Minnesota Books

Alice Taylor's works are much like herself, gentle, warm and caring, with a twinkling bit of humor throughout. Quench the Lamp, like To School Through Fields, is Taylor's memory trip through a childhood in an Ireland that has largely disappeared, eaten by the "Riverdance Phenomenon". This is no stage show, this is the real thing, growing up on a farm in an Irish Catholic family, with a strong sense of belonging and doing what is right.

No matter what your age, no matter what your roots, if you enjoy reading about how families get along, how traditions are kept and how love is celebrated, Alice Taylor's works are for you.

Make a pot of tea and enjoy.

Or "How to Make Friends and Influence People"
This is a book about the nature of power, language, and behavior. Peckham starts with an interesting pragmatist premise: the meaning of a sign is the response to it. This may seem like a tautology but it's not; Peckham states that language is slippery (predicting and predating the post-structuralists and Derrida) and that language, essentially, is about regulating behavior. The book follows these premises through out the social landscape.

His statements about language resemble, to me, late Wittgenstein because he thinks that language has rules that are almost endemic to their structure and these rules are used by us to categorize and divide the quotidian corporeal world (and this leads us to inscribe these structures into the larger world). His social beliefs mirror Bourdieu and Foucault, in a way, by claiming that social roles and states have to keep their populace under control and that this means, in modern times, trying to regulate their desires.

At first it seems like a depressing book with "no way out" but at the end he goes into "social transcendence" which is a fancy way of saying that society sometimes fails and creates people who don't "fit in." Sometimes.... hell, most of the time, this is a bad thing (sociopaths, Jim Jones, Hitler, etc.) but sometimes its a great thing that leads to movements that set the larger culture in slightly new directions (which isn't necessarily good, but that's not the point).

You don't need a philosophy background to understand it and although it is dense, it's one of the most rewarding books I've read in the last two years.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book which brought back memories of growing up in a Finnish community in Minnesota. Ms. Eilola compassionately weaves the adventures of the fabulous Holomolaiset into the reality of living in a harsh economy and climate.

"To all appearances," wrote Richard Drinnon, "it all began innocently enough with a first victim" (Indian-Hating 35). Indeed, in Drinnon's 'Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building,'those first victims finally have the chance to tell their story through the records of their conquerors. From John Endicott's war on the Niantics and Pequots, to the horrors of the My Lai massacre, Drinnon illustrates, with passion, power and unrelenting wit, how Indian-hating in the Americas became a national pastime, and how that same hate was turned against the native populations of the Phillipines and Southeast Asia. A tremendous feat of scholarship that should not be missed.

Poststructural readings such as these have a lot to offer academia. The play of words, irony, and humor is a welcome addition to the literature of international relations scholarship, a much better influence than the sterility offered by empirical, positivist social science.

Family Farm: A Compilation Of Short Stories About Growing Up In Rural Minnesota In The 40's, 50's, And 60's is the personal and engaging memoir of Kathleen Fixsen Hupalo, a woman who spent her childhood and young adulthood amid the ups and downs, the constant work, and the character defining, life-giving rewards of the family farm. A candid, sometimes nostalgic, always inspiring and heartfelt story of a young woman living and coming of age in a rural American midwest community, Family Farm is highly recommended reading for anyone who ever grew up on one -- or wishes that had!

This book is extremely well written and the illustrations are beautiful. I teach American History and would recommend this to anyone who loves the land.
Allman travels all over the Great Lakes region and the reader learns a lot about how the region took shape and the present state ot its ecosystem.
I gave it as a gift.

Fawn Island is a place where crows serve as alarm clocks, white-throated sparrows leave the tracks of their songs upon the even hush, and chickadees help a woodsman learn to whistle. The island is also a gateway to the sprawling Voyageurs National Park. An accomplished author, Douglas Wood takes the reader into the heart of the deep North Woods with his text (illustrated by his own artwork) that evokes the charm and adventure to be found in the quite of the pine-clad shores, as well as the neighborliness, and independence of those who live in this remarkable place. Fawn Island is enthusiastically recommended, entertaining, and occasionally inspiring reading for naturalists, armchair travelers, and anyone else who enjoys experiencing the what a wilderness retreat in the North Country has to offer.

This is a terrific collection-- and one of the first I have seen to explore the connection between documentary and feminist film theory, history, and practice. The introduction by Walker and Waldman is extremely informative and helpful-- I have used it often in cinema studies classes and in writing papers and it has greatly expanded my knowledge in both fields of study.

Cloquet, Minnesota native Jim Johnson wonderfully captures little observations of life's importance and beauty in his poetry showcased in A Field Guide To Blueberries. His verse interweaves his own personal views of life, people, and the "protection of the North Country" in a way that will resonate with readers of all backgrounds and geographical locations. Here is a poetry that is as universal and it is pleasing to the mind and imagination. In The Blueberry Bucket: A man picks blueberries all day. In the bucket/small green and withered sifting down,/too old and squashed against the sides,/ twigs leave spruce needles settled to the bottom/while the large ripe rise up to the top./So full of flesh, so ordinary--/a woman, at sunset/a blond woman leading a reindeer/across the horizon. You are that woman. I am that man./And this I give to you/is, if not the history of the world/at the end of the day, but/a bucketful of blueberries.