Starred Review. “A dramatic and rhapsodic American odyssey. A female Huckleberry Finn. A wild-child-to-caring-woman story as intricately meshed with the natural life of the river as a myth. Bonnie Jo Campbell conveys all that Margo does, thinks, and feels with transfixing sensuous precision, from the jolt of a gun to the muscle burn of rowing a boat against the current to the weight of a man.
From killing and skinning game to falling in with outlaws and finding refuge with kind if irascible strangers, Margo’s earthy education and the profound complexities of her timeless dilemmas are exquisitely rendered and mesmerizingly suspenseful. A glorious novel destined to entrance and provoke.” –Booklist
Bonnie Jo Campbell is the author of three previous books, including American Salvage, a National Book Award finalist. She lives in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
Things We Didn’t Say
Filled with her “unflinching honesty” (Melissa Senate) and “nuanced, relatable characters: (Allison Winn Scotch), Kristina Riggle’s evocative novels beautifully capture the realities of women’s lives today. In Things We Didn’t Say, this acclaimed writer probes the emotional depth of family and the challenges that can break — or unite — us.
Kristina Riggle lives in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband, two kids, and dog. A freelance journalist, short story writer, and coeditor for fiction at the e-zine Literary Mama, she is the author of two previous novels, Real Life & Liars and The Life You’ve Imagined.
In this delightful, funny, and moving first novel, a librarian and a young boy obsessed with reading take to the road. The Borrower is an Indie Next pick and has garnered rave reviews in O Magazine, BookPage, and Booklist(starred review) among others.
“[Lucy's] relationship with Ian is charming and original. A stylish and clever tale for bibliophiles who enjoy authors like Jasper Fforde and Connie Willis.” –Library Journal
“Makkai takes several risks in her sharp, often witty text, replete with echoes of children’s classics from Goodnight Moon to The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, as well as more ominous references to Lolita . . . the moving final chapters affirm the power of books to change people’s lives even as they acknowledge the unbreakable bonds of home and family. Smart, literate, and refreshingly unsentimental.” –Kirkus Reviews
“The Borrower proves [Makkai] is a great writer… This is a wonderfully entertaining story packed with moral conundrums and beautiful writing.” –Patrick Neale, co-owner, Jaffe & Neale Bookshop & Café
Rebecca Makkai’s short fiction will appear in The Best American Short Storiesthis fall for the fourth consecutive year, and appears regularly in journals like Tin House, Ploughshares, New England Review, and Shenandoah. She lives north of Chicago with her husband and two daughters.
Spellbound: The Books of Elsewhere, Vol. 2
With no way into the house’s magical paintings, and its three guardian cats reluctant to help, Olive’s friend Morton is still trapped inside Elsewhere. So when Rutherford, the new oddball kid next door, mentions a grimoire — a spellbook — Olive feels a breathless tug of excitement. If she can find the McMartins’ spellbook, maybe she can help Morton escape Elsewhere for good. Unless, that is, the book finds Olive first.
The house isn’t the only one keeping secrets anymore. Mystery, magic, corruption, and betrayal abound (plus just enough laughs to take the edge off). You’ll never guess what happens next in this thrilling, chilling second volume in the critically acclaimed series.
Jacqueline West, a two-time Pushcart nominee for poetry, lives in Red Wing, Minnesota.
Go the Fuck to Sleep is a book written by American author Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Ricardo Cortés. Described as a "children’s book for adults", it reached number 1 on Amazon.com’s bestseller list a month before its release, thanks to an unintended viral marketing campaign during which booksellers forwarded PDF copies of the book by email.
When Madeline Stone walks away from Chicago and moves five hundred miles north to the coast of Lake Superior, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she isn’t prepared for how much her life will change. Charged with caring for an aging family friend, Madeline finds herself in the middle of beautiful nowhere with Gladys and Arbutus, two octogenarian sisters — one sharp and stubborn, the other sweeter than sunshine. As Madeline begins to experience the ways of the small, tight-knit town, she is drawn into the lives and dramas of its residents.
“I was captivated by Ms. Airgood’s setting and her characters, they’re pitch perfect. South of Superior is a wonderful debut novel.” –Lesley Kagan, author of Whistling in the Dark
“An inviting read that transports the reader to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in a blink.” –Jessilynn, McLean and Eakin Booksellers
“A pleasantly paced story that takes place in the UP of Michigan where towns are small, winters long and hardships abound. Ellen Airgood has captured the beauty of the area, the isolation and cast of local characters.” –Barbara Siepker, The Cottage Book Shop
Ellen Airgood runs a diner in Grand Marais, Michigan. This is her first novel.
Beyond the Trees: Stories of Wisconsin Forests
Join nature writer Candice Gaukel Andrews as she traverses the natural and human history of some of the most pristine places in the Upper Midwest: Wisconsin’s state and national forests. Richly illustrated with color photographs by the author’s husband, John T. Andrews, and other professional photographers, Beyond the Trees is an intimate visual portrait of these stunning landscapes. Archival images, informative sidebars, locator maps, and contact information for Wisconsin state and federal forests round out this unique book.
Candice Gaukel Andrews is a former screenwriter for Paramount Pictures and now specializes in nature and travel writing. Her other books include Great Wisconsin Winter Weekends, The Minnesota Almanac, An Adventurous Nature: Tales form Natural Habitat Adventures, and Travel Wild Wisconsin.
The Twin Cities serve as geographical entry point for this exploration of how selfhood can be inescapably split over the course of a lifetime and exist in separate moments in time. Carol Muske-Dukes has won acclaim for work that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and technical craft. What distinguishes her poetry from her contemporaries is her awareness of the complicated web into which the personal and the political, the familial and the feminist, are woven. This awareness deeply informs her latest collection, a book that plunges into the depths of both grief and joy with subtle precision.
“Exploding with capacity and ambition, Carol Muske-Dukes’s new poems are the strongest yet from a poet whose work has long been essential reading.” –Jorie Graham
“[The voice] veers from intimacy to an almost invulnerable shoot-from-the-hip dazzle, and it makes TWIN CITIES urgent, high-energy, and all-the-way-alive.” –Mark Doty
Carol Muske-Dukes is the author of seven books of poetry, four novels, and two collections of essays. She is professor of English/Creative Writing at the University of Southern California and was appointed Poet Laureate of California in 2008. The recipient of many awards, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, she lives in Los Angeles and New York City.
My American Unhappiness
From the former bookseller-author of Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon, a charming, disturbing, and funny story of a more-than-slightly deluded young man’s quest to find a bride. (One of the characters in the novel is in memory of former PW Rep of the Year Mark Gates, a dear friend of Dean’s.) Protagonist Zeke Pappas, the director of a humanities institute in Wisconsin, is conducting an epic survey of American unhappiness, a project he considers his life’s work. In his quest to chronicle what makes us all so unhappy, Zeke also focuses his energy on finding his own happiness — he wants to find the perfect mate so he can gain custody of his orphaned nieces. Following steps outlined in a women’s magazine, the ever-optimistic Zeke identifies some “prospects”: a newly divorced neighbor, a coffeehouse barista, his administrative assistant, and Sofia Coppola because as Zeke says, “Why not aim high?”
Kirkus writes, My American Unhappiness “shimmers with mischief and offbeat charm. A dark entertainment infused by a bluesy yearning for a better America.” Library Journal writes, “Bakopoulos writes with great heart and a cold eye, and his limpid, ironic prose will appeal to those who like the early work of Martin Amis.”
Dean Bakopoulos is the author of the award-winning debut novel Please Don’t Come Back from the Moon, which was a New York Times Notable Book. He is the recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation. The founding director of the Wisconsin Book Festival and a former bookseller at Canterbury Bookstore in WI, he is now a professor in the MFA Program for Creative Writing & Environment at Iowa State University and a visiting profession of fiction at Grinnell. He lives in Ames, Iowa with his family.
Jean Thompson has been celebrated by critics as “a writer of extraordinary intelligence and sensitivity” (O: The Oprah Magazine) and “one of our most lucid and insightful writers (San Francisco Chronicle). Now, Thompson brings together all her talents to deliver a career-defining novel. The Year We Left Home is a sweeping and emotionally powerful story of a single American family during the tumultuous final decades of the twentieth century, spanning from small-town Iowa to suburban Chicago to the coast of Italy. In a starred review, Booklist says, “Superb. Finely crafted. Thompson’s pithy humor, redolent details, and knowing compassion have never been sharper or more resounding as her characters’ follies and struggles reveal depthless truths about men and women, families and vocations, the lure of away and the gravitational pull of home.”
Jean Thompson is the author of Who Do You Love: Stories, a 1999 National Book Award finalist for fiction, and the novels City Boy andWide Blue Yonder, a New York Times Notable Book and Chicago Tribune Best Fiction selection. She lives in Urbana, Illinois.
Sparrow Road
It’s the summer before seventh grade, and twelve-year-old Raine O’Rourke’s mother suddenly takes a job hours from home at mysterious Sparrow Road — a creepy, dilapidated mansion that houses an eccentric group of artists. As Raine tries to make sense of her new surroundings, she forges friendships with a cast of quirky characters. But it’s an unexpected secret from Raine’s own life that changes her forever. Collette Morgan of Wild Rumpus in Minneapolis, MN writes, “Sparrow Road has restored my faith in middle grade fiction. A beautiful ode to creativity, kindness, and the power of forgiveness.”
Sheila O’Connor is the award-winning author of three novels. Her poems, stories, and essays have appeared in various anthologies and magazines and her work has been recognized with foundation grants and fellowships. Sheila teaches fiction for Hamline University MFA Program where she also serves as fiction editor for Water-Stone Review.
Lake Superior, the north country, the great fresh-water expanse. Frigid. Bountiful. Lethal. Wildly beautiful. The Long-Shining Waters gives us the stories of women separated by centuries and circumstance, yet connected across time by the place they inhabit. Haunting, rich in historical detail, and universal in its exploration of the human desire for meaning when faced with uncertainty,The Long-Shining Waters is an unforgettable and singular debut. PW says “Sosin writes sensuously detailed prose and distills the emotions of her characters into a profound and universal need for acceptance and love.”
Danielle Sosin is the author of Garden Primitives, a collection of stories (Coffee House Press, 2000). Her fiction has been featured in the Alaska Quarterly Review, and has been recorded for National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story, and Iowa Public Radio’s Live From Prairie Lights. The Long-Shining Waters, her debut novel, was awarded the Milkweed National Fiction Prize. Born in 1959, she lives in Duluth, Minnesota.
The Coffins of Little Hope
Timothy Schaeffert returns with a novel called “sublime” by Publishers Weekly. The Coffins of Little Hope features his most vivid and endearing character to date, Essie, otherwise known as “S,” an 83-year-old obituary writer for a struggling, small-town newspaper. Touching on the themes of the fragility of childhood, the strength of family, and the powerful rumor mills of small, rural towns — this is a novel you won’t want to miss. Check out the praise sheet below for numerous great review from independent booksellers. In a starred review,PW writes: “It’s small town, big drama in Schaffert’s sublime latest. Piercing observations and sharp, subtle wit make this a standout.”
Timothy Schaffert grew up on a farm in Nebraska and currently lives in Omaha. He’s the author of three previous critically acclaimed novels, including The Phantom Limbs of the Rollow Sisters and The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God. His novels have been a Book Sense Pick, Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers selection, and a New York Times Editor’s Choice. His writing has won numerous other awards and honors awards, including the Mary Roberts Rinehart Award, the Henfield/Transatlantic Review Award, and the Nebraska Book Award. He currently teaches creative writing and literature at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
On Wednesday, May 4 at 7:30 pm, Shannon Hyland-Tassava and Katy Read will read from Torn: True Stories of Kids, Career & the Conflict of Modern Motherhood at Monkey See Monkey Read in downtown Northfield.
TORN is an anthology edited by Samantha Parent Walravens. The 49 stories are fascinating, true, day-in-the-life vignettes about contemporary motherhood, written by both working and stay-at-home moms. Its contributors are mothers who work because their finances require it and those who work to preserve their sanity, stay-at-home moms who love mothering and those who long for more. Along with these tales from the inner sanctum of motherhood, TORN also includes contributions from outsiders: women whose busy personal and professional lives got in the way until the motherhood option was no longer open for them.
TORN is a treat for any working or stay-at-home mom who needs reassurance that she is not alone–that her frustrations and her joys are shared by women of every age and income group nationwide. The perfect Mothers’ Day gift, TORN is also an ideal present for baby showers and a must-read for any book group.
When a bird flies into a window in Spring Green, Wisconsin, sisters Milly and Twiss get a visit. Twiss listens to the birds’ heartbeats, assessing what she can fix and what she can’t, while Milly listens to the heartaches of the people who’ve brought them. These spinster sisters have spent their lives nursing people and birds back to health. PW writes, “Achingly authentic and almost completely character driven, the story of the sisters depicts the endlessly binding ties of family.”
Rebecca Rasmussen teaches creative writing and literature at Fontbonne University. Her stories have appeared in Triquarterly magazine and the Mid-American Review. She was a finalist in both Narrative magazine’s 30 Below Contest for writers under the age of thirty and in Glimmer Train’s Family Matters Contest. She lives with her husband and daughter in St. Louis. This is her first novel.
Mothers and Daughters
Set in Madison, Wisconsin, Mothers and Daughters by Rae Meadows is about three generations of women — Sam, Iris, and Violet — their stories intertwined to span the twentieth century. Inspired by her own journey into motherhood, Rae Meadows explores the feeling of being “knocked off balance by motherhood.” She shows readers how to recognize themselves and their loved ones — no matter how much anyone changes over time. Mothers and Daughters is rich and luminous novel about three generations of women in one family: the love they share, the dreams they refuse to surrender, and the secrets they hold. ”Mothers and Daughters is a powerful novel of women’s secrets and strength.”–Sandra Dallas, New York Times best-selling author
Rae Meadows is the author of Calling Out, which received the 2006 Utah Book Award for fiction, and No One Tells Everything, a Poets & WritersNotable Novel. She is available to discuss the quintessentially American themes in her latest novel — migration, class mobility, and the bonds between family. Meadows is a former resident of Madison, WI, and now lives with her husband and two daughters in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
At the core of Bent Road is a Midwestern family’s struggle with a past never laid to rest. Set in small town Kansas, PW’s starred review says, “Roy’s outstanding debut melds strong characters and an engrossing plot with an evocative sense of place. This Midwestern noir with Gothic undertones is sure to make several 2011 must-read lists.”
Lori Roy was born and raised in the Midwest where she graduated from Kansas State University with a BS degree in finance. She worked for several years as a tax accountant and at Hallmark Cards, Inc., in Kansas City before turning her focus to writing. She is the recipient of the Ed Hirschberg Award for Excellence in Florida Writing.
The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie
A spirited tribute to the series of books that inspired generations of American women. Wendy McClure traces the pioneer journey of the Ingalls family — looking for the Big Woods among the medium trees in Wisconsin, wading in Plum Creek, and enduring a prairie hailstorm in South Dakota. While hand-grinding wheat to make bread and churning her own butter, she truly immerses herself in all things Little House — and finds that the things you once loved stay with you wherever you go. Written partly in response to her mother’s death, Wendy McClure shows her readers where home is. In a starred review, PW writes, “Readers don’t need to be Wilder fans to enjoy this funny and thoughtful guide to a romanticized version of the American expansion west.”
Wendy McClure is a columnist for BUST magazine and a children’s book editor. Her essays have appeared in the The New York Times Magazine, The Chicago Sun-Times, and in numerous anthologies. She was born in Oak Park, Illinois, graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and now lives in Chicago with her fiance, Chris, in a neighborhood near the river.
There were evidently some tense negotiations on Monday about the fee that the organization would have to pay for use of the library’s meeting room. With the library’s recent budget cutbacks, Director Lynne Young is on the lookout for additional sources of revenue and has reportedly become a tough negotiator over non-profit use of that space.
Friends president Bill North and treasurer Kathy Sommers ripped on Young during their presentations but she placed responsibility for the Library’s financial predicament on the City Council, as well as on library patrons like Will Healy who have hundreds of dollars of unpaid library fines for overdue books.
All went well until after Henry’s speech when Lynne Young noticed Monkey See Monkey Read bookstore proprietor Jerry Bilek selling copies of Henry’s book. She argued that the Library should get a commission on all books sold on the premises. Jerry told her to stick it in her bookdrop. Henry refused to moderate the dispute unless someone agree to pay him his usual counseling fee. The crowd was getting riled up, and when someone mentioned Zamboni tires, I decided it was time for me to leave.
Wingshooters, Nina Revoyr’s fourth novel, has everyone talking, comparing it to To Kill a Mockingbird. Set in small town, Deerborn, Wisconsin in 1970, Revoyr explores racial conflicts, justice, and family loyalty with depth and compassion.
“Revoyr writes rhapsodically of a young girl’s enthrallment to the natural world and charts, with rising intensity, her resilient narrator’s painful awakening to human failings and senseless violence. In this shattering northern variation on To Kill A Mockingbird, Revoyr drives to the very heart of tragic ignorance, unreason, and savagery.” —booklist, starred review
Nina Revoyr is the author of three previous novels, The Necessary Hunger,Southland, and The Age of Dreaming. Southland was a Book Sense 76 pick, won the Lambda Literary Award, and was a Los Angeles Times “Best Book” of 2003.The Age of Dreaming was a finalist for the 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Nina was born in Tokyo and grew up in Japan, Los Angeles, and Wisconsin. She now lives and works in Los Angeles. For more information, visit NinaRevoyr.com.
Wingshooters is a compelling read. I think book clubs will enjoy reading and discussing this book. It’s available at Monkey See Monkey Read in downtown Northfield.
Keenly steeped in Kansas but lyrical enough to be universal, My Ruby Slippers: The Road Back to Kansas explores all the complexities of “home.”
Saddened by the death of her parents, Seeley soon after was diagnosed cancer, then discovered her longtime partner was planning to leave. She was shaken to her roots–and thus begins a vivid exploration of her own roots.
“In this smart meditation on place, Seeley gives to Kansas the time she never afforded it in her youth.” —Kirkus
“Under Tracy Seeley’s cool, clear gaze, the fractured landscape of America’s rootlessness is seen whole again. She reminds us that place is both on the horizon and within our memories. . . . My Ruby Slippers is a complete pleasure to read.” —Lewis Buzbee, author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop
Tracy Seeley grew up in Wichita, Kansas and has a PhD in British Literature. A professor of English at the University of San Francisco, she has won the Distinguished Teaching Award and the College Service Award, and spent a year as the NEH Chair in Humanities, during which time she starting writing My Ruby Slippers.
Monkey See, Monkey Read is a full service bookstore in downtown Northfield. If you’ve never been to the store, then this is your introduction. (Click the image below to see a short slideshow of the store.)
We buy, sell, and trade new and used books, Kona Africabikes, games, as well as puzzles and toys from Melissa and Doug.
We stock approximately 15,000 books and we’ll order anything we don’t have in stock for you. Our wholesaler ships quickly and has 1.5 million books in stock. The current paperback bestsellers are 20% off. Book clubs are eligible for a 20% discount. Most special orders are discounted 10%. K-12 teachers can save 20% on books for classroom use.
The store is located at 425 Division st. You can call us at 507-645-6700 or email info@monkeyread.com. Our website is monkeyread.com and our blog is monkeyread.wordpress.com. We are a global business, shipping books around the world daily.
Not that I feel completely responsible for the demise of two of our bookstores, but I was glad to see this in last week’s NY Times: Stores See Google as Ally in E-Book Market
Now one element of Google Editions is coming into sharper focus. Google is on the verge of completing a deal with the American Booksellers Association, the trade group for independent bookstores, to make Google Editions the primary source of e-books on the Web sites of hundreds of independent booksellers around the country, according to representatives of Google and the association.
On Thursday, owner Patty Austvold put up a banner in the window of Bookfellows at 5th and Division that it’s closing at the end of May. It’s 20% off most everything in the store now.
Last week I met with St. Olaf grad Phong Nguyen about his new company, AhaDiscounts. He hosts local businesses’ promotional discounts on his website. People who carry his City Discount Card can then get year-round discounts at those businesses.
He’s currently running a promotion on the card through the end of March. Normally $10, people can get the card for free from any of the participating businesses listed on his web site. I got my card from bookstore blogger Jerry Bilek at Monkey See Monkey Read.
Megan Rossow (left), "Petey," the parrot, and Leah Erickson display locally produced merchandise at the Cannon Valley Veterinary Clinic
Local governments and independent non-profits can be resources for business owners in need of support, especially in today’s tougher economic times. In Northfield, however, not everyone agrees on what the government and non-profits should do in order to offer the most help to the most business owners. The Representative Journalism Project attempted to collect more information about the matter by issuing a survey in January to 60 business owners or managers from a variety of fields. (continued)
It’s been a tough few months for many downtown businesses. First there were high gas prices cutting into families budgets, then there were the street projects complicating access, finally there was the Global Financial Contraction challenging the minds of the best and brightest.
As Radtke found out, local retailers are seeing some impacts on their customers. Pinched in the present and worried about the future, folks are being more careful about their money. Radtke reports that store owners have responded by cutting operating costs, working to build other income centers, and trying new promotions to get people into their stores.
Not all businesses are experiencing slowing sales. Some are holding steady and a few are even up slightly from last year. However, Radtke notes that even these business owners have contingency plans in place, such as a shift from luxury goods to more practical items.
Many local experts who spoke to Radtke believe that the media coverage of economic set-backs, a steady drumbeat featuring sub-prime mortgages in California, risky commercial loans in Iceland, and a store closing in Northfield can undermine consumer confidence. Feeding the pessimism, they warn, can extend the recession.
Radtke ends his piece on a positive note. Entrepreneurs, like the downtown business owners he interviewed, run on optimism. They’ll continue to make adjustments, and believe that economic conditions, and retail sales, will eventually improve.
Griff had suggested that I close the comments on this post and send them to my previous post on the Deep Economy. I’ve decided that I disagree. I hope that the comments on “Digging Deeper into the Local Economy” will focus on ideas for shifting some pieces of the economy from global to local in order to benefit the Northfield community.
For this piece, I’d like to explore the impact of the media on consumer confidence and economic conditions. Do you think the media’s stories on economic events have an impact on the economy?
Continue for the text of Myles’ article or see the PDF:
I’ve owned an Amazon Kindle (wireless reading device) for about six weeks now. It’s been out for almost a year but I waited to see if there was significant industry and user momentum behind it before I ordered one.
There’s lots to like about it. Among my favorites: reading in the bright sun; reading a book while eating — no hands required; highlighting and making notes that can be exported; free sample chapters of new books.
There are two other early morning coffee drinkers I see who’ve gotten a Kindle lately. Hey, that’s almost enough to start a NKUP (Northfield Kindle Users Group.) Anyone want to organize it?
We Kindle owners contend that we’re saving trees, of course. But are we undermining the local retail economy? Northfield’s Division St. has three bookstores: River City Books, Monkey See Monkey Read, and Bookfellows.
When roaming around for Crazy Daze this morning, I picked up a couple of books at Monkey See, Monkey Read and noticed the very cool bike proprietor Jerry Bilek had on the sidewalk.
No, he’s not going into the bike business; he’s going into humanitarian aid.
For every two bikes I sell, Kona will donate one to a home health worker in Africa as part of the BikeTown Africa program. This video explains the program better than I can.
This particular bike is a single-speed utilitarian model with “thorn-proof tires”. A three-speed model is also available. Go to Jerry’s blog to get to the tech specs of the bike; I just liked the idea that you can shop local and support an important humanitarian cause at the same time. Jerry, like many of our independent retailers here in Northfield, has a lot of interesting ideas.
Northfield News managing editor Jaci Smith wrote an article a month ago about Tom’s book titled, Swift tells story of oft-forgotten pitcher. (Tom was editor of the Northfield News for a few years earlier this decade.)
Hayes Scriven: Griff, the money the Arts and Culture Commission got from SEMAC is to go for projects like this! That is why the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment was passed! Now, yes there are some programing projects I have heard bout that I...
Peter Seebach (Seebs): There may well be better things the money could be spent on, but there are certainly many worse things. I do think that things like this contribute to a feeling of community, and I think they dovetail nicely with the...
kiffi summa: I must wonder, Griff, what your opinion on this ”investment” is… I sense your opinion is questioning the wisdom of the expenditure; or are you just “stirring the pot”? I personally think it is a teriffic...
Jane McWilliams: Griff – I think the poetry project is a good investment. As you see from the quote below from the Streetscape Task Force page on the city web site, money comes from the Master Development Fund which is designated for...
kiffi summa: To follow up on Peter’s You Tube video recommendation, read the May 12th article in the New York Times (search archives) entitled “Harming the Troops”. Republicans on the Armed Services Committee, led by Rep. Todd...
Griff Wigley: I’ve removed those 5 ‘orphaned’ comments that were mucking up the hierarchy. All’s good now?
Peter Seebach (Seebs): John, someone forwarded me a thing which helps explain why I do not believe the current situation provides adequate legal protections: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v =ah4ke16g1DI Watch that, and then tell me with a straight...
Peter Seebach (Seebs): California in general has very high rates of “drug use”. And frankly, there is no place in the US that can be meaningfully called “very accepting” to gays. More accepting than others, sure. Why, I...
David Henson: Peter, you have the Internet you do the research. Use San Francisco as a baseline (an accepting place) – gays there have very high rates of depression and drug use.
Griff Wigley: Good turnout last night for the Cannon Valley Mountain Bike Team meeting at the high school. I’ve blogged a summary with the ppt presentations.
Griff Wigley: Jordan Osterman, the new Sports Editor for the Northfield News, scooped me on Saturday. I’m glad! Northfield high school mountain bike team forming As a club sport, mountain biking would have no official affiliation with either...
Griff Wigley: Good suggestion, Curt. I’ll do that for next week’s blurb. I have been verbally emphasizing the importance of having girls on the team, especially since their points on race days count more than boys’ points. Other...
Curt Benson: Hey Griff, I wonder if you shouldn’t put a bit more emphasis on the idea that you’re recruiting both boys and girls for this team. And that the scores for both the boys and girls make up a team score. I think that in the...
Griff Wigley: It should be noted that this team does not yet exist! So this meeting is for those student-athletes (and their parents) who might be interested in joining this new team.
