5 essential books by Louise Erdrich

Louise Erdrich is the author of 15 novels, a collection of short stories, six books for children, three collections of poetry and three books of nonfiction. Here's a sample:

"Love Medicine," her first novel, was published in 1984. The opening chapter came from "The World's Greatest Fisherman," her 1979 short story about the funeral of North Dakota Indian June Kashpaw, which won the Nelson Algren Short Fiction prize. "Love Medicine" won a National Book Critics Circle Award.

"The Birchbark House," the first book in a series for children, was illustrated by Erdrich, who is also a visual artist. It follows a family in an Ojibwe community in the 1800s through the seasons, describing how they build a house, gather rice and make maple syrup. It was a finalist for the 1999 National Book Award for young people's fiction.

"Original Fire: Selected and New Poems." Erdrich might be best known as a novelist, but she won a Pushcart Prize for poetry in 1983 and was named associate poet laureate of North Dakota in 2005. "Original Fire," critic John Freeman wrote in the Star Tribune in 2003, "radiates an almost radioactive sexual heat. … Erdrich weaves desire into themes of memory, home and history — especially American Indians' history of hunting and being hunted."

"The Red Convertible: Collected and New Stories 1978-2008," her only collection of short fiction, was published in 2009. Most of Erdrich's novels began as short stories, and this book, Freeman said in the Star Tribune, is "a fascinating description of a novelist at work," although the stories stand on their own, "full of action and mystery."

"The Round House," Erdrich's second novel in the justice trilogy, is told from the point of view of a young boy who finds out his mother has been raped and who then seeks revenge. In the Star Tribune review, critic James Cihlar called it "an artfully balanced mystery, thriller and coming-of-age story." It won the National Book Award in 2012.

LAURIE HERTZEL