cultivated surface of heroes and neighbors and shared, stable dreams. Of course, as William Faulkner observed, the past isn’t past, and America is as weird as it’s ever been. Maybe weirder. Look at the news. Look out your window. No surprise, then, that I’m drawn to such a perspective when I read other people’s stories, and seldom get completely away from it when I write my own.
A stunning assembly of archival photographs and newspaper clippings from Jackson County, Wisconsin, in the last decade and a half of the 19th century, and the definitive explanation of why nobody in old-time photographs is ever smiling—and, I choose to believe, the real reason the parts of The Wizard of Oz set in Kansas were filmed in black and white. Economic privation, unceasing bereavement, disease both physical and mental—in other words, Tuesday. Was there any joy in Jackson County? Somewhere, I’m sure. What’s documented here is a stark, powerful beauty. The most real book I’ve ever encountered, and one of two on face-out display on my bookshelves.
This book is about life in a small turn-of-the-century Wisconsin town. Lesy has collected and arranged photographs taken between 1890 and 1910. Against these are juxtaposed excerpts from the Badger State Banner, from the Mendota State (asylum) Record Book, and occasionally quotations from the writings of Hamlin Garland and Glenway Wescott.
My favorite books as a child were the ones where kids went off on wild, impossible adventures alone, figuring things out, learning important lessons, and finding they were more capable than they thought. Wisdom, truth, insight, inspiration… those are the treasures found in these fantastical places. I’ve written (and told) stories all my life, but it wasn’t until I was in my fifties that my goal of publishing a book was realized. And now I have four more coming out (Lord willing!) within the next year and a half. It’s never too late. Unless you’re dead, then you blew it. So don’t stop trying, whatever your goals are.
While again, it’s not a magical world, it might as well have been. I was transported and transfixed to a different time and place. I could smell the linen baking dry in the sun as it hung in the open air and open fires that crackled and sparked as bacon sizzled on a cast iron pan. I shivered as they woke up one morning covered in a blanket of snow. I tasted the Christmas orange that was received with such joyful excitement. It made me want to like fruit–which, sadly, didn’t stick.
More importantly, it made me recognize the beauty of being grateful for things I took for granted. The mark of a good story is if you want to read it again as an adult, and I’ve read and reread this series more than once.
Classic tales by Laura Ingalls Wilder about life on the frontier and America's best-loved pioneer family.
Inside the little house in the Big Woods live the Ingalls family: Ma, Pa, Mary, Laura and baby Carrie. Outside the little house are the wild animals: the bears and the bees, the deer and the wolves. This is the classic tale of how they live together, in harmony mostly, but sometimes in fear ...
The timeless stories that inspired a TV series can now be read by a new generation of children. Readers who loved Anne of Green Gables, Little Women, and Heidi…
Conflict and disagreement have always interested me. I was a middle child, so I naturally fell into the role of peacemaker. But I also had strong opinions, and I always thought I knew the right answer. The pursuit of education, love, and a career brought me to rural Montana, an Asian metropolis, and everywhere in between. These experiences deepened my fascination regarding how people could have such different beliefs, and how we are to live together despite those differences. A PhD in Science and Technology Studies, supervised by a political scientist, sent me on the path to diagnosing what ails American democracy, and what the cure might be.
Before Trump, there was Scott Walker. The controversial former governor of Wisconsin, Walker waged war against the state’s unionized public employees and universities.
I tell everyone I know to read this book, because it is an honest and incisive portrayal of why rural people vote for politicians like Walker and Trump. Too often leftists seem to want to unfairly dismiss all rural conservatives as hopelessly ignorant, racist, or even worse. The Politics of Rural Resentment’s humanizing portrayal helped me to better understand the motivations of people who don’t live in urban centers.
If we are to bridge the divides in this country, it will be only by following Cramer’s lead.
Since the election of Scott Walker, Wisconsin has been seen as ground zero for debates about the appropriate role of government in the wake of the Great Recession. In a time of rising inequality, Walker not only survived a bitterly contested recall that brought thousands of protesters to Capitol Square, he was subsequently reelected. How could this happen? How is it that the very people who stand to benefit from strong government services not only vote against the candidates who support those services but are vehemently against the very idea of big government?
