Minnesota Books

Just finished listening to IMMORAL by Brian Freeman -WHAT A GREAT READ!!! I am a Machine Quilter by profession and listen to audio books while I quilt. Yesterday the machine had been long turned off and I was still tightly attached to my cordless headset. I was up until 2:00 in the morning because I just had to get to the ending. The ending took me totally by surprise - I never saw it coming.

Folks who are experiencing "Harry withdrawal" (Michael Connelly - Harry Bosch series) will not be disappointed with this book in what I hope will be a continuing series.

Jerri

I have found no better reference detailing the many genealogies of immigrants from Luxembourg to Minnesota! The reference contains countless family groups of Luxembourg immigrants and provides a rare historical perspective of this Luxembourgish-American settlement "planted on the American Midwestern frontier in the 1850s, far from a European embarkation point thousands of miles away, far from Luxembourg, that beloved sliver of soil which these immigrants never forgot."

I came across "In Cod We Trust" while working on a newsletter for a Scandinavian specialty store and was attracted to Dregni's account basically because I loved the title. After sitting down with the merchandise, I read it straight through -- fascinated because his book ultimately tells me how many Norwegian tendencies we retain in Minnesota, or, as described in his book, "Norway's colony in America."

Dregni and his wife spent a year in Trondheim, Norway, on a Fulbright fellowship. Knowing no Norwegian at all, he approached their experience as a blank canvas free of ethnic sentimentaily and preconception. And he has much to report, from encounters with taciturn neighbors to surviving the dark winter months and his requisite quest to locate his family's roots.

But he's also describing life in the Upper Midwest communities in which we grew up. Here's the key that unlocks our sometimes-mystifying hyper-humility and self-deprecating sense of humor. If you've never heard of Janteloven, the semi-satirical "laws" that keep Norwegians humble, this is the place to start.

That Eric is a terrific writer is a wonderful gift on this voyage of discovery. His stories are sharply observed, engaging and funny ... so much so that you don't even need Norwegian roots to enjoy it!

Castañeda's study goes well beyond the common anthropological focus on the "impact" of tourism on Mayan communities, instead focusing on the complicated, historical relationships between Maya actors, anthropologists, and tourists at the well know archaeological site of Chichén Itzá, and the nearby - but not so well known - Maya community of Pisté. Castañeda's study weaves together the history of anthropology in Yucatan (with a particular focus on the works of Redfield and Steggarda), tourism (including a fascinating analysis of New Age spiritualists and Aztec revivalists during the equinox at Chichén Itzá), and local Maya actors (through an analysis of their engagement with anthropologists, tourists, and the Mexican state).

This book is essential reading for anyone who cares about the future of architectural education and practice. The author, Thomas R. Fisher, now Dean of University of Minnesota's College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, goes right to the point of what is wrong with architecture today, and offers both questions for debate and answers he can support.

Always an original thinker about architecture, and well-known for his bold opinions as editor of what was the field's most important professional magazine, the now defunct Progressive Architecture, Fisher is very clear on the discipline's one big idea: "...all good architecture puts forward a proposition, whether the designer is aware of it or not, about the good life, about how we should live and what we should live for." As he would be the first to admit, many architects lose sight of this proposition, and from the general public's perspective, if architecture is supposed to be about making life better, most architects have a funny way of showing it.

Fisher is clear on what has to be done. Architecture, in its education, internships, and practice has to reconnect to what he calls a comprehensible "public fiction" of what design can do for buildings, places, and cities. He recognizes architects Le Corbusier and Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as ur-designers Charles and Ray Eames, and architectural historian Vincent Scully, as cogent, forceful advocates of strong "fictions" of how design could make life better, whether by integrating technology, by connecting to the earth and place, or by unprecedented seeing patterns and connections, can shape a world where people can live, work, and play in environments that are both functional and meaningful. Fisher calls the organizing principles of these designers' work "fictions" because declarations that "the house is a machine to live in," for example, is by no means an absolute truth, but it is a vision that yielded decades of extraordinary environments. To me, the term "narrative" or "vision," as tired as those words are, might better make the point, since "fiction" can hold the stigma of deliberate deception.

In the Scheme of Things outlines the philosophical and historical basis for past "fictions," as well as ones to come, leaning heavily on the Pragmatist work of John Dewey, and as with the recent "Pragmatist Imagination" conference at the Museum of Modern Art, he implies that this kind of enlightened utilitarianism remains the firmest ground for a discipline that has lost its way. To Fisher, if it is to find its way back, architecture will have to take communicating with the general public much more seriously, make clear that design is about solving problems, not an application of taste from a historical or avant-garde catalogue, and have to reconnect education and practice.

