Wisconsin Books

Truck: A Love Story (P.S.)

Michael Perry

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Subjects -> Biographies & Memoirs -> General AAS

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The author of Population: 485 returns, delivering a truckload of humor, heart, and . . . gardening tips? Think Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, complete with stock cars, sexy vegetables, and a laugh track.

"All I wanted to do was fix my old pickup truck," says Michael Perry. "That, and plant my garden. Then I met this woman. . . ." Truck: A Love Story recounts a year in which Perry struggles to grow his own food ("Seed catalogs are responsible for more unfulfilled fantasies than Enron and Penthouse combined"), live peaceably with his neighbors (one test-fires his black powder rifle in the alley; another's best Sunday shirt reads 100 PERCENT WHUP-ASS), and sort out his love life. But along the way, he sets his hair on fire, is attacked by wild turkeys, takes a date to the fire department chicken dinner, and proposes marriage to a woman in New Orleans. As with Population: 485, much of the spirit of Truck: A Love Story may be found in the characters Perry meets: a one-eyed land surveyor, a paraplegic biker who rigs a sidecar so that his quadriplegic pal can ride along, a bartender who refuses to sell light beer, an enchanting woman who never existed, and half the staff of National Public Radio.

By turns hilarious and heartfelt, a tale that begins on a pile of sheep manure, detours to the Whitney Museum of American Art, and returns to the deer-hunting swamps of northern Wisconsin, Truck: A Love Story becomes a testament to the surprising and unintended consequences of love. 1006

Wisconsin Death Trip (Wisconsin)

Michael Lesy

Amazon Price: $23.07 List Price: $34.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of New Mexico Press Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $19.30

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Collections, Catalogues & Exhibitions
Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Photo Essays
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 29 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The last decade of the 19th century was, for some Americans, a time when great fortunes were to be made. For many others, however, the period was a time of economic dislocation, when the gap between city and countryside, rich and poor, grew ever wider. As the Indian Wars ended and the Gilded Age extended into America's first Imperial Age, social critics such as Mark Twain and William Dean Howells began to examine the dark side of the American dream: violence, poverty, degenerate behavior, suicide, and insanity.

In the late 1960s, another desperate time, historian Michael Lesy took a long look at fin-de-siècle America. Examining a collection of several thousand glass plate negatives and historical documents from Jackson County, Wisconsin, he concocted a sprawling treatise on a past that had been willfully forgotten, a brooding rejoinder to Edgar Lee Masters's Spoon River Anthology. First published in 1973, Lesy's Wisconsin Death Trip, now reissued in a handsome paperbound edition, became a key text of the counterculture, a book to shelve alongside Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee and Custer Died for Your Sins--and it sometimes reads like a hip product of its time. Lesy documents the unsettling record of one small corner of rural America, turning up accounts of barn burnings, attacks by gangs of armed tramps, threatening and obscene letters, death by diphtheria and smallpox (the Wisconsin townsfolk had, some years, to attend several funerals a week), alcoholism, madness, business and bank failures, and even a case or two of witchcraft.

After reading Lesy's texts and viewing the sometimes unsettling images he's turned up, you would be forgiven for thinking that no one in small-town Wisconsin in our great-great-grandparents' time was well-adjusted--which is, of course, not the case. Hyperbole notwithstanding, this is a remarkable study, one that Lesy himself rightly calls an experiment in both history and alchemy. --Gregory McNamee

Weird Wisconsin: Your Travel Guide to Wisconsin's Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets (Weird)

Linda S. Godfrey, Richard D. Hendricks

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Subjects -> History -> Americas -> United States -> State & Local -> Wisconsin
Subjects -> Travel -> United States -> Regions -> Midwest
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Weird Wisconsin 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 9 people found this review helpful.

I thought it was cool. I had no idea how many places were haunted and such. I would definately buy more books of the same.

gift 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 5 people found this review helpful.

bought this as a gift and it was LOVED!! my sis gets into stuff like this and of course we are from wi .. so she loved every page!!! great gift for people who like wierd stuff!

Good ole Wisconsin 4 out of 5 stars.
2 of 2 people found this review helpful.

This was an amazing book, I'm planning on buying myself a copy since checking it out from the library. The only problem I had with it is they got a few addresses wrong. The truck in the tree in Clinton, WI... They say it's visible from interstate 90. I'm not good with road names but my dad is, an 84 native of rock county says it's no where near 90. In the picture it's obvious that they went buy the house, I know these people personally and they don't mind visitors so I'm confused as to why they didn't mention the road it's on.

Nice and Quick 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 20 people found this review helpful.

The book's outer cover had a slight tear on it, other than that it was in great shape and it was delivered very quickly!

