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An incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, "The Wilder Life" chronicles McClure's quest to find the world of beloved author Laura Ingalls Wilder -- a fantastic realm of fiction, history, and places she's never been to yet somehow knows by heart. She traces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family – looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a parried hailstorm in South Dakota. She immerses herself in all things Little House – explaining the story from fact to fiction, and from the TV show to the annual summer pageants in Laura’s hometowns. Whether she’s churning butter in her apartment or sitting in a replica log cabin, McClure is always in pursuit of “The Laura experience.” Along the way she comes to understand how Wilder’s life and work have shaped our ideas about girlhood and the American West.

The Wilder Life is a loving, irreverent, spirited tribute to a series of books that have inspired generations of American women. It is also an incredibly funny first-person account of obsessive reading, and a story about what happens when we reconnect without childhood touchstones – and find that our old love has only deepened.