I just finished "Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder"

by Caroline Fraser.

It is simply one of the best books I have ever read. It gives the history of her family, looks at human induced climate change, talks about how people were bamboozled by the railroads to move to places like South Dakota, how small farmers have almost never made a living off farming.

It also goes into a great deal of detail of the writing of the "Little House" books, and her collaboration with her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, on them I think even someone who'd never read the books and knew nothing about them would find this book fascinating.

Two points (of the many things I learned in this book). First is that her life was much darker and far more poverty stricken than the novels give any kind of clue about. Second is that daughter Rose became a right-wing nut case, and if she were alive today she'd be happily filling in for Laura Ingraham on Fox. What you see in this book, which I knew almost nothing about, was the roots of today's right wing, the conspiracy bullshit, the contempt of government, the total lack of awareness that the government, for all its flaws, really has helped the little people.

Rose was also a tax cheat.

Anyway, I will be recommending this book for a long time.