Weird Wisconsin 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

This book is really great, it covers so many "weird" places and things in Wisconsin, lots of which we have seen over the years. It covers haunted places and unusual places & has photos of most along with short stories documenting these places. I would recommend this book to anyone, its a fun book to read and a great reference book when travelling the back roads of Wisconsin to see some unusual and different places & things.

Voices from the Heart of the Land: Rural Stories that Inspire Community

Richard L. Cates

Amazon Price: $16.47 List Price: $24.95 Usually ships in 24 hours By: University of Wisconsin Press Amazon Marketplace: 17 new & used starting at $16.21

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Subjects -> Business & Investing -> Economics -> Agricultural
Subjects -> Entertainment -> Humor -> Rural Life
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Editorial Review:

From 2001 to 2006, Richard L. Cates Jr. interviewed senior members of more than 30 families living in and around Arena township, a small community in southern Wisconsin. He asked them about growing up in rural America and their connection to a way of life that is vanishing in the twenty-first century. The result, Voices from the Heart of the Land, is a collection of reminiscences, observations, and opinions celebrating the stewardship of the land and the values of the stewards. Of course, as Cates points out, these are nothing less than “our core human values—integrity, commitment, responsibility, citizenship, self-determination, decency, kindness, love, and hope.”

Oddball Wisconsin: A Guide to Some Really Strange Places (Oddball series)

Jerome Pohlen

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Subjects -> Reference -> Fun Facts -> Curiosities & Wonders

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Road tripping through Wisconsin's unusual side 4 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

Most people when they go on vacation go to national parks like the Grand Canyon or theme parks like Disneyland. How many would go to see the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame with a giant embalmed worm on display? Or how about the world's biggest corkscrew? A serial killer's grave? The author saw these things and more in Wisconsin and compiled them into this book. It's an enjoyable journey through Wisconsin's strange side and is recommended for die-hard road trippers or those interested in America's stranger side.

Editorial Review:

Chatty Belle, the World's Largest Talking Cow. The Mendota Monster. Apostles on Parade. The UFO Capital of the World. Romeo, the clown-stomping elephant. Car-washing octopi. Other travel guides suggest the same old scenic driving tours, homey bed-and-breakfasts, and the best fall foliage—Oddball Wisconsin offers offbeat travel destinations and little-known historical tidbits. Where was Liberace born? What is a hodag and where do you catch one? Who invented the hamburger? And will a Polka Hall of Fame ever be built? This is the guide to the real Wisconsin, birthplace of the snowmobile, the typewriter, and the ice cream sundae, home to Jimmy the Groundhog and home of the Rudolph Grotto and Wonder Cave—the state where people proudly wear the moniker “cheesehead.”

Dime Novel Desperadoes: The Notorious Maxwell Brothers

John Hallwas

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

This thrilling narrative recovers the long-forgotten story of Ed and Lon Maxwell, outlaw brothers from Illinois who once rivaled Jesse and Frank James in national notoriety. Growing up hard as the sons of a tenant farmer, the Maxwell brothers embarked on a life of crime that captured the public eye. Made famous locally by newspapers that dramatized crimes and danger, the brothers won national prominence when they shot and killed Charles and Milton Coleman, lawmen trying to apprehend them. They were eventually popularized as the daring heroes of sensationalist dime novels, but terror and outrage at the brothers' disdain for the law sparked an unfortunate mainstay of frontier justice: vigilantes intent on a lynching.

A stunning saga of robbery and horse stealing, gunfights and manhunts, murder and mob violence, Dime Novel Desperadoes also delves into the cultural and psychological factors that produced lawbreakers and created a crime wave in the post-Civil War era. Every overview and encyclopedia of American outlaws will need to be revised, and the fabled "Wild West" will need to be extended east of the Mississippi River, in response to this riveting chronicle. With more than forty photographs and sketches that bring to life the Maxwell brothers' exploits, Dime Novel Desperadoes is a new classic in the annals of American outlawry

Wisconsin Quilts: History In The Stitches

Ellen Kort

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Subjects -> Home & Garden -> Crafts & Hobbies -> Quilts & Quilting

Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

A combination quilting history and user friendly 'how to' guide for aspiring needlecrafters 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

Needlecrafts in general, and quilting in particular, were essential aspects of pioneer life in Wisconsin. Original produced for utilitarian purposes, the skills of the women who made them elevated quilting into an art. Now in an expanded second edition with revision by Maggi McCormick Gordon, "Wisconsin Quilts: History In The Stitches" by Ellen Kort features eight exclusive patterns and instructions for blocks inspired by historical quilts and which will allow today's quilters to create heirloom quality quilts for themselves and their families. Published in partnership with the Wisconsin Quilt History Project, "Wisconsin Quilts" is a combination quilting history and user friendly 'how to' guide for aspiring needlecrafters and an enthusiastically recommended addition to personal, academic, community, and local historical society library Needlecraft reference collections and supplemental reading lists.

