The Adams House Revealed
by Mary A. Kopco

In 1998, Deadwood's Adams Museum and the City of Deadwood's Historic Preservation Commission joined forces and pooled resources to restore the Victorian home of two founding families of Deadwood. After the renovation, in 2006, Mary A. Kopco, director of the Adams Museum & House, Inc., through a grant from the South Dakota Humanities Council and the generous support of Adams House sponsors, completed a restoration guide on the Historic Adams House. The book presents new, never-before seen research on the three families that lived in the home at 22 Van Buren Street, Deadwood. The text features rare and unique historic photos of the home and families through the ages, as well as detailed accounts and photographs of the two year, $1.5 million museum-quality restoration. Thoughtful and nuanced, Kopco's text seamlessly interweaves solid fact, speculation and community memory, bringing to light the personalities of community, home and owner in a close, refreshing historical context.

Adams Museum & House, Inc. | 2006 | 80 Pages | Paperback

The Art of Mending
by Elizbeth Berg

It begins with the sudden revelation of astonishing secrets—secrets that have shaped the personalities and fates of three siblings, and now threaten to tear them apart. In renowned author Elizabeth Berg’s moving new novel, unearthed truths force one seemingly ordinary family to reexamine their disparate lives and to ask themselves: Is it too late to mend the hurts of the past?

Laura Bartone anticipates her annual family reunion in Minnesota with a mixture of excitement and wariness. Yet this year’s gathering will prove to be much more trying than either she or her siblings imagined. As soon as she arrives, Laura realizes that something is not right with her sister. Forever wrapped up in events of long ago, Caroline is the family’s restless black sheep. When Caroline confronts Laura and their brother, Steve, with devastating allegations about their mother, the three have a difficult time reconciling their varying experiences in the same house. But a sudden misfortune will lead them all to face the past, their own culpability, and their common need for love and forgiveness.

Readers have come to love Elizabeth Berg for the “lucent beauty of [her] prose, the verity of her insights, and the tenderness of her regard for her fellow human” (Booklist). In The Art of Mending, her most profound and emotionally satisfying novel to date, she confronts some of the deepest mysteries of life, as she explores how even the largest sins can be forgiven by the smallest gestures, and how grace can come to many through the trials of one.

Random House | 2004 | 256 Pages | Paperback

2009 One Book SD

Buffalo for the Broken Heart
by Dan O'Brien

For twenty years Dan O’Brien struggled to make ends meet on his cattle ranch in South Dakota. But when a neighbor invited him to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O’Brien was inspired to convert his own ranch, the Broken Heart, to buffalo. Starting with thirteen calves, “short-necked, golden balls of wool,” O’Brien embarked on a journey that returned buffalo to his land for the first time in more than a century and a half. Buffalo for the Broken Heart is at once a tender account of the buffaloes’ first seasons on the ranch and an engaging lesson in wildlife ecology. Whether he’s describing the grazing pattern of the buffalo, the thrill of watching a falcon home in on its prey, or the comical spectacle of a buffalo bull wallowing in the mud, O’Brien combines a novelist’s eye for detail with a naturalist’s understanding to create an enriching, entertaining narrative.

Random House | 2001 | 262 Pages | Paperback

Completing the Circle
by Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve

Virginia Driving Hawk Sneve tells her own story and the story of her family. An exert quilter, she recalls her grandmother, Flora Driving Hawk, teaching her how storytelling enthralls and how a quilt can represent all that holds a family together. “I think of how she and her woman friends sat around the quilt frame, gossiping, laughing, sighing as they stitched the joys and sorrows of their lives into the quilt.”

Bison Books | 1998| 119 Pages | Paperback

Country Congregations: South Dakota Stories
Edited by Charles L. Woodward

These true tales were collected from people who knew that the country congregation was more than a gathering for worship. The regular assembly made possible a more intimate sharing of life. It was a bond that held community together.

A sequel to the South Dakota Humanities Council’s very popular One-Room Country School, Country Congregations offers insightful glimpses into past and present rural cultures. It will at once educate, amuse and enchant.

