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August PICKS
Red Sky in Morning
by Patrick Culhane
Iowa native Ensign Peter Maxwell longs for action after two years of leading the Navy choir after being called up from the reserves following Pearl
Harbor. He gets a new posting on the USS Liberty Hill, stationed at San Francisco’s Port Chicago, but his new captain has no respect for junior officers like Peter and even less for the African-Americans who make up his crew. Despite tensions between captain and crew, a two-week shakedown cruise goes well. When the ship returns to San Francisco, however, Port Chicago is blown up and Liberty’s second in command is murdered. There is an enemy within, and Maxwell will do everything to stop him, including putting himself on the front line of danger.
The Man in the Blizzard
by Bart Schneider
This tongue-in-cheek little crime novel takes place shortly before the Republican National Convention comes to St. Paul. Twin Cities pothead private eye Augie Boyer is out of sorts. He’s been smoking too much Ponchartrain Pootie, expanding his waistline with too much fried food, thinking too much about his ex-wife, suffering from a dismal testosterone level, and grousing about the current Republican governor’s vetoes and blatant right-wing favoritism. When Augie discovers a plot to kill three abortion doctors in connection with a Neo-Nazi-funded “Labor Day” anti-abortion rally on the state capitol grounds, he rallies his troops – a St. Paul detective who’s a rabid poetry evangelist; a suave black-Irish code master, and Blossom, his spike-haired ex-con assistant. The plot thickens by the minute, Augie’s radical songwriter/singer daughter arrives for a counter-rally, and danger comes ever closer……
Stalking Susan
by Julie Kramer
Television reporter Riley Spartz is recovering from a heartbreaking, headline-making catastrophe of her own when a longtime police source drops two homicide files in her lap in the back of a dark movie theater. Both cold cases involve women named Susan strangled on the same day, one year apart. Last seen alive in one of Minneapolis’s poorest neighborhoods, their bodies are each dumped in one of the city’s wealthiest areas. Riley senses a pattern between those murders and others pulled from a computer database of old death records. She must broadcast a warning soon, especially to viewers named Susan, because the deadly anniversary is approaching.
July PICKS
Undiscovered Country
by Lin Enger
Review of Undiscovered Country by Sally Wills
The book opens with seventeen year old Jesse Matson in a tree stand in November. When he heard a shot just before dusk, Jesse raced to his dad’s tree stand, finding his father dead, apparently from a self-inflicted rifle shot.
In the months which followed, Jesse tried to keep his family together and functioning, while struggling with his father’s death and issues of betrayal and justice. What did his father’s brother Clay, suddenly very attentive to Jesse’s mom, know about his father’s death?
This beautifully written book is a re-telling of the Hamlet story in contemporary Minnesota. I highly recommend it!
Abbeville
by Jack Fuller
Until the dot.com bubble burst, George Bailey never gave much thought to why his grandfather seemed so happy. But then George’s wealth vanished, rocking his self-confidence, threatening his family’s security and making his adolescent son’s difficult life even more painful. Returning to the little Central Illinois farm town of Abbeville, where his grandfather had prospered and then fallen into ruin, flattened during the Depression, George seeks out the details of this man’s rise, fall, and spiritual rebirth, hoping he might find a way to recover himself. Abbeville sweeps through the history of late-19th through early-21st century America—among loggers stripping the North Woods bare, at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with French soldiers at the Battle of Verdun, into the abyss of the Depression, and finally toward the new millennium’s own nightmares. At the same time it examines life at its most intimate. How can one hold onto meaning amidst the brutally indifferent cycles of war and peace, flood and drought, boom and bust, life and death?
So Long at the Fair
by Christina Schwarz
The bestselling author of Drowning Ruth returns to small-town Wisconsin. As in Drowning Ruth, Schwarz weaves past and present into a richly textured portrait of the secrets and deceptions that simmer beneath everyday life in a small Midwestern town. In the summer of 1963 a plot for revenge destroys a career, a friendship, and a family. The consequences of the scandalous event continue to reverberate, touching the next generation. Thirty years later, over the course of one day, Jon struggles to decide whether to end his affair or his marriage. His wife, Ginny, moving closer to discovering his adultery, begins working for an older man who is mysteriously connected to their families’ pasts. And Jon’s mistress is being courted by a suitor who may be mo re menacing than he initially seems. As relationships among the characters ebb and flow on that July day, Christina Schwarz illuminates the ties that bind people together—and the surprising risks they take in the name of love.
