Great Plains
By Ian Frazier

Frazier's road trip through the country's vast and windy middle chunk—discussing Lewis and Clark, Bonnie and Clyde, Truman Capote, and Lawrence Welk—is all over the place. Here be cowboys and Indians, missile silos, a fossil museum, the tragedy of the Dust Bowl and the glory of Crazy Horse. Along his route, Frazier chats with gas station attendants, Sioux hitchhikers, and "a guy working in a wheat storage yard in Limon, Colorado." Frazier's gift is that he is capable of immense fascination. And it's so contagious he makes me want to put exclamation points after words I thought I didn't care about. Like, Nebraska!