South Dakota Humanities Council | 2002 | 148 Pages | Paperback

Crazy Horse
by Mari Sandoz

Crazy Horse, the legendary leader of the Oglala Sioux whose personal power and nonconformity set him off as “strange,” fought in many famous battles, including Little Bighorn. He held out tirelessly against the U.S. government’s efforts to confine the Lakotas to reservations. Finally in the spring of 1877 he surrendered, only to meet a violent death. More than a century later, Crazy Horse continues to hold a special place in the hearts and minds of his people. Mari Sandoz offers a powerful evocation of the long-ago world and enduring spirit of Crazy Horse.

University of Nebraska Press | 2004 | 413 Pages | Paperback

Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West
Edited by Linda M. Hasselstrom, Gaydell Collier, and Nancy Curtis

Crazy Woman Creek is a collection of prose and poetry about real women in the West and their connections to a larger whole. Long troubled by the misguided images of skinny cowgirls on prancing palominos, the editors embarked on a mission to set the record straight. They wanted western women to reveal the realities of their lives in their very own words.
In Crazy Woman Creek, 153 women living west of the Mississippi write of the ways they shape and sustain their communities. Whether these groups are organized, imposed, or spontaneous, the collection shows that where women gather, anything is possible. Readers will encounter Buddhists in Nebraska, Hutterites in South Dakota, rodeo moms rather than soccer moms. A woman chooses horse work over housework; neighbors pull together to fight a raging wildfire; a woman rides a donkey across Colorado to raise money after a tragedy at Columbine. Women recall harmony found at a drugstore, at a powwow, in a sewing circle. Lively, heartfelt, urgent, enduring, Crazy Woman Creek celebrates community—connections built or strengthened by women then unveil a new West.

Houghten Mifflin Company | 2004 | 278 Pages | Paperback

The Essential Lewis and Clark
Edited by Landon Y. Jones

The journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark remain the single most important document in the history of American exploration. This compact volume of their journals, compiled by American Book Award nominee Landon Y. Jones includes all of the most riveting tales of their adventure in their own words.

Here is a concise, breathtaking record of Lewis and Clark’s legendary journey to the Pacific, written by two captains—under unspeakable stress and the threat of constant danger—with an immediacy that startles to this day. Through these tales of adventure we see the Great Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and western rivers the way Lewis and Clark first observed them—majestic, pristine, uncharted, and awe-inspiring. We are in the moccasins of Lewis and Clark as they witness other wonders no European-Americans had ever seen before: new creatures such as antelope, prairie dogs, and, most memorably, grizzly bears. Also included are the explorers’ encounters with Native Americans, featuring the amazing reunion between Sacagawea and her brother, a Shoshone chief who secured the expedition’s safe passage over the Continental Divide.

Landon Jones has selected the most memorable journal entries left behind by Lewis and Clark, and then edited and annotated them for all readers—those steeped in lore on the expedition, and newcomers to this unforgettable journey. From this raw material springs every book ever written about Lewis and Clark.

The Ecco Press | 2000 | 203 Pages | Hard Cover

Ethnic Oasis: The Chinese in the Black Hills
by Liping Zhu & Rose Estep Fosha

The discovery of gold in the Black Hills of South Dakota brought thousands of poeple to the mining town of Deadwood, including many Chinese immigrants. Ethnic Oasis explores how the Chinese met the challenge of living and working in a land much different from their own.

Seeking to surround themselves with the familiar, they established their own “Chinatowns” in Deadwood and other communities throughout the West. From these enclaves, the Chinese competed to succeed in American society. Through diligence and an ability to work within the social and legal systems, many thrived and became respected members of what had been a hostile community.

Ethnic Oasis presents the history and archaeology of the Chinese experience in the Black Hills and elsewhere in the West. Eight color plates of artifacts recovered during recent archeological excavations in Deadwood’s Chinatown enhance the text.

South Dakota State Historical Society Press | 2004 | 96 Pages | Paperback

Fahrenheit 451
by Ray Bradbury

Guy Montag was a fireman whose job it was to start fire. And he enjoyed his job. He had been a fireman for ten years, and he had never questioned the pleasure of the midnight runs or the joy of watching pages consumed by flames, never questioned anything until he met a seventeen-year-old girl who told him of a past when people were not afraid. Then Guy met a professor who told him of a future in which people could think. And Guy Montag suddenly realized what he had to do….

