Julianne Couch sets out to illuminate the lives and hopes of small-town residents from nine small communities in five states in the Midwest and Great Plains: Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Wyoming. Residents are betting that the tide of rural population loss can't go out forever, and they're backing those bets with creatively repurposed schools, entrepreneurial innovation, and community commitment. From Bellevue, Iowa, to Centennial, Wyoming, the region's small-town residents remain both hopeful and resilient.

2004 Minnesota Book Award Winner The Midwestern small town has long held an iconic place in American culture--from the imaginings of Sinclair Lewis's Main Street and Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio to Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon. But the reality is much more complex, as the small town has been a study in transition from its very inception. In A Place Called Home, editors Richard O. Davies, Joseph A. Amato, and David R. Pichaske offer the first comprehensive examination of the Midwestern small town and its evolving nature from the 1800s to the present. This rich collection, gleaned from the best writings of historians, novelists, social scientists, poets, and journalists, features not only such well-known authors as Sherwood Anderson, Carol Bly, Willa Cather, Hamlin Garland, Langston Hughes, Garrison Keillor, William Kloefkorn, Sinclair Lewis, Susan Allen Toth, and Mark Twain but also many lesser known and exceptionally talented writers. Five chronological sections trace the founding, growth, and decline of the Midwestern town, and introductory comments illuminate its ever-changing face. The result is a wide-ranging collection of writings on the community at the heart of America.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • "James and Deborah Fallows have always moved to where history is being made.... They have an excellent sense of where world-shaping events are taking place at any moment" —The New York Times • The basis for the HBO documentary streaming on HBO Max For five years, James and Deborah Fallows have travelled across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, the America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems—from economic dislocation to the opioid scourge—but it is also crafting solutions, with a practical-minded determination at dramatic odds with the bitter paralysis of national politics. At times of dysfunction on a national level, reform possibilities have often arisen from the local level. The Fallowses describe America in the middle of one of these creative waves. Their view of the country is as complex and contradictory as America itself, but it also reflects the energy, the generosity and compassion, the dreams, and the determination of many who are in the midst of making things better. Our Towns is the story of their journey—and an account of a country busy remaking itself.

We Heard It When We Were Young tells the story of a young boy, first-generation Mexican American, who is torn between cultures: between immigrant parents trying to acclimate to midwestern life and a town that is, by turns, supportive and disturbingly antagonistic.

Milbank and Mitchell, dissimilar in size and separated by more than two hundred miles, have more in common than might appear at first glance. In the first half of the twentieth century towns such as Milbank and Mitchell formed hubs for commerce, social activities, and culture. Eric Fowler and Sheila Delaney looked at their communities from different viewpoints, but their childhood and young adult memories of South Dakota share common themes.

The latest in the popular Midwest Cozy Mystery Series by a two-time USA Today Bestselling Author.Kat only wanted to be part of the convention on how to write successful books, not solve a murder that took place there - the murder of a beloved "tell-all" author. Was that the motive?Greed, revenge, and hatred are also reasons to murder, at least to people who live on the slippery edge of sanity. Parsons who gamble, women who blackmail, and a number of people with outsized egos make for most interesting characters.And yet, even with the worst of human nature, miracles can happen.If you like to feel good at the end of a book, with maybe a tear or two and a smile, don't miss this inspirational story with plenty of dogs, food, and recipes.

Where was Mark Twain born? What city has claim to a president who was only president for a day? Who has the best paddling trips in the Ozarks? What about the World's Largest Gift Store? Find these answers and more in Show Me Small-Town Missouri. Award-winning author Jake McCandless, a lover of small towns and adventures, traveled the state in search of amazing local experiences to share this treasure trove of what you can find in often-overlooked towns across Missouri. Featured are 90 sparkling gems found in all four of the state's geographical regions—the Northern Prairie, the Southwest Osage Plain, the Ozarks, and the Bootheel Lowlands. The must-see attractions, activities, restaurants, sweet shops, specialty shops, and unique vacation spots are showcased in full-color images with an easy-to-follow index to help you plan your trip. From galleries to hiking trails, candy factories to wineries, lakeside attractions to the best fireworks displays, Show Me Small-Town Missouri has everything you need to know for a day, weekend, or week full of fun.

"I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to." And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the movies from his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs, which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Coma, and Doldrum. At best his search led him to Anywhere, USA, a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by obese and slow-witted hicks with a partiality for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost: lost to itself because he found it blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a foreigner in his own country.

A virtuoso book-length essay on Midwestern identity and the future of the region

A New York Times Bestseller Winner of the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize Winner of the Hillman Prize for Book Journalism Named a best book of the year by: the Los Angeles Times the San Francisco Chronicle the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch the Chicago Tribune the Seattle Times "A stunning look at a problem that has dire consequences for our country.”-New York Post The dramatic story of Methamphetamine as it comes to the American Heartland-a timely, moving, account of one community's attempt to confront the epidemic and see their way to a brighter future. Crystal methamphetamine is widely considered to be the most dangerous drug in the world, and nowhere is that more true than in the small towns of the American heartland. Methland is the story of the drug as it infiltrates the community of Oelwein, Iowa (pop. 6,159), a once-thriving farming and railroad community. Tracing the connections between the lives touched by meth and the global forces that have set the stage for the epidemic, Methland offers a vital and unique perspective on a pressing contemporary tragedy. Oelwein, Iowa is like thousand of other small towns across the county. It has been left in the dust by the consolidation of the agricultural industry, a depressed local economy and an out-migration of people. If this wasn't enough to deal with, an incredibly cheap, long-lasting, and highly addictive drug has come to town, touching virtually everyone's lives. Journalist Nick Reding reported this story over a period of four years, and he brings us into the heart of the town through an ensemble cast of intimately drawn characters, including: Clay Hallburg, the town doctor, who fights meth even as he struggles with his own alcoholism; Nathan Lein, the town prosecutor, whose case load is filled almost exclusively with meth-related crime, and Jeff Rohrick, who is still trying to kick a meth habit after four years. Methland is a portrait of a community under siege, of the lives the drug has devastated, and of the heroes who continue to fight the war. It will appeal to readers of David Sheff's bestselling Beautiful Boy, and serve as inspiration for those who believe in the power of everyday people to change their world for the better.