After almost fifty years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Desperate for some pleasure to look forward to, Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal, bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

Ex-military investigator Jack Reacher is called in by James Barr, the man accused of a lethal sniper attack on a heartland city that leaves five people dead, and teams up with a young defense attorney to find an unseen enemy who is manipulating events behind the scenes. Six shots. Five dead. One heartland city thrown into a state of terror. But within hours the cops have it solved: a slam-dunk case. Except for one thing. The accused man says: You...

"An enchanting and timeless all-American story that follows the inhabitants of a small Midwestern town in their quest to revive its flagging heart"--

Ah, the delights of gardening in the Midwest! While the cold winters and hot, humid summers can present gardeners with a challenge, VaderBrug shows you ways to have a productive garden and an ever-changing menu of seasonal foods.

Ruth, a young woman living in a rural Illinois town, looks back on the people who have shaped her life, including her runaway father, shrewish mother, and crazy husband.

Betta Nolan moves to a small town after the death of her husband to try to begin anew. Pursuing a dream of a different kind of life, she is determined to find pleasure in her simply daily routines. Among those who help her in both expected and unexpected ways are the ten-year-old boy next door, three wild women friends from her college days, a twenty-year-old who is struggling to find his place in the world, and a handsome man who is ready for love....

A fleeting figure dressed in a white party dress roams the streets of southwest Chicago. A long-dead Iowa college student treads the staircase in an old building. A ghostly, plaid-shirted workman plays peek-a-boo with a ticket seller in a Minnesota theater. A phantom wolf prowls Ohio's Jackson and Pike Counties. For decades, journalist Michael Norman has been tracking down spine-tingling tales that seem to arise from authentic incidents in Illinois,...

From fields to woodlands, riverbeds, and lakesides -- and even in our own neighborhoods -- the beautiful Midwest is rich in delicious wild edibles. Herbalist, forager, and urban farmer Lisa M. Rose helps you find peppery watercress and delectable nettles in the spring and nutritious burdock roots in the fall. Savor the delicate snow-pea flavor of rampant kudzu greens in the southern part of the region, or, in cool-running northern marsh waters, gather...

In The Distancers, seven generations' worth of joy and heartache is artfully forged into a family portrait that is at once universally American yet singularly Lee Sandlin's own. From the nineteenth-century German immigrants who settled on a small Midwestern farm, to the proud and upright aunts and uncles with whom Sandlin spent the summers of his youth, a whole history of quiet ambition and stoic pride, of successes, failures, and above all endurance,...

"Using unprecedented, dramatically compelling sleuthing techniques, legendary statistician and baseball writer Bill James applies his analytical acumen to crack an unsolved century-old mystery surrounding one of the deadliest serial killers in American history. Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together,...