O Cornhuskers! 25+ books of Nebraska fiction
Explore the best Nebraska fiction with 'O Cornhuskers!'—a curated list of 25+ books celebrating Cornhusker State stories, authors, and Midwest charm. Discover your next read today!
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One of Ours
by Willa Cather
Willa Cather's Pulitzer Prize-winning narrative of the making of a young American soldier. Claude Wheeler, the sensitive, aspiring protagonist of this beautifully modulated novel, resembles …
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Ceremony in Lone Tree
by Wright Morris
Although Tom Scanlon would just as soon spend it alone, his ninetieth birthday becomes the occasion for a family gathering in the Midwestern town of …
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The Horsecatcher
by Mari Sandoz
Unable to kill, a young Cheyenne is scorned by his tribe when he chooses to become a horse catcher rather than a warrior.
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A White Bird Flying
by Bess Streeter Aldrich
Abbie Deal, the matriarch of a pioneer Nebraska family, has died at the beginning of A White Bird Flying, leaving her china and heavy furniture …
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Goodnight, Nebraska
by Tom McNeal
At the age of 17, Randall Hunsacker shoots his mother's boyfriend, steals a car and comes close to killing himself. His second chance lies in …
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Strange Angels
by Jonis Agee
Strange Angels tells the story of three siblings thrown together by the death of their father, Heywood Bennett. Forced to manage his sprawling prairie empire …
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Among the Missing
by Dan Chaon
Focusing on the condition of the modern family, a thematically linked collection of short fiction captures the lives, dreams, and fates of men, women, and …
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Troublemakers
by John McNally
Stories express the everyday aches and common cruelties of life that people endure and witness, from a wife stranding her husband on a roof, to …
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The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters
by Timothy Schaffert
Lily and Mabel struggle to come to terms with their father's suicide as well as their mother's abandonment years earlier.
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Night Sounds and Other Stories
by Karen Gettert Shoemaker
These stories capture the small moments in life, a passing glance of a child's smile, the night sounds of crickets or clocks, and celebrates them, …
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Are We Not Men?
by Brent Spencer
Are We Not Men?" You don't know if you should laugh or cry.
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The Ancient Memory & Other Stories
by John Gneisenau Neihardt
Death-defying and vulnerable fur-traders and Indians, demi-devils and almost-angels, and other complex personalities come fully to life in The Ancient Memory, which completes the collecting …
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The Getaway, and Other Stories
by Dorothy Thomas
Hard-hitting and humorous, these twelve short stories challenge convention and stereotypes about country folk living in Western Nebraska. Original.
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Isn't It Romantic?
by Ron Hansen
Once again, acclaimed novelist Ron Hansen demonstrates his masterful versatility as a writer, with Isn't It Romantic?, a screwball comedy in the tradition of filmmaker …
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Mari
by Jane Valentine Barker
A fictionalized biography of the Nebraskan writer, Mari Sandoz (1866-1966), one of the first to show sympathy for the Indians. It describes her struggle to …
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A Different Plain
by Ladette Randolph
In this collection of contemporary short stories, Nebraska writers explore the Midwest, covering topics such as small towns, desolate western lives, and comic families in …
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The Road Home
by Jim Harrison
The Road Home lies in the shadows of Manifest Destiny and Wounded Knee; it is etched into the landscape of an old man's memory and …
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Three Versions of the Truth
by Amy Knox Brown
"The duplicitous nature of relationships--with lovers, family, friends, but most importantly, with one's own inner demons--is explored in all its tangled perplexity ... in stories …
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Outside Valentine
by Liza Ward
Haunted by the serial murders committed by Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate years earlier, Manhattan collector of antiquities Lowell finds the case further complicated …
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The Jugger
by Richard Stark
Elderly Joe Sheer, a former safecracker, is murdered, but before he dies, he is forced to implicate Parker in some very shady dealings that could …
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The Hangman's Knot
by David Wiltse
It's the hottest summer ever in Falls City, Nebraska. Acting deputy Billy Tree is struggling to readjust to his old hometown as well as recover …
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The Mystery of Hunting's End
by Mignon Good Eberhart
The Sand Hills of Nebraska, where Mignon Eberhart lived as a newlywed, inspired the setting of this 1930 chiller. In the middle of the bleak …
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The Floor of the Sky
by Pamela Carter Joern
The inner worlds of characters isolated by geography and habit are revealed in a novel, set in the Nebraska Sandhills, about an aging widow on …
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The Cleanup
by Sean Doolittle
Matthew Worth is a mess. Somewhere between a good cop and a bad screwup, he botched a marriage and a career. His fellow officers think …
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This Is Not the Tropics
by Ladette Randolph
The stories collected in This Is Not the Tropics come from the geographic center of a divided nation, and its protagonists evoke a split personality—one …