Book of the Week - The Heart of Things by John Hildebrand

The Heart of Things: a Midwestern Almanac

By John Hildebrand
Published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press

Call Number:  F 581.6 .H55 2014

Publisher's Description:  "I've never believed that living in one place means being one thing all the time, condemned like Minnie Pearl to wear the same hat for every performance. Life is more complicated than that."

In this remarkable book of days, John Hildebrand charts the overlapping rings--home, town, countryside--of life in the Midwest. Like E. B. White, Hildebrand locates the humor and drama in ordinary life: church suppers, Friday night football, outdoor weddings, garden compost, family reunions, roadside memorials, camouflage clothing. In these wry, sharply observed essays, the Midwest isn't The Land Time Forgot but a more complicated (and vastly more interesting) place where the good life awaits once we figure exactly out what it means. From his home range in northwestern Wisconsin, Hildebrand attempts to do just that by boiling down a calendar year to its rich marrow--weather, animals, family, home--in other words, all the things that matter. 
John Hildebrand is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.  He has been awarded a Minnesota Book Award, Banta Award from the Wisconsin Library Association, Bush Fellowship, Wisconsin Arts Board Fellowship, and a Friends of American Libraries Award.  
An interview with the author in Wisconsin Trails

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