"We Had Fun and Nobody Died" is Amy T. Waldman’s adventure-filled biography of music promoter Peter Jest, who brought legendary rock and folk acts to Milwaukee. Before he became well-known in the music industry, Jest was a prankster... Read More

Michelle M. Nickerson’s "Spiritual Criminals" is a gripping account of the Camden 28, Catholic war protesters who burglarized a federal building and were acquitted in a well-publicized trial in the early 1970s. While eight members of... Read More

Alisa Alering’s alluring novel "Smothermoss" enters the bloodstream of Appalachian storytelling like a fevered dream, unraveling the intergenerational tales of women living on the edge. Half-sisters born five years apart, Sheila and... Read More

Filled with fascinating astronomy-related facts, "Chasing the Stars" covers the first century-plus of the University of Wisconsin’s Washburn Observatory and the science it inspired. Built on a Dakota effigy mound in the 1880s, the... Read More

Pithy and enchanting, Uta Seeburg’s "How Would You Like Your Mammoth?" covers the advent of cookery in prehistoric and ancient civilizations, showing how food directs people and illuminates societies. Seeburg asserts that food is a... Read More

A recovering alcoholic considers what to do about his family’s secrets in Morgan Talty’s affecting novel "Fire Exit". Charles was raised on the Penobscot Island Indian Reservation by his Native American stepfather, but that doesn’t... Read More