Winter Reading Roundup

Frost covers the panes and fires crackle in the hearths. Book lovers across the state rejoice – the prime time for cozying up with a good Nebraska book is here! From a spooky young adult thriller to a collection of nonfiction Sandhills stories, from an Omaha history told through postcards to the whimsical poems of Nebraska’s beloved bard Ted Kooser, every reader is sure to find something to enjoy.

Even diehard Sandhills devotees would likely balk at tent camping in those windswept environs during the winter months. Fortunately, naturalist Stephen R. Jones’ book Nourishing Waters Comforting Sky: Thirty-Five Years at a Sandhills Oasis provides lushly drawn first-person essays of that experience so readers may live vicariously through his frigid encounters with owls, trumpeter swans, chickadees, rabbits and turkeys.

On one winter excursion, under the light of a full moon, Jones pitches a tent at a place he refers to as “Pine Lake,” somewhere near Crescent Lake National Wildlife Refuge. As he drifts to sleep, he imagines “the last withered chokecherries dropping to the ground, winter herds of white-tailed deer circling in the moonlight, and pocket gophers retreating deep into their burrows to nibble quietly on grass roots … .”

His observations of the Sandhills during the day and throughout the other seasons are as vivid as his nocturnal winter musings. In the book’s 18 essays, Jones reflects on wildlife, botany, climate, ranching heritage and Native history and culture. It’s a feast for the senses. Ice yaws and wrens duel in song; grasses seem to hiss in the wind. Cranes dance in shallow waters and crossbills probe pines. Jones eats a stew of gathered arrowhead roots, cattail tubers and Rocky Mountain bee plant leaves with sand cherries and chokecherries for dessert.

The writer has found spiritual sustenance for nearly four decades in his annual weeks-long camping trips to the Sandhills. An injury he sustained as a youth resulted in a chronic disability that forced him to slow down and still himself in a way that allowed him to witness the natural world with his entire presence.

When he visited the Sandhills for the first time, “I rediscovered a kinship with the earth that awakened feelings of warmth and belonging,” he wrote. “I felt like I’d returned to a long-lost home.” Readers of this engaging collection will likely feel the same.

Monarch was a big boy – and, too often, a bad boy. One of the most enormous bison grown in captivity at the beginning of the 20th century, Monarch enjoyed an illustrious career in his owner William “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West show. That is, until the bison started escaping, destroying things, and generally scaring the pants off people.

Cody sold Monarch to the City of Omaha, which put the bison in a fledgling zoo at Riverview Park. There, Monarch continued to exhibit dangerously aggressive behavior. So, on Dec. 12, 1906, a group of 17 Omaha men gathered for Monarch’s execution. The newly elected mayor of Omaha put Monarch down with a rifle from 30 feet. Afterward, the group posed for a photograph later made into a postcard.

Each of late Omaha columnist Bob Marks’ stories of Omaha’s past begins with a historic postcard. During Marks’ life, he collected and cataloged more than 5,000 historical postcards and researched the stories behind them. The collection includes tales of fraud and murder, fires and medical malfeasance. But it also celebrates the contributions of notable Nebraskans, from President Gerald R. Ford to Andrew Jackson Higgins, who invented the amphibious craft used on D-Day, and the Baysdorfer brothers, who built the first horseless carriage in Omaha and contributed to early powered flight efforts. 

Marks also breathes life into Nebraska landmarks, like Central High School, The King Fong Cafe, the Douglas County District Courthouse, the Joslyn Art Museum, Woodmen of the World tower and others. Each section provides a satisfying 10-minute reading journey into Omaha’s fascinating history.

Seventeen-year-old Mazie Butterfield cruises from car to car, delivering orders at a malt shop in her hometown of Fairbury in 1959. Her favorite part of the shift is when she and the other servers perform a musical number, followed by her solo performance. A senior in high school, Mazie is saving up to leave her tiny town for the bright lights of Broadway in New York City. The choice doesn’t come without sadness or sacrifice. Despite being restless, Mazie loves Fairbury, a town author Melanie Crowder paints with loving detail as she describes its salt-of-the-earth farmers, beautiful glowing fields and its residents’ idyllic childhood adventures.

