Homesteading the Plains, Toward a New History, by Richard Edwards, Jacob K Friefeld, & Rebecca S Wingo

Since two of the three authors teach history at the college level, this book is what you might call a scholarly work. It is still accessible for the casual historian, and very informative if your ancestor was actually a homesteader. While they focus their deepest analysis on Nebraska, they look at data from other plains Read More

The Life and Afterlife of Harry Houdini, by Joe Posnanski

Everyone has heard of Houdini; his name is almost synonymous with magic. That is a point this author makes a number of times in his book. And there have been a couple of popular movies about him, with variable accuracy. This book tries to get at the real story. One important part of Houdini’s story Read More