Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and it also has many interesting books. In this series, we are sharing some of the books we like from Minnesota, or Minnesota authors.

We are mapping our literary journey around Minnesota, so you can see all the interesting places where our books are set. Follow our progress on our Google Map, accessible by clicking that link or searching for the title CMLE Reads Across Minnesota!

This week we have a slightly different look at a Minnesota book; this one is not set in Minnesota – it’s not even set on Earth! But the author is a Minnesota resident, and supports Minnesota bookstores. So our map identifies this book in the author’s hometown of Medicine Lake.

If you like scifi books, this is a great series to read. And if you have not checked out scifi, this is a great place to start! The first two books in the series, in the internal chronological order, start with Cordelia Naismith as the main character. She is butt-kicking chick, stranded on a planet with a soldier, Aral Vorkosigan, who is not exactly an ally. They are both tough, strong, and good survivors. Naturally, they fall in love.

The first two books in the internal chronology focus on Cordelia as the main character. After that her son Miles is the main character, but Cordelia is never far from the action. Miles is pretty amazing, and it’s clear he gets a lot of his rare intelligence and skill from his mom. His dad is pretty great too; but Cordelia really stands out to everyone as a serious power.

I really like this series! It’s fun to read all the world-building Bujold does to make the assorted political systems and rivalries, the personalities, and the action seem both authentic and entertaining. And it’s fun that the series (minor spoiler!) covers decades. So you see Cordelia move from being a young single officer, through  motherhood and building a new career in the political world she didn’t choose but succeeds at to support her husband. Everything she does, she does on her own terms and the rest of the world moves to meet her demands.

From Amazon:  “Cordelia Naismith is enjoying a baptism of fire. Her first mission is to captain a throwaway warship of the Betan Expeditionary Force on a mission to destroy an entire enemy armada. Discovering deception within deception, treachery within treachery, she is forced into an uneasy peace with her nemesis: Lord Aral Vorkosigan. Discovering that astrocartography is not the soundest training for a military leader, Cordelia rapidly finds herself the prisoner of the Barrayaran Captain Aral Vorkosigan, also known as ‘The Butcher of Komarr’. But the notorious captain is not quite the beast Cordelia was expecting and a grudging respect develops between the two of them. As captor and prisoner on an abandoned outpost planet, the honourable captain and the resolute scientist must rely on each others’ trust to survive a trek across dangerous terrain, thus sparking a relationship that shares the struggles of culture and politics between their worlds.”

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and it also has many interesting books. In this series, we are sharing some of the books we like from Minnesota, or Minnesota authors.

We are mapping our literary journey around Minnesota, so you can see all the interesting places where our books are set. Follow our progress on our Google Map, accessible by clicking that link or searching for the title CMLE Reads Across Minnesota!

This week’s book was suggested by CMLE member Violet Fox. Do you have a good Minnesota book to suggest? Tell us about it! We love Minnesota books.

We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down: Memoir of a Gravedigger’s Daughter, by Rachael Hanel “Rachael Hanel’s name was inscribed on a gravestone when she was eleven years old. Yet this wasn’t at all unusual in her world: her father was a gravedigger in the small Minnesota town of Waseca, and death was her family’s business. Her parents were forty-two years old and in good health when they erected their gravestone—Rachael’s name was simply a branch on the sprawling family tree etched on the back of the stone. As she puts it: I grew up in cemeteries.

And you don’t grow up in cemeteries—surrounded by headstones and stories, questions, curiosity—without becoming an adept and sensitive observer of death and loss as experienced by the people in this small town. For Rachael Hanel, wandering among tombstones, reading the names, and wondering about the townsfolk and their lives, death was, in many ways, beautiful and mysterious. Death and mourning: these she understood. But when Rachael’s father—Digger O’Dell—passes away suddenly when she is fifteen, she and her family are abruptly and harshly transformed from bystanders to participants. And for the first time, Rachael realizes that death and grief are very different.”

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, and it also has many interesting books. In this series, we are sharing some of the books we like from Minnesota, or Minnesota authors.

We are mapping our literary journey around Minnesota, so you can see all the interesting places where our books are set. Follow our progress on our Google Map, accessible by clicking that link or searching for the title CMLE Reads Across Minnesota!

I am an egg fan. This is probably not a controversial stand – eggs are pretty popular foods, filled with all kinds of happy nutrition, especially when you get nice pasture-raised eggs. This past summer I was part of the Common Ground CSA at St. Ben’s (Community Supported Agriculture). We got all kinds of great veggies, local meat, and some of the most beautiful eggs I’ve ever seen! Every morning, when I made scrambled eggs they were so pretty – bright orange and yellow – that they enhanced anything else I added to them and started my day off really well!

Reading about eggs is nearly as fun as eating them – especially when it is all about the fun and foibles of some Minnesotans who decide to go all in on creating an chicken farm!

If you want to learn more about the farm, you can check out their website here! And if you see the brand Locally Laid eggs in your store – you can remember they are not only Minnesotan eggs and a family -owned business, but also have a fun book to go with them! (Yes, it’s perfectly fine to read this book while you are eating your breakfast/lunch/dinner eggs!)

Locally Laid: How We Built a Plucky, Industry-changing Egg Farm – from Scratch, by Lucie B. Amundsen “How a Midwestern family with no agriculture experience went from a few backyard chickens to a full-fledged farm—and discovered why local chicks are better.

When Lucie Amundsen had a rare night out with her husband, she never imagined what he’d tell her over dinner—that his dream was to quit his office job (with benefits!) and start a commercial-scale pasture-raised egg farm. His entire agricultural experience consisted of raising five backyard hens, none of whom had yet laid a single egg.

To create this pastured poultry ranch, the couple scrambles to acquire nearly two thousand chickens—all named Lola. These hens, purchased commercially, arrive bereft of basic chicken-y instincts, such as the evening urge to roost. The newbie farmers also deal with their own shortcomings, making for a failed inspection and intense struggles to keep livestock alive (much less laying) during a brutal winter. But with a heavy dose of humor, they learn to negotiate the highly stressed no-man’s-land known as Middle Agriculture. Amundsen sees firsthand how these midsized farms, situated between small-scale operations and mammoth factory farms, are vital to rebuilding America’s local food system.

With an unexpected passion for this dubious enterprise, Amundsen shares a messy, wry, and entirely educational story of the unforeseen payoffs (and frequent pitfalls) of one couple’s ag adventure—and many, many hours spent wrangling chickens.”

(Quick note: We include links here for your ease in finding more info, but receive no eggs or other benefit from the Locally Laid company, or Common Ground, in compensation. If you click on the book link to Amazon, and happen to buy something while you are there, we do get a small percentage of Amazon’s profits in return.)

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, but it also has many interesting books. In this series, we are sharing some of the books we like from Minnesota, or Minnesota authors.

We are mapping our literary journey around Minnesota, so you can see all the interesting places where our books are set. Follow our progress on our Google Map, accessible by clicking that link or searching for the title CMLE Reads Across Minnesota! (This book is set in fictional Mayville Heights, Minnesota, a small town on the Mississippi River. I have arbitrarily decided to set our pin in the town of Little Falls, MN as a placeholder.)

This is a fun series, if you like cozy mysteries about librarians! (And really – can you imagine a more fun topic??) Throwing in the magic cats is just a bonus. I read this when I moved to St. Cloud – and I am still waiting for my magic cats. In the meantime, I can keep reading through this entire

“When librarian Kathleen Paulson moved to Mayville Heights, Minnesota, she had no idea that two strays would nuzzle their way into her life. Owen is a tabby with a catnip addiction and Hercules is a stocky tuxedo cat who shares Kathleen’s fondness for Barry Manilow. But beyond all the fur and purrs, there’s something more to these kitties.

When murder interrupts Mayville’s Wild Rose Summer Music Festival, Kathleen finds herself the prