Minnesota Books

The book is quotes from local people telling about their experiences & lives in Minnesota. It is well written, but tells it as it is. Service from Amazon was excellent, as always. jfsquillace

James Carey currently teaches at Columbia University as a CBS Professor of International Journalism. In this collection of essays, the theme of communication and democracy is explored from a number of perspectives. The topics include technology and democratic change, the role of communication in the American community, the challenges facing academia, and communications and economics.

The book is divided into five general sections, and each section has an introduction to Carey's ideas written by various contributors. While the introductory chapters were all well-written, the essay by John Pauly introducing the section on Media Scholarship was particularly noteworthy. About Carey, Pauly says:

"He has never been the theorist others want him to be. He is too working-class in his upbringing to join in the choruses of praise for American capitalism; too personally cautious and gradualist to be mistaken for a radical; too American in his intellectual references and too unassuming in his style to be worshipped as a prominent cultural theorist."

That is probably as good a way as any to describe the ideas here to someone not familiar with Carey's work.

I read the book with a great deal of enjoyment. I took copious notes, and found that I added a huge number of cited books to my already long to-read list. I did my graduate work in Media, so it may be more accessible to me for that reason. That said, I would not hesitate to recommend it to the general reader. Although the ideas are dense and occasionally demanding, Carey is a remarkably straightforward and readable writer. It should appeal to anyone concerned with any of the general themes, or with an interest in media history.

This is a must have book for anyone intereted in photography. Jerry Liebling is one of the truly important photographers in this country. His work is in every major museum collection. Yet, he is almost unknown outside photographic and academic circles. "The Minnesota Photographs" offer a glimpse at an era that Liebling captures in his own very personal, insightful way. These are powerful pictures from the 1950's and 60's. Familiar, new, fresh, inspiring. George Wallace on the campaign trail surrounded by disinterested cronies. Eugene McCarthy and Hubert Humphrey at a baseball game. A commodities trade, his head buried in a handfull of soy beans, a home for retarded people, a slaughter house, boys hanging out on the street. It's great to see a body of his work from a particular era, not just a few pictures representing different subjects. Roger Sherman New York City

In 1876 Jesse James and Cole Younger came to Minnesota to rob a bank. Cole Younger and his two brothers ended up in prison, with Jesse and his brother, Frank, fleeing for their lives. Three other members of the gang were even less fortunate, being left in the dirt, very dead. John Koblas's book explores all the reported sightings of members of the gang both before and after the disastrous attempted robbery of the bank in Northfield. Along the way, an interesting snapshot of southeastern Minnesota in 1876 is presented, giving a good feel for the people and the world they lived in. The research going into this book is very impressive, resulting in a book which is plain fun to browse through.

Another fabulous , wonderful, and insightful book authored by Mrs. Nobisso! Do not stop with just one or two of her books. All of her books are to read, enjoyed, and passed down!

In this readable analysis of Selective Service cases in Minnesota during the Vietnam War Era, Ken Tilsen provides both an anecdotal and scholarly framework to track several resisters and four federal judges. The author quantifies the discrepancies in conviction rate and length of sentence between the four judges for each year, and provides a well-founded -- and ominous -- explanation for these differences. His explanation has particular poignancy and relevancy, as the same issues are on the docket today.

The anecdotal and biographical portions make the book easy to read, and the concise statements of the legal issues makes it most informative and convincing. Although the book contains a smattering of legalese, it is accessible even to any non-lawyer adult reader. The author represented many of the defendants, and tried numerous cases before these judges. His first-hand knowledge and careful research, his lucid commentary at crucial points, and the interesting period photographs, brings that era back to life.

This book is a thouroughly interesting history of the Polish ethnic community in eastern Winona, Minnesota. While most of the book concerns Winona and the people who gave the city the shining domes of "St. Stan's", it also places things into geographical and historical context by going back to the place in Poland where much of the community came from, and going west to some of the places settled by Poles who left Winona.

If you are interested in the history of Winona, Minnesota, don't miss this one (even though Winona is not in the title). I'm not even Polish, and I found this book worthwhile.

Katherine Mansfield, who died in 1923 of tuberculosis while still a young woman, gave us many glimpses into her private psyche when her celebrated "Journal" was published. But editor Margaret Scott, in assembling "The Katherine Mansfield Notebooks" gives us a more intimate perspective by supplementing the already famous journal entries with poems, half-finished stories, and even recipes and shopping lists. The result is an addicting mix of literary divinity and the charming mundane.

These faithfully reproduced writings reveal Katherine Mansfield to have been a highly strung, creative genious with an obession about her own mortality. Equal parts tragedy and comedy, reading "The Notebooks" is the closest that any of us will ever come to knowing Mansfield herself. It's an advantage that not even her husband, J. Middleton Murray, experienced during her lifetime.

This book is a valuable addition to the collection of anyone who enjoys reading about Christmas traditions.

Stoker traces the Roman and Viking roots to Christmas celebrations in Norway and their evolution among Norwegian-Americans. She emphasizes the importance of preserving ethnic heritage: "Americans find in ethnicity an antidote to the isolation that has grown increasingly acute in the wake of the massive suburbanization that began in the 1940's.... Ethnicity fulfills the particularly American need for origins and belonging..."

Christmas is an ideal time to reconnect with one's cultural roots. As Stokker writes: "Incorporating change while retaining everything that makes it so beloved, Christmas holds within its vast and monumental embrace diverse individuals, families and cultures, allowing each a means of self-expression."

The "authenticity" of ethnic celebrations, however, is open to interpretation. Stokker writes: "When people no longer fear that their ethnicity may threaten their life chances, they can express it more freely. With greater time separating them from the Old Country, they can also feel less constraint about the way they choose to express their attachment to it. As a result, individuals and families increasingly create the content of their ethnicity, picking and choosing the items that they themselves find meaningful...."

This book is a great read and worth the trouble of finding a used copy. (Or buy a brand new copy from Barnes & Noble)

Christopher Peterson (Visiting Assistant Professor of Literature, Claremont McKenna College, California) presents Kindred Specters: Death, Mourning, and American Affinity, an in-depth exploration of the themes of death, mourning, and violence as well as how they affect kinship relations in literary works such as Charles Chesnutt's "The Conjure Woman" and William Faulkner's "Absalom, Absalom!" Focusing specifically on American culture, Kindred Specters observes how non-normative forms of kinship (including interracial relationships and the fairly recent issue of gay marriage) have been relentlessly condemned to the extent that the abstract concept of death is projected upon and associated with them. Calling for the need to become aware of the mortality and mourning that form a cornerstone of all kinship relations, rather than unconsciously deny, extrude, and project fear and death upon "others" at every opportunity, Kindred Specters is a thought-provoking and rewarding philosophical discussion.