Minnesota Books

Spendid coverage of most Red Wing dinnerware. Separated by years, it shows pictures and prices of individual pieces. Indexed by line and pattern, there is a picture guide to lead you to the pattern you are looking for. Easy to glance through to look for patterns. A must for the Red Wing buyer and seller. Don't make a deal without it. Reiss is the best.

Spendid coverage of most Red Wing dinnerware. Separated by years, it shows pictures and prices of individual pieces. Indexed by line and pattern, there is a picture guide to lead you to the pattern you are looking for. Easy to glance through to look for patterns. A must for the Red Wing buyer and seller. Don't make a deal without it.

This book is great because it moves beyond the usual "war story" things about combat and big military maneuvers and shared not only stories of combat veterans, but the WWII experiences of wartime nurses or family members back home or even one woman who was living in Hiroshima when the bomb was dropped. Well-written and a great read!

I picked up this book after reading his other book about POWs in WWII (Long Hard Road: American POWs During WWII). I TOTALLY recommend that book!

With so many books on World War Two on the market, this one sets itself apart by the vivid recollections of men and women who lived through the 1941-45 years. Some were in uniform, and others were on the Home Front, but no matter who they were their experiences come to life in this book.
The chapter on combat experiences is especially good, and the final chapter, where those interviewed have a chance to reflect back on what it all meant, is also strong. The subtitle may be 'Minnesota's Greatest Generation,' but these oral histories help tell everyone's stories. The numerous period photos give readers a chance to 'meet' the speakers.

When I was in college I read a collected edition of the poems of Robert Lowell and its pages amazed me. They were like nothing I'd ever read before. I was completely inspired, but knew that his genius was something one could not easily approach. It's actually a good feeling though because it's nice to be reminded of the heights to which we can aspire. That being said I knew very little about the specifics of his life apart from the fact that he had experienced several breakdowns and spent time in a mental hospital.

The brilliance of Lowell's poetry is what caused me to purchase Hamilton's biography. Mr. Hamilton is an outstanding writer in his own right and this is a finely crafted narrative. Some readers may not appreciate this author's extensive use of primary source materials, but I think it's a strength overall. Allowing those who knew the man to give their accounting--via private letters and published works--provides readers with the most telling portrait of a subject's life and times. Length wise this volume was perfect.

As far as Lowell goes, this narrative (which is the truth) thoroughly knocks him off the pedestal. He spent a good bit of his life paralyzed by mental illness and was a burden to both friends and family. His is an ugly tale. His relationships were a horror show and Lowell was very lucky that he kept the associations he did given his bizarre and occasionally malicious behavior. Hamilton's biography also has value as a testament to the growth of modern psychiatry. How easy it is to forget that only a few decades ago bipolar disorder was a thoroughly debilitating illness one often leading to imprisonment, confinement in an institution, and an early death. Thank God for lithium along with all the drugs that have evolved in the time since.

This book, in addition to being a well written and entertaining biography, can give insight into the complexities of having a family member with Manic Depression.

I bought this book because I was aiming to know more about Japanese cyberpunk, and I have not read through all the essays but the ones I have read are fantastic--informative but not too dense to be readable; I was thrilled to find a measured, academic article about something usually so removed from intelligent analysis as otaku/yaoi subculture. Aside from that, the bibliographies are tremendously informative in themselves, they pointed me to many other good sources (although not all of them are in English). I like this book too for treating with such depth and breadth Japanese science fiction in general, which tends to be reduced to a few popular anime and manga. Overall this is a great (and very welcome) essay collection.

The full table of contents for this book is as follows:

INTRODUCTION
by Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery-Ronay, Jr., and Takayuki Tatsumi

PART I--PROSE SCIENCE FICTION

Chapter 1. Horror and Machines in Prewar Japan: The Mechanical Uncanny in Yumeno Kyûsaku's Dogura magura
by Miri Nakamura

Chapter 2. Has the Empire Sunk Yet?--The Pacific in Japanese Science Fiction
by Thomas Schnellbächer

Chapter 3. Alien Spaces and Alien Bodies in Japanese Women's Science Fiction
by Kotani Mari (Translated by Miri Nakamura)

Chapter 4. SF as Hamlet: Science Fiction and Philosophy
by Azuma Hiroki (Translated by Miri Nakamura)

Chapter 5. Tsutsui Yasutaka and the Multimedia Performance of Authorship
by William O. Gardner

