In The Lake Of The Woods

A politician’s past war crimes are revealed in this psychologically haunting novel by the National Book Award–winning author of The Things They Carried. Vietnam veteran John Wade is running for senate when long-hidden secrets about his involvement in wartime atrocities come to light. But the loss of his political fortunes is only the beginning of John’s downfall. A retreat with his wife, Kathy, to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota only exacerbates the tensions rising between them. Then, within days of their arrival, Kathy mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness. When a police search fails to locate her, suspicion falls on the disgraced politician with a violent past. But when John himself disappears, the questions mount—with no answers in sight. In this contemplative thriller, acclaimed author Tim O’Brien examines America’s legacy of violence and warfare and its lasting impact both at home and abroad.

J. Glenn Gray entered the army in May 1941, having been drafted on the same day he achieved his doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University. Over a decade after his discharge in 1945, Gray began to reread his war journals and letters in an attempt to find meaning in his wartime experiences. The result is a philosophical meditation on what warfare does to us and why soldiers act as they do.

When the body of a year-missing Ojibwa girl washes up on a Lake Superior island, rekindling Native American superstitions about mythical monsters, Cork O'Connor struggles to obtain information from reluctant witnesses to a brutal sex-trafficking operation.

Levelling the Lake explores a century and a half of social, economic, and legal arrangements through which the resources and environment of the Lake of the Woods and Rainy Lake watershed have been both harnessed and harmed. Jamie Benidickson traces the environmental consequences of resource extraction and recreation as well as their impacts on local residents, including Indigenous communities, which encouraged new legal and institutional responses. Assessing the transition from primary resource extraction toward sustainable development, Levelling the Lake also shows how interjurisdictional and transboundary issues continue to play a significant role throughout the region.

In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods tells the story of a newly married couple who take up a lonely existence in the title's mythical location. In this blank and barren plot far from the world they've known, they mean to start the family the unnamed husband wants so obsessively. But their every pregnancy fails, and as their grief swells, the husband─a hot-tempered and impatient fisherman and trapper─attempts to prove his dominion in other ways, emptying both the lake and the woods of their many beasts. As the years pass, the wife changes too, her suddenly powerful voice singing some new series of objects into being, including a threatening moon hung above their house, its doomed weight already slowly falling, bending their now-starless sky. In the House upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods is about marriage, parenthood, and the dreams parents have for their children─as well as what happens to a marriage whose success is measured solely by the children it produces, or else the grief that marks their absence.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The remarkable true story of a man who lived alone in the woods of Maine for 27 years, making this dream a reality—not out of anger at the world, but simply because he preferred to live on his own. “A meditation on solitude, wildness and survival.” —The Wall Street Journal In 1986, a shy and intelligent twenty-year-old named Christopher Knight left his home in Massachusetts, drove to Maine, and disappeared into the forest. He would not have a conversation with another human being until nearly three decades later, when he was arrested for stealing food. Living in a tent even through brutal winters, he had survived by his wits and courage, developing ingenious ways to store edibles and water, and to avoid freezing to death. He broke into nearby cottages for food, clothing, reading material, and other provisions, taking only what he needed but terrifying a community never able to solve the mysterious burglaries. Based on extensive interviews with Knight himself, this is a vividly detailed account of his secluded life—why did he leave? what did he learn?—as well as the challenges he has faced since returning to the world. It is a gripping story of survival that asks fundamental questions about solitude, community, and what makes a good life, and a deeply moving portrait of a man who was determined to live his own way, and succeeded.

“A story that broke my heart and put it back together again. You won’t want to let Gem and Dixie go.” —Sarah Dessen, New York Times bestselling author of Saint Anything From renowned author and National Book Award finalist Sara Zarr comes a deep, nuanced, and gorgeously written story about the complex relationship between two sisters from a broken home. Gem has never known what it is to have security. She’s never known an adult she can truly rely on. But the one constant in her life has been Dixie. Gem grew up taking care of her sister when no one else could: not their mother, whose issues make it hard for her to keep food on the table, and definitely not their father, whose intermittent presence is the only thing worse than his frequent absence. Even as Gem and Dixie have grown apart, they’ve always had each other. When their dad returns home for the first time in years and tries to insert himself back into their lives, Gem finds herself with an unexpected opportunity: three days with Dixie—on their own in Seattle and beyond. But this short trip soon becomes something more, as Gem discovers that that to save herself, she may have to sever the one bond she’s tried so hard to keep. "A complex and gripping story centered around the relationship of two sisters from a broken home. This book was so meaningful and realistic" (from the Brightly.com review, which named Gem and Dixie one of the best books of 2017).

This is a history of the land and the landowners along Germanna Road and connecting roads, from the Rapidan River to Wilderness Run. The chapters that follow provide the history of the lower end of Orange County, especially the Alexandria Tract, with particular attention to the land in and around Lake of the Woods. My brother asked me, "Why should I care about the Alexandria Tract?" My simple answer was, "Because we are descendants of Alexander Spotswood." He got me to thinking about what motivates anyone to write and especially to research and record one's findings for posterity. When the English settler came to Virginia, he brought his law and his library. The concept of land boundaries and personal ownership were foreign until then, as was the concept of written records. The land records, journals and family records of the five generations of Spotswoods, their relatives and neighbors that lived on and near the Lake of the Woods area have been preserved, but their story has not previously been written. Similarly, the modern pioneers that came in the late 1960s and later to form the community of Lake of the Woods should have their story preserved. Of all the places within a few hours of Washington, D.C., why pick the Wilderness to develop a large lake recreational community? The answer to this question cannot be found in any published history of Orange County. Why would families sell their home of generations including the family cemetery? The simple answer of “for the right price” is not the only explanation.