W. 11th & Bluff

Janesville, Wisconsin is two hours east of Dubuque. It's a town of about 60,000 people that has traditionally had a strong economic ba...

First let me say that The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan is not a feel-good read, but it is a very fine and important b...

My first review for this blog , back in 2015, was of Celeste Ng’s debut novel, Everything I Never Told You , which impressed me with its ...

What do librarians do all day? Well, it depends on the day, but one of my favorite tasks is picking out new books for the library's co...

Mystery, romance, interesting characters, and fun world-building details combine to make O Human Star  by Blue Delliquanti one of my top...

If you were one of the lucky folks who got to meet award-winning mystery author Lori Rader-Day when she visited Carnegie-Stout Public Lib...

One of the great things about working in a library is that you get to track the books that everyday readers -- not reviewers, prize panels, ...

I don't know why it has taken me almost twenty years to notice the essay collection The Boys of My Youth by Jo Ann Beard and read (o...

A 2013 review of the novel Stoner in The New Yorker magazine was titled "The Greatest American Novel You've Never Heard Of....

Published in 1987, Crossing to Safety  by Wallace Stegner somehow escaped my notice all these years until it was recommended by author Wi...

Many readers are calling J. Ryan Stradal 's debut novel Kitchens of the Great Midwest " quirky." The way I'd describe it ...

Andrew Carnegie is a very, very rarely seen ghost, what with his having over 2,500 libraries to haunt. So, his rotunda appearance is real...