The Book of Famous Iowans

The Book of Famous Iowans
Author: Douglas Bauer
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 257
Release: 2014-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609382668

Will Vaughn, a man of late middle age living in Chicago with his second wife, remembers the month of June 1957 in his hometown, the rural village of New Holland, Iowa. More precisely, Will remembers just a few days of that month and the quick sequence of astonishing events that have colored, ever since, the logic of his heart and the moods of his mind. He tells of his stunningly beautiful young mother, Leanne, who liked to recall the years of the Second World War, during which she sang with a dance band in a lounge in Cheyenne, Wyoming. He tells too of his father, Lewis, a soldier in the war who one night saw the “resplendently sequined” Leanne step onstage and began at that instant to plot his courtship of her. But mostly what Will summons up in his intimate remembrance are those few catastrophic days in early June when he was “three months shy of twelve,” more than a decade after his parents have married and returned to the Vaughns’ home place, where Lewis farms his family’s land. For it is during those days that Leanne’s affair with a local man named Bobby Markum becomes known—first to Lewis and then, in a fiercely dramatic public confrontation, to young Will, to his beloved Grandmother Vaughn, and by nightfall to all the citizens of the town. The knowledge of such scandal, in so small a place, sets off a series of highly charged reactions, vivid consequences that surely determine the fates of every member of this unforgettable family. A tale of memory and hero worship and the restless pulse of longing, The Book of Famous Iowans examines those forces that define not only a state made up of a physical geography, but more important, those states of the wholly human spirit.

Amazing Iowa Women

Amazing Iowa Women
Author: Katy Swalwell
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2020-10
Genre:
ISBN: 9781649450661

Inspired by 'Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls' and 'Rad Women A to Z,' Iowa State education professor Katy Swalwell worked with over 25 Iowa women artists and RAYGUN to create an illustrated children's book that celebrates the incredible accomplishments through short biographies of a diverse set of women throughout Iowa's history. The book is available at raygunsite.com.

The Very Air

The Very Air
Author: Douglas Bauer
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 379
Release: 2014-11
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609382684

Luther Mathias sells “snake oil” in scrubby West Texas dirt towns. He learns that substance is never a substitute for style and eventually develops his own remedies that promise to cure any ailment a man might suffer. In time, his imagination and ambition combine to mold him into medicine’s version of Elmer Gantry: loved and hated, imponderably wealthy and famous, powerful and pursued. The Very Air is a compelling exploration of human motives and hidden meanings. It is a detailed picture of America’s myth of the rugged individual in the psychological and narrative tradition of The Great Gatsby and Citizen Kane. With a resonant sense of the period and culture, Douglas Bauer evokes the freewheeling feel of the old Southwest in the charlatans of our own era. The Very Air shows, through storytelling both exhilarating and chilling, that the past is prologue and that our personal histories indeed shape the course of our individual futures.

Dexterity

Dexterity
Author: Douglas Bauer
Publisher: Owl Books
Total Pages: 317
Release: 1989
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780805043020

A paperback edition of an acclaimed new American writer's first novel offers a superbly written tale that presents unique and special insights into the nature of the human spirit, creating palpably real characters. Reprint. NYT.

The Worlds Between Two Rivers

The Worlds Between Two Rivers
Author: Gretchen M. Bataille
Publisher:
Total Pages: 218
Release: 2000
Genre: History
ISBN:

Originally published in 1978, this work reflected a range of views on Native Americans in Iowa: those of the Native Americans themselves, those of Euro-Americans, of lay people and professionals. This expanded edition reflects the recent changes encountered by Native American Indians in the region.

Carnival in the Countryside

Carnival in the Countryside
Author: Chris Rasmussen
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 228
Release: 2015-08-15
Genre: History
ISBN: 1609383575

More than a century and a half after its founding, the Iowa State Fair is the state's central institution, event, and symbol. During its annual run each August, the fair attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors who make the pilgrimage to the fairground to see the iconic butter cow, to ride the Old Mill, to walk through the livestock barns, and to people-watch. At the same time that they enjoy fried candy bars and roller coasters, Iowans also compete to raise the best corn and zucchinis, to make the best jams and jellies, to rear the finest sheep and goats, the largest cattle and hogs, and the handsomest horses. This tension between entertainment and agriculture goes back all the way to the fair's founding in the mid-1800s, as historian Chris Rasmussen shows in this thought-provoking history. The fair's founders had lofty aims: they sought to improve agriculture and foster a distinctively democratic American civilization. But from the start these noble intentions jostled up against people's desire to have fun and make money, honestly or otherwise--not least because the fair had to pay for itself. In short, the Iowa State Fair has as much to tell us about human nature and American history as it does about growing corn.

The Baseball Whisperer

The Baseball Whisperer
Author: Michael Tackett
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Total Pages: 285
Release: 2016-07-05
Genre: Sports & Recreation
ISBN: 0544386396

“Field of Dreams was only superficially about baseball. It was really about life. So is The Baseball Whisperer . . . with the added advantage of being all true.” —MLB.com From an award-winning journalist, this is the story of a legendary coach and the professional-caliber baseball program he built in America's heartland, where boys would come summer after summer to be molded into ballplayers—and men. Clarinda, Iowa, population 5,000, sits two hours from anything. There, between the cornfields and hog yards, is a ball field with a bronze bust of a man named Merl Eberly, who specialized in second chances and lost causes. The statue was a gift from one of Merl’s original long-shot projects, a skinny kid from the Los Angeles ghetto who would one day become a beloved Hall-of-Fame shortstop: Ozzie Smith. The Baseball Whisperer traces the “deeply engrossing” story (Booklist, starred review) of Merl Eberly and his Clarinda A’s baseball team, which he tended over the course of five decades, transforming them from a town team to a collegiate summer league powerhouse. Along with Ozzie Smith, future manager Bud Black, and star player Von Hayes, Merl developed scores of major league players. In the process, he taught them to be men, insisting on hard work, integrity, and responsibility. More than a book about ballplayers in the nation’s agricultural heartland, The Baseball Whisperer is the story of a coach who put character and dedication first, reminding us of the best, purest form of baseball excellence. “Mike Tackett, talented journalist and baseball lover, has hit the sweet spot of the bat with his first book. The Baseball Whisperer takes one coach and one small Iowa town and illuminates both a sport and the human spirit.” —David Maraniss, New York Times-bestselling author of Clemente and When Pride Still Mattered

The Twelve Days of Christmas in Iowa

The Twelve Days of Christmas in Iowa
Author: Susan Fitzpatrick Cornelison
Publisher: Union Square Kids
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018-09-04
Genre:
ISBN: 9781454929635

The TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS IN IOWA . . . now in board This popular holiday book is now available in a sturdy board edition for very young children. The original text has been simplified to focus on the merry lyrics in this fun take on the classic Christmas song. It's a happy, festive way for families to celebrate the place where they live. What is Christmas in the Hawkeye State like? Find out all about Iowa during the holidays and its finest features--like 11 cows a-milking, 10 speedy cyclists, 6 covered bridges, and 2 hefty hogs

We Heard It When We Were Young

We Heard It When We Were Young
Author: Chuy Renteria
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 232
Release: 2021-11
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1609388054

We Heard It When We Were Young tells the story of a young boy, first-generation Mexican American, who is torn between cultures: between immigrant parents trying to acclimate to midwestern life and a town that is, by turns, supportive and disturbingly antagonistic.