Books by — or about — Wisconsinites that we’re adding to our summer reading list
The Milwaukee Anthology
Edited by Justin Kern
More than 50 local writers and artists contributed to this coffee-tableworthy collection of essays, poems and short stories. Read it on a sleepy Sunday morning while sipping a cup of Milwaukee-made coffee and watching the city wake up and come to life.
Apocalypse Any Day Now
By Tea Krulos
Milwaukee-based journalist Tea Krulos wondered why so many people seem convinced the world’s about to end. So he spent months shadowing a motley collection of doomsday preppers, conspiracy theorists and climate scientists to find out.
A Good American Family
By David Maraniss
In this memoir by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Maraniss, we learn how the Red Scare changed his family forever. Though much of the story is set in Wisconsin in the 1950s – where Maraniss grew up – its message is timely and universal.
The Curiosities
By Susan Gloss
A wannabe art historian, still reeling from a recent miscarriage, takes a job at a quirky Madison artist colony. Hilarity ensues, and some healing too.
Who Killed the Fonz?
By James Boice
The author of this high-concept book – which imagines our favorite “Happy Days” characters as real people with some very real problems – has been favorably compared to a young Elmore Leonard (you know, the guy who wrote Get Shorty and Rum Punch).
The Hazards of Time Travel
By Joyce Carol Oates
One of America’s most prolific authors has opted to set her latest novel, about a spirited young woman living in an oppressive future society, in the fictional town of “Wainscotia,” Wisconsin.
BANISH BOREDOM!
Get yourself a copy of 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee Before You Die. It’s a book-length bucket list by frequent MilMag contributor Jenna Kashou.