Griff Wigley: Suzy Rook has a sidebar to today’s Nfld News update on last night’s Council meeting. Excerpt: The city administrator and finance director say they have asked for the information on several occasions, including last month...
john george: Living where we do, it is only a few blocks walk to North Street and a grand view of the sunsets. Also, with our neighbors’ mature white pines & spruce, our covered deck affords outdoor enjoyment with a fair amount of...
Griff Wigley: Props to the newspaper and Suzy Rook for mentioning LoGro twice in the story: Fire Department officials, including Fire Chief Gerry Franek, did not respond to several requests from the News for association financial records or...
Griff Wigley: Posted to Northfield News at 1pm: Ethical questions arise over Northfield Fire Relief Association expenses Donations made to Northfield Fire Relief Association aren’t public dollars, but that hasn’t extinguished city...
Griff Wigley: Curt/Robert, There’s a summary of the Rescue Squad on Page 21 of the 2009 NFD report to the City. It doesn’t mention that there’s a Rescue Squad Association. The last paragraph states: The Northfield Rescue Squad is...
Robert Palmquist: If Hvistendahl’s motivation was to keep the financials from getting known, his submitting a memo like that just really backfired. I agree, why would these financials be such a secret??? And why did the NRSA hire a lawyer to...
Curt Benson: So Hvistendahl has found another place to wet his beak. You ask a good question, “Why is it important that the City not know the Northfield Rescue Squad Association financials?”
Jim Haas: Happens to me a lot. So much that my lovely wife had to coin a term for it: she says I have datelexia.
norman butler: Since coming to my adopted country 16 years ago I have observed, amongst other things, that not putting the day with the date is both common and peculiar to Northfield (MN? USA?).
John Thomas: Just a reminder, advance tickets for Girls Night Out 2012 can be purchased on The Grand’s website at http://www.thegrandnorthfield. com/public-events. Your tickets will then be available at a special “Will Call” at...
Liz Reppe: This is a great place to buy plants! Jeni is very knowledgeable and they are both really helpful. You get great service and plant expertise, but the prices are not higher than other places in town.
bill metz: While most of how Jake is being remembered revolves around, and rightly so, his great and wonderful talent as an artist and teacher and the works of sculpture he has left for our and the next generations enjoyment, I have had the...
Ross Currier: It was an honor for me and the NDDC to work with Jake. His pieces of sculpture in our community send a powerful visual message that Northfield is an Art Town. I still marvel at his clever and creative approach to building social and...
paul krause: The memorial service will be held at 11am. Doors to the Chapel will open at 10am for a chance to visit with family members and friends to share memories of our dear friend. Anyone who would like to view the documentary Harvest (which...
kiffi summa: Come on, Griff… you say you’re “more than a little clueless about about investments” but you “just happened to notice”… and from what you said, were reading analytically, etc etc… Once...
Griff Wigley: I’m more than a little clueless about investments but I noticed on page 14 in the April 24 Council packet that the Fire Relief Association has 85% of its pension portfolio in stocks. Isn’t that a bit risky/aggressive for...
Griff Wigley: Has there been any media reporting on the intergovernmental meeting in Bridgewater Township that was held on April 25 re: the Rural Fire Protection District and the City of Northfield?
Jim Mangan: I noticed this morning that a few of the newly planted trees along South Highway 3 have a pronounced lean. Could it be storm damage?
Ross Currier: It’s great that someone is enhancing the connection between downtown and uptown. I know they coordinated their work with MNDoT, City staff, and the Streetscape Task Force. Uh, raise your trowels in a toast to the Northfield...
Vicki Serreno: I wish I’d known – this is my neighborhood since I left Northfield in 2010. I’d have shown up to support them.
Kathie Galotti: My neighbor and sometimes babysitter Maggie Kennedy appears in this video as well! Go Maggie, and Cliff and Sophie and Parker and everyone else! Well done, guys!
Peter Seebach (Seebs): Heh, we had those when I was in college. Guess we’re making progress, they’re starting years earlier now!
Sandy Vesledahl: Thanks for blogging our garage sale Griff! We are at 2018 Jefferson Rd, Suite 1, thanks to the Jasnoch Family for allowing us to use the space. We will be there until 5:00 today and again from 8-2 on Saturday. We’ve had a...
Bright Spencer: I have an 8 year old dog that has not been neutered, has not reproduced and never been out unleashed except in our yard. It costs nothing to care for your pet properly.
Bright Spencer: To see this makes me so happy! Best of luck to you!
Peter Seebach (Seebs): For what it’s worth, I’m pretty happy with the whole process so far, although we found exciting new things out about the land development code, such as “the rules for calculating how tall a building is for...
