I assume you're focusing on non-urban lit, so anything set in Chicago or other large cities is out. With that in mind, a few recommendations from me:
"Peace" by Gene Wolfe. He's famous for SF, but this is a literary (but strange) novel, very evocatively set in a small Illinois town. Some have called it a ghost story, but what's going on here is very open to interpretation.
"Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson. The original, classic small-town short-story collection, influential on a whole bunch of writers.
And a perhaps surprising third - "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel. Seems to be acquiring modern classic status, and most of the action takes place around the Great Lakes (on both sides of the border).
I'm generally a Hemingway fan, but I tried and failed to get into this Nick Adams stories, and started and stopped at Big Two-Hearted River. I'm a pretty outdoorsy guy, but fishing(?), not so much. It was great writing, but I didn't take the bait I guess.
I'll have to try out Nick O'Connor and your rec on Stradal. Nonfiction that focuses on "small" events and places often has an outsized impact.
I started The Lager Queen on audio and gave up after an hour or so. The setting was too similar to the environment I grew up in to be interesting. The characters seemed mundane. Maybe I needed to get further into the book.
I’ve read all of the Cork O’Connor books. They were always my “reward” after reading some serious literature or non-fiction. Good stories set in Northern Minnesota and Krueger often brings in issues relating to indigenous peoples. Very reliable entertainment.
I assume you're focusing on non-urban lit, so anything set in Chicago or other large cities is out. With that in mind, a few recommendations from me:
"Peace" by Gene Wolfe. He's famous for SF, but this is a literary (but strange) novel, very evocatively set in a small Illinois town. Some have called it a ghost story, but what's going on here is very open to interpretation.
"Winesburg, Ohio" by Sherwood Anderson. The original, classic small-town short-story collection, influential on a whole bunch of writers.
And a perhaps surprising third - "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel. Seems to be acquiring modern classic status, and most of the action takes place around the Great Lakes (on both sides of the border).
Marvelous, thanks for the recs!
I'm generally a Hemingway fan, but I tried and failed to get into this Nick Adams stories, and started and stopped at Big Two-Hearted River. I'm a pretty outdoorsy guy, but fishing(?), not so much. It was great writing, but I didn't take the bait I guess.
I'll have to try out Nick O'Connor and your rec on Stradal. Nonfiction that focuses on "small" events and places often has an outsized impact.
I started The Lager Queen on audio and gave up after an hour or so. The setting was too similar to the environment I grew up in to be interesting. The characters seemed mundane. Maybe I needed to get further into the book.
I’ve read all of the Cork O’Connor books. They were always my “reward” after reading some serious literature or non-fiction. Good stories set in Northern Minnesota and Krueger often brings in issues relating to indigenous peoples. Very reliable entertainment.