Episode 215: Minnesota

 

Introduction

Welcome, everyone, to our final episode of the season of Reading With Libraries! 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!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we support all types of libraries. This is our book group podcast, where we discuss different genres of books each week, while we all sit in our comfy chairs and drink our beverages. And you are, of course, an important part of this book group. So if you do not already have a nice beverage please go get one, so you can join the experience.

There are no “right” or “wrong” books to read and chat about for our book group – we are just here to explore all kinds of books. We love books, and want to talk about them – and we want you to share what you are reading. All of us will take away at least a title or two that we want to read at the end of our time together!

 

 

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! But this week we are focused on sharing some local beers. When it’s hot and summery outside, a lot of us are outside camping, fishing, hiking, or engaging in other outdoor activities – and sipping on local beers is part of that tradition! We will have links to all these breweries on our website, to encourage you to try out some new beverages for yourself!

  • Dangerous Man Dangerous Man’s taproom was formerly a bank that resided on the corner of 13th Avenue and 2nd Street in Northeast Minneapolis. The tall pillars reminiscent of a bank are still in place today, as well as a iron bank door that can be seen in the southwest corner of the taproom. If you look above the doorway when entering Dangerous Man, the bank’s name is still etched into brick.  The atmosphere is simple and inviting.  We want you to meet new people, catch up with old friends, or just be lonely and chat with the staff. Contrary to popular belief, we are not a bunch of vinegar drinking know-it-alls, whose sole purpose in life is to make yours a living hell. Pretentious? Nope. Insane? Maybe. Dangerous? Most definitely.
    • Chocolate Milk Stout Stout Dangerous Man displays its creativity in bold beers rather than inventive brand names. Chocolate Milk Stout has been synonymous with the taproom-only brewhouse since Day One and it continues to garner excitement and dominate their offerings, with special cask variations often being introduced. Chocolate Milk Stout bears the heartiness of a winter warming stout, complemented with chocolate milk sugars that make it part milkshake, part beer. Despite the sweetness, it’s balanced enough to be an anytime beer and not relegated to the dessert table.
  • Lift Bridge Brewing Co. was founded in 2008 by homebrewers Originally brewing only for friends and family, they eventually began brewing bigger batches and sold their first keg of beer in September of 2008. In 2010 they moved into their current brewery space, eventually opening a taproom in 2011 taking advantage of a law allowing craft beer brewers to sell pints directly from the brewery. It is currently the oldest operating Taproom in the State of Minnesota. January of 2018 Lift Bridge announced expansion into a new facility that will be open sometime in 2019, that will carry Lift Bridge into a future filled with more delicious beer.In 2014, Lift Bridge became one of the first breweries in Minnesota to brew non-alcoholic craft root beer. Originally, the product was only available in the taproom until it was canned for retail distribution in 2017.
    • Silhouette Russian Imperial Stout Imperial stouts are big beers with a lot of nuance, and those distinctions are what makes the beer, from the dark fruit notes to the balance of a high alcohol content in competition with subtle flavors. Silhouette is one of the best Minnesota has to offer, with a chocolate impression that fades into bitter coffee, all with an undertone of raisin, cherry, and a mild peppery spice. It’s a big, strong beer, but one that is easy drinking enough to make it dangerous with that 10% ABV.
  • Way back in 1986, before craft brewing was even cool, Summit Brewing Company Founder and President Mark Stutrud set out in St. Paul, Minnesota, to make craft beers inspired by old-world brewing traditions and ingredients. Over 30 years have passed since he first brewed our flagship Summit Extra Pale Ale, and it’s safe to say he freaking nailed it.

Today, Summit Brewing continues to infuse traditional recipes with modern ingredients from around the world, crafting high-quality and consistent craft beer out of respect for the hardworking folks who enjoy our beer.

And because we’re independently owned and operated, we get to make craft beer our way. That means relying on natural carbonation, protecting the foam, and celebrating the true dance between malts, hops, water, and yeast. It means protecting the environment, supporting the community and the arts, being kind to animals, and always having one more beer with our friends and family even if we’re already late for rotary club. It means drinking our beer fresh and cold, because warm storage turns good beer to shit. And it means never settling for “good enough,” always pulling the goalie when we’ve got a chance to win, swinging for the fences, and never, ever forgetting where we come from. Grain country represent.

  • Oatmeal Stout Stout Perhaps the seasonality of the list is affecting us, perhaps it’s that our climate encourages malty, heavier beers. Regardless, Minnesota has some fine stouts and few are older than Summit’s draft-only Oatmeal Stout. The oats give a thick, creamy texture that softens the drier malt tones. While somewhat limited in comparison to the rest of their stable, the presence of Oatmeal Stout on a tapline has long been a symbol of a quality beer bar in town.
  • Town Hall Brewery (Minneapolis) own Hall Brewery is a brewery and restaurant featuring world-class beer, fantastic food, and an atmosphere worthy of both. It’s a place where you can relax and enjoy yourself.

We’ve been crafting great beer at Seven Corners in Minneapolis since 1997. And through hard work and a bit of luck, we’ve picked up quite a few awards for our efforts over the years. In fact, we’ve been awarded more medals at the Great American Beer Festival than any other Minnesota brewery.

We’re proud of all our accolades, but the best ones don’t come from a panel of judges – they come from our customers and friends. Our beers are brewed for real people and individual experiences. We’d love it if you took the time to get to know them for yourself.

  • Masala Mama India Pale Ale Long a crowd-pleaser, even back into the days before “Minnesota IPA” was a thing, Masala Mama is the go-to beer at Town Hall Brewery locations across town and it’s a wonderful combination of everything that makes the style work, from the fragrant citrus to the sweet malt base.