Arlen Malecha: I wish more establishments had outdoor seating & dining. Now that our offices (Coldwell Banker South Metro www.CBSouthMetro.com are downtown, I love to see people sitting and dining outside. It is fun to walk up and down...
Sean Hayford O'Leary: I would say the current configuration of Division Street makes me grateful not everyone is doing it. Sidewalk dining brings a lot of livelihood to the street — but I’ll admit that I’ve been occasionally...
Griff Wigley: Rebecca, there are several Northfield eating and drinking establishments that have outdoor dining with tables and chairs, serving alcohol, but not SIDEWALK dining. Downtown ones that come to mind: The Tavern, Chapati, The Cow, Froggy...
Rebecca Bliss: Timely post, Griff -I didn’t realize this. I was just commenting to my husband about how nice it would be to dine al fresco now that the weather is getting warmer. Guess this is another discovery for the new...
From killing and skinning game to falling in with outlaws and finding refuge with kind if irascible strangers, Margo’s earthy education and the profound complexities of her timeless dilemmas are exquisitely rendered and mesmerizingly suspenseful. A glorious novel destined to entrance and provoke.” –Booklist
ed with her “unflinching honesty” (Melissa Senate) and “nuanced, relatable characters: (Allison Winn Scotch), Kristina Riggle’s evocative novels beautifully capture the realities of women’s lives today. In Things We Didn’t Say, this acclaimed writer probes the emotional depth of family and the challenges that can break — or unite — us.
With no way into the house’s magical paintings, and its three guardian cats reluctant to help, Olive’s friend Morton is still trapped inside Elsewhere. So when Rutherford, the new oddball kid next door, mentions a grimoire — a spellbook — Olive feels a breathless tug of excitement. If she can find the McMartins’ spellbook, maybe she can help Morton escape Elsewhere for good. Unless, that is, the book finds Olive first.
The Twin Cities serve as geographical entry point for this exploration of how selfhood can be inescapably split over the course of a lifetime and exist in separate moments in time. Carol Muske-Dukes has won acclaim for work that marries sophisticated intelligence, emotional resonance, and technical craft. What distinguishes her poetry from her contemporaries is her awareness of the complicated web into which the personal and the political, the familial and the feminist, are woven. This awareness deeply informs her latest collection, a book that plunges into the depths of both grief and joy with subtle precision.
Lake Superior, the north country, the great fresh-water expanse. Frigid. Bountiful. Lethal. Wildly beautiful. The Long-Shining Waters gives us the stories of women separated by centuries and circumstance, yet connected across time by the place they inhabit. Haunting, rich in historical detail, and universal in its exploration of the human desire for meaning when faced with uncertainty,The Long-Shining Waters is an unforgettable and singular debut. PW says “Sosin writes sensuously detailed prose and distills the emotions of her characters into a profound and universal need for acceptance and love.”
Timothy Schaeffert returns with a novel called “sublime” by Publishers Weekly. The Coffins of Little Hope features his most vivid and endearing character to date, Essie, otherwise known as “S,” an 83-year-old obituary writer for a struggling, small-town newspaper. Touching on the themes of the fragility of childhood, the strength of family, and the powerful rumor mills of small, rural towns — this is a novel you won’t want to miss. Check out the praise sheet below for numerous great review from independent booksellers. In a starred review,PW writes: “It’s small town, big drama in Schaffert’s sublime latest. Piercing observations and sharp, subtle wit make this a standout.”
TORN is an anthology edited by Samantha Parent Walravens. The 49 stories are fascinating, true, day-in-the-life vignettes about contemporary motherhood, written by both working and stay-at-home moms. Its contributors are mothers who work because their finances require it and those who work to preserve their sanity, stay-at-home moms who love mothering and those who long for more. Along with these tales from the inner sanctum of motherhood, TORN also includes contributions from outsiders: women whose busy personal and professional lives got in the way until the motherhood option was no longer open for them.
Set in Madison, Wisconsin, Mothers and Daughters by Rae Meadows is about three generations of women — Sam, Iris, and Violet — their stories intertwined to span the twentieth century. Inspired by her own journey into motherhood, Rae Meadows explores the feeling of being “knocked off balance by motherhood.” She shows readers how to recognize themselves and their loved ones — no matter how much anyone changes over time. Mothers and Daughters is rich and luminous novel about three generations of women in one family: the love they share, the dreams they refuse to surrender, and the secrets they hold. ”Mothers and Daughters is a powerful novel of women’s secrets and strength.”–Sandra Dallas, New York Times best-selling author 
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