Minnesota Books

From the author's original poetry about Red Wing in the front, to the catalog pages in the back, this is the most comprehensive guide to Red Wing area stoneware I have ever seen. I borrowed this copy from my father, as it's nearly impossible to find around here (and I live somewhat near Red Wing.) The author has a tremendous sense of humor, and the book brings life and personality to the artisans who created such wonderful pieces of functional art. Book also features several wonderful pictures of one-of-a-kind "lunch hour" pieces, those made by the workers over their lunch hour for informal competition and to bring home to mothers and wives. Highly recommended for both the casual collector and those long since bitten by the bug of "Red Wingus - Collectoritis"

This is an incredible book. The author sketched each bridge on the Mississippi River from New Orleans all the way up to Luling, Iowa (pretty much most of the navigable waterway). The book has proved to be a valuable resource to my own research on the river's bridges.

This is an extremely incisive and thought-provoking analysis of the contemporary literary and critical scenes. Walllen writes extremely well and continually opens profound questions for both typical Left-identified political critics as well as for conservative critics. This a MUST read for any academic in the humanities and for any non-academic concered about the fate of the humanities and higher educaiton. Absolutely brilliant work.

People interested in the controversy between Anscombe and C. S. Lewis should read this before they read any nonsense written by Lewis biographers like A. N. Wilson. She reprinted her original response to Lewis, a short reply that Lewis put in the very issue of the Socratic Digest that contained her paper, and also a very useful commentary on the chapter of Miracles that Lewis revised to meet her objections.

There are some other great essays here. I especially recommend "Causality and Determination."

Reading Ann Iverson's book, "Come Now to the Window", is like the metamorphosis that happens when a butterfly emerges from its chrysalis. Her wings small and wet, are not ready to fly. So she must pumps fluids from her abdomen through the veins which then causes the wings to expand to their full size. You can feel the author's own metamorphosis experience as you absorb first the words, then the lines and then all the pages. As the reader of "Come Now to the Window" you feel the author transcending her own wet wings, feel them expand to their full size, take flight and then unexpectly land on your heart.

Dale's book is an entertaining and academic look not only at the medium of slapstick itself but also at our need to be entertained by it. The book's examination of silent slapstick includes not only the major players (Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd) but also covers women in silent comedy. What's also respectable is that Dale discusses Jerry Lewis's important contribution to slapstick in film without putting him on the pedestal other critics (and often Lewis himself) put him on, as well as Lewis's influence on contemporary visual humorists like Jim Carrey and the Farrelly Bros.

Yi-Fu Tuan is a towering figure in cultural geography -- so towering that he rises above the discipline's ceiling and is visible and inspiring as a writer/philosopher to a far broader audience of academics and "lay" readers. You certainly don't need to be a geographer to admire this book for its constant stream of observations and commentary on modern China reflecting Tuan's distinctive sensibility and preoccupations with home and place. Dr. Tuan wrote the book shortly after returning to Wisconsin from his visit to China, which he had not visited in over 60 years. The work is immediate and fresh, not re-worked into thick academic prose. It's a real gift for fans of Dr. Tuan.

Judy McIntyre is one of the world's authorities on loons. This book reflects not only the wealth of her technical knowledge about loons (written in a very readable style!) but also personal glimpses into the lives of loons from someone who has spent years studying them in their natural environment AND in captivity. It's a fascinating read!

The Community Tourism Development manual is a practical tool for students of tourism and for communities that wish to bring its tourism planning to the next level. This is not a dry text that only talks about theory-it offers actionable steps to strategically planning tourism development for your specific community. The design of this manual makes it easy-to-use. The worksheets/exercises provide hands-on planning tools that can be customized to your community or classroom. The case studies bring the best-practices highlighted in the text to life.

The Community Tourism Development manual is definitely a worthwhile investment.

O'Dell's text is one of the few, and quite possibly the best, exploration into the often misunderstood "masochistic" art practices in 1970s America. Covering five artists (Vito Acconci, Ulay & Abramovic, Gina Pane, and Chris Burden), Contract With the Skin offers the reader thought-provoking ideas about what masochism in performance art REALLY means. (It's not about pain, per se.) Kathy O'Dell forces the reader to re-think their assumptions about art practice, and sheds new light on problematic subject matter.