Minnesota Books

Louis Jenkins is a wonderful prose/poet and Sea Smoke, in my opinion is one of his best books. If you like reading about everyday life in detail that will have you nodding in agreement, then read this book. He captures each moment perfectly and very often with humour and/or irony.

My only grouse is that his books are not available in England, but thanks to Amazon I get them from the USA site.

The writers and critics who love Louis Jenkins' poems usually don't start out by saying that they are tremendously entertaining. They are. I've heard Jenkins give readings where the audience responded to him as to a stand-up comic. But the glint of humor that is present in almost every one of his prose poems shines out of his thoughtful and sometimes dark enjoyment of life.

Sea Smoke is a fine new collection of his prose poems. Take the poem "Popples." Here in Minnesota, where Louis Jenkins lives, popples, or "poplars," or "aspen," are trees as common as weeds, and we forget to look at them. Jenkins looks and listens, with a little smile: "Popples are excitable, quivering all over at the slightest hint of a breeze, full of stupid chatter, gossip, rumor, and innuendo." And he takes off from there, his impressions getting a little more bizarre: "The proletarian tree, growing, optimistic, got the kids all working, grandkids on the way."

But the comic view might miss the beauty of the popples, and Louis Jenkins doesn't: "Popples are lovely in fall when the leaves turn yellow and gold, or in winter with a new moon caught in the branches, and in spring when the rain enhances the delicate grey-green color of the bark. I wouldn't mind a view like this when I come to the bottom of the slide into old age and senility: a stand of popples judiciously framed by the bedroom window to exclude the junk car and the trash cans just to the right."

If you're curious about why Robert Bly said of Louis Jenkins, "Every generation has eight or ten good poets, and he is one of those in his generation," and why Garrison Keillor keeps bringing him back to read his poems on A Prairie Home Companion, and why one of the foremost literary critics in the U.S., Sven Birkerts, has extolled Sea Smoke and loves, as I do, the "elusive alternation of comedy and pathos" in the poems, read this book.

Bill Booth

...and I highly recommend reading it before touring Glensheen. I have toured the mansion 3 different times now - the most recent time being in September '06. It differed this time in that the guides will answer questions about the murder, yet don't elaborate. In talking to one of the guides, they found this particular book to have several errors in it... so it was not a favorite of theirs. They did not say what the errors were.

"Secrets of the Congdon Mansion" is a fast, fun read. I sure got my money's worth. I can see why this is one of Minnesota's best known murders. It feels like a game of Clue, except it's all true. This book has good villains and victims. It also also has the right mix of news and gossip. I especially enjoyed the author's behind-the-scene stories about the case, like being the only nonfamily member allowed to attend the killer's funeral. I was pleased that it was very update and included very recent events. You don't have to tour Glensheen to appreciate the tale, but if you do this book has helpful maps and diagrams of the rooms.

Perhaps more than any other individual, the paintings of Seth Eastman have become associated with the pictorial history of early Minnesota. Extremely detailed and devoid of the romanticism which often clouds later and, too frequently, lesser works, Eastman's paintings and sketches beautifully and accurately capture the landscapes and lifestyles of the Minnesota Frontier.

The written narrative offered by Boehme and Johnston provides both interesting details and a historical context which enhances the paintings. However, the true power of this book remains the illustrations themselves. Anyone interested in Minnesota history, Native American history, or American frontier and landscape artistry will find this book thoroughly enjoyable as an addition to their coffee table. For those with more than a passing interest in these subjects, this collection of Eastman's paintings provides a valuable historical resource beyond the its coffee table appeal.

Seth Eastman: A Portfolio Of North American Indians showcases fifty-six watercolor paintings by a career army officer who was assigned to frontier duty (including a seven-year stint at Fort Snelling in the 1840s). The artist was also a gifted pictorial historian of the Native Americans who was scrupulous in his accuracy of portraying the whole complex fabric of Native American dress, culture, and daily life. This outstanding compendium of his work ranges from temporary summer encampments to winter villages; courting and marriage customs; the making of maple sugar, protecting cornfields from birds, spearing fish, gathering wild rice; the menstrual lodge, how Dakota women sat, the medicine man; as well as breaking camp and traveling. Enhanced with informative, insightful, descriptive commentaries by Sara E. Boehme, Christian E. Feest, and Patricia Condon Johnston, Seth Eastman: A Portfolio Of North American Indians is a superb addition to any Native American collection and will prove to be of immense interest to students of the 19th Century American art history as well.

I picked up this book because I met Professor Doyle socially and I am into art. I particularly enjoyed her chapter on Tracey Emin and her introduction, wherein she discusses Moby Dick in decidedly non-academic terms. Most academic prose is like soap without water, but Doyle manages to get a good lather going. Her work is deep but accessible in the best way, not because it's easy, but because it actually makes you think about thinks that matter, and mean something.

You know that any book of criticism with Thomas Eakins, the notorious pornographic film "Moby Dick," Andy Warhol, Vanessa Beecroft, and Tracey Emin in it is going to be quirky. What links all of these quirky artists in this work by an associate professor of English at the U. of California-Riverside and co-author of "Pop Out: Queer Warhol" is their approaches to handling sexuality. With Eakins, the approach in his time and place of Victorian era America was subtle and ambivalent. With Warhol, the approach was ironic and often detached. With Beecroft, forward and multiplicitous. These and the other unconventional treatments of sexuality are critiqued with reference to "the queer theory that addresses the limitations of dominant (largely binary) models for sexual identity for describing our sexual lives and for understanding representations of sexual difference and sexual desire." Doyle demonstrates a sure understanding of the latest methodology and critical possibilities of queer theory.

I've been reading film criticism for two decades, from my first experiences with Bordwell `s film histories to Laura Mulvey's treatise on visual pleasure to the densely layered cinematic revelations of Deleuze. But it wasn't until I read Jeffrey Skoller's Shadows, Specters and Shards that I discovered the kind of lively, intellectually rigorous observations of a "film thinker" who allowed his adventurous imagination to tackle the sadly undervalued world of avant-garde film. As a teacher of film production and studies, I was thrilled to discover this erudite series of essays which have provided my New York University film students with a remarkable introduction to the works of contemporary experimental film artists. By describing and then interpreting their aesthetic processes, Skoller guides his reader through the political and historical dimensions of works by such illustrious makers as Ernie Gehr, Craig Baldwin, Leandro Katz, Dan Eisenberg and Zoe Beloff. If you are lucky enough to have seen these brilliant works of filmmaking, then you will find that Skoller's engaged observations will enhance your initial understanding. If you have not yet had this viewing opportunity, don't worry! Skoller provides such a vivid sound/image recounting in his analysis that your vicarious experience will prove surprisingly rewarding!

The filmmaker and associate professor of new media at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago sees that despite being "unapprehendable" though being "often sensed," the shadows, specters, and shards of the title "are nevertheless part of the energy of the past and exert themselves as a force on the present." It is the avante-garde filmmakers rather than the mainstream or conventional ones relying on narration, chronology, and cultural symbols who tap into such "unseen forces" in their films to create an "awareness of other temporalities in which linear chronologies are called into question in favor of other temporal structures such as simultaneity and virtuality." This not only better reflects the way individuals and societies are aware of history, but also reflects the innumerable heterogeneous incidents, events, personalities, tendencies, etc. which make for history and have little coherence. Skoller goes beyond analysis of the shards, etc., as characteristics of postmodern culture; and as these have often been used by writers and artists to reflect this culture or to comment on or in some cases criticize it. Skoller puts these characteristics in a useful and in some respects productive light by examining them as techniques rather than simply effects. His material is not laudatory, however; nor does it especially commend the techniques; for history does not lend itself to stable definition or complete comprehension by means of any techniques. The author is concerned mainly with noting that the shadows, specters, and shards despite their elusiveness, incompleteness, and even insubstantiality are better suited to not only recording but also conveying history. The material of the book is in large measure illustration of this central point by considering how movies by leading and influential avant-garde filmmakers such as Jean-Luc Godard, Daniel Eisenberg, Ken Jacobs, and Patricio Guzman have dealt with historical issues and material even though this has not been widely recognized or accepted.

The culmination of a lifetime of research and writing on Minnesota history, Steven Keillor's Shaping Minnesota's Identity is a most read for anyone interested in the history of Minnesota and the Mid West. Like many important historical works, it is written with style, passion and a certain sense of loss. Its focus on community formation, economics, politics and religion does great service to a state noted for sobriety, hard work and moralistic politics. As an insider, Keillor is at his best explaining the complex regional, ethnic, religious, economic and cultural divisions in Minnesota. His previous work on Minnesota's farmer cooperatives and rural farmer-Labor leader Hjalmar Peterson means that he knows (as Hubert Humphrey knew) that to reduce Minnesota to the Twin Cities leds to inevitable misunderstandings.

In spite of his academic training and close ties to many at the Minnesota Historical Society, Keillor is an independent scholar who has no cooperate or academic sponsorship. In a world of increased cooperate sponsorship of history, it is refreshing to read a work whose content has not been pre-approved by 3M, Dayton-Hudson, Cargill, or politically correct but subservient tenure conscious academics. In a thoughtful chapter aptly entitled " Marketplace Minnesota," Keillor writes that "public morality was narrowed to an economic size and shape."

It is replacement of a moral economy deeply rooted in personal religious beliefs by a morality disciplined by market forces that Keillor bemoans. It is this sense of loss that will make this one of the most read and discussed accounts of the Minnesota experience.

This little book, no doubt intended as a textbook for Minnesota college history classes, is so much fun to read that anybody will find it amusing. It's 297 pages long but the pages are smallish, the print is largish, and the reading goes fast, with many delightful anecdotes and vignettes. I loved its description of the three-candidate election of 1998 - Republican Norm Coleman was the sort who plays squash, Democrat Skip Humphrey was the sort who prefers herbal tea to coffee, professional wrestler Jesse Ventura was the sort who talks as if he was in a bar (and won the election).
It's foreshortened - fewer pages on earlier periods, fuller treatment of recent times, with World War I in the middle of the book. It leaves out altogether the prehistoric Native Americans and the age of exploration and fur trade. I don't think it treats at all the earlier women's movement and the struggle for woman suffrage, although it is good on the Minnesota case of Roe v . Wade and the role of "Minnesota Twin" Justice Blackmun in deciding the case. It finds continuity in protest movements from the Grange through the Progressive Movement and then into the Minnesota Commission on Public Safety which persecuted German-Americans and leftists during World War I. Like many state histories it details political squabbles election by election, but it is also excellent on Minnesota's diverse ethnic and religious history from 19th-century German Catholics to the sometimes polygamous Hmong.

Shepherdess is a delightful book that kept me laughing throughout, it reminds me of the James Herriots "All Things Bright and Beautiful." In this true story Joan tells of the transition from research biochemistry to shepherdess with all the changes of image, the loss of romance and the discovery of self. Tis is a great book to read aloud and share the laughter. While there is information that would be helpful for someone looking to make this transition, it' really a good read for everyone.

As my husband and I were pondering our move from City to Country Life, this book was given to us as a gift, and we found it to be an absolute joy! The short chapters make it amazingly easy to pick up for short reading spurts. Each chapter tells it's own story of Joan's sometimes hilarious, sometimes frightening, but always entertaining adventures from biochemist to shepherdess. Her willingness to poke fun at her obvious naivety regarding sheep is refreshing. Everyone we've loaned our book to has found it very entertaining. You'll be amazed at what you learn about sheep! (We now have our own flock of 25 ... be careful!)

Szasz's twofold premise is that not only is the plethora of contemporary products touted as helping improve the environment not doing all that much, but these are also diminishing the prospect that the large-scale, systematic programs and practices required for actually improving the environment will be conceived and promulgated. To bring a focus to his premise and multifaceted argument for it, Szasz reaches back to the fallout shelter phenomenon of the early 1960s. And he also points to the phenomenon of suburbanization which accelerated about that time and continued over the following few decades. These two phenomena--the first part of a government program to deal with the nuclear threat, the latter a widespread sociological movement--are ways large numbers of Americans responded to threats and concerns in their day; similarly to how large numbers of Americans are responding to environmental, ecological, and health threats these days.

