front cover of Add This to the List of Things That You Are
Add This to the List of Things That You Are
Chris Fink
University of Wisconsin Press, 2019
A cat culler in an Arizona trailer park community mulls his daily routine. An old mercenary explains the history of edible eel in New Zealand. A divorcé plays homewrecker across Finland and Russia while his worldly possessions sit in a full self-storage unit. The dark and stunning stories in Add This to the List of Things That You Are explore how we sustain relationships when everything goes sideways and how we find meaning when the old patterns and structures of life give way. Many of Chris Fink's characters have outgrown their rural roots but still feel ill-equipped for the urbane scenarios in which they find themselves.

Many of the narratives center on the melancholic dislocations of Midwestern men—dislocations provoked by forces ranging from the unknown terrain of travel to emerging romantic relationships. Fink's gift for voice and keen observation of place display the male psyche against unfamiliar backgrounds in high relief. These quiet, often introspective stories pack an outsized punch.
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After The Fire
A Writer Finds His Place
Paul Zimmer
University of Minnesota Press, 2002

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Aldo Leopold
His Life and Work
Curt D. Meine
University of Wisconsin Press, 2010

This biography of Aldo Leopold follows him from his childhood as a precocious naturalist to his profoundly influential role in the development of conservation and modern environmentalism in the United States. This edition includes a new preface by author Curt Meine and an appreciation by acclaimed Kentucky writer and farmer Wendell Berry.

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Aldo Leopold's Odyssey
Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac
Julianne Lutz Newton
Island Press, 2008
A household icon of the environmental movement, Aldo Leopold (1887-1948) may be the most quoted conservationist in history. A Sand County Almanac has sold millions of copies and Leopold's writings are venerated for their perceptions about land and how people might live in concert with the whole community of life.

But who is the man behind the words? How did he arrive at his profound and poetic insights, inspiring generations of environmentalists? Building on past scholarship and a fresh study of Leopold's unpublished archival materials, Julianne Lutz Newton retraces the intellectual journey generated by such passion and intelligence.

Aldo Leopold's Odyssey illuminates his lifelong quest for answers to a fundamental issue: how can people live prosperously on the land and keep it healthy, too? Leopold's journey took him from Iowa to Yale to the Southwest to Wisconsin, with fascinating stops along the way to probe the causes of early land settlement failures, contribute to the emerging science of ecology, and craft a new vision for land use.

More than a biography, this articulate volume is a guide to one man's intellectual growth, and an inspirational resource for anyone pondering the relationships between people and the land.
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Aldo Leopold's Odyssey, Tenth Anniversary Edition
Rediscovering the Author of A Sand County Almanac
Julianne Lutz Warren
Island Press, 2016
In 2006, Julianne Lutz Warren (née Newton) asked readers to rediscover one of history’s most renowned conservationists. Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey was hailed by The New York Times as a “biography of ideas,” making “us feel the loss of what might have followed A Sand County Almanac by showing us in authoritative detail what led up to it.” Warren’s astute narrative quickly became an essential part of the Leopold canon, introducing new readers to the father of wildlife ecology and offering a fresh perspective to even the most seasoned scholars.

A decade later, as our very concept of wilderness is changing, Warren frames Leopold’s work in the context of the Anthropocene. With a new preface and foreword by Bill McKibben, the book underscores the ever-growing importance of Leopold’s ideas in an increasingly human-dominated landscape.

Drawing on unpublished archives, Warren traces Leopold’s quest to define and preserve land health. Leopold's journey took him from Iowa to Yale to the Southwest to Wisconsin, with fascinating stops along the way to probe the causes of early land settlement failures, contribute to the emerging science of ecology, and craft a new vision for land use.

Leopold’s life was dedicated to one fundamental dilemma: how can people live prosperously on the land and keep it healthy, too? For anyone compelled by this question, the Tenth Anniversary Edition of Aldo Leopold’s Odyssey offers insight and inspiration. 
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All the Hometown Boys
Wisconsin's 150th Machine Gun Battalion in World War I
Brad Larson
University of Wisconsin Press, 2019
In the summer of 1917 three Wisconsin National Guard companies came together to form the 150th Machine Gun Battalion of the now famous 42nd “Rainbow” Division. As true comrades, they relied on one another for support as they fought in every major battle of the American Expeditionary Forces, including the landmark battle of Chateau Thierry, which cost the unit dearly. As one of Wisconsin’s most celebrated units, a soldier coming from the battalion was selected to represent the state at the unveiling of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington, D.C., in 1921. Today, the 150th is all but forgotten, in part because their unit history was never written. Through letters, diaries, and other recollections, Larson tells us the story of these Guardsmen’s experiences. He traces the path of their wartime service and considers the impact of war’s trauma and tedium on their lives.
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Among the Aspen
Northwoods Grouse and Woodcock Hunting
Mark Parman
University of Wisconsin Press, 2018
Following his English setters into thickets in search of grouse and woodcock, Mark Parman feels the pull of older ways and lost wisdom. How rare it is, in our high-tech world, to find oneself completely off the track, bewildered in the wild, and then find the path home by sight and scent and memory.

