"When you read Ted Kooser's Local Wonders, you question where he's been all these years. He'd probably tell you he's been right here, amidst all of us, working the simplicity of words, the clarity of insights. What he wouldn't tell you is that he has the quiet ability to sneak beneath your skin and ripple it ever so slightly. . . . Set back in the hills of southeastern Nebraska-the Bohemian Alps-Kooser's book doesn't venture far geographically but travels great distances along the lengths of wisdom. . . . Kooser is a poet by nature, and his essays have the generous feel of a man who's rolled up his sleeves, pen in hand, for a long time, choosing words as an act of beauty, and knowing the small things of the world are of great import."--The Bloomsbury Review

"A quietly eloquent diary of a year in a small town in Nebraska. . . . This is a heartfelt plainspoken book about slowing down and appreciating the world around you. . . . Maybe it's exactly the feeling your friends, even you, are looking for."--New York Times book critic Janet Maslin on CBS News Sunday Morning

"Eloquent meditations on country pleasures, the rhythms of the seasons and the lingering presence of Czech folk culture in rural Nebraska."--Dan Cryer, Newsday

"Clear, generous, and imaginative, Local Wonders increases the sum of the world's best goods."--Patrice Koelsch, Speakeasy

"Through his eyes we learn to see, then appreciate, the beauty and grace in everyday miracles, the comfort and sanctity in local wonders."--Booklist

"Local Wonders should be read and reread. It is a treasure, like the ripe wild plums Mr. Kooser, a retired insurance executive, picks along rural Nebraska roadsides."--Dan Barber, Dallas Morning News

"In this elegaic volume of four chapters, National Poet Laureate Kooser shares with the reader a lifetime of observations about home, familiy, and land distlled into a series of sometimes sparkling, other times electrifying, and always engaging scenes that read like a poet's diary."--Mark Easter, Colorado Review

"Reading Ted Kooser's Local Wonders, I feel like I've wandered into another world, a place where the past endures--broken down a little, it's true--and where the present contains enough room to pay attention to the people and the countryside around you. This is simple, patient prose, the annotations of living in a wide-open place."--Verlyn Klinkenborg

"Ted Kooser's Local Wonders is the quietest magnificent book I've ever read."--Jim Harrison, author of Legends of the Fall