The plethora of environmentally "conscious" products and practices (e. g., recycling, diet regimens) allow individuals to devise a "personal commodity bubble for one's body". While this bubble does offer genuine physical and psychological wellbeing, collectively--even considering the millions who follow similar environmentally aware lifestyles--they bring virtually no material improvement to the environment. Nor in that they bring no improvement, do they do much to conduce to better health or a better environment for the society in general.

The phenomenon of suburbanization exemplifies how individuals--mostly more affluent individual families--make choices to improve their own lives but do nothing to resolve fundamental social problems. The fallout shelter phenomenon urged by government and enthusiastically bought into by many businesses exemplifies for Szasz how major programs devised and promoted by central institutions can, like suburbanization, be a way to avoid coming to grips with a problem, in this case the environmental problems which are worsening year by year.

The way many individuals are responding individually and in some cases by communities or groups to the environmental problems is a form of "inverted quarantine" whereby they are walling themselves off from deteriorating environmental conditions instead of acting to improve the environment permanently for the good not only of their own children but for future generations and for their own society and global society. Szasz does not argue that the environmental products and the consumer choices and lifestyles developed around them should be abandoned--even as "inverted quarantines"--but that no matter the number and ingenuity of such products and increasing numbers of individuals availing themselves of them, these are "not enough". The professor of sociology at the U. of California-Santa Cruz and author of the book "EcoPopulism" tenders some specific changes in perspective on environmental issues and some specific policies for environmental improvement. Mainly though, he argues for a society-wide approach to dealing with evident and perpetuating environmental problems which can be led only by government at all levels and social policies and practices that are different from consumerism or fancy types of escapism. Only when the "fallout shelter" mentality of dealing with a problem is put aside will relevant, effective ways for dealing with environmental problems come about.

I worry about my family's health. I buy organic food, I use "green" cleaning products, and I buy bottled water. But I have always had an uncomfortable feeling that these choices were woefully inadequate to protect them and the planet we inhabit.

Reading "Shopping Our Way to Safety" showed me how my efforts are "sold" to me, along with the belief that I can protect my family by being a conscientious consumer. Szasz explains that individual consumption not only doesn't make us safer, it masks the true problems of the toxins that fill our environment. What will make a difference is when we all work together to impact policy changes to address these huge problems.

After reading the book, I notice examples of Szasz's theory of the inverted quarantine everyday. Yesterday, and I am NOT making this up, I saw a TV ad for a product that removes toxins from your body through the bottom of your feet while you sleep!

"Shopping Our Way to Safety" gave me a framework to understand how we got into this environmental mess and how we can get out of it. It is easy to read and filled with a fascinating history of how many of us came to believe that we could ignore the rest of society while imagining that we could protect ourselves. Szasz never pontificates nor slams you with dense sociological theory. He does explain the race and class dimensions of the problem and gives you plenty of sources for more information. Easy to understand.

After reading this book, I donated money to my local environmental justice group and our state-wide occupational health and safety organization. I plan to work with both of them to protect people from workplace toxins and to demand cleaner air, cleaner water, and non-toxic food and goods, not only for my family but for all of us.

If you are a Minnesota sports fan, as I am, then Sid will give you great memories of all of the major pro and college sports teams. His years of expertise and great photos will bring back a lot nostalgia. Sid is the dean of Minnesota sports coverage. A great book at a great value through Amazon.

For someone who grew up through much of these events and missed many others this book is a must-have. It is a great way to look back at the memories and learn a thing or two in the process.

An indispensable volume of Native American writing. Every library, home, and school should have a copy.

This anthology of contemporary Native women's voices is the first of its kind to weave a plethora of voices and visions together. Many great authors and works in the book. A worthwhile purchase!