 

 

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 are collecting them on our website. Each week we publish a review of a book set in Minnesota in our series: CMLE Reads Across MN. We also have a google map where we locate each of these books, so you can see how geographically diverse our state – and our books – are to read! We link to this series on the website for this podcast so you can check it out yourself.

 

 

Books Discussed

We love Minnesota books and authors! Here are a few we have enjoyed:

Give a Girl a Knife by Amy Thielen

Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal

A Good Time for the Truth: Race in Minnesota by Sun Yung Shin

O Human Star, Volume One, by Blue Delliquanti

Got to Be Something Here: The Rise of the Minneapolis Sound by Andrea Swensson

Guy in Real Life by Steve Brezenoff

Original Fake by Kirstin Cronn-Mills

The Fate of Mercy Alban by Wendy Webb

Goodnight Loon by Abe Sauer, Nathaniel Davauer

Hidden Human Computers: The Black Women of NASA by Sue Bradford Edwards and Duchess Harris

Be a Star, Wonder Woman! by Michael Dahl

Alice in France: The World War I Letters of Alice M. O’Brien, by Alice Marie O’Brien

The Girl Who Drank the Moon by Kelly Barnhill

 

 

 

From Somalia to Snow: How Central Minnesota Became Home to Somalis by Hudda Ibrahim

From Somalia to Snow: How Central Minnesota Became Home to Somalis gives readers an invaluable insider’s look into the lives and culture of our Somali neighbors and the important challenges they face. Designed with a diverse audience in mind, this book is a must-read for students, health-care professionals, business owners, social service agencies, and anyone who wants to better understand the Somali people.

In providing a great understanding of Somali culture, tradition, religion, and issues of integration and assimilation, this book also focuses on why thousands of Somali refugees came to live in this cold, snowy area with people of predominantly European descent.

 

The Vanishing, by Wendy Webb

Recently widowed and rendered penniless by her Ponzi-scheming husband, Julia Bishop is eager to start anew. So when a stranger appears on her doorstep with a job offer, she finds herself accepting the mysterious yet unique position: caretaker to his mother, Amaris Sinclair, the famous and rather eccentric horror novelist whom Julia has always admired…and who the world believes is dead.

When she arrives at the Sinclairs’ enormous estate on Lake Superior, Julia begins to suspect that there may be sinister undercurrents to her “too-good-to-be-true” position. As Julia delves into the reasons of why Amaris chose to abandon her successful writing career and withdraw from the public eye, her search leads to unsettling connections to her own family tree, making her wonder why she really was invited to Havenwood in the first place, and what monstrous secrets are still held prisoner within its walls.

 

 

A Year in the Wilderness: Bearing Witness in the Boundary Waters, by Amy Freeman, Dave Freeman

From adventurers and educators Amy and Dave Freeman, a passionate and beautifully illustrated account of a year in the Boundary Waters.

The Boundary Waters–with over twelve hundred miles of canoe routes–is one of our national treasures, yet their existence has been consistently threatened. When the Freemans learned of copper nickel mining in the area’s watershed, they decided to take action. They would speak on behalf of the Boundary Waters. And they would do it by spending a year in the wilderness.

This book tells the story of that year in northern Minnesota. In visceral, immediate language and gorgeous photos, the Freemans show us the value of wilderness and why we must protect it. We hear loons whistling softly under a moonrise. We taste lobster mushrooms cooked over a fire. We watch a pine marten stalking a hare through winter’s first snowfall. We linger, reverently, at the edges of a silent lake after other campers have gone home.

 

In the Lake of the Woods, by Tim O’Brien

When long-hidden secrets about the atrocities he committed in Vietnam come to light, a candidate for the U.S. Senate retreats with his wife to a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota. Within days of their arrival, his wife mysteriously vanishes into the watery wilderness.

 

Hooper, by Geoff Herbach

It can be tough to find good YA books aimed at boys, or about “boy” interests, like sports. This book does that, and adds in some interesting social justice issues – always important issues to YA readers!

“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.”

 

Minnesota’s Own: Preserving our Grand Homes, by Larry Millett

I love to look at old houses, and of course it’s always fun to see huge, beautiful homes we will never own but are important parts of the culture of an area. This book looks at 22 houses – not necessarily  the “best” in the state (how could you even decide that?) but definitely among the best of mansions you can see in Minnesota.

Each house is a separate chapter, loaded with beautiful photos of the interior and exteriors. There is information about the history of the house, how it was built, and the families who lived in the homes.

Many are located in Minneapolis, St. Paul, or areas around them. The David Park House in Bemidji is featured, along with the George Draper Dayton House in Worthington, Quarry Hill in Rochester, and the William Windom/Abner Hodgins House in Winona.

I definitely enjoyed reading the final chapter, on Glensheen in Duluth. At the 2016 MLA, we were fortunate to have a private event at the lovely Glensheen – my first visit. If you were there, you remember how nice that was; and if you have visited it at other times, you know how lovely the house is.  And if you have not yet had a chance to go – do it!

You may not be able to tour all these homes, but you can enjoy reading this book and seeing how lovely they are! (And, at this time of year, I feel so grateful to not have to pay to heat these huge spaces! Reading about it is much easier and more fun.)

 

 

Conclusion

Thank you so much for joining us for this discussion! This is our final show of Season Two – but stay tuned for Season Three coming soon later this fall. We want to talk about more genres and more books, and to talk with more members of our CMLE podcast book group. If you have genre suggestions, or if you want to be a guest to talk about some fun books – send us an email at admin@cmle.org. Be sure to subscribe to our podcast so you don’t miss a single episode!

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