The 2017 All Iowa Reads selection is Bottomland by Michelle Hoover. Glenn Ehrstine, UI Associate Professor of German and International Studies will be here to lead a discussion of Bottomland and Susan Craig, ICPL Director and member of the All Iowa Reads book selection committee, will tell us how the AIR books are chosen each year.

Based on the real life story of the author's grandmother, Bottomland begins in Iowa in the wake of World War I. It follows the Hess family as they attempt to rid themselves of the Anti-German sentiment that left a stain on their name. When the youngest two daughters vanish in the middle of the night, the family must piece together what happened while struggling to maintain their live on the unforgiving Iowa Plains. '

In the weeks after Esther and Myrle's disappearance, their siblings desperately search for the sisters, combing the stark farmlands, their neighbors' houses, and the unfamiliar world of far-off Chicago. Have the girls run away to another farm? Have they gone to the city to seek a new life? Or were they abducted?

This event is part of the 2017 Adult Summer Reading Program.