What do you think?
Rate this book
Interior Places
“We must include Knopp among those whom Barry Lopez calls our ‘local geniuses of the American landscape,’” Fran Shaw remarks in the journal Parabola . And, indeed, in this new book, Lisa Knopp’s singular genius burrows deep into that landscape in showing us what it is to know, feel, and inhabit unique yet quintessentially American places.
A collection of essays embracing nonfiction from memoir and biography to travel writing and natural history, Interior Places offers a curiously detailed group photograph of the Midwest’s interior landscape. Here is an essay about the origin, history, and influence of corn. Here we find an exploration of a childhood meeting with Frederick Leopold, youngest brother of the great naturalist Aldo. Here also are a chronicle of the 146-year alliance between Burlington, Iowa, and the Burlington Route (later the CB&O, the BN, and finally, the BNSF) and a pilgrimage to Amelia Earhart’s Kansas hometown. Whether writing about the lives of two of P. T. Barnum’s giants or the “secret” nuclear weapons plant in southeastern Iowa, about hunger in Lincoln, Nebraska, or bird banding on the Platte River, Knopp captures the inner character of the Midwest as Nature dictates it, people live it, and history reveals it.
A collection of essays embracing nonfiction from memoir and biography to travel writing and natural history, Interior Places offers a curiously detailed group photograph of the Midwest’s interior landscape. Here is an essay about the origin, history, and influence of corn. Here we find an exploration of a childhood meeting with Frederick Leopold, youngest brother of the great naturalist Aldo. Here also are a chronicle of the 146-year alliance between Burlington, Iowa, and the Burlington Route (later the CB&O, the BN, and finally, the BNSF) and a pilgrimage to Amelia Earhart’s Kansas hometown. Whether writing about the lives of two of P. T. Barnum’s giants or the “secret” nuclear weapons plant in southeastern Iowa, about hunger in Lincoln, Nebraska, or bird banding on the Platte River, Knopp captures the inner character of the Midwest as Nature dictates it, people live it, and history reveals it.
299 pages, Paperback
First published March 1, 2008
23 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Knopp
11 books12 followersLisa Knopp is the author of six books of creative nonfiction.
Her most recent, Bread: A Memoir of Hunger (University of Missouri Press 2016), explores eating disorders and disordered eating as the result of a complex tangle of genetic, biological, familial, psychology, spiritual, and cultural forces through research and personal story. What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte (University of Missouri Press) won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2013 and was tied for second place in the 2013 ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment) book awards.
Lisa’s essays have appeared in numerous literary publications including Missouri Review, Michigan Review, Iowa Review, Seneca Review, Gettysburg Review, Northwest Review, Cream City Review, Brevity, Connecticut Review, Shenandoah, Creative Nonfiction, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, and Georgia Review. Currently, she's working on a collection of essays called Like Salt or Love: Essays on Leaving home.
Lisa is a Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where she teaches courses in creative nonfiction. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Please visit her website: http://www.lisaknopp.com/
Her most recent, Bread: A Memoir of Hunger (University of Missouri Press 2016), explores eating disorders and disordered eating as the result of a complex tangle of genetic, biological, familial, psychology, spiritual, and cultural forces through research and personal story. What the River Carries: Encounters with the Mississippi, Missouri, and Platte (University of Missouri Press) won the Nebraska Book Award for Nonfiction in 2013 and was tied for second place in the 2013 ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and the Environment) book awards.
Lisa’s essays have appeared in numerous literary publications including Missouri Review, Michigan Review, Iowa Review, Seneca Review, Gettysburg Review, Northwest Review, Cream City Review, Brevity, Connecticut Review, Shenandoah, Creative Nonfiction, Prairie Schooner, Crab Orchard Review, and Georgia Review. Currently, she's working on a collection of essays called Like Salt or Love: Essays on Leaving home.
Lisa is a Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, where she teaches courses in creative nonfiction. She lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Please visit her website: http://www.lisaknopp.com/
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 29, 2018
A set of engaging personal essays about particular places--all in the Midwest, most little known--and the ways they shape us.
August 21, 2018
Set in the Midwest, Knopp's engaging essays lead the reader into deeper knowledge and examination about a range of topics and events often taken for granted or forgotten.
September 24, 2008
Loved it. Nature, personal, geographic. Memoir.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews