Welcome to Browsing Books!
We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, a multitype system serving all types of libraries. We are here to help you find new books, for yourself or for your library.
This season we are moving through the state of Minnesota, looking at an interesting fact about each county and giving you a book prompt from that fact. We will share six book suggestions to meet that prompt, to get you started on reading new books. You can also take that prompt and find any other book to meet the challenge!
This week we admire Watonwan County. The county names name reflects the Dakota word “watanwan,” meaning “fish bait,” or “plenty of fish.” We suggest you celebrate it by reading a book with fish or fishing.
We give you links to each of these books on our show notes page, taking you to Amazon.com. If you click on any of them, and buy anything at all – including a nice book – Amazon will send us a small percent of the profits they made on these sales. Thank you for supporting CMLE!
People of the Sturgeon: Wisconsin’s Love Affair with an Ancient Fish, by Kathleen Schmitt Kline
People of the Sturgeon tells the poignant story of an ancient fish. Wanton harvest and habitat loss took a heavy toll on these prehistoric creatures until they teetered on the brink of extinction. But, in Wisconsin, lake sturgeon have flourished because of the dedicated work of Department of Natural Resources staff, university researchers and a determined group of spearers known as Sturgeon For Tomorrow. Thanks to these efforts, spearers can still flock by the thousands to frozen Lake Winnebago each winter to take part in a ritual rooted in the traditions of the Menominee and other Wisconsin Indians. A century of sturgeon management on Lake Winnebago has produced the world’s largest and healthiest lake sturgeon population.
Through a fascinating collection of images, stories and interviews, People of the Sturgeon chronicles the history of this remarkable fish and the cultural traditions it has spawned. The authors introduce a colorful cast of characters with a good fish tale to tell. Color photos by the late Bob Rashid and images from the Wisconsin Historical Society evoke both the magical and the mortal. Weaving together myriad voices and examining the sturgeon’s profound cultural impact, the authors reveal how a diverse group of people are now joined together as “people of the sturgeon.”
The Longest Silence, by Thomas McGuane
With ten books over a thirty-year span, Thomas McGuane has proven himself over and over again “a virtuoso . . . a writer of the first magnitude,” as Jonathan Yardley wrote in the New York Times Book Review. “His sheer writing skill is nothing short of amazing.” But he has devoted a couple decades more to another sustaining passion: the pursuit of most every sporting fish known to the angler’s hopes and dreams.
The quarry–from trout and salmon to striped bass, massive tarpon, and chimerical permit–inhabit these thirty-three essays as surely as the characters of a novel, luring the author back to childhood haunts in Michigan and Rhode Island, and on through the stages of his life in San Francisco, Key West, and Montana; from the river in his backyard to the holiest waters of the American fishery, and to such far-flung locales as Ireland, Argentina, New Zealand, and Russia. As he travels with friends, with his son, alone, or in the literary company of Roderick Haig-Brown or Isaak Walton, the fish take him to such subjects as “unfounded opinions” on rods and reels, the classification of anglers according to the flies they prefer, family, and memory–right down to why fisherman lie. “His essay subjects are the stuff of epics,” Geoffrey Wolff has written, “and his narratives can make you laugh out loud.”
What a Fish Knows: The Inner Lives of Our Underwater Cousins, by Jonathan Balcombe
Do fishes think? Do they really have three-second memories? And can they recognize the humans who peer back at them from above the surface of the water? In What a Fish Knows, the myth-busting ethologist Jonathan Balcombe addresses these questions and more, taking us under the sea, through streams and estuaries, and to the other side of the aquarium glass to reveal the surprising capabilities of fishes. Although there are more than thirty thousand species of fish―more than all mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians combined―we rarely consider how individual fishes think, feel, and behave. Balcombe upends our assumptions about fishes, portraying them not as unfeeling, dead-eyed feeding machines but as sentient, aware, social, and even Machiavellian―in other words, much like us.
