Nebraska Books: Best Books Set in the Cornhusker State

Book Summary

Richard and Seth Barrett are very different, but together they are dedicated to running their family’s ranch on Nebraska’s Platte River. However, their mother recently passed away, and her will has some contingencies. To inherit the ranch, the sixty-something brothers must travel hundreds of miles along the Platte River by horse and canoe – just as their maternal grandfather did three generations before.

Their mother hopes that sending them on this odyssey will help them better understand and appreciate the ranch, while also allowing them to observe the harm that modern industrial farming is causing to the land, air, and water with which they’ll be entrusted.

To further complicate matters, a 90-year-old bachelor farmer wants to join the “boys” to teach them a few lessons. Then, add in a corrupt sheriff, a lawyer, and a greedy neighboring landowner. Will all these obstructions prevent the brothers from completing their trek on time?

Book Summary

The fictional town of Uz, Nebraska, was already collapsing under the weight of the Great Depression and its violent history when a historic dust storm ravaged the region. Five characters’ fates intertwine after the storm in this novel.

The characters include a Polish wheat farmer who learns how quickly a hoarded blessing can become a curse; his orphan niece, a basketball star and witch’s apprentice in furious flight from her grief; a voluble scarecrow; and a New Deal photographer whose time-traveling camera threatens to reveal both the town’s secrets and its fate.

The “Prairie Witch” serves as a vault for the secrets and difficult memories of the townspeople, leaving voids within the citizens. This is a symbolic nod to intentional omissions when stories are passed between generations.

Book Summary

Detective Mackenzie White has helped solve crimes that left the older men on the local police force stumped, but her newest murder case has everyone perplexed. A woman was killed in a Nebraska cornfield, and the death appears to be the work of a serial killer.

The FBI is called in to assist, and as Mackenzie helps with the intense manhunt, she has to face old demons from her past. She’s obsessed with the twisted psychology of the killer as she looks for clues to their identity, but while she investigates, more bodies turn up and her personal life falls apart.

Book Summary

Hopeless romantic Liz had a huge crush on Michael before he moved away. So now that he’s back, she’ll do whatever it takes to get his attention. Her dream scenario would be going to prom with him.

Her neighbor, Wes, has always been a pain instead of the object of boy-next-door fantasies. But, he’s forming a friendship with Michael, so he might be Liz’s best chance for a connection. As Liz and Wes scheme to get her noticed by Michael, she starts to rethink her ideal happily ever after scenario.

Book Summary

Author Willa Cather was born in Virginia in 1873 but moved with her family to Nebraska when she was nine years old. Her name is now synonymous with Nebraska classic literature about the frontier experience.

O Pioneers! is her debut novel, and many still consider it her masterpiece. It features Alexandra Bergson, who comes to Hanover, Nebraska, as a girl and grows up to create a prosperous farm. But her love of the land comes with a cost.

Book Summary

Cassandra has traded her Hawaiian life for a dream position working for the president of Morton College in rural Nebraska. While she expected the freezing winters to be her biggest challenge, it’s actually her new career that is the problem.

After she’s left in charge while her boss travels, a deaf student is killed. There is a complicated trail of connections between campus food service, a local farmer’s beef, and the science lab’s cancer research. This PR disaster could cost her career, which would be bad enough, but she also has a stalker.

Book Summary

Ten years after the battle at Wounded Knee, J. B. Bennett, a white rancher, finds Star, a young Native American woman, murdered in a remote meadow on his land. Almost immediately, he becomes the next victim. 

J.B.’s father, estranged wife, and two sons come together to try to figure out what happened, but they aren’t a happy, functional family. Star’s sister also arrives and struggles to accept her sister’s death after her people have already lost so much. 

Greek literature fans may identify some subtle nods to the Odyssey within this Western historical mystery.

Book Summary

It’s Lincoln O’Neill’s job to read other people’s emails. He thought his role as “internet security officer” would be more glamorous—building firewalls and crushing hackers. Instead, he spends his days reading his coworkers’ emails and writing a report each time someone forwards a dirty joke.

