The most recommended books about Vermont

Pioneer Species is a book of poems by friend and farmer-poet Ross Thurber. A small vineyard I work with in southern Vermont, my own agricultural essay and investigation on a sense of place different than my own, is part of Ross’s Lilac Ridge Farm. Like Mary Oliver, Ross is intensely bound to the natural and cultivated world of his farm in which he lives and his poems capture a language that brings forward the light, the shadow, the fog, the till, the butterfly, the flower, the cow. I am constantly inspired by his poems to be out in my own fields and to contemplate and communicate my own place in them. A delicious collection about a deeply personal and lyrical view of farm life.

Equally, pick a sapphic romance trope, and Georgia Beers will likely have written one of my favourites.

She has a wonderful balance of cosy with enough tension and angst to keep you flying through the pages. She has written many, and I so admire that she’s still producing her best work. Her recent Camp Lost and Found is one of my favourites yet.

For second chances, I’ve gone with Flavor of the Month. This one has so many wonderful ingredients. Small-town setting, food focus, chemistry, angst. A romance to snuggle up with.

Yes, I know: “Eight volumes? Are you mad, Kratman?” 

This is unquestionably the greatest single history on the American Civil War ever written. There are over sixty thousand books about the Civil War in existence. You cannot hope to read them all. This being true, if the subject interests you—and it ought, because the Civil War made the United States what it is—if you can read only eight, make this series the eight. Think of it as a really long single volume work.

There’s a valid argument to be made that Shadowland is perhaps more of a horror novel than fantasy, but it’s never really out-and-out scary.

It’s certainly more magical than bloody, concerning two friends in the 1950s who spend a hallucinatory summer at an uncle’s place in the Vermont woods. And man do things get weird.

After a long, lovely prelude at a boarding school, Tom and Del have to navigate their failing friendship and the strange happenings in the woods, but most of all they have to look out for Del’s uncle Cole, an old-school magician who, it turns out, is far from an avuncular old guardian.

Full of fairy tales and fables and wonderful digressions (with Straub, the digressions are often the point), Shadowland feels timeless in a way Stephen King never does. It might be the best book I’ve ever read.

Often, there’s a bias when picking book club books to go big. Big stories. Big titles. Epics. Challenges. But sometimes, the best read is something smaller. Shorter. More personal. Crossing to Safety is a book like that…a perfect, beautifully written story about the friendship between two couples over the course of their lives. Read this book, and inevitably the book club discussion will turn to the very nature of your own relationships, friendships, and how those evolve and change over the decades, as people age, circumstances change, and the bonds are tested. There aren’t a lot of books in our club over the years that were universally loved, but this one was up there. 

Everyone reveres Grace Paley, but what if you could read a fictionalized account of Paley and the young writer she mentored—and even created a publishing company to publish her?

That’s writer Leora Skolkin-Smith’s story and it’s so gripping, so passionate, so real. Set in the tumultuous 1970s, it’s about female power, trauma, and how mentoring works—and sometimes doesn’t work. Plus it is so gorgeously written, a gripping page-turner about finding our voices, both on the page, and off. I just adored it—so much that I got all of Skolkin-Smith’s other books, too.

I’m recommending another first book in a series here. Mercy Carr, a former MP, and her retired bomb-sniffing dog, Elvis, have come home from Afghanistan to heal in Vermont’s Green Mountains.

Both suffer from PTSD and are grieving the loss of Carr’s fiance and Elvis’ original handler.

The story brings to life a beautiful setting as well as takes us on the duo’s journey toward wellness. There’s a great mystery with a strong emotional current.

As a bonus, I love mysteries where the characters actually grow.

Written by Salome Thomas-El, a parent and a nationally acclaimed educator, The Immortality of Influence nails a parent’s job description: We’re here to help kids recognize and realize their full potential. Simply put, that’s our legacy to our kids, grandkids, and any young person we take under our wing. I loved how the personal stories throughout this book demonstrated, again and again, the positive and lasting impact a consistently caring and responsible adult can have on a child’s life. Having had the honor of visiting Principal El’s school, I can attest to the fact that he walks the walk in a special way that’s immediately apparent to every child he encounters.

Magical doors that appear out of nowhere, a fantastical book that may not be fiction, some truly sketchy villains, a quest, and an intrepid heroine.

The author had me at fantastical book, but what I love about this novel is the world and character building, that feeling of opening the cover and being somewhere that has nothing to do with ordinary life.

And yet, there is mystery. And romance. A lost father. A daring daughter. You’ll want to race through it, but slow down at the same time, just to savor the ride.

Three generations of women act victoriously throughout this white-knuckle tale. Anne, who met the man of her dreams – slash the man of her nightmares – right out of college; her daughter, Thea; and the tough matriarch to them all. When these women thread their way through the winter woods to hole up in a cabin, they don't know the identity of the man who has chased them there, or the threat they will face. They only know their fierce love for each other, a bond too strong for any man to break. Told in the voices of these women, with interlocking timelines, there is an ageless, fairy tale quality to this thriller. It will raise your heart rate even as it tugs at your heartstrings.

