Introduction:

Welcome, everyone, to our final episode of Season Three of Reading With Libraries! It has been so great to read with you for these fifteen weeks – we just can’t bear for our book fun to end. So while we are on hiatus you will get a Book Bite each week. This is a quickie five-minute sharing of a book by one of our Guests. We have been producing these for a while now, so you can browse our entire archive on our website.

You can also check out our other podcast, Linking Our Libraries! Each week we will look at a new skill to use in a library, or other places. Follow us there!

As a bonus for all the time we have spent together here, next week we have a special episode on book challenges. We want to help you explore even more great books, and challenges can be good tools to make that happen.

This week we are discussing a favorite topic: Minnesota books! We will look at book set in Minnesota, and books by Minnesota authors. This is always our season finale topic, because we know there are 10,000 lakes here and at least as many good stories!

Who is joining us today? We are welcoming back our traditional Minnesota book expert Kate Buechler, from the Great River Public Library system! Thanks for joining us again today!

Beverages:

We have guests, we have our genre. We just need our beverages. Fortunately, we all came prepared with something to sip while we talk about our books. Each week we like to connect the theme of our books with our beverages. Each beverage will have a recipe or a link on our episode page, so you can try them yourself!  Obviously, feel free to sip along with us with any beverage that is right for you. Just join us in celebrating books, and discussing books!

As Minnesotans, of course we have a wide variety of different beverages from all the cultures that make up our great state!  

Chai tea:

From The Somali Kitchen website: “It is amazing to see how international the humble cup of chai tea has become. Once common only in homely kitchens, it is now increasingly a popular drink of choice for the latte-sipping trendy folk.  We think they are onto a good thing, but we’ve been in the know for a longer time!”

Ingredients

2 cups of water
1 cup of milk
2 teaspoons of tea leaves (use a strong tea like Kenyan)
6 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick
½ teaspoon of ground ginger (you can use minced fresh ginger)
4 black peppercorns
2 cloves
Sugar to taste

Instructions

1. Grind all the spices
2. Place the water and spices in a saucepan
3. Add the tea leaves and bring to boil
4. Add the milk and heat through for two to three minutes
5. Sieve the tea into a pot and serve hot.

Cider:
From the Explore Minnesota website: “Minnesota is a great state for apples: The climate and soil are friendly to the fruit, and the University of Minnesota has done a great deal to ensure new and delicious varietals keep popping up in markets around the country. Most cafes will offer hot cider of some sort, particularly in the autumn through early winter months. And if you’re interested in something a bit stronger that still packs an apple punch, you can find ambitious artisan hard ciders from makers all over the state, including Milk and Honey Ciders (Cold Spring), Keepsake Cidery (Dundas) and Four Daughters Vineyard and Winery (Spring Valley). “

From Duluth Whiskey Project –one of our favorite vacation destinations – “mint whiskey

It’s like a visit to the North Shore in January: you notice the cold but remember the warmth.

Cool your jets with this exquisite, smooth-drinking batch of Minnesota heaven. (Note: You might say “Minnesota heaven” is being redundant, and we’ll say you’re right.)

A delectable hint of natural mint and vanilla flavor provides a perfect counterpunch to this rigorously taste-tested whiskey blend. Put it in a glass. Put it in a cocktail. Put it within easy reach for a relaxing day on the lake.”

Genre Suggestions:

We have a huge diversity of cultures and languages in Minnesota. There are a lot of Scandinavian descendants, as well as German descendants. And we have several Indian tribes across the state including Chippewa, Ojibwe, Lower Sioux, and Ojibwa or Anishinaabe. We have many groups of cultures who have moved here in the last fifty years, including strong populations of Vietnamese, Hmong, and Somali people.

We live in big cities, and small rural areas. We have deciduous trees and forests filled with pine trees. We root for the Vikings and the Wild. We have a pretty impressive great lake: Lake Superior; and to back that up we are known as the Land of 10,000 Lakes – but that doesn’t cover our whole range of lakes. We have waterfalls and historic sites. In short, we are a land filled with a diverse set of people and natural settings – and the literature of Minnesota is likewise exciting and diverse, and is filled with different kinds of settings, people, and genres!

We love Minnesota books, and collect all kinds of books across our website.  Browse around to find any number of books by our own Minnesota authors, and set in our lovely state!

We also have a collection of links to all kinds of other Minnesota books. Check our website for details.

• Top 15 books set in Minnesota

• Goodreads: Minnesota
• Great Minnesota Books
• Dark reads: 16 Minnesota murder mysteries
• Best Books Based In Minnesota
• Top Five Books Set in Minnesota
• Pinterst Books Set in Minnesota
• Books Set In website: Minnesota
• Cozy Mystery List Blog: Mystery books that take place in Minnesota

Our Book Discussion:

Now we are a little more familiar with this week’s genre, and we have enjoyed some of our special beverages, let’s get to the book discussion!