Del Rey Books | 1991 | 179 Pages | Paperback

Fearless and Free: Celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the National Endowment for the Humanities

Bruce Cole, a scholar of Renaissance art, is the eighth Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He came to the Endowment in December 2001 from Indiana University in Bloomington, where he was Distinguished Professor of Art History and Professor of Comparative Literature.

As NEH Chairman, Cole launched We the People, an initiative that encourages the teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture. We the People includes an annual Heroes of History lecture, the Idea of America essay contest for high school students, and a program that distributes classic children’s books to libraries and schools nationwide.

The next phase of the We the People initiative features, among other projects, the National Digital Newspaper Program, a partnership with the Library of Congress to catalog and digitize the story of America’s past as told in its newspapers. When complete, the program will allow Americans to search 30 million newspaper pages using the internet.

The National Endowment for the Humanities | 2005 | 113 Pages | Hard Cover

Finding Lewis and Clark: Old Trails, New Directions
Edited by James P. Ronda & Nancy Tystad Koupal

Much has been written about the Lewis and Clark Expedition to the Pacific Northwest, but there is still much more to explore. In Finding Lewis and Clark: Old Trails, New Directions, nationally recognized Lewis and Clark scholar James P. Ronda indentifies four compelling questions about the expedition: What is the story really about? Who are all the characters? What was the journey actually like? And, finally, what are the consequences of the expedition?

Within the pages of Finding Lewis and Clark: Old Trails, New Directions, historians such as Elliott West and William Foley join anthropologist W. Raymond Wood, art historian Joni Kinsey, naturalist Robert Peck, and many others to explore these questions. In the process, they expand our view of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, suggesting new perspectives and leading to new directions in cyberspace and beyond.

South Dakota State Historical Society Press | 2004 | 203 Pages | Paperback

Finding the West: Explorations with Lewis and Clark
by James P. Ronda

One of the foremost historians of Lewis and Clark, Ronda grounds Finding the West in the insights and reflections he has gleaned from some twenty years of research and writing about the pivotal era. But above all else, Ronda’s book is centered on stories and storytellers. As he writes: “This is a book about many storytellers. Their words are French-Canadian, Shoshone, New Hampshire English, Hidatsa, and Chinookan.” Ronda documents not only the stories the Meriwether Lewis and William Clark  offered about their “road across the continent,” but also the large and important stories by and about the native peoples whose trails they followed and whose lands they described in their journals and reports on their maps.

The beginning of the nineteenth century represents a time when America passed into a headlong rush for empire and when “the West” loomed large as a dream from some and a nightmare for others, an era the irrevocably shaped the new American nation in the two hundred years that followed. Whoever the storyteller in the aftermath of that encounter—native of newcomer—the stories all soon revolved around a common theme: the coming of the winds of change.
Ronda’s masterful interpretation of the young Republic’s fascination with the West is written with grace, narrative sweep, and a conviction that history should, above all else, engage and inform us.

The University of New Mexico Press | 2001 | 129 Pages | Hard Cover

Giants in the Earth
by O. E. Rölvaag

The classic story of a Norwegian pioneer family’s struggles with the land and the elements of the Dakota Territory as they try to make a new life in America.

Harper Perennial | 1999 | 531 Pages | Paperback

Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson

Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage in America’s heart. In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and “manages to convey the miracle of existence itself.”

Picador | 2004 | 247 Pages | Paperback

The Journals of Lewis and Clark
Edited by John Bakeless

In the spring of 1804, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out on a voyage launched by President Thomas Jefferson. Their mission was to explore the wilderness between the Missouri River and the Pacific coast, paving a path for an infant nation ravenous for land Traversing a territory that has since become ten states, this small band of men and a Shoshone woman marveled at nature more vast and pure then they ever could have envisioned and withstood dangers closer to death than they ever could have foreseen.
This volume contains the colorful daily records of their epic trek, which was to etch their names in the annals of American history for time immemorial. Countless storytellers since have retold the perilous saga of that great Northwest expedition. But The Journals of Lewis and Clark, written by the explorers themselves, remains the most vivid.

