As fall sets in, the leaves change colors, and the weather gets a bit cooler in Minnesota, avid readers throughout the state might start panicking about hitting their end-of-year reading goals.
Whether you’re rushing to get a few more books in or want to curl up with a good read now that it’s a bit colder outside, there are plenty of incredible books set in Minnesota worth adding to your to-be-read list.
Some of the country’s most renowned writers have called Minnesota home, including F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis, as well as contemporary writers like Louise Erdrich and Cheryl Strayed. Plenty more have felt inspired by the state and have used it as the backdrop for numerous novels, short stories, and nonfiction works.
Whether you’re trying to hit a reading goal or just want to read a bit more about The Land of 10,000 Lakes, here are some of the best Minnesota-set books to read before the year ends.
1. “Ordinary Grace” by William Kent Krueger
Anyone looking to read more Minnesota-based books can easily expand their to-read list by exploring the works of Minnesota resident and author William Kent Krueger. The novelist and crime writer, who lives in Saint Paul, is best known for his Cork O’Connor series, which is set in northern Minnesota.
But in 2013, Krueger published “Ordinary Grace,” a standalone novel that won the Edgar Award for Best Novel in 2014. The novel centers on 13-year-old Frank Drum, who lives in New Bremen, Minnesota, in the early 1960s and deals with a traumatic, dark summer.
2. “The Light People” by Gordon Henry
Gordon Henry, a poet and fiction writer, focuses much of his work on Anishinaabe, a group of Indigenous peoples from the Great Lakes region, including Ojibwe, Potawatomi, and Algonquin peoples, among other Indigenous Nations. His first novel, “The Light People,” features several interwoven stories set in an Ojibwe community in northern Minnesota, as well as a pivotal story set in a Minneapolis-based museum.
Henry, an enrolled member of the White Earth Band of Ojibwe of Minnesota, received the American Book Award for the novel in 1995. He currently teaches at Michigan State University and has published numerous poetry collections.
3. “On the Banks of Plum Creek” by Laura Ingalls Wilder
Laura Ingalls Wilder is widely recognized for her book, “Little House on the Prairie,” which is about the time her family spent living on the Kansas prairie, or writing about her early childhood in Wisconsin in “Little House in the Big Woods.” During all of the Ingalls family’s moves throughout the Midwest in the late 1800s, they lived in Minnesota, which Wilder chronicled in “On the Banks of Plum Creek.”
The children’s novel was first published in 1937 and is the fourth of ultimately nine books in the Little House book series. Wilder based “On the Banks of Plum Creek” on the years that her family lived near Walnut Grove, Minnesota, near Plum Creek. Today, Walnut Grove celebrates its connection to the famed author through the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum & Tourist Center.
4. “Torch” by Cheryl Strayed
Cheryl Strayed is no stranger to writing about her own life—even if she’s fictionalizing it. She is best known for “Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail,” a memoir about her experience hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. The trail runs along the West Coast from its southernmost point at the United States’ border with Mexico, up to the country’s border with Canada. In “Torch,” her debut novel, Strayed wrote about the country’s interior—specifically her home state of Minnesota—in the work of fiction that’s loosely based on her own life, including the painful loss of her mother.
The novel centers around Minnesota-based radio show host Teresa Rae Wood, and her children Claire and Joshua. In the novel, Teresa is diagnosed with terminal cancer, and the book chronicles the family’s experience of dealing with Teresa’s declining health and ultimate death throughout the novel. “Torch,” which was published in 2006, was nominated for the Great Lakes Book Award.
5. “In the Lake of the Woods” by Tim O’Brien
In his mystery novel, “In the Lake of the Woods,” Tim O’Brien tells the story of Vietnam veteran John Wade, who unsuccessfully runs for a U.S. Senate seat, representing Minnesota. After losing his race in a landslide, Wade and his wife, Kathy, travel to Lake of the Woods County, the northernmost county in Minnesota, where Kathy goes missing.
The novel flashes back to Wade’s life, including his time serving in the Vietnam War, and offers several theories about what happened to Kathy in the lakeside community, without ever resolving how or why she disappeared. “In the Lake of the Woods” was adapted into a made-for-TV movie in 1996.
6. “Freedom” by Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen’s 2010 novel, “Freedom,” follows the Berglund family, who reside in Saint Paul. Divided into five sections, the novel opens with “Good Neighbors” and describes the Berglund family’s life through the eyes of their Saint Paul neighbors. The story spans many years in the family’s lives, and chronicles the growing unhappiness between the main characters, Patty and Walter Berglund, as their children grow up and the family eventually moves to Washington, D.C.
Franzen won several awards for “Freedom,” including the Galaxy National Book Awards’ International Author of the Year, the Salon Book Award for a piece of fiction, the Chicago Tribune Heartland Prize, and the John Gardner Award for a piece of fiction. “Freedom” was also on The New York Times Best Books of the Year list.
7. “The St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald is deeply connected to New York City, where he lived, worked, and drew inspiration for some of his best-known works, especially “The Great Gatsby,” his classic novel set on Long Island. But the famed author was born in Saint Paul and set some of his works in the state’s capital, including the collection of short stories, “The St. Paul Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald.”
The collection of short stories was published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press in 2004, and consists of stories about life in St. Paul in the early 20th century. Fitzgerald fans can explore more of the author’s history in the city by visiting F. Scott Fitzgerald birthplace, as well as the city’s Rice Park, where a statue of the author was placed in 1996 to commemorate what would have been his 100th birthday.
8. “Main Street” by Sinclair Lewis
Minnesota native Sinclair Lewis published many novels throughout his career, but arguably his best-known is “Main Street,” a satirization of suburbia and small towns throughout the country. The 1920 novel follows the life of Carol Milford Kennicott, who grew up in Mankato and becomes a librarian in Saint Paul. After getting married, Kennicott moves to Gopher Prairie, a fictionalized version of Lewis’ hometown, Sauk Centre.
After its publication, “Main Street” was adapted into a play, and eventually a movie in 1923, which was the first movie released by Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. after its incorporation. Throughout his career, Lewis wrote 24 novels and 70 short stories, and in 1930, he became the first American writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature for his descriptive and humorous characters and works.
9. “The Sentence” by Louise Erdrich
The 2021 novel “The Sentence,” by Louise Erdrich, takes place over the span of one year, from Nov. 30, 2019 through Nov. 30, 2020. Set in a Native American bookstore in Minneapolis, the novel follows the main character, Tookie, through four plot points: the death of a customer and her haunting Tookie, the characters’ family relationships, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the murder of George Floyd.
“The Sentence” was critically acclaimed upon its release, earning a shortlist for the Women’s Prize for Fiction and winning the Heartland Booksellers Award and the Prix Femina. Author Louise Erdrich, an enrolled citizen of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians of North Dakota, was born in Little Falls, Minnesota, and has also written about the state in her nonfiction book “Books and Islands in Ojibwe Country.”
10. “His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice” by Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa
In 2020, the world’s eyes turned to the city of Minneapolis after St. Louis Park, Minnesota resident George Floyd, a Black man, was murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer, Derek Chauvin. In the aftermath of the murder, protests against police brutality were held worldwide, riots occurred in cities including Minneapolis, and calls to defund the police became widespread throughout the country.
“His Name is George Floyd: One Man’s Life and the Struggle for Racial Justice” takes a look at the life of the man whose murder sparked a worldwide call for racial justice, and an increased look into the ways that racism continues to exist in the United States. The biography, written by Washington Post journalists Robert Samuels and Toluse Olorunnipa and published in 2022, received the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction.
This article first appeared on Good Info News Wire and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