What a Fish Knows draws on the latest science to present a fresh look at these remarkable creatures in all their breathtaking diversity and beauty. Fishes conduct elaborate courtship rituals and develop lifelong bonds with shoalmates. They also plan, hunt cooperatively, use tools, curry favor, deceive one another, and punish wrongdoers. We may imagine that fishes lead simple, fleeting lives―a mode of existence that boils down to a place on the food chain, rote spawning, and lots of aimless swimming. But, as Balcombe demonstrates, the truth is far richer and more complex, worthy of the grandest social novel.
Highlighting breakthrough discoveries from fish enthusiasts and scientists around the world and pondering his own encounters with fishes, Balcombe examines the fascinating means by which fishes gain knowledge of the places they inhabit, from shallow tide pools to the deepest reaches of the ocean.
The Gray Ghost Murders (Sean Stranahan Mysteries Book 2), by Keith McCafferty
When the graves of two men are discovered on Sphinx Mountain, Sheriff Martha Ettinger suspects murder. But with the only evidence a hole in a skull that might or might not have been caused by a bullet, she once more finds herself turning to private investigator Sean Stranahan for help. Stranahan already has a case, having been hired by a group of eccentric fly fishermen called The Madison River Liars and Fly Tiers Club to find a valuable fly that they suspect has been stolen. Could the disappearance of a vintage Gray Ghost from a riverside cabin in the Madison Valley be connected to the gray ghosts who haunt Sphinx Mountain? Stranahan will cross paths, and arms, with some of the most powerful people in the valley to find out, in a novel that is sure to capture new fans for one of the mystery genre’s rising stars.
Fish Out of Water: An Ozarks Lake Mystery (Book 1), by Marc Jedel
A small-town homicide. A community swamped in secrets. Can married amateur sleuths bait and capture the killer before the truth slips away?
Elizabeth Trout had escaped her rural Arkansas hometown. Compelled to sort through her deceased grandmother’s belongings, she and her new husband Jonas make an unexpected trip down south to the family ranch. But when the property manager turns up dead, Elizabeth is rocked when her ex-boyfriend-turned-deputy arrests her for the murder.
As incriminating evidence piles up and the sheriff’s convinced he’s got the right suspect, Elizabeth and Jonas must fish for clues on their own. With a multitude of potential culprits and her husband’s contrasting personality, Elizabeth fears she may be left dangling on the hook for a crime she didn’t commit.
Can these newlyweds net the real killer before Elizabeth is jailed for murder?
Hook, Line and Supper: New Techniques and Master Recipes for Everything Caught in Lakes, Rivers, Streams and Sea, by Hank Shaw
So many people get all tense when faced with a piece of fish or a bag of shrimp. It’s understandable: you went through all that effort to catch it, or, if you bought it from the store, we all know that fish isn’t cheap. You don’t want to mess things up. Hook, Line and Supper aims to cure that stage fright once and for all by breaking down the essence of fish and seafood cookery, allowing you to master the methods that bring out the best in whatever you catch or bring home from the market.
Rather than focusing on specific species, Hook, Line and Supper zeroes in on broad, widely applicable varieties of fish – both freshwater and salt – that can substitute for each other, and clearly and carefully provides master recipes and techniques that will help you become a more competent and complete fish and seafood cook.
Hank Shaw, an award-winning food writer, angler, commercial fisherman and cook at the forefront of the wild-to-table revolution, provides all you need to know about buying, cleaning, and cooking fish and seafood from all over North America. You’ll find detailed information on how best to treat these various species from the moment they emerge from the water, as well as how to select them in the market, how to prep, cut and store your fish and seafood. Shaw’s global yet approachable recipes include basics such as classic fish and chips and smoked salmon; international classics like Chinese steamed fish with chiles, English fish pie, Mexican grilled clams, and Indian crab curry; as well as deeply personal dishes such as a Maine style clam chowder that has been in his family for more than a century. It also features an array of fish and seafood charcuterie, from fresh sausages and crispy skin chips, to terrines and even how to make your own fish sauce.
The most comprehensive guide to preparing and cooking fish and seafood, Hook, Line and Supper will become an indispensable resource for anglers as well as home cooks looking for new ways to cook whatever fish or seafood that strikes their fancy at the market.
CONCLUSION:
Thanks for joining us! We’ll be back next week with a look at the next county and the next book prompt!