Sign-In
Cart
If You Lived Here You'd Be Home by Now: Why We Traded the Commuting Life for a Little House on the Prairie
Paperback
Biographies GeneralGeneral SociologyMidwest
ISBN13: 9780062861481
Publisher: Harper Paperbacks
Published: Sep 15 2020
Pages: 288
Weight: 0.50
Height: 0.90 Width: 5.20 Depth: 7.90
Language: English
An NPR Best Book of the Year
The hilarious, charming, and candid story of writer Christopher Ingraham's decision to uproot his life and move his family to Red Lake Falls, Minnesota, population 1,400--the community he made famous as the worst place to live in America in a story he wrote for the Washington Post.
Like so many young American couples, Chris Ingraham and his wife Briana were having a difficult time making ends meet as they tried to raise their twin boys in the East Coast suburbs. One day, Chris - in his role as a data guy reporter at the Washington Post - stumbled on a study that would change his life. It was a ranking of America's 3,000+ counties from ugliest to most scenic. He quickly scrolled to the bottom of the list and gleefully wrote the words The absolute worst place to live in America is (drumroll please) ... Red Lake County, Minn. The story went viral, to put it mildly.
Among the reactions were many from residents of Red Lake County. While they were unflappably polite - it's not called Minnesota Nice for nothing - they challenged him to look beyond the spreadsheet and actually visit their community. Ingraham, with slight trepidation, accepted. Impressed by the locals' warmth, humor and hospitality - and ever more aware of his financial situation and torturous commute - Chris and Briana eventually decided to relocate to the town he'd just dragged through the dirt on the Internet.
If You Lived Here You'd Be Home by Now is the story of making a decision that turns all your preconceptions - good and bad -- on their heads. In Red Lake County, Ingraham experiences the intensity and power of small-town gossip, struggles to find a decent cup of coffee, suffers through winters with temperatures dropping to forty below zero, and unearths some truths about small-town life that the coastal media usually miss. It's a wry and charming tale - with data! -- of what happened to one family brave enough to move waaaay beyond its comfort zone
Also in
Biographies General
Bluesland: Portraits of Thirteen Major American Blues Masters
Pete Welding (ED.)
Toby Byron (ED.)
Hardcover
Karl Popper - The Formative Years, 1902 1945: Politics and Philosophy in Interwar Vienna
Hacohen, Malachi Haim
Hardcover
The Children of Athena: Greek Intellectuals in the Age of Rome: 150 Bc0-400 AD
Freeman, Charles
Hardcover
Make It a Double: From Wretched to Wondrous: Tales of One Woman's Lifelong Discovery of Whisky
Sackier, Shelley
Hardcover
The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race
Isaacson, Walter
Hardcover
Agents of Chaos: Thomas King Forçade, High Times, and the Paranoid End of the 1970s
Howe, Sean
Hardcover
An Enemy Such as This: Larry Casuse and the Fight for Native Liberation in One Family on Two Continents Over Three Centuries
Correia, David
Hardcover
Better Living Through Birding: Notes from a Black Man in the Natural World
Cooper, Christian
Hardcover
Florence Kelley and the Nation's Work: The Rise of Womens Political Culture, 1830-1900
Sklar, Kathryn Kish
Paperback
The Secret Life of the Savoy: Glamour and Intrigue at the World's Most Famous Hotel
Williams, Olivia
Paperback
The Devil's Diary: Alfred Rosenberg and the Stolen Secrets of the Third Reich
Kinney, David
Wittman, Robert K.
Paperback
The Badger: The Life of Bernard Hinault and the Legacy of French Cycling
Fotheringham, William
Paperback
Seafaring Women: Adventures of Pirate Queens, Female Stowaways, and Sailors' Wives
Cordingly, David
Paperback
Living with a Wild God: A Nonbeliever's Search for the Truth about Everything
Ehrenreich, Barbara
Paperback
The Butcher, the Embezzler, and the Fall Guy: A Family Memoir of Scandal and Greed in the Meat Industry
Cherington, Gretchen
Paperback
My Own Devices: True Stories from the Road on Music, Science, and Senseless Love
Dessa Wander
Hardcover
Nobody's Girl: A Memoir of Surviving Abuse and Fighting for Justice
Giuffre, Virginia Roberts
Hardcover
How to Be Okay When Nothing Is Okay: Tips and Tricks That Kept Me Alive, Happy, and Creative in Spite of Myself
Lawson, Jenny
Hardcover
Dangerous, Dirty, Violent, and Young: A Fugitive Family in the Revolutionary Underground
Dohrn, Zayd Ayers
Hardcover
Catch the Devil: A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
Colloff, Pamela
Hardcover
A Walk in the Park: The True Story of a Spectacular Misadventure in the Grand Canyon
Fedarko, Kevin
Paperback
Family of Spies: A World War II Story of Nazi Espionage, Betrayal, and the Secret History Behind Pearl Harbor
Kuehn, Christine
Hardcover