A government program, in which women are brought west as brides for the Cheyenne, is May Dodd's vehicle for her journey into the unknown. What follows is the story of May's adventures: her marriage to Little Wolf, her conflict of being caught between two worlds, loving two men, and living two lives.

A wealthy and depressed man bound for Christmas in Hawaii is abruptly summoned home to North Dakota. He arrives just in time to be trapped there by a blizzard. During his stay, he reaches an epiphany worthy of the season and resolves to simplify his life.

When William loses his job and his wife on the same cold February day, he is struck by inspiration: A man who couldn't make things go right could at least go. He could quit trying to get out of the way of life. Chuck routine. Live the real jeopardy of circumstance. It was a question of dignity.

Driving cross-country in a van named Ghost Dancing, Heat-Moon (the name the Sioux give to the moon of midsummer nights) meets up with all manner of folk, from a man in Grayville, Illinois, "whose cap told me what fertilizer he used" to Scott Chisholm, "a Canadian citizen ... [who] had lived in this country longer than in Canada and liked the United States but wouldn't admit it for fear of having to pay off bets he made years earlier when he first 'came over' that the US is a place no Canadian could ever love."

Grange, Florida, is famous for its miracles: the weeping fiberglass Madonna, the Road-Stain Jesus, the stigmata man. Now it has JoLayne Lucks, unlikely winner of the state lottery.

Unfortunately, JoLayne's winning ticket isn't the only one. The other belongs to Bodean Gazzer and his raunchy sidekick, Chub, who believe they're entitled to the whole $28 million jackpot, and they need it quickly, to start their own underground militia before NATO troops invade America.

JoLayne Lucks has her own plans for the Lotto money: an Eden-like forest in Grange must be saved from strip-malling. When Bode and Chub brutally assault her and steal her ticket, JoLayne vows to track them down, take it back, and get revenge. The only one who can help is Tom Krome, a big-city investigative journalist now bitterly consigned to writing frothy features for a midsized central Florida newspaper. With a persuasive nudge from JoLayne, Krome is about to become part of a story that's bigger and more bizarre than anything he's ever covered.

Chasing two heavily armed psychopaths down the coast of Florida is reckless enough, but Tom's got other problems: the murderous attention of a jealous judge; an actress wife who turns fugitive to avoid divorce court; an editor who speaks in tongues; and Tom's own growing fondness for the future millionairess with whom he's risking his neck. The pursuit takes them from the surreal streets of Grange to a buzzard-infested island deep in Florida Bay, where they finally catch up with the fledgling militia. The climax explodes with the hilarious mayhem that is Carl Hiaasen's hallmark.

Sarah Vowell takes us on a road trip like no other, a journey to the pit stops of American political murder and through the myriad ways they have been used for fun and profit, for political and cultural advantage. From Buffalo to Alaska, Washington to the Dry Tortugas, Vowell visits locations immortalized and influenced by the spilling of politically important blood, reporting as she goes with her trademark blend of wisecracking humor, remarkable honesty, and thought-provoking criticism.

The mythic village of Macondo lies in northern Columbia, somewhere in the great swamps between the mountains and the coast. Founded by Jose Arcadio Buendia, his wife Ursula, and nineteen other families, "It was a truly happy village where no one was over thirty years of age and where no one had died..." at least initially.