Losing her grandmother compels Mazie to choose her dreams sooner than anticipated, as she inherits enough money to live in New York for six weeks. In the city, she lives in a boarding house and navigates the heartache and hope of the audition process.

Along the way, she’s asked to change how she looks and talks – even her name comes under scrutiny. Landing an understudy role in a touring industrial production to sell farm equipment, Mazie finds herself back in the Midwest, questioning what she’s willing to sacrifice to achieve her dreams.

This heartfelt heroine torn between Nebraska and New York is sure to win over the young theater lovers in your life.

Stuffed into a minivan with their teacher, a gang of Nebraska high school thespians travels rural highways on their way to a state drama competition in Lincoln. An unexpected snowstorm slams the travelers. Faced with white-out conditions, the group seeks shelter at a run-down hotel with labyrinthine hallways and creepy relics.

Another group of kids headed to a state robotics competition also arrives to escape the blizzard, as do a few stray adult guests. The two groups of teenagers try to make the best of the snowy situation by throwing a casual gathering in the common room, where they share snacks and play the game “two truths and a lie,” writing down their two truths and one lie on slips of paper and trying to solve who wrote what and what’s real and what’s fake. But the game turns horrifying when they discover a disturbing note among the others:

“I like to watch people die. I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve killed.”

Digging in, the kids discover the motel was the scene of a brutal unsolved murder two decades prior. There may be ghosts – or a real-live killer still afoot. And as the snow blows harder outside, the electricity, cell phone signal and phone lines go out. When people start to go missing, everyone becomes a suspect. The Nebraska teenagers must solve who’s putting on the performance of their life by playing innocent. With no one getting out and no help on the way, there’s no time to lose. 

In the experimental story “In Waiting,” one of nine stories in her debut short story collection, Scattered Showers, Rainbow Rowell paints how characters knock around in her mind before making it onto the page. As one developing male character makes small talk with a developing female character, he gets excited when he realizes they’re both from Nebraska.

“That’s nothing,” she said. “We’re all from Nebraska. It’s like how Stephen King’s characters are all from Maine.”

Lifelong Omahan Rowell is one of Nebraska’s most widely read contemporary authors. Many of her books have spent significant time on national bestseller lists. Scattered Showers revisits characters from previous novels and introduces new stories, often exploring love or friendship.

The stories offer quick-witted characters and fast-paced dialogue featuring pairs – teenage friends who realize they’re in love, neighbors who reveal new ways of thinking to each other, and middle-aged women who are sorting out the complexities of aging. The takeaway from these stories is that people yearn to belong to one another, and Nebraska is an excellent place to call home.

Well before dawn, poet Ted Kooser rose from bed at his home on a Seward County acreage and got to work. Equipped with coffee, pen and notebook, he wrote whatever words or images drifted into his mind. The resulting collection of poems reflects the richness of his widely cast imagination.

True to Kooser’s style, the poems in Cotton Candy are approachable and conversational, with the occasional wink to the reader. With warmth and a deep grounding in the present moment, the poems express gratitude for small natural gifts, marvel at the profundity of changing weather or seasons and observe decisive moments.

Kooser approaches otherwise average animal encounters with an inventive bent. In “Toad,” the amphibian, “a leather bag of dimes,” hops across the road as if it’s a token on a board game on offer “in exchange for something of value hidden in weeds in the opposite ditch.” In “Spider,” Kooser plays with an arachnid in search of shade under the shadow of his shoe. He waggles his foot around, and the eight-legged friend follows.

He delights in similar impish fun when meditating on inanimate objects – clouds, leaves, even a rusty culvert. In “Culvert,” he leads a visitor to watch how the water runs through it and to listen to the “music” it makes. 

“Now that I’ve brought you this far, / our shoes soaked by the wet grass, / and have stooped down to show you / this place where the water plays / for itself a light tune in the darkness, / you’ll be able to hear it forever.”

After digesting Cotton Candy, Nebraska readers may discover they, too, approach ordinary things with the sweetness of extraordinary wonder.