The Heart of Things

Join Hildebrand, month-by-month, as he reflects on the people he meets, the creatures he sees, the flowers he smells, and the events he experiences. The essays offer a year-long exploration of the interconnected layers of geography, seasons, and culture, while finding humor and depth in the everyday life of the Midwest.

“In the tradition of Annie Dillard and Aldo Leopold, the elegant chapters of John Hildebrand’s The Heart of Things comprise a spiritual autobiography set forth in terms of nature and community. Full of peace and notice and quiet moral authority, this beautiful book demonstrates what it means to pick a world and become a citizen of it.”

—Lorrie Moore, New York Times bestselling author of A Gate at the Stairs and Bark

“John Hildebrand’s The Heart of Things is a warm, wise, and winsome book. As an almanac it succeeds in beautifully defining Wisconsin’s dramatic seasons and natural environment. But just as Aldo Leopold’s almanac was much more than the sum of its parts, Hildebrand deftly observes, celebrates, and even critiques what it means to be a 21st-century Wisconsinite (and human). . . . This is a book to love now and return to months or years later, so profound are the perceptions found within.”

—Nickolas Butler, author of the novel Shotgun Lovesongs and the short story collection The Chainsaw Soiree

“This work is not just heartwarming; it is also instructive. A celebrated creative writer, Hildebrand . . . not only understands the Midwest and makes it understandable to those who do not live here, but he also teaches Midwesterners to be curious about and reflect on the rich meanings of their own lives. He conveys the honest emotions that are the heart of things.”

—Barbara J. Dilly, The Annals of Iowa

“Where The Heart of Things could easily veer into sentimentality, Hildebrand brings his prose back down to earth. . . . Emotional and restrained, humorous and solemn, open-minded and opinionated, this book is as complex and charming as the Midwest itself.

—Elizabeth Wyckoff, Wisconsin People & Ideas

“What impresses me most about The Heart of Things is Hildebrand’s power of observation, especially in those passages dealing with the natural world—the vivid details with which he describes something as surprising as a snapping turtle in the road, for example, or as commonplace as lilacs in a field; from the intricate patterns of deer or dobsonflies to fishing, before it ‘became a branch of applied electronics.’”

—Mark Vinz, Middle West Review

“[A] beautiful book that I think every Wisconsinite should consider reading. With little fanfare and tons and tons of beautiful adjectives, Hildebrand shares his journeys of being so present in the moment I found it hard to stop reading...It's what brings this book together, the weaving of sight and sound, of water dripping off oars, eagle's wings taking flight, of a river flowing away, how the horizon sits low and hope is found in every sunrise.”

—Jay Gilbertson, Dunn County News