With Christmas fast approaching, you may still be searching for the perfect gift for the High Plains dwellers in your life. Don’t fret, this year marked the release of a number of great High-Plains histories that will make spectacular gifts.
One release that got a good deal of attention this year was David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI. Grann’s book, a riveting work of history that reads like a crime novel, details the murders of Osage Indians in 1920s Oklahoma after oil was discovered on their reservation.
Beloved High Plains author Timothy Egan, author of The Worst Hard Time, also returned this year with another popular volume of history entitled The Immortal Irishman: The Irish Revolutionary Who Became an American Hero. The book details the improbable journey of a young Irish orator who survived the Great Famine and eventually became the territorial governor of Montana. Egan’s book received the High Plains Book Award this year for best work of nonfiction.
If you’re looking for something for the historical-fiction lover in your family, have a look at The Bones of Paradise by Jonis Agee. This multigenerational saga is set in the Nebraska Sand Hills in the years following the massacre at Wounded Knee.