He is too cavalier in his dismissal of formalism-no matter how many times you say architecture is research and problem-solving, it is also about the way things look, and image and form are essential to its "problems." But his point is vital - architects need to be involved in the full life cycle of the built environment, at the beginning stage (not pushed aside while the developers and planners cut the deal), and even after construction into post-occupancy studies. In addition, he calls for an education that recognizes a macro sense of "design" that transcends the specific work of building design, and which would enable an architect to attack a problem from the most conceptual - much as Rem Koolhaas is now doing for Prada and other companies, re-conceptualizing (or at least appearing to), their entire approach. He may be right, it is certainly exciting for educators or practitioners to retool themselves as this kind of consultant. On the other hand, he may be playing into the egregious business school myth that all management and consulting skills (in this case design skills) can be applied to all businesses - which sometimes works for a company selling off its assets, but very rarely results in a better product or anything associated with an advanced notion of the good life.

In short, Fisher looks at the ecology of architecture, and without belaboring the metaphor, finds in it an unhealthy set of monocultures, not even in productive juxtaposition with one another. For some, his answers may not have enough "friction" (or enough pictures - there are none in this volume, a daring but risky choice for a book on this topic). Indeed, if there is any criticism to be made of Fisher and his editors (Engine Books, Inc., and the publisher, University of Minnesota Press), it is that he is such a clear writer, and so smoothly edited, that the reader can't always get a grip on just how challenging are his points of view, and how radical they really are for the academy and the profession.

In addition, the book may ultimately be too abstract to fully connect to the students, architects, and public that it needs to. Fisher strives to be admirably independent architecture's celebrity culture, which he sees as a bad hangover from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts tradition, yet at the same time it is "stars" who are the greatest advocates, today, of sustaining a "public fiction" for architecture - with Andres Duany and his New Urbanism movement calling for stability and order and safe streets in one corner and Rem Koolhaas and his acolytes calling for "metropolitan" excitement, change, and opportunity in the other. Perhaps Fisher believes that neither one has a fiction that is good enough to report on at length, or that they are so over-reported as personalities that it is time to focus on the real content of the debate (he does cite Duany briefly). Fine, he is intellectually right, but in the battle for the hearts and minds of architecture, the star system will be with us well into the new century - dealing with it is, yet again, a design problem, and Fisher may well find a way.

Zempel's work in compiling and translating this book of letters is a tribute to the Norwegian immigrant experience. Through these letters one discovers the great hardship and great joy brought to these individuals who in many circumstances travelled great distances on their own. Thank you for bringing insight to my own families experience through the voices of those who had the courage to venture before.

The Independence Party And The Future Of Third-Party Politics: Adventures And Opinions Of An IP Senate Candidate is the memoir and personal testimony of William McGaughey, who ran for the U.S. Senate on behalf of the same party that backed Minnesota's former governor, Jesse Ventura. Very highly recommended reading for Political Science students, as well as political activists of all parties and reform movements, The Independence Party And The Future Of Third-Party Politics offers a thoughtful and thought-provoking "insider view" of the wheels of contemporary American politics and offers a persuasive rationale behind the motivational struggle for political change.

This was a great book and everything! I bet everybody would like this book. I loved every single part in it. This book had alot of funny parts in it and some parts are mystrious & mischeivess. I would recommend this book to anyone.

Research report writer Kathy Davis Graves contributed to the creation of an up-to-date fifth edition of Elizabeth Ebott's solid reference, Indians in Minnesota, a fact-filled reference guide for researchers and professionals of all walks who need to twenty-first century demographics concerning Minnesota's Native American population of more than fifty-four thousand. Indians in Minnesota draws from hundreds of interviews from tribal members, data from the 2000 Minnesota Census, federal and state reports, and more. Covering both historical and contemporary understand of Minnesota's Native Americans, living on and off reservations, and addressing the significant changes and challenges of the twenty-first century, Indians of Minnesota is a highly accessible, informative, and insightful compendium. "With tribes rapidly increasing their powers and abilities to control their own environments, it is important that non-Indians understand and accept differing views of how to deal with natural resources. As one Indian leader said, 'We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we rent it from our children.'"

I didn't think that when I applied for a job at Burger King (in order to sneak a peek at some of their baffling culinary secrets) that I would be given a Rorschach inkblot test.

But thanks to this book I was prepared. I knew enough that I was able to give the answers to the blots that give the impression of being headstrong and reliable. (As my wife can tell you about my adventures with chili powder, the truth is a little different!) Anyway, since I had the knowledge down, I was actually able to convince them that because of my personality type, I NEVER used the bathroom at work. The only problem with that, of course, is that you have to live up to it. That made for some painful moments, but thankfully no "inkblots" (or maybe "stinkblots", ha ha) in my shorts. And it was only a couple of weeks before I sussed out the Whopper Jr.

So this book has all the information you need, and you just might need it. Highly recommended.