From corn dogs to crime stories, this month’s D-List is all fair fun—Deep-Fried Drama: Crimes, Carnivals, and Cows.
Meet Me on the Midway: A History of Wisconsin Fias by Jerold W Apps DBC24900
Jerry Apps explores the history of county and state fairs in Wisconsin, from their earliest incarnations as livestock exhibitions to their later multitudes of exhibits and demonstrations, grandstand entertainment, games and rides, and competitions of all sorts. Drawing on his extensive research, interviews, and personal experience as a 4-H leader, county extension agent, county fair judge, and lifelong fairgoer, Apps takes readers back through 178 years of Wisconsin fair history, covering everything from horse-pulling and calf-showing contests to flower arrangement judging to the roar of gasoline engines powering the midway rides. He evokes the sights and sounds of fairs through the ages while digging in to the political and social forces that shaped the fair into an icon of our rural heritage.
Iowa State Fair: Country Comes to Town by Thomas Leslie Jenn McKinlay DBC15054
A history of the Iowa State Fair from the fairytale State Fair of the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical to Norma Duffield Lyon’s two-thousand-pound butter sculpture of “The Last Supper”. Leslie recounts the fair’s fascinating background, why today it is more popular than ever, and what it holds for the future.
State Fair by Philip D Stong DBC15308, BRD17510
Abel Frake, a successful, intelligent farmer, his wife, and their son and daughter spend a week at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines. Abel’s cherished hog, Blue Boy, is judged the champion, Mrs. Frake’s pickles win first prize, and Wayne and Margery learn a great deal about life and love.
State Fair by Earlene Fowler DB91173
Folk art museum curator, rancher, and sometime sleuth Benni Harper is attending the San Celina Mid-State Fair–a place for caramel apples and 4-H calves, colorful quilts and homemade jams, and maybe just a little murder.
Joyland by Stephen King DB76799, DBG18138 (Spanish)
1973. Heartbroken New Hampshire college student Devin takes a summer job at a North Carolina amusement park. He is intrigued by tales of the ghost of a murdered girl and by a young neighbor and her ill son.
You Can’t Stop Me by Max A Collins DBO15384
Small-town Iowa sheriff J.C. Harrow made headlines when he apprehended a would-be presidential assassin at the Iowa State Fair — only to come home that night and find his wife and son brutally murdered. This tragic twist of fate launched his career as the host of reality TV’s smash-hit, “Crime Seen”. But while media star Harrow tracks down dangerous criminals coast to coast — with the help of viewers’ tips — a killer with a twisted agenda is making his own bloody path to fame.
Calamity Jayne Rides Again by Kathleen Bacus DBC01580
Tressa’s Uncle Frank has opened his soft-frozen ice-cream booth at the Iowa State Fair, and as always, members of the family have been recruited to work the concession stand, including Tressa. But this year things go terribly wrong. It’s bad enough that someone is sabotaging Uncle Frank’s frozen delights with such things as an army of cockroaches, but things really take a turn for the worse when Tressa’s cousin Frankie disappears.
Death Trap by Sue Henry DB58678
Forced by an injury to miss this year’s Iditarod race, musher Jessie Arnold works the booth at the Alaska state fair. The festivities are interrupted when a murder occurs, Jessie’s beloved lead dog disappears, and Jessie herself goes missing. Old flame Alex Jensen returns to launch a search.
Bingo Night at the Fire Hall: The case for Cows, Orchards, Bake Sales & Fairs by Barbara Holland DBC09928, BR11718
In 1990, the author inherited her mother’s summer cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains. She quit her job in Philadelphia, said good-bye to families and friends and moved into a different world where she wrestled with winter isolation and learned to live with wildlife. Just as she began to get used to this world, it began to change; suburbs, malls and highways took the place of pigs and peaches. She explores the changing of the community with an irresistible wit.
Key Lime Pie Murder by Joanne Fluke DB65255
Hannah Swensen of Lake Eden, Minnesota, helps judge the baking contest at the county fair. When a fellow judge, home economics teacher Willa Sunquist, drops dead, Hannah seeks justice. Meanwhile both a dentist and a detective are courting Hannah, and her cat refuses to eat.
