Minnesota Books

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.

The Bauhaus was the site of one of the most influential experiments in the art world, moving from Germany at the turn of the century to 1933 Berlin and offering an alternative to state-sponsored fine arts academies. Today modern art still holds elements of Bauhaus tradition and thus BAUHAUS CULTURE: FROM WEIMAR TO THE COLD WAR offers essays from art scholars analyzing accomplishments of the Bauhaus and adding the history essential to a thorough understanding of its unique role in the arts. Other books on the topic review Bauhaus artistic results: BAUHAUS culture is the other side of the spectrum: essential for an understanding not only of the art works and artists, but for the underlying culture which spawned them.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

Ben Peyton was a seventeen year old hockey player who received a crippling spinal cord injury during a game. Be Not Afraid: Ben Peyton's Story is a personal story of a young man whose experiences and courage document the endurance of the human will and spirit. Deftly written by Peter Rennebohm, Be Not Afraid is a very special and enthusiastically recommended biography that will leave the reader deeply moved both emotionally and spiritually.

Bear Island: The War At Sugar Point by Gerald Vizenor (Professor of American Studies at the University of New Mexico) is the history of the battle in 1898 at Sugar Point Minnesota when the Anishinaabe people's sought to protect their land from the U.S. soldiers who set about to attack them. Written in the format of a narrative poem based on an extensive research which draws from myth, memory, legend, and history, Bear Island vividly depicts a succinct episode in Native American history. "Hole in the day/returned to the bears/by natural reason/heard the cause/manners of court/ordered in english/clever comebacks/in anishinaabe/always misconstrued/falsely summoned/then abandoned/by the court..." --Gerald Vizenor, (Bear Island, P.43)

This is a great resource book written through actual experiences of the authors. Great pictures and references. The book shares information that is not readily available through tourist information. It makes you want to get out your bike and ride along with nature. One does not have to be biking to enjoy the Bed &Breakfast establishments visited in the book.

Ed Cleary has provided an informative glimpse into what it takes to get a controversial case to the United States Supreme Court. Disappointed by the ACLU's obvious preference for agenda over free speech, Cleary battled St. Paul's "hate crime" statute, arguing that he had no problem with laws which punished criminal acts, but serious reservations over laws which punished incorrect thought. Paul J. Walkowski, Co-Author, "From Trial Court to the United States Supreme Court"

Now in a fully updated second edition, Doug Shidell and Vicky Vogels' Bicycle Vacation Guide: Minnesota And Wisconsin has everything the adventurous cyclist would want or need to know about biking the trails and byways of two premier upper Midwest states. If you want to go biking anywhere in Minnesota or Wisconsin for fun and healthy exercise, begin planning for your cycling excursion by reading Doug Shidell and Vicky Vogels' Bicycle Vacation Guide!

Sharp maps, all of them are four color. The authors even included maps of the towns along the trail. Nice for finding trail heads and local parks.
They included a lot of tourist type information like lodging, camping, local festivals and events and other activities for when you aren't on the bike. The road loops are a nice touch. Ride one way on the trail, then return on a road.