Minnesota Books

I am listed as a co-author of this book. I helped with the study of the Minnesota Legislature that engendered this book. The study took place from 1984-1986, and was commissioned by the Minnesota Legislature.

The study was a rich and layered look at the Minnesota Legislature, and at how state legislatures have changed over time. If there is an animating finding in this book, it is a working hypothesis that state government has grown complex, and that therefore state legislatures need to professionalize.

This belief gives rise to a call for higher pay for legislators, for annual budgeting periods, and for unicameralism. Many of these reform suggestions are animated by a concern for the increasing empowerment of the executive branch, at the expense of legislative powers and governance.

Twenty years later, the book is still quite good. Some details need to be brushed up, yet the sections of the book charting the changes from the non-partisan legislatures of the middle twentieth century to the more partisan era today are decent and have held the test of time.

I admit to a bias in favor of this book, which I helped research and in a very small sense write. It would not be of interest to any who is not a lover of state legislatures, or of the Minnesota legislature, or both.

Every now and then you find a book, you read it,
and it truly changes you. Such a book is Anthony
Bukoski's collection of stories, Twelve Below
Zero. The strange characters living in its pages
touch the reader and stick in the memory: Augie
Benner, who smelled so bad the local townspeople
made him wear a bell so they knew he was coming;
Luanna, receiving the last sacraments and lament-
ing her sins; Syl Magda lying in her bed in the
cold, dying. The settings of the stories also
remain in your mind long afterward: the spit and
herring scales on the floor of the End-of-the-Line
Cafe; Harry's pulley and basket mail delivery in-
vention at the Armitage Hotel; the incredible
cold outside the House of the Blue Rondo near
Lake Superior.

Bukoski has an amazing gift for storytelling and
his stories move, delight and disturb the reader.
Some, such as "Great Sea Battles" and "The Kissing
Booth," are howlingly humorous, whereas others,
"Ice Days" and Twelve BElow Zero" come to mind,
carry with them a sense of local, yet universal
tragedy. Many of the stories are set among the
cold lonliness of northern Wisconsin's winter;
Bukoski was born and raised and now teaches and
writes there. If you want an unusual treat,
something which will remain with you long after
you put the book down, something refreshing and
unique and mysteriously wonderful, find a copy
of Anthony Bukoski's Twelve Below Zero.

A varied yet cohesive set of short stories that capture the heart of St. Paul, MN. A small yet very urban city. Check out "Chicken" - a quirky, endearing tale.

As a Minnesotan, the loss of Paul and Sheila Wellstone, along with their friends and staff, last October was one of the worst days in my life.

I had followed Wellstone's senate career with admiration and his passion brought out the passion for helping people in me. For a couple days after his death, I thought that the passion was gone for good. Once my immediate grief had ended, I was able to realize that whatever Wellstone had given me, was still there.

This book captures the energy and passion of Wellstone's twelve years in the U.S. Senate. It also shows the sadness and heartbreak of the thirteen days between his death and the 2002 elections.

Highly Recommended!!

Fred Arey's book is an exhaustive compendium of bicycle trails, paths, and routes in the Greater Minneapolis and St. Paul areas. I have found it to be remarkably accurate and informative. On numberous occasions I have taken the maps in the book along with me on my rides and have not been lost since. The author also has a humourous style of writing that is pleasant to follow. I will definately buy the next release of this remarkable guide!

For the Twin Cities and surrounding area, this is the best map book of it's kind. It has sections describing many of the important sites, great downtown maps for Minneapolis and St. Paul plus a number of the smaller cites and towns near by. It has nice color detail, zip codes and easy to use directions for finding places of interest.

I read this collection of noir fiction set in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and absolutely love it, especially because I've also read Manhattan Noir, and enjoyed comparing how the Manhattan Noir writers and the Twin Cities Noir writers defined "noir." There's definitely an absurd, Midwestern sensibility to these stories, which I enjoyed. what really impressed me as well was that all the stories were strong, even though some of them were written by previously unpublished fiction writers. I'm glad that Akashic was able to brilliantly reveal the noir aspects behind the facade of Midwestern reticence and kindness in these short stories that anyone who understands the Midwest or would like to better understand the Midwest should read.

Picked this up on a whim at a local book store; after reading this gem I certainly don't regret the purchase! Author Dave Kenney has pieced together what amounts to a relatively-unknown story of the moving picture show in Minnesota's metro area.

Using a collection of periodical clippings and other material that had, until recently, been stowed away in the back rooms of the Minnesota Historical Society, the author constructs a surprisingly detailed time line of the cities' theatre history from the advent of commercial film itself in the 1890s, right on up to the turn of the 21st century. From the downtown palaces of the 1920s, to the stadium seating of today's megaplexes, Kenney not only chronicles the rise and fall of several cinematic eras, but also gives a glimpse into the lives of the people who brought them to life. One especially appreciated aspect of the book are the dozens of "Feature Presentation" insets that provide a full profile of notable theatres around the metro, such as the Uptown, the Riverview, the two Shuberts, or even such oddities like the short-lived Jerry Lewis Cinema. The social effects of the movie business, and other associated Hollywood glamor, on Twin Citians is touched on throughout each decade.

Kenney paints a genuinely interesting historical picture with lively prose and a more casual narrative method. The book generally has a good flow to it as a result. The only shortfall, in my opinion, is that some sections are slightly disjointed. It's very apparent that the author used salvaged media clippings as his primary source when one historical anecdote will stop quite suddenly, and another completely unrelated story will follow; Kenney simply didn't have enough information to fill the gaps. One example is a reprinted 1923 letter from the St. Paul Society for Prevention of Cruelty detailing the objection to the use of animals as a promotional tactic. No intro, no follow-up, just the reprinted letter, out of the blue - followed immediately after by a detailed story of racism issues in certain St. Paul theatres. Random inserts like this, though they seldom occur, are a bit jarring, to say the least!

"Picture Show" has helped me to see my hometown's theatrical variety in a new light. I have an irresistible impulse to seek out the theatres he highlit and buy a ticket to their current offerings - more as an excuse to examine their amenities and absorb their history. I highly recommend this title to all movie buffs - especially if you're a native Twin Citian!

I don't have the right to upload images of the dust jacket, but this has the blue and red graphic on the front, with a sepia-toned image of a fair below, and a bluish-tinged steamboat landing above. The actual authors as printed are Lucile M. Kane and Alan Ominsky. It is a hardback book, a little larger than letter-sized paper (quarto).

Broken out into different time periods, it addresses the history of the Twin Cities from when the first Europeans found it and started trying to take advantage of the falls of St. Anthony (where the Minneapolis milling district rose to national leadership) to the landings at St. Paul, the uppermost navigable part of the Mississippi river.

The edition I have ended in the 1980s, it would be nice to see it brought back and re-released in a new revision with better images. I think the limitations of printing and imaging technology resulted in some older photographs not being rendered very well.

While this is a pictorial history, and includes artwork and posters as well as photographs, there are textual introductions to each era that the book is divided in. You don't necessarily get an in-depth knowledge of a particular time or entity (such as the Twin Cities Rapid Transit streetcar system), but you get a broad sampling of many noteworthy things.

For those who are web-saavy, it is worth knowing that many of the photos in this book are not ones digitized by the Minnesota Historical Society for their on-line photographic collection.

Besides being very informative on aspects like academics and safety and security, this guidebook also has a lot to say about the culture of the school and surrounding area. I think details really make this book stand out, like the Inside Scoop, all the student quotes, and grades given to each section. It was great to find info on dining and housing (on and off campus), transportation, and all the stuff in between.