Editorial Review:

Wisconsin Quilts showcases one hundred antique quilts. Organised chronologically according to the age of the quilt, the book is in part a history of a Midwestern state from its settlement in the 1800s to the middle of the twentieth century, told through the eyes of the women and their families who made the quilts.Each quilt, some traditional, others innovative, is a testament to creativity and perseverance and reflects the common experiences of a young country, first, as it was being settled by waves of immigrants, and then as it matures through war, both civil and foreign, economic depression and the more mundane events of the daily lives of its citizens.Quilters will have an opportunity to create their own versions of these heirlooms with the added instructions for 8 quilt blocks.

Milwaukee Then and Now

Sandra Ackerman

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Subjects -> Arts & Photography -> Photography -> Travel -> United States -> Midwest
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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Empyreal & Entrancing 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

Elysium in print! This book is simultaneously informative, beautiful, and intriguing, while fantastically showcasing the supreme City of Milwaukee ... "The German Athens on the Lake." The historic photographs are absolutely fascinating, while the accompanying captions are insightful; additionally, the very premise of the book--a comparison of past and present--is excellent. The only fault I find with this magnum opus is that there could have been a little more attention given to the industrial epicenter of yore--the Menomonee Valley--while there could have been less attention given to churches. Actually, I'm sure any person intimately familiar with Milwaukee will probably be able to pinpoint a handful of locations, neighborhoods, and/or specific buildings that should have been included, but it's hard to fault the author for that fact. Along with Gurda's masterpiece, this is a truly mandatory book for all Milwaukee devotees, and it should be issued to fanatics of our dear history!

Editorial Review:

As part of the popular Then and Now Series, the city of Milwaukee is celebrated with archival photographs shown alongside specially commissioned contemporary images of the same scene. This visual account features over 100 photographs. It shows us how Milwaukee has evolved into the city it is today—a diverse range of architectural styles, where the massive arches of the old Federal Building, sleek lines of late 20th century high-rise offices, and the imposing mansions of Lake Drive all present one fascinating landscape.

Third Down and a War to Go

Terry Frei

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Subjects -> History -> Military -> World War II -> General
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Editorial Review:

“Impressively researched and reported and powerfully written, Third Down and a War to Go will put you in the huddle, in the front lines, and in a state of profound gratitude--not only to the Badgers and the hundreds of thousands of veterans like them, but to Terry Frei.”

--Neal Rubin, The Detroit News

On December 11, 1941, All-American football player Dave Schreiner wrote to his parents, “I’m not going to sit here snug as a bug, playing football, when others are giving their lives for their country. . . . If everyone tried to stay out of it, what a fine country we’d have!” Schreiner didn’t stay out of it. Neither did his Wisconsin Badger teammates, including friend and cocaptain Mark “Had” Hoskins and standouts “Crazylegs” Hirsch and Pat Harder. After that legendary 1942 season, the Badgers scattered to serve, fight, and even die around the world.

This fully revised edition of the popular hardcover includes follow-up research and updates about many of the ’42 Badgers, plus a new foreword by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author David Maraniss. Readers and reviewers agree: Terry Frei’s heart-wrenching story of Schreiner and his band of brothers is much more than one team’s tale. It’s an All-American story.

It Happened in Wisconsin (It Happened in)

Michael Bie

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 4 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

An essential, core addition to school and community libraries throughout the Badger State 5 out of 5 stars.
7 of 7 people found this review helpful.

Known as the Badger State, Wisconsin is famous for its cheese and beer, for its settlement in the 19th century by waves of Norwegian, Swedish and German immigrants, as well as for the progressive politics of Bob Follette and the infamous politics of Joe McCarthy. But there is so much more to Wisconsin's history and author Michael Bie recounts some truly remarkable incidents in that history, many of which may come as a surprise to even life-long residents. This compendium state history begins with a chapter on the archaeological discovery in Lake Mills of a Native American culture that was flourishing around 3000 B.C., then goes on to cover the founding of Green Bay in 1634, events in Prairie du Chien in 1842, the Taliesin accomplishments and scandals of 1914, alleged events in Niccedah in 1950, the Posse Comitatus in Tigerton Falls in 1974, Milwaukee corruptions and depravity in 1991, and so very much more. Of special note is the chapter featuring 'Wisconsin Facts & Trivia'. Enhanced with an extensive bibliography and an index. An essential, core addition to school and community libraries throughout the Badger State, "It Happened In Wisconsin" is as entertaining as it is informative, and especially recommended to the attention of non-specialist general readers with an interest in Wisconsin history and personalities.

Editorial Review:

From Wisconsin's “discovery” by a French explorer who was hopelessly lost to a dramatic assassination attempt on Teddy Roosevelt, from the legendary shooting of a Green Bay Packer coach’s dog to a tragic bombing in the 1960s, It Happened in Wisconsin does justice to a state rich in fascinating history and colorful characters.