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June PICKS
Crazy Good: The True Story of Dan Patch,
the Most Famous Horse in America
by Charles Leerhsen
A hundred years ago, the most famous athlete in America was a horse. But Dan Patch was more than a sports star; he was a cultural icon in the days before the automobile. Born crippled and unable to stand, he was nearly euthanized. For a while, he pulled the grocer's wagon in his hometown of Oxford, Indiana. But when he was entered in a race at the county fair, he won — and he kept on winning. He became the first celebrity sports endorser; his name appeared on breakfast cereals, washing machines, cigars, razors, and sleds. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, was making $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was earning over a million dollars. Dan's original owner was intimidated into selling him, and America's favorite horse spent the second half of his career touring the country in a plush private railroad car and putting on speed shows for crowds that sometimes exceeded 100,000 people. But the automobile cooled America's romance with the horse, and by the time he died in 1916, Dan was all but forgotten. His last owner, a Minnesota entrepreneur gone bankrupt, buried him in an unmarked grave. His achievements have faded, but throughout the years, a faithful few kept alive the legend of Dan Patch, and in Crazy Good, Charles Leerhsen travels through their world to bring back to life this fascinating story of triumph and treachery in small-town America and big-city racetracks (Simon & Schuster). $26
Shelter Half: A Novel
by Carol Bly
“A young woman's body lay undisturbed for a week in mid-November.” So begins Shelter Half, a novel about a few people in a northern Minnesota town. Some of them-the town cop, the doctor, and a young couple in love-are smart enough to recognize cruelty that comes at them from huge organizations far outside the town limits. They are not chicken. They don't duck. If their nation and their world look grisly, they still do what they can for love and justice. They look out for one another. In the end, a retired US Brigadier General brings them a surprise about one of their best-loved townspeople. (Holy Cow! Press / Consortium). $15.95
Julia Gillian (And the Art of Knowing)
by Alison McGhee
Ten-year-old Julia Gillian knows everything about her quirky neighbors, her Minneapolis neighborhood, even the inscrutable "claw machine" in the back of the corner hardware store. The one thing Julia Gillian doesn't know is how the book she's reading is going to end. It doesn't seem as if it's going to have a happy ending, and that scares her. But Julia learns a little something about fear: sometimes you just have to work through it. And though bad things do happen sometimes, having good friends and family around you makes life a bit less scary - and much more fun. (Scholastic Press) $15.99
Savvy
by Ingrid Law
Mississippi Beaumont (“Mibs”) is about to turn 13. For generations, the Beaumont family has harbored a magical secret. They each possess a “savvy”, a special supernatural power that strikes when they turn thirteen. Grandpa Bomba moves mountains, Mibs’ older brothers create hurricanes and spark electricity. Now it’s the eve of Mibs’ big day. As if waiting weren’t hard enough, the family gets scary news two days before Mibs’ birthday: Poppa has been in a terrible accident. Mibs decides to get to the hospital, 60 miles from home, and prove that her new power, yet to be revealed, can save her dad. So she sneaks onto a pink bible salesman’s bus, only to find the bus heading in the wrong direction. Suddenly Mibs finds herself on a journey that will force her to make sense of growing up and of other people, who might also have a few secrets hidden just beneath the skin. (Dial Press Books for Young Readers / Penguin Group). $16.99 |
May PICKS
Sun Going Down
by Jack Todd
Sun Going Down follows the fortunes of Ebenezer Paint and his descendants — rough and tough individuals who are caught up in Civil War river battles, epic cattle drives through drought and blizzards, the horrors of Wounded Knee, the desperation of the dust bowl, and the prosperity of the roaring 1920s. A vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters peoples the page-turning plot: a grizzled Mississippi steamboat merchant, two horse-thieving brothers, five Annie Oakley-like sisters who can outride any cowboy, a half-Sioux bride who demands her new family claim her heritage, and a courageous daughter who defies her father and braves the West alone. Throughout their lives, the Paint family must battle both internal and external elements, and learn to live with spirit and wit. (Simon & Schuster $26).
Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg
by Geoff Herbach
Having destroyed his life, the suicidal T. Rimberg strikes out on a journey through history and geography. From Minneapolis to Europe to a fiery accident near Green Bay, he searches for a father who is likely dead, digs for meaning where he’s sure there is none, fires off suicide letters to family, celebrities, presidents, and football stars, and lands in a hospital bed across from a priest who believes that Rimberg has caused a miracle. This funny, moving novel asks us to consider the nature of second chances and the unexpected form that grace sometimes takes. (Random House $14).
River of Heaven
by Lee Martin
On an April evening in 1955, Dewey died on the railroad tracks outside Mt. Gilead, Illinois, and the mystery of his death still confounds the people of this small town. River of Heaven begins some fifty years later and centers on the story of Dewey’s boyhood friend Sam Brady, whose solitary adult life is much formed by what really went on in the days leading up to that evening at the tracks. It’s a story he’d do anything to keep from telling, but when his brother, Cal, returns to Mt. Gilead after decades of self-exile, it threatens to come to the surface. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Bright Forever, Lee Martin masterfully conveys, with a voice that is at once distinct and lyrical, one man’s struggle to come to terms with the outcome of his life. Powerful and captivating, River of Heaven is about the high cost of living a lie, the chains that bind us to our past, and the obligations we have to those we love. (Random House, $24).