PART II--SCIENCE FICTION ANIMATION

Chapter 6. When the Machines Stop: Fantasy, Reality and Terminal Identity in Neon Genesis Evangelion and Serial Experiments Lain
by Susan J. Napier

Chapter 7. The Mecha's Blind Spot: Patlabor 2 and the Phenomenology of Anime
by Christopher Bolton

Chapter 8. Words of Alienation, Words of Flight: Loanwords in Science Fiction Anime
by Naoki Chiba and Hiroko Chiba

Chapter 9. Sex and the Single Cyborg: Japanese Popular Culture Experiments in Subjectivity
by Sharalyn Orbaugh

Chapter 10. Invasion of the Women Snatchers: The Problem of A-Life and the Uncanny in Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
by Livia Monnet

Chapter 11. Otaku Sexuality
by Saitô Tamaki (with an introduction by Kotani Mari)

Afterword. A Very Soft Time Machine: From Translation to Transfiguration
by Takayuki Tatsumi

Dean's book brought back many great memories of when I lived in Rochester; the beautiful sights, the fun places to go, the basic flavor of this great midwestern city. His abilities with the camera are wonderful, thanks for providing Rochester fans with a priceless souvenir!

For anyone who has visited, lived in or is currently living in Rochester, MN, Dean's book is a beautiful keepsake to remember the beauty of the city. An update of Rochester: The Images, this book is really much more of a entirely new book with a wider range of pictures and informative captions (along with a history of the city).
Dean's has an amazing ability to capture the beauty in everything the city has to offer - from the Mayo Clinic to the Plummer House. Its a beautiful book and a worthy addition to anybody's library.

Having lived in Rochester for a time, I know that Dean has effectively captured the essence of the city with this book of photographs. Everything here could be framed and put on my living room wall. Looking through this book makes it seem as though I still live there. Great work!

A fantastic collection of images of the city of Rochester. Whether you were just a visitor to the city or are a lifelong resident of the community, Riggott's book captures the beauty of the city in page after page. The images are beautiful, timeless and are perfect memories of the incredible city.

The author has done an incredible job covering the history of this area in Minnesota. The book was great to read and very informative.

This book is filled with wonderful photos of all the original settlers of this rural Minnesota community. There are many facts and stories to go along with the images throughout the book.

I recommend this for anyone who wants to know more about the community they live in or if you aren't from the area, you will enjoy the historical significance of how this area of Minnesota was settled.

Olson's use of sensory description is a powerful tool in his writing, particularly Ghost Camps of the North (an essay in Ruins of the North). Olson takes the reader on a fantastic adventure in each and every one of his essays. Not only does he take the reader to various geographical locations, but he also takes the reader back to the days of the French/ Canadian Voyageurs, and trappers. Ruins of the North contains work that traces the path the voyagers took from Montreal to Grand Portage, and into the far North The careful description of the Hunting Moon rising has a majical quality about it. Olson is a master nature/ wilderness interpreter that has given the canoeist/ camper a wealth of stories to tell. Reading an essay from Ruins of the North just before one retires at night insures a night filled with vivid dreams, and sound sleep. This can best be illistrated by the Essay The Dream Net.

Olson's use of sensory description is a powerful tool in his writing, particularly Ghost Camps of the North (an essay in Ruins of the North). Olson takes the reader on a fantastic adventure in each and every one of his essays. Not only does he take the reader to various geographical locations, but he also takes the reader back to the days of the French/ Canadian Voyageurs, and trappers. Ruins of the North contains work that traces the path the voyagers took from Montreal to Grand Portage, and into the far North The careful description of the Hunting Moon rising has a majical quality about it. Olson is a master nature/ wilderness interpreter that has given the canoeist/ camper a wealth of stories to tell. Reading an essay from Ruins of the North just before one retires at night insures a night filled with vivid dreams, and sound sleep. This can best be illistrated by the Essay The Dream Net.

These books are spectacular. I am in love with the idea of using medeival techniques to make a book of this size and importance. This one is beautiful. I've never read the prophets before but now I am.

This is an excellent addition to the previous volumes of the St. John's Bible that have come out. I can't wait for the last three! As with the other volumes, the calligraphy is a bit hard to read, but it is being true to the art form. Grogeous illuminations. I recommend that the collector also purchase "The Art of the Saint John's Bible" by Susan Sink or a similar volume for a complete explanation of the illuminations.

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