Note: Kate shares her love of Prince, as a good Minnesotan would, including knowing what’s in his fridge. The website she references is: http://heavytable.com/whats-in-princes-fridge/

As always, all the images and books below are from Amazon.com. If you click one and buy a nice book, or anything else, Amazon will give us a small percentage of their profits. Thanks in advance for helping to support us!!

Throughout the twentieth century, department stores ruled the retail landscapes of downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul. More than just shopping centers, stores like Dayton’s, Powers, Donaldson’s, Young-Quinlan, the Emporium, and the Golden Rule were centers of social life. From the legendary Dayton’s Christmas displays to celebrating a special occasion at Schuneman’s River Room, the department store was a destination for generations of Minnesotans, within the Twin Cities and beyond.

In Thank You for Shopping, author Kristal Leebrick presents the history and stories behind Minnesota’s great department stores, offering a lively trip back to the glory days. Abundantly illustrated with vintage photos, postcards, advertisements, and artwork, the book explores the experience of shoppers and employees alike. Readers will revel in the fun, the fashion, and the thrill of discovery these stores provided.

The book also includes a chapter dedicated to the signature dishes—with recipes, menus, and photos—of the stores’ esteemed dining establishments. And looking beyond the Twin Cities, Leebrick tells of beloved, locally owned stores in Brainerd (O’Brien’s), Winona (Choate’s), Duluth (Freimuth’s), and other Minnesota cities and towns.

Thank You for Shopping is a nostalgic trip back for anybody who remembers the service, style, and charm of Minnesota’s late, great department stores.

Apple Starkington turned her back on her Native American heritage the moment she was called a racial slur for someone of white and Indian descent, not that she really even knew how to be an Indian in the first place. Too bad the white world doesn t accept her either. And so begins her quirky habits to gain acceptance.
Apple’s name, chosen by her Indian mother on her deathbed, has a double meaning: treasured apple of my eye, but also the negative connotation a person who is red, or Indian, on the outside, but white on the inside.
After her wealthy father gives her the boot one summer, Apple reluctantly agrees to visit her Native American relatives on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation in northern North Dakota for the first time. Apple learns to deal with the culture shock of Indian customs and the Native Michif language, while she tries to find a connection to her dead mother. She also has to deal with a vengeful Indian man who loved her mother in high school but now hates Apple because her mom married a white man.
Bouncing in the middle of two cultures, Apple meets her Indian relatives, shatters Indian stereotypes, and learns what it means to find her place in a world divided by color.

After the end of her marriage, Kate Granger has retreated to her parents’ home on Lake Superior to pull herself together—only to discover the body of a murdered woman washed into the shallows. Tucked in the folds of the woman’s curiously vintage gown is an infant, as cold and at peace as its mother. No one can identify the woman. Except for Kate. She’s seen her before. In her dreams…

One hundred years ago, a love story ended in tragedy, its mysteries left unsolved. It’s time for the lake to give up its secrets. As each mystery unravels, it pulls Kate deeper into the eddy of a haunting folktale that has been handed down in whispers over generations. Now, it’s Kate’s turn to listen.

As the drowned woman reaches out from the grave, Kate reaches back. They must come together, if only in dreams, to right the sinister wrongs of the past.

Photographer Allen Beaulieu worked with Prince from the late 1970s into the early ’80s, capturing the musician’s progression from rising star to his ultimate purple superstardom. Always at Prince’s side with camera in hand, Beaulieu helped Prince carry forward his vision with legendary album cover images and promotional photos during the groundbreaking Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 era, while also capturing live performances on tour with Prince.

Prince: Before the Rain puts into focus the hallmark imagery—including behind-the-scenes, candid, and casual shots—with recollections from Beaulieu on his personal and professional relationship with Prince. Accomnpanying text will take the readers deeper into the context of these crucial years, with reminiscences from former bandmates, including Bobby Z., Dez Dickerson, André Cymone, and more.

Prince: Before the Rain paints another important picture in the mythology of the celebrated, influential, and endlessly invigorating performer while providing an intimate portrait of the Minnesota artist about to take over the world.

A USA Today bestseller and book club favorite! College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a willing subject. There he meets Carl Iverson, and soon nothing in Joe’s life is ever the same. Carl is a dying Vietnam veteran–and a convicted murderer. With only a few months to live, he has been medically paroled to a nursing home, after spending thirty years in prison for the crimes of rape and murder. As Joe writes about Carl’s life, especially Carl’s valor in Vietnam, he cannot reconcile the heroism of the soldier with the despicable acts of the convict. Joe, along with his skeptical female neighbor, throws himself into uncovering the truth, but he is hamstrung in his efforts by having to deal with his dangerously dysfunctional mother, the guilt of leaving his autistic brother vulnerable, and a haunting childhood memory. Thread by thread, Joe unravels the tapestry of Carl’s conviction. But as he and Lila dig deeper into the circumstances of the crime, the stakes grow higher. Will Joe discover the truth before it’s too late to escape the fallout?