Everyone in the office knows someone is reading their emails (it’s company policy), but that doesn’t seem to change what they write. Beth and Jennifer send each other endless emails containing all the details of their personal lives. Lincoln knows he should report them, but instead, he finds himself enjoying their stories and, worst of all, falling in love.

This book will transport you back to 1990s, when email was new in the business world, Y2K was a significant fear, and before internet dating was a thing.

Book Summary

In 1961, 14-year-old Lucía was living a carefree life in Cuba. But then soldiers came to her sleepy town. As freedoms were stripped away, neighbors began to disappear.

As the regime becomes more oppressive, Lucía’s parents make a heart-wrenching decision. She will be brought to America as part of Operation Pedro Pan—an organized exodus of more than 14,000 unaccompanied children, whose parents sent them away to escape Fidel Castro’s revolution.

Suddenly, she is living in Nebraska with well-meaning strangers. How will she adapt to a totally new way of life? And will she ever see her parents again?

Book Summary

Wilred owns 80 acres of Nebraska farmland, which has been in his family for generations. His wife owns an adjoining 100 acres, but is threatening to sell her plot to a pig butcher. If this happens, Wilfred will be forced to sell his family land as well.

He comes up with a daring plan, but his son has to agree.

Book Summary

This novel tells the story of Sabine, the assistant and widow of a famous magician, Parsifal. After Parsifal dies, Sabine discovers that he had heirs in Nebraska. Allegedly, this family was lost in a tragic accident, but it turns out they are very much alive. Seeking closure and understanding, she travels to Nebraska to meet Parsifal’s family and learn more about his past.

As Sabine spends time with Parsifal’s family, she begins to unravel the secrets of his life and comes to terms with her own grief and sense of loss. She befriends Parsifal’s mother and sister, and they bond over shared experiences and the memory of Parsifal.

Book Summary

This entire novel takes place over the course of 10 days in 1954. Eighteen-year-old Emmett has finished his term on a work farm, where he was sent after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

The warden drives Emmett home to Nebraska, where he plans to pick up his 8-year-old brother before heading west for a fresh start. However, Emmett discovers that two friends from the work camp, Duchess and Wooly, have stowed away in the trunk. The three teens and 8-year-old Billy adjust their plans and set out across the country together. The book is told from alternating points of view.

Book Summary

While not many people visit North Platte, Nebraska today, this small town was a major transportation hub during World War II. The remote community of 12,000 people saw more than six million GIs pass through.

Journalist Bob Greene interviewed both North Platte residents and the soldiers who visited to put together this heartwarming true story of a town that came together to make the soldiers’ short visit a warm and welcoming experience. This includes the completely volunteer-run Canteen open from five a.m. until midnight every day, serving food, but more importantly to the soldiers, huge doses of support and positivity.

Book Summary

In this compelling narrative, Carson Vaughan investigates the rise and fall of Zoo Nebraska, a small-town zoo that once brought hope and economic promise to tiny Royal, Nebraska. Dick Haskin planned to assist primatologist Dian Fossey in Rwanda, but when she was tragically murdered, he decided to fulfill his dreams at home instead. So, beginning with a chimp named Rueben, Dick transformed a trailer into the Midwest Primate Center.

After impressive growth, the zoo eventually transformed from a source of community pride into a tragic failure. In this non-fiction book, Vaughan delves into the human stories behind the headlines about the zoo, revealing the complexities of small-town America and the struggle for survival.

Book Summary

This non-fiction title is set in the long-intertwined communities of the Oglala Lakota Pine Ridge Reservation and the bordering towns in Sheridan County, Nebraska. In 1972, Raymond Yellow Thunder was killed by four white men. But this wasn’t an isolated incident.

Journalist Stew Magnuson traveled to the region, and his research adds 130 years of context to the murder, including the story of Whiteclay, Nebraska, a controversial border hamlet.