So Brave, Young, and Handsome
by Leif Enger
This is the new novel by the author ofPeace Like a River, and it was so worth the wait!! I’ve already ranted about this book in two previous newsletters, so I’ll resist the urge to do it again, but this really is a fabulous book.
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APRIL PICKS
The Sorrows of an American
by Siri Hustvedt
In The Sorrows of an American, Siri Hustvedt deals with our lives when they are jolted by death. The mysteries that are uncovered sometimes are without answers, the people we thought we knew in life turn out to be different, and the impact of others’ lives on our own is unpredictable. There are two major deaths in the book, of a parent and a spouse, but she also examines other deaths, those of relationships and ideals.
“Hustvedt creates characters of varied ages and both genders who are all struggling with perceptions and realities. The reader is drawn into their world from the first page. This is not a bleak novel, however. Throughout we are inspired by not only the frailties of human nature, but the overwhelming resilience of spirit. Ultimately this is a story of heroes both dead and living.
—Sue Zumberge, Common Good Books, Saint Paul
The Latehomecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir
by Kao Kalia Yang
This is the best account of the Hmong experience I’ve ever read —powerful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable.
—Anne Fadiman
My grandparents emigrated to the United States from Poland when they were 12 and 17, and I grew up hearing stories about their early life in this country. My dad told of poverty, of entering school without being able to speak English, and of his parents' attempts to retain their culture while working towards citizenship.
Kao Kalia Yang relates similar stories in The Latecomer. It's good to be reminded that the heritage as immigrants that many of us share has common themes, regardless of ethnic group or country of origin.
However, most immigrants, including my grandparents, had an "old country." Hmong immigrants such as Yang and her family, left no old country behind. As an ethnic minority, they have a history of moving from place to place, never really belonging. When they came to the United States after fighting of the side of the United States in the secret war in Indo-China, they were looking for a place to call home.
In The Latecomer, Yang relates the story of their journey. Her beautifully written account—sometimes humorous, often touching—gives important insights into the Hmong experience.
—Sally Wizik Wills, Sister Wolf Books
Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships
by John T. Price
John Price’s memoir is a powerful inquiry into what it means to be a Midwesterner. In a style that replicates the laconic surface and passionate undercurrents of that region, he has fashioned not only a personal story, but a powerful evocation of the land and its European immigrant families.
— Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist’s Daughter
Grounded in place in the great grasslands of the Midwest, John Price’s large-hearted memoir is nevertheless a story that knows no boundaries.
Kinship is the thread that runs throughout, with creatures in his back yard and in the wild, with Swedish ancestors, with neighbors, with the Midwestern prairies, and with his wife and children. Often smiling at the earthly absurdity of ordinary life, and at other moments resonant with both joy and sorrow, Man Killed by Pheasant and Other Kinships bears poignant witness to the bonds that link us all.
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MARCH PICKS
Charlatan: America's Most Dangerous Huskster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flimflam
by Pope Brock
I’ve never had so much fun reading non-fiction as I did reading Charlatan. When I first picked up the book, I was expecting something along the lines of Boyle’s Road to Wellville, but as I read on, it was not Boyle’s Dr. Kellogg that I kept thinking of, but Rasputin. Like Rasputin, 'Dr.' Brinkley, the charlatan, failed to be destroyed for years, and while conducting what could be characterized as evil, Brinkley managed to throw in religion, as Rasputin did. Charlatan is one of the most entertaining books, fiction and non-fiction, I’ve had the pleasure of reading.
—Jennifer Wills Geraedts, Beagle Books
Eight Women, Two Model Ts, and
the American West
by Joanne Wilke
Joanne Wilke writes lovingly about her grandmother and seven other women traveling across the west in 1924 ‘without a man or a gun along.’ The author fleshes out the story of these adventurous women by alternately telling her own story of growing up with such role models. This readable journey is a glimpse into a time and place long gone and a testament to the legacy passed on by the strong women who traveled through them.
—Beagle Book's Cindie
The Gollywhopper Games
by Jody Feldman
The game is about to begin, and readers can compete alongside Gil Goodson and his fellow contestants in the Gollywhopper Games, sponsored by the Golly Toy and Game Company. A million dollars is the prize, but for Gil it goes much deeper. His father’s been unjustly accused of embezzling from the Golly Company, so Gil wants to clear his dad's name—then use the money to move as far away as he can get. This is a well-written story with great characters and an interactive element. Kids of all ages will enjoy and learn from THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES. So, are you ready—to win?
—Vicki Erwin, Main Street Books, St Charles MO
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