Minnesota Books

This is a study of a selection of Yeat's poems in manuscript. The complete version in hardcover contains material on his plays and prose writings as well. Bradford notes, "With many late poems it is possible to study the entire external process of composition, beginning with their prose sketches and continuing through successive drafts until Yeats corrects the final typescript." This book reveals the steps in this process. This is an extremely interesting book for anyone interested in the process of creation. My favorite quotation is from the final page. It explains in part the success of a great poet. " . . . he never allowed his equipment to rust unused. Early and late he worked at his art strenuously. It is this continued faith in works that in part distinguished him from lesser poets, that and an unusual ability to stay at a poem until it came right."

Olivia Holmes's book, originally a variation on her Doctoral thesis, traces the evolution of the phenomenon of the single-authored collection of poetry, in the light of the transition from oral tradition to vernacular writing in the Middle Ages. It starts from a consideration of the ramifications of the shift from the case of multi-authored anthologies of poetry to that of the single-authored collection, which expresses the writer's individual ideas and beliefs in poetry and writing.

The prose is lucid, and hard to fault for its immense clarity. In the book itself, Holmes shows a consideration of the text(s) she studies as products not only of an intimate engagement with historical-literary phenomena, but also as expressions of the authors' capabilities in writing and their self-reflexive dimensions of thought as poets writing either against or in line with inherited literary models of the Middle Ages(or both).

The book was indispensable to my work as a Honours student, because of the groundbreaking work it offered in relation to Dante's Vita Nuova, and the the study of Italian poetry's development as a whole during the Middle Ages. Culminating as part of a recent latent insurgence against the traditional opposition between medieval conformity and renaissance individualism within literary circles, Olivia Holmes's scholarly will prove rewarding, for its ability to prove medieval Italian poetry as a ground for laying down the foundations to both the expression and the psychological phenomenon of individualism itself.

I read this book with absolute relish. It's one of the most informative and lively literary biographies I've ever read and it's one I refer to often as I explore the works of Gaskell and the other Victorians in her literary circle. I've not read a better bio of Gaskell and I've read few better bios on any subject. Very highly recommended!

"a synthesis as bracing as it is brilliant, as ornery as it is original. It should change the way we think of early America." --from Michael Zuckerman's review in the Dec. 2007 American Historical Review

This journal of daily nature references is a delightful book for anyone interested in the out-of-doors. Takes just a minute to skim the journal entry for the day (365 days recorded!). Pertinent to the Northeast latitudes, the entries include brief facts about insects, trees, wildflowers, frogs, etc. -- everything relevant to the date one might encounter it in nature. Easy to understand why the author achieved Minnesota Science Teacher of the Year!

I am absolutely amazed no one has reviewed this book here!
I stumbled upon Bank Shot in 1999 while reading a quote from it somewhere, got a used copy, read it from cover to cover in one night, and have rarely ever laughed so hard while reading a book.
Rudolf Wanderone learned to shoot killer pool and became New York Fats, renamed Minnesota Fats after The Hustler came out. This short but sweet tome details, with large helpings of myth, Wanderone's wanderings in search of good games and easy marks.
Of course, to hear Fats tell it, the whole world was his mark, he never lost a cash game in his life, and no one else really knows how to shoot pool. That's what makes this book a sheer delight: Fats' incredibly unbridled ego is so amusing (to us and certainly him) that it's easy to forgive the endless hyperbole. It quickly becomes clear how he could hustle so well, as his self-belief is so complete that you can't help but buy his jive, transparent though it may be.
Add to that many tales of many totally classic characters, filtered through Fats' hilariously biased brain, and you've got one of the great books on pool, gambling, and the American Dream, green felt version.
If you like to shoot pool or if you just like to laugh, I can't recommend this book highly enough. I figured Bank Shot was widely acknowledged as a classic, but apparently it's a hidden gem.
Pick it up and prepare to laugh!

Written by the great-grandson of the railroad baron acquired and orchestrated the reorganization of the First National Bank of St. Paul, Banking In The Great Northern Territory is the true story of 150+ years of business and competition between the two major bank holding companies in Minneapolis and St. Paul: Northwest Bancorporation and First Bank Stock Corporation. Formed with the twin missions of protecting good banks in the area from predatory acquisition by non-area bankers and to provide a capital stronghold that would keep crucial banks open during hard times, these bank holding companies survived the test of time and even the Great Depression, when many of their competitors fell to ruin. Black-and-white and color photographs illustrate this adventurously presented history, accessible to lay readers, about the evolution of the banking business in Minnesota's capitol and the key figures behind the institutions' stability. A fascinating tour through a vital piece of Minneapolis and St. Paul history, Banking In The Great Northern Territory is very highly recommended reading.

I love this book. I've heard this author speak. She published her first book "Eggs in the Coffee and Sheep in the Corn" in her early eighties. She won the Minnesota Book Award and received rave literay reviews for that book. This is her second book and it is as good as the first. She herself is filled with energy and joy - so are her writings. In her mid-eighties she is an inspiration on how life should be led - both intellectually and physically. I am in my early fifties and she is living proof that I have decades ahead to look forward to.

This is a wonderful history on baseball in the small towns of Minnesota. The record of the state Championships and stories from the players themselves still living. The love of baseball in this book is defined well, by the authors.

If you're a MN baseball fan, you need to buy this book. It covers everything, and is very fun to read.