Frank Carlson Library

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.

We live these days in a virtual nation of cities and celebrities, dreaming of a small-town America rendered ever stranger by purveyors of nostalgia and dark visionaries from Sherwood Anderson to David Lynch. And yet it is the small town, that world of local character and neighborhood lore, that dreamed the America we know today -- and the small-town boy, like those whose stories this book tells, who made it real. In these life-stories, beginning in...

"In a mega-stakes, high-suspense race against time, three of the most unlikely and winning heroes Stephen King has ever created try to stop a lone killer from blowing up thousands. In the frigid pre-dawn hours, in a distressed Midwestern city, hundreds of desperate unemployed folks are lined up for a spot at a job fair. Without warning, a lone driver plows through the crowd in a stolen Mercedes, running over the innocent, backing up, and charging...

"Billie Letts takes readers on an unforgettable journey through the best and worst of America's heartland as she tells a story of two abandoned children desperately searching for people to call family and a place to call home"--Provided by publisher.

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...