Giving books as holiday gifts can be dicey; you’re never sure how they’ll be received. While it’s tempting to simply buy a gift certificate from Mystery to Me or A Room of One’s Own, nothing says “This made me think of you” more than an actual book you picked out.
Madison is home to some outstanding publishing houses, and both the University of Wisconsin Press and Wisconsin Historical Society Press released titles with broad appeal in 2017, making book-giving with a local angle easy and fun.
With a deep catalog that runs the gamut from fiction to academic journals, the UW Press published intriguing history titles this year with state ties. They include Pinery Boys: Songs and Songcatching in the Lumberjack Era, a neat account of Upper Midwest folk songs circa the early 1900s by the late Franz Rickaby with contributions from Gretchen Dykstra and UW-Madison professor emeritus James P. Leary, and The Driftless Reader, a diverse and engaging collection of writings about the Driftless Area region located in parts of Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Minnesota that were never touched by glaciers, edited by Wisconsin conservation biologist Curt Meine and Kickapoo Valley native Keefe Keeley.
Between 800 B.C. and 1200 A.D. Native Americans built more than 1,500 mounds in the Madison area, and Wisconsin once was home to as many as 20,000 mounds — more than anywhere else in North America. The second edition of Indian Mounds of Wisconsin, by state archeologists Robert A. Birmingham and Amy L. Rosebrough, provides a comprehensive overview of these earthworks (updated with new research and satellite imagery) and recommends mound sites that are open to the public.
UW Press also published A History of Badger Baseball: The Rise and Fall of America’s Pastime at the University of Wisconsin, by Madison native Steven D. Schmitt. It delivers on its title, providing season-by-season accounts of a program dropped in 1991 and never resurrected.
Borchert Field: Stories from Milwaukee’s Legendary Ballpark, by Bob Buegge, president of the Milwaukee Braves Historical Association, reads as advertised, too. If this rollicking account of the rickety wooden stadium nestled into a north side Milwaukee neighborhood and pre-dating County Stadium is any indication, the Wisconsin Historical Society Press should consider publishing more sports titles.
The press also (finally) released a paperback version of its popular oversized book Bottoms Up: A Toast to Wisconsin’s Historic Bars & Breweries. Published in hardcover in 2012, this colorful exploration of the state’s pastime also profiles 70 taverns and breweries — including Madison’s unforgettable Le Tigre Lounge.
Teaming up with Michael Perry, rural Wisconsin’s storytelling master, has boosted the national profile of the Wisconsin Historical Society Press, and Perry’s latest collection of eclectic essays, Danger, Man Working: Writing from the Heart, the Gut, and the Poison Ivy Patch, includes work that appeared in publications as diverse as No Depression, Men’s Health and the Wisconsin Humanities Council newsletter.
Perry also leads a parade of Wisconsin-based writers who released nonfiction titles and novels this year. Montaigne in Barn Boots: An Amateur Ambles Through Philosophy introduces today’s readers to the 16th-century French essayist who, like Perry, documented the evolution of his own kidney stone.
Katie Vaughn, former Madison Magazine managing editor, takes on a more contemporary topic in 100 Things to Do In Madison Before You Die (Reedy Press). You’ve probably already done many of them, including “make eating an event,” but they’re still fun to read. Isthmus even gets a couple of mentions.
Green Bay Packers historian Cliff Christl wrote Packers Heritage Trail: The Town, The Team, The Fans From Lambeau to Lombardi (KCI Sports Publishing) — a history of the team’s first 50 years that walks readers through every stop on a self-guided tour of locations related to Titletown history.
If you’re shopping for fiction readers, consider Empty Chairs, the self-published first novel by Madison author Anne Davidson Keller. She tells the story of a young farm boy who pilfers coins from his mom’s change purse and is torn between dedication to his small town and temptations of the larger world. It will be featured on Wisconsin Public Radio’s “Chapter a Day” in 2018.
Nickolas Butler’s The Hearts of Men (HarperCollins), meanwhile, is the UW-Madison alum’s second novel (after 2013’s award-winning Shotgun Lovesongs) about four high school buddies from a tiny Wisconsin town who reunite in their 30s for a wedding and a reckoning. His rugged Midwestern prose is perfect for Midwestern readers.
Another perfect read for Midwesterners concerned about the future is The Death and Life of the Great Lakes (W.W. Norton & Company). Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter Dan Egan explores how climate change, population growth and invasive species wreaked havoc on a once-thriving ecosystem — and offers suggestions for how we can make the Great Lakes great again. No wonder it was named a New York Times Notable Book.
