The North Country Reader is filled with an array of classic and contemporary voices--native Minnesotans and immigrants, farmers and city folks, the sweet and the bittersweet. These timeless selections from novels, short stories, essays, and memoirs convey the diversity of the Minnesota experience. From the jazz-age tales of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the depression-era stories of Gordon Parks to the modern-day concerns of Patricia Hampl and Carol Bly, this collection reminds us of the richness of the place called Minnesota. Taken as a whole these thirty-seven classic pieces reveal that Minnesota is not a single experience, but one as varied as the land it occupies.

The authors included are Sheila Alexander, Margaret Culkin Banning, Carol Bly, Emilie Buchwald, Ann Chidester, Borghild Dahl, Emilio DeGrazia, Charles Eastman, Edward Eggleston, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Charles Flandrau, Grace Flandrau, Alvin Greenberg, Paul Gruchow, Patricia Hampl, Jon Hassler, Mary Hedin, Norman Katkov, Garrison Keillor, Herbert Krause, Monica Krawczyk, Meridel Le Sueur, Sinclair Lewis, Peggy Harding Love, Frederick Manfred, John Milton, Martha Ostenso, Lon Otto, Gordon Parks, J. F. Powers, Norval Rindfleisch, Ole R√dlvaag, Henry R. Schoolcraft, Shirley Schoonover, Mabel Seeley, Robert Treuer, Gerald Vizenor.