Among the Aspen interweaves tales of companionable dogs, lucky hunts, and favorite coverts where quarry lurks with ruminations on the demise of hunting traditions, the sale of public lands and the privatization of places to hunt, the growing indifference to science, and the loss of wilderness on a planet increasingly transformed by the sprawl of humanity.
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An Analysis of Effigy Mound Complexes in Wisconsin
William M. Hurley
University of Michigan Press, 1975
The Effigy Mound tradition of Wisconsin dates to between roughly AD 100 and AD 1400. Its center is in central and southern Wisconsin, with a handful of sites also found in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and Michigan. During excavation at two major Effigy Mound sites—the Bigelow site and the Sanders site—William M. Hurley and his crew recorded 56 mounds, 91 features, 3 houses, and 10 prehistoric burials, and uncovered more than 55,000 artifacts.
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The Antiquities of Wisconsin, as Surveyed and Described
I. A. Lapham; Foreword by Robert A. Birmingham and Introduction by Robert P. Nurre
University of Wisconsin Press, 2001

First published in 1855 and long out of print, The Antiquities of Wisconsin remains invaluable as a detailed record of Wisconsin’s rich archaeological heritage of mounds and mound groups, many of which were later destroyed by farming and urban growth. Lapham was among the first scientists to produce evidence that the earthworks had been built by the ancestors of modern Native Americans, not some mythical "lost race," as was believed by many white authorities of the time. Modern researchers still use Lapham’s maps and descriptions to locate vestiges of sites that once existed, or to help reconstruct Wisconsin’s ancient cultural landscape. This edition includes a foreword by Wisconsin state archaeologist Robert A. Birmingham and an introduction by Robert P. Nurre, a Lapham scholar.

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Apple Betty and Sloppy Joe
Stirring Up the Past with Family Recipes and Stories
Susan Sanvidge
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2007

Compiled by four sisters and based on their recollections of their childhood in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, Apple Betty & Sloppy Joe captures the glow of memories formed while growing up in a midwestern kitchen. From Lemon Meringue Pie to Tomato Soup Cake, from Mom's Chicken Pie to Grandma Noffke's Sliced Cucumber Pickles, this charming book features hundreds of recipes (some classic, some quirky), plus dozens of food and cooking-related anecdotes, memories, humorous asides, and period photos that transport readers back to Mom's or Grandma's kitchen, circa 1950.

The Sanvidges share a legacy of beloved dishes and food memories that resonate not just for their family, but for readers everywhere who grew up in a small midwestern town - or wish they had. Nostalgic, funny, and warmhearted, Apple Betty & Sloppy Joe celebrates the ways food and food memories link us to our past, and to each other. A delightful gift for food lovers of any generation.

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The Art of the Break
Mary Wimmer
University of Wisconsin Press, 2022
Charlotte “Charlie” Sobczak finds the most comfort in making cheese—a craft she learned at the side of her father, Karl Mayer. In the wake of his untimely death, she and her daughter, Lucy, return to her rural hometown of Falls River, Wisconsin. With her marriage to Rick floundering, and still grieving the childhood loss of her sister and mother to polio and depression, she decides to pour all her efforts into reopening the family’s Morgan Cheese Factory. 

Hyperaware of her own childhood losses and the challenges posed by Rick’s PTSD and heavy drinking, Charlie strives to build a stable home for Lucy. Her degree in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin gives her a leg up, and the quiet joys of working at the cheese vat provide a deep, healing peace that points the way toward happiness.

But Falls River is too narrow-minded to accept a female business owner, and Charlie is ill-prepared for the pettiness and conventions of small-town life. When debts come due, including a lien against her family’s land, she must quickly figure out who is on her side—and how to keep her dreams alive.
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As the Twig Is Bent
A Memoir
Wallace Byron Grange, Edited by Joseph L. Breitenstein and Richard P. Thiel
University of Wisconsin Press, 2020
Wallace Byron Grange (1905–87) was an influential conservationist who worked alongside Aldo Leopold. Grange’s story vividly describes his mostly idyllic childhood watching bird life in the once grand prairies just west of Chicago. He documents his family’s journey and pioneering struggle to operate a farm on the logged cutover country in northern Wisconsin, a land that provided him with abundant opportunities to study the lives of wild creatures he loved most.

Written when Grange was in his sixties, As the Twig Is Bent conveys how a leading conservationist was formed through his early relationship to nature. In beautifully composed vignettes, he details encounters both profound and minute, from the white-footed mice attracted by cookie crumbs in his boyhood clubhouse to the sounds of great horned owls echoing through the wintry woods. As he develops his own understanding of the natural world, he comes to an awareness of the dramatic and devastating role of humankind on ecosystems. Grange’s poignant observations still resonate today amid global conversations about the fate of our natural resources and climate change.
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Aztalan
Mysteries of an Ancient Indian Town
Robert A. Birmingham and Lynne Goldstein
Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2006
Aztalan has remained a mystery since the early nineteenth century when it was discovered by settlers who came to the Crawfish River, fifty miles west of Milwaukee. Who were the early indigenous people who inhabited this place? When did they live here? Why did they disappear?

Birmingham and Goldstein attempt to unlock some of the mysteries, providing insights and information about the group of people who first settled here in 1100 AD. Filled with maps, drawings, and photographs of artifacts, this small volume examines a time before modern Native American people settled in this area.
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