For Adam Reed, basketball is a passport. Adam’s basketball skills have taken him from an orphanage in Poland to a loving adoptive mother in Minnesota. When he’s tapped to play on a select AAU team along with some of the best players in the state, it just confirms that basketball is his ticket to the good life: to new friendships, to the girl of his dreams, to a better future.

But life is more complicated off the court. When an incident with the police threatens to break apart the bonds Adam’s finally formed after a lifetime of struggle, he must make an impossible choice between his new family and the sport that’s given him everything.

A disturbing call from her great aunts Astrid and Jeannette sends seventeen-year-old Francie far from her new home in New York into a tangle of mysteries. Ditching an audition in a Manhattan theater, Francie travels to a remote lake in the northwoods where her aunts’ neighbors are “dropping like flies” from strange accidents. But are they accidents? 

On the shores of Enchantment Lake in the woods of northern Minnesota, something ominous is afoot, and as Francie begins to investigate, the mysteries multiply: a poisoned hotdish, a puzzling confession, eerie noises in the bog, and a legendary treasure said to be under enchantment—or is that under Enchantment, as in under the lake? At the center of everything is a suddenly booming business in cabin sales and a road not everyone wants built. 

To a somewhat reluctant northwoods Nancy Drew, the intrigue proves irresistible, especially when it draws her closer to the mysteries at the heart of her own life. What happened to her father? Who and where is her mother? Who is she, and where does her heart lie—in the bustle of New York City or the deep woods of Minnesota?

Somali Americans celebrate a shared heritage at mealtime. No matter how they found their way to America, members of this community come together over kackac, bur, and halwad (that is, tea, beignets, and sweets).

Realizing how quickly traditions can change in a culture on the move, Somali American students set out to preserve their culinary legacy by interviewing family members, researching available and alternative ingredients, and testing kitchen techniques. In Soo Fariista / Come Sit Down, seventy recipes for everything from saabuuse (stuffed pastry) to suqaar (sauteed meat) to canjeelo (flatbread) to shushumow (fried sweet dough) honor memories and flavors from East Africa with adjustments for American realities. An introduction explores Somali foodways and their transitions in the United States, and each contributor is highlighted with his or her story. Notes on the recipes share the students’ journey from “a little of this and a little of that” to methods that will bring success in Somali American cooking to novices and practiced hands alike.

Dessa defies category–she is an intellectual with an international rap career and an inhaler in her backpack; a creative writer fascinated by philosophy and behavioral science; and a funny, charismatic performer dogged by blue moods and heartache. She’s ferocious on stage and endearingly neurotic in the tour van. Her stunning literary debut memoir stitches together poignant insights on love, science, and language–a demonstration of just how far the mind can travel while the body is on a six-hour ride to the next gig.

In “The Fool That Bets Against Me,” Dessa writes to Geico to request a commercial insurance policy for the broken heart that’s helped her write so many sad songs. “A Ringing in the Ears” tells the story of her father building a wooden airplane in their backyard garage. In “‘Congratulations,'” she describes the challenge of recording a song for The Hamilton Mixtape in a Minneapolis basement, straining for a high note and hoping for a break. “Call Off Your Ghost” chronicles the fascinating project she undertook with a team of neuroscientists to try to clinically excise romantic feelings for an old flame. Her writing is infused with scientific research, dry wit, a philosophical perspective, and an abiding tenderness for the people she tours with and the people she leaves behind to be on the road.

My Own Devices is an uncompromising and candid account of a life in motion, in music, and in love. Dessa is as compelling on the page as she is onstage, making My Own Devices the debut of a unique and deft literary voice.

In 1969, Mike Roberts turned off the light at Split Rock Lighthouse. He was the last duty officer to serve at the iconic landmark. These are his stories of life at Split Rock, of the great Superior, and of making ends meet on the North Shore.

Before the universe was formed, before time and space existed, there was . . . nothing. But then . . . BANG! Stars caught fire and burned so long that they exploded, flinging stardust everywhere. And the ash of those stars turned into planets. Into our Earth. And into us. In a poetic text, Marion Dane Bauer takes readers from the trillionth of a second when our universe was born to the singularities that became each one of us, while vivid illustrations by Ekua Holmes capture the void before the Big Bang and the ensuing life that burst across galaxies. A seamless blend of science and art, this picture book reveals the composition of our world and beyond — and how we are all the stuff of stars.

Conclusion

Thank you so much for joining us for this discussion! This is our final show of Season Three – and stay tuned for Season Four coming soon later this summer.

We will start up Season Five of our library skills and programs podcast: Linking Our Libraries. Subscribe on your favorite podcast app, or just listen on our website – as you can with all our podcasts.

Want to be a full book group member? Join us on Patreon! For as little as $1 a month, you can support the podcast as well as helping to keep Official Office Dog, Lady Grey, in treats. We really need your help to keep podcasting, and this is a great way to support us and to be part of the podcast community! Thanks in advance for your support.

Join us next week for a special bonus episode, then each week we will provide a Book Bites quickie episode, to help you keep up on book ideas until we return for Season Four.