Dystopian when it was written, Lewis set the book distinctly in its own period, the depth of the Great Depression. He could not have written a better account of the Trump presidency had he tried.

Buzz Windrip, the whirlwind populist demagogue president, is the very essence of Trumpism. The story that follows, of the fascist oppression of his enemies and his inevitable self-destruction, often funny, often not funny at all, packs all the punch of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, written almost a century later, which looks in hindsight at the same phenomenon as Charles Lindbergh unseats FDR running for an unprecedented third term.

Sinclair Lewis takes the palm for seeing it first and exposing how it can happen here.   

My first experience reading a book with dual storylines, this novel held me spellbound cover to cover. McMahon has since become an auto-buy author for me, thanks to this fantastical story that puts a magnifying glass on the life of two sisters, a childhood friend, and an unexplained disappearance. The story moves between past and present and revolves around the Tower Motel in Vermont, now a ruined shell that refuses to yield its secrets. Secrets the girls discovered while playing games there as children. 

An unexpected splash of the paranormal and the use of letters from one sister to Mr. Hitchcock (yes, that Hitchcock) add the perfect touch to this disturbing gem.

Shirley is set in author Shirley Jackson’s rambling Victorian house in Vermont, adjacent to the Bennington College campus. This is a story of psychological intrigue and intertwined creative and destructive influences, families in trouble, and ghostly presences. The story is narrated by a young faculty wife, Rose. She and her husband, a new professor at the College, live with Jackson and her husband, Professor Stanley Hyman. The house and the household are attractive and sinister, emotionally fraught and seductive. Merrell and I met as classmates in the Bennington Writing Seminars. We exchanged manuscripts for our then novels-in-progress. Now, as I re-read Shirley, I remember our walks past the house.

Here’s the best way to describe this book: utterly heartbreaking and yet simply beautiful. Some reviews call it depressing, but I don’t see it that way. Maybe I just love sad books?

There’s something about being gutted by such rich storytelling, in this case about a family navigating the ups and downs of life, following a tragic accident involving one of their own. I don’t know if I’ve ever read a story that so resonated with the female experience in marriage and parenthood. It will make you smile, it will make you cry, and it will stay with you long after reading. 

I first fell in love with The Night Circus, Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel (a NaNoWriMo book, just like mine!).

I picked up The Starless Sea eagerly when it came out and brought it to my book club for discussion. We agreed that though the plot is loose, the descriptions and world-building are so vivid and beautiful that it suffices to enjoy it for those reasons first and foremost.

Consider this book a walk through a museum and let yourself sink into the splendor.

Unlike many murder mysteries, the murder in this book is not the climax. Instead, the murder happens fairly early in the story, and the rest of the novel is about the internal struggles, remorse, and regret of those involved.

Set at a liberal arts college in New England, Tartt taps into her character’s memories and the complexities of friendships knit during impressionable years to show how seemingly normal people can be driven to the unthinkable. 

The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living drops you into the action from word one and immerses you in the main character, Livvy’s, life (and the wreck she’s made of it) immediately. The story sucked me in, and rural Vermont as the setting made me wish I could be there. Then there’s the food… Oh man, I would have made a hundred apple pies if I’d headed into the kitchen every time I wanted to when I read this book. Martin is the perfect book boyfriend, too. Their relationship builds slowly, and he is so delicately written that he almost seemed ghost-like to me sometimes – a wonderful foil to the boisterous Livvy.

Louise Miller’s writing is straightforward, beautiful, and sticks with me way after I’ve finished reading. She’s one of the first authors I look for if I want something real but perpetually hopefully even at the bleakest momen… show more.

In my book, the character learns that death is not a permanent phenomenon, but something more cyclical – so it’s no surprise that The First Time I Died sits at the top of my list. The novel centers around Garnet McGee, who returns home for the holidays and gets swept away in a cold case involving the death of her boyfriend. That is, until she falls into a frozen pond and drowns. This story is a dark roast coffee with just the right sprinkle of sugar – a tragic death interwoven with memories of a once-in-a-lifetime love. 

Many YA novels set in a theatrical environment are heavily romance-focused. This book is the best I’ve found in that category. The hero, recent high school graduate Cass, has a super-strong voice that made me laugh out loud. She’s snarky, off-color, bold, and impatient. The theater plotline weaves throughout the story as Cass and cohorts perform The Taming of the Shrew at a summer theater. She steals ideas from Shakespeare’s play to torment her costar and nemesis, Drew. 

Theater Quotient: High. Much of the plot revolves around rehearsals and elements of the play trickle into real life.

This book has all of the same selling points as Carol Deppe's but is geared a bit more toward those with larger homesteads rather than a simple backyard plot. Even if you're an urban homesteader, though, the title is well worth a read to drum up outside-the-box ideas.