November’s Open Book Club: Midwestern Food by Paul Fehribach
An acclaimed chef offers a historically informed cookbook that will change how you think about Midwestern cuisine.
An acclaimed chef offers a historically informed cookbook that will change how you think about Midwestern cuisine.
From a wry, insightful, and very funny new voice, here is one woman’s peripatetic search for home, from Kashmir to England to Saudi Arabia to Michigan to Rome and, finally, to Los Angeles.
The New York Times best-selling author of The Nix is back with a poignant and witty novel about a modern marriage and the bonds that keep people together. Mining the absurdities of contemporary society, Wellness reimagines the love story with a healthy dose of insight, irony, and heart.
In this episode of The First Fifty Pages, Kelsey and Jenn talk with rising star Emilia Hart about her latest novel, The Sirens—a story of two sets of sisters separated by time and connected by the power of the sea. We chat about compelling female characters, how the past informs our present, and why meeting readers is such a rewarding experience. Dangerous temptations await!
The Sioux City Public Library has launched 3 to Go, a new personalized book bundle service. Using 3 to Go, patrons or their children will receive three books hand-picked for them by Sioux City Public Librarians.
With lyrical precision, psychological directness, resonating symbolic power, and a rage that is at once unrelenting and compassionate, Baldwin tells the story of the stepson of the minister of a storefront Pentecostal church in Harlem one Saturday in March of 1935. Originally published in 1953, Baldwin said of his first novel, ”Mountain is the book I had to write if I was ever going to write anything else.”
From a marine biologist and co-founder of Minorities in Shark Sciences, a powerful debut about the uplifting story of a young Black scientist’s challenging journey to flourish outside the traditional confines of academia, inspired by her innate connection to nature’s most misunderstood animal—the shark.
There is only one Cher, and for seven decades she has been showing us why. Cher holds the attention of the world with her voice, her acting, her style, her wit and her unstoppable spirit. Now, for the first time, she tells her story in her own voice – as honest as it is hilarious, as powerful as it is perceptive.
In this episode, Kelsey and Jenn talk with best-selling author Tim Johnston about his latest novel, Distant Sons—the All Iowa Reads selection for Adult Fiction for 2025. Random acts of misfortune, themes of masculinity and shame, and a small town haunted by great tragedy. It may surprise you or it could devastate you, but at the very least, be prepared to feel all the feels!
In this episode, Jenn and Kelsey talk with bestselling author Nickolas Butler about his latest novel, A Forty-Year Kiss. Listen to hear what in-real-life overheard conversation sparked the inspiration for this life-affirming love story, how he crafts the sublime from the ordinary, and why second chances are so compelling.