Lake of the Ozarks

Before the Lake of the Ozarks became a punchline or a prestige-TV backdrop, it was a middle-class Midwestern vacation mecca of man-made beaches and novelty souvenirs. Bill Geist spent his high school and college summers there working every job at his uncle's small resort, from cesspool duty to bellhop, surrounded by a cast of eccentric locals and guests.

Written with the wry, observational humor Geist later brought to the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and CBS Sunday Morning, the memoir traces how those formative summers — just before Vietnam and a changing America — shaped the writer he became.