Signet Classic | 2002 |382 Pages | Paperback

The Journey of Crazy Horse
by Joseph M. Marshall III

As the brilliant leader of a desperate cause and one of the most perennially fascinating figures of the American West, Crazy Horse crushed Custer’s 7th Cavalry and brought the United States Army to its knees. Now, with the help of celebrated historian Joseph Marshall, we finally have the opportunity to know Crazy Horse as his fellow Lakota Indians knew him.

Drawing on extensive research and a rich oral tradition that is rarely shared outside Native American circles, Marshall—himself a descendant of the Lakota community that raised Crazy Horse—creates a vibrant portrait of the man, his times, and his legacy. From the powerful vision that spurred him into battle to the woman he loved but lost to duty and circumstance, this is a compelling celebration of a culture, an enduring way of life, and the unforgettable hero who remains a legend among legends.

Penguin Books | 2005 | 294 Pages |Paperback

The Land They Possessed
by Mary Worthy Breneman

“The Wards were moving again. West, of course. Father always went west. As they stood on the carriage block in front of the Ipswich Hotel and the stable hand brought around the team, nine-year-old Michal tried to be calm and grown up.”

So begins this story of the Ward Family’s move to a new life near Eureka, Dakota Territory, in 1885. The novel traces the years from 1885 to 1894 and the settlement of the Eureka area by Germans from Russia. It centers on the American-born Michal Ward, who views the Germans from Russia as outsiders.

Mary Worthy Breneman is a pseudonym for co-authors Mary Worthy Thurston and her daughter Muriel Breneman. The Land They Possessed was first published by Macmillan in 1956 and was favorably reviewed in newspapers and other periodicals. The Denver Post reviewer called it “one of the best fictional treats of the year.” Muriel Breneman, who now lives in Washington, D.C., says that the story reflects her mother’s early years in Eureka and her interest in why the Germans from Russia stayed in the area while others moved on. Her account of her grandfather—the John Ward of the novel—and his family is a counterpoint to that of the immigrant Gross family and other Germans from Russia. The Wards were transients; the Grosses were the real settlers. Mrs. Breneman believes that Germans from Russia, with their tenacity and their capacity for hard, grueling work, possessed not only the land, but also values worth preserving.

SD Committee on the Humanities | 1991 | 335 Pages | Paperback

Life on the Farm & Ranch: South Dakota Stories
Edited by John E. Miller

Life on the farm and ranch is an integral and essential part of being a South Dakotan. In this compilation of stories, written by South Dakota residents, you will experience the struggles, joys, and profound meaning on living on a farm or ranch.

This is the fourth in a series of books created by the South Dakota Humanities Council by collecting stories from South Dakotans. Other volumes include One-Room Country Schools, Country Congregations, and On the Homefront.

South Dakota Humanities Council | 2009 | 199 Pages | Paperback

My Ántonia
by Willa Cather


My Ántonia evokes the Nebraska prairie life of Willa Cather’s childhood, and commemorates the spirit and courage of immigrant pioneers in America. One of Cather’s earliest novels, written in 1918, it is the story of Ántonia Shimerda, who arrives on the Nebraska frontier as part of a family of Bohemian emigrants. Her story is told through the eyes of Jim Burden, a neighbor who will befriend Ántonia, teach her English and follow the remarkable story of her life.

Working in the fields of waving grass and tall corn that dot the Great Plains, Ántonia forges the durable spirit that will carry her through the challenges she faces when she moves to the city. But only when she returns to the prairie does she recover her strength and regain her sense of purpose in life. In the quiet, probing depth of Willa Cather’s art, Ántonia’s story becomes a moving elegy to those whose persistence and strength helped build the American frontier.

Dover | 1994 | 175 Pages, Unabridged | Paperback

The Namesake
by Jhumpa Lahiri

Meet the Ganguli family, new arrivals from Calcutta, trying their best to become Americans even as they pine for home. They name they bestow on their first born, Gogol, betrays all the conflicts of honoring tradition in a new world—conflicts that will haunt Gogol on his own winding path through divided loyalties, comic detours, and wrenching love affairs.
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for her story collection Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri brilliantly illuminates the immigrant experience and the tangled ties between generations.

Mariner Books | 2004 | 291 Pages | Paperback

Old Friends
by Tracy Kidder

Tracy Kidder has won the Pulitzer Prize and countless other awards for his best-selling studies of ordinary life. Now he confronts his most important and universal theme in this close-in study of old age in America. It is said to be a subject that Americans don’t like to think about, but as the population grows older it is a subject we increasingly do think and worry and talk about. In this book, with that care and exactitude, the humor and rich human sympathies for which he has become famous, Kidder opens up this world to us as if it were a wondrous new country—a country that turns out to be very like one’s native land.

Old Friends takes place almost entirely in a nursing home, and its residents become urgently alive—struggling still with their circumstances, their pasts, and the challenge of living a moral life. The book becomes the story of two of these residents, two men who find in each other and in their friendship the way reconcile their personal histories and to confront death.

For all its unflinching reportage, Old Friends is laced with comedy—sometimes with gentle wit, sometimes with outrageous farce. In the end, it reminds us of the great continuity of life, of the possibilities for renewal in the face of mortality, of the survival to the end of all that is truly essential about life. This is Tracy Kidder’s most moving, and most important, book to date.

Houghton Mifflin Company | 1993 | 349 Pages | Paperback

On the Homefront: South Dakota Stories
Edited by Charles L. Woodward

In war, family contributions extend beyond the absent beloved. In this collection of stories contributed by people from across South Dakota, you will explore not only perspectives of those who served on the front line, but you will also share in the experiences of those left to defend another front. The Homefront.

South Dakota Humanities Council | 2007 | 103 Pages | Paperback

One-Room Country School: South Dakota Stories
Edited by Norma C. Wilson and Charles L. Woodward

In this delightful collection of true tales, people from across South Dakota share their common experience and show how truly personal education can be. It’s a chorus of memories sure to strike a chord with that many millions who are the country school experience.

South Dakota Humanities Council | 1998 | 139 Pages | Paperback

One Thousand Roads to Mecca
Edited by Michael Wolfe

Since its inception in the seventh century, the pilgrimage to Mecca, or the Hajj, has been the central theme in a large body of Islamic travel literature. Beginning with the European Renaissance, it has also been the subject for a handful of adventurous writers from the West who, through conversion or connivance, managed to slip inside the walls of a city forbidden to non-Muslims. One Thousand Roads to Mecca collects significant works by observant travel writers from the East and West over the last ten centuries. These two very different literary traditions from distinct sides of a spirited conversation in which Mecca is the common destination and Islam the common subject of inquiry.

Grove Press | 1997 | 567 Pages | Paperback

Open Range
by Lauren Paine

Boss Spearman knew the end was near for open range men like him, cattlemen who drove their herds through the country to graze and then moved on. Local stockmen were staking claims to grazing areas throughout the West. Spearman had no quarrel with that, but he wasn’t about to let anyone intimidate him or attack his men without putting up a fight. So when Denton Baxter’s threats turned to murder, Spearman knew he had to get justice—any way he could.

Leisure Books | 2003 | 242 Pages | Paperback

Peace Like A River
by Leif Enger

Leif Enger’s best-selling debut is at once a heroic request, a tragedy, and a love story, in which “what could be unbelievable becomes extraordinary” (Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald). Enger brings us eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy in the Midwest who has a reason to believe in miracles. Along with his sister and father, Reuben finds himself on a cross-country search for his outlaw older brother who has been controversially charged with murder. Their journey unfolds like a revelation, and its conclusion shows how family, love, and faith can stand up to the most terrifying of enemies, the most tragic of fates.

Grove Press | 2001 | 312 Pages | Paperback

The Thief and the Dogs
by Naguib Mahfouz

Naguib Mahfouz’s haunting novella of post-revolutionary Egypt combines a vivid psychological portrait of an anguished man with the suspense and rapid pace of a detective story. After four years in prison, the skilled young thief Said Mahran emerges bent on revenge. He finds a world that had changed in more ways than one. Egypt has undergone a revolution and, on a more personal level, his beloved wife and his trusted henchmen, who conspired to betray him to the police, are now married to each other and are keeping his six-year-old daughter from him. But in the most bitter betrayal, his mentor, Rauf Ilwan, once a firebrand revolutionary who convinced Said that stealing from the rich was in a unjust society is an act of justice, is now himself a rich man, a respected newspaper editor who wants nothing to do with his disgraced former friend. As Said’s wild attempts to achieve his idea of justice badly misfire, he becomes a hunted man so driven by hatred that he can only recognize too late his last chance at redemption.

Anchor Books | 2008 | 158 Pages | Paperback

To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee

Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well--in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often.

Harper Perennial Modern Classics | 2002 | 323 Pages | Paperback

Siddhartha
by Hermann Hesse

In the novel, Siddhartha, a young man, leaves his family for the competitive life, then, restless, discards it for one of the flesh. He conceives a son, but bored and sickened by lust and greed, moves on again. Near despair, Siddhartha comes to a river where he hears a unique sound. This sound signals the true beginning of his life—the beginning of suffering, rejection, peace and, finally, wisdom.

Bantam Books | 1971 | 152 Pages | Paperback

We Band of Angels
by Elizabeth M. Norman

In the fall of 1941, the Philippines was a gardenia-scented paradise for the American Army and Navy nurses stationed there. War was a distant rumor, life a routine of easy shifts and evenings of dinner and dancing under the stars. On December 8 all that changed, as Japanese bombs rained on American bases in Luzon, and the women’s paradise became a fiery hell. Caught in the raging battle, the nurses set up field hospitals in the jungles of Bataan and the tunnels of Corregidor, where they saw the most devastating injuries of war, and suffered the terrors of shells and shrapnel.

But the worst was yet to come. As Bataan and Corregidor fell, a few nurses escaped three years of fear and starvation. Once liberated, they returned to an America that at first celebrated them, but later refused to honor their leaders with the medals they clearly deserved. Here, in letters, diaries, and firsthand accounts, is the story of what really happened during those dark days, woven together in a compelling saga of women in war.

Pocket Books | 2000 | 272 Pages | Paperback

The Secret Life of Bees
by Sue Monk Kidd

Set in South Carolina in 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily’s fierce-hearted black “stand-in mother,” Rosaleen, insults three of the deepest racists in town, Lily decides to spring them both free. They escape to Tiburon South Carolina—a town that holds the secret of her mother’s past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily is introduced to their mesmerizing world of bees and honey, and the Black Madonna. This is a remarkable novel about divine female power, a story that women will share and pass on to their daughters for years to come.

Penguin Books | 2003 | 302 Pages | Paperback

Standing in the Light: A Lakota Way of Seeing
by Severt Young Bear and R. D. Theisz

Severt Young Bear stood in the light—in the center ring at powwows and other gatherings of Lakota people. As founder and, for many years, lead singer of the Porcupine Singers, a traditional singing and drumming group, he also stood, figuratively, in the light of understanding the cherished Lakota heritage.

Young Bear’s own life is Brotherhood Community, Porcupine District of the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation, is the linchpin of this narrative, which ranges across the landscape of Dakota culture, from the significance of names to the search for modern Lakota identity, from Lakota oral traditions to powwows and giveaways, from child-rearing practices to humor and leadership. “Music is at the center of Lakota life,” says Young Bear; he describes in rich detail the origins and varieties of Lakota song and dance.

Severt Young Bear performed with the Porcupine Singers throughout North America, taught at Oglala Sioux College, and served on the Oglala Sioux tribal council. He was music and dance consultant for the films Dances with Wolves and Thunder Heart. This book is the fruit of his long friendship and collaboration with R. D. Theisz, a fellow Porcupine Singer and professor of communications and education at Black Hills State University.

Bison Books | 1996 | 179 Pages | Paperback

Under the Tuscan Sun
by Frances Mayes

Frances Mayes opens the door to a wondrous new world when she buys and renovates an abandoned villa in the spectacular Tuscan countryside. In sensuous and evocative language, she brings the reader along as she discovers the beauty and simplicity of life in Italy. An accomplished cook and food writer, Mayes also creates dozens of delicious seasonal recipes from her traditional kitchen and simple garden, all of which she includes in the book. A celebration of the extraordinary quality of like in Tuscany, Under the Tuscan Sun is a feast for all the senses.

Broadway Books | 2003 | 299 Pages | Paperback

The Wild Blue
by Stephen E. Ambrose

Stephen Ambrose is the acknowledged dean of the historians of World War II in Europe. In three highly acclaimed, bestselling volumes, he has told the story of the bravery, steadfastness, and ingenuity of the ordinary young men, the citizen soldiers, who fought the enemy to a standstill—the band of brothers who endured together.

The very young men who flew the B-24s over Germany in World War II against terrible odds were yet another exceptional band of brothers, and, in The Wild Blue, Ambrose recounts their extraordinary brand of heroism, skill, daring, and comradeship with the same vivid detail and affection. With his remarkable gift for bringing alive the action and tension for combat, Ambrose carries us along in the crowded, uncomfortable, and dangerous B-24s as their crews fought to the death through thick black smoke and deadly flak to reach their targets and destroy the German war machine.

Touchstone | 2002 | 263 Pages | Paperback

What Is the What
by Dave Eggers

From the bestselling author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, What is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children—the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life of full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.

Vintage Books | 2007 | 535 Pages | Paperback

The Whistling Season
by Ivan Doig

In the unforgettable fall of 1909, Rose Llewellyn and her brother, Morris Morgan, bring west with them “several kinds of education”—none of them of the textbook variety—and life is never again the same in Marias Coulee, Montana.

Harcourt | 2007 | 345 Pages | Paperback

The Work of Wolves
by Kent Meyers

When fourteen-year-old Carson Fielding buys his first horse—a run-down, wild-eyed roan—from the wealthiest rancher in his South Dakota boarder town, he learns a hard lesson about dealing with powerful men. Years later, Carson grudgingly agrees to work for the rancher, training his horses and teaching his wife, Rebecca, to ride. Carson and Rebecca fall in love, angering her vengeful husband, who sets off a cruel chain of events that shocks even the most hardened residents of the town. With the help from friends at the nearby Lakota Indian reservation, Carson challenges the ranchers’ rule, fiercely determined to protect what he holds most dear.

Harcourt, Inc. | 2005 | 407 Pages | Paperback

2010 Selection

What Is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng
by Dave Eggers

What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children—the so-called Lost Boys—was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.

Random House | 2006 | 535 pages | Paperback

2009 Selection

Buffalo for the Broken Heart
by Dan O'Brien

For twenty years Dan O’Brien struggled to make ends meet on his cattle ranch in South Dakota. But when a neighbor invited him to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O’Brien was inspired to convert his own ranch, the Broken Heart, to buffalo. Starting with thirteen calves, “short-necked, golden balls of wool,” O’Brien embarked on a journey that returned buffalo to his land for the first time in more than a century and a half. Buffalo for the Broken Heart is at once a tender account of the buffaloes’ first seasons on the ranch and an engaging lesson in wildlife ecology. Whether he’s describing the grazing pattern of the buffalo, the thrill of watching a falcon home in on its prey, or the comical spectacle of a buffalo bull wallowing in the mud, O’Brien combines a novelist’s eye for detail with a naturalist’s understanding to create an enriching, entertaining narrative.

Random House | 2001 | 262 Pages | Paperback

2008 Selection

The Master Butchers Singing Club
by Louise Erdrich

Having survived World War I, Fidelis Wadvogel returns to his quiet German village and marries the pregnant widow of his best friend, killed in action. With a suitcase full of sausages and a master butcher’s precious knife set, Fidelis sets out for America. In Argus, North Dakota, he builds a business, a home for his family—which includes Eva and four sons—and a singing club consisting of the best voices in town. When the old world meets the New—in the person of Delphine Watzka—the great adventure of Fidelis’s life begins. Delphine meets Eva and is enchanted. She meets Fidelis, and the ground trembles. These momentous encounters will determine the course of Delphine’s life, and the trajectory of this brilliant novel.

Harper Perennial | 2005 | 388 Pages | Paperback

2007 Selection

The Whistling Season
by Ivan Doig

In the unforgettable fall of 1909, Rose Llewellyn and her brother, Morris Morgan, bring west with them “several kinds of education”—none of them of the textbook variety—and life is never again the same in Marias Coulee, Montana.

Harcourt | 2007 | 345 Pages | Paperback

2006 Selection

Gilead
by Marilynne Robinson

Twenty-four years after her first novel, Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson returns with a story about fathers and sons and the spiritual battles that still rage in America’s heart. In the luminous and unforgettable voice of Congregationalist minister John Ames, Gilead reveals the human condition and “manages to convey the miracle of existence itself.”

Picador | 2004 | 247 Pages | Paperback

2005 Selection

The Work of Wolves
by Kent Meyers

When fourteen-year-old Carson Fielding buys his first horse—a run-down, wild-eyed roan—from the wealthiest rancher in his South Dakota boarder town, he learns a hard lesson about dealing with powerful men. Years later, Carson grudgingly agrees to work for the rancher, training his horses and teaching his wife, Rebecca, to ride. Carson and Rebecca fall in love, angering her vengeful husband, who sets off a cruel chain of events that shocks even the most hardened residents of the town. With the help from friends at the nearby Lakota Indian reservation, Carson challenges the ranchers’ rule, fiercely determined to protect what he holds most dear.

Harcourt, Inc. | 2005 | 407 Pages | Paperback

2004 Selection

The Art of Mending
by Elizbeth Berg

It begins with the sudden revelation of astonishing secrets—secrets that have shaped the personalities and fates of three siblings, and now threaten to tear them apart. In renowned author Elizabeth Berg’s moving new novel, unearthed truths force one seemingly ordinary family to reexamine their disparate lives and to ask themselves: Is it too late to mend the hurts of the past?

Laura Bartone anticipates her annual family reunion in Minnesota with a mixture of excitement and wariness. Yet this year’s gathering will prove to be much more trying than either she or her siblings imagined. As soon as she arrives, Laura realizes that something is not right with her sister. Forever wrapped up in events of long ago, Caroline is the family’s restless black sheep. When Caroline confronts Laura and their brother, Steve, with devastating allegations about their mother, the three have a difficult time reconciling their varying experiences in the same house. But a sudden misfortune will lead them all to face the past, their own culpability, and their common need for love and forgiveness.

Readers have come to love Elizabeth Berg for the “lucent beauty of [her] prose, the verity of her insights, and the tenderness of her regard for her fellow human” (Booklist). In The Art of Mending, her most profound and emotionally satisfying novel to date, she confronts some of the deepest mysteries of life, as she explores how even the largest sins can be forgiven by the smallest gestures, and how grace can come to many through the trials of one.

Random House | 2004 256 Pages | Paperback

2003 Selection

Peace Like A River
by Leif Enger

Leif Enger’s best-selling debut is at once a heroic request, a tragedy, and a love story, in which “what could be unbelievable becomes extraordinary” (Connie Ogle, The Miami Herald). Enger brings us eleven-year-old Reuben Land, an asthmatic boy in the Midwest who has a reason to believe in miracles. Along with his sister and father, Reuben finds himself on a cross-country search for his outlaw older brother who has been controversially charged with murder. Their journey unfolds like a revelation, and its conclusion shows how family, love, and faith can stand up to the most terrifying of enemies, the most tragic of fates.

Grove Press | 2001 | 312 Pages | Paperback

Kathy Antonen
kathy.antonen@sdsmt.edu

Marilyn Carlson Aronson
mcarlson@national.edu

Marian Cramer
mariancramer@yahoo.com

Lawrence Diggs
vinegar@vinegarman.com

Janice Mikesell
hensteethjanice@earthlink.net

Jean Patrick
jean@jeanpatrick.com

Don Simmons
dosimmon@dwu.edu

Ken Steinken
kensteinken@juno.com

Jamie Sullivan
jsullivan@mtmc.edu

Nancy Veglahn
nveglahn@sio.midco.net

Elizabeth Williams
lizerly@brookings.net

Norma Wilson
norma.wilson@usd.edu

Charles Woodard
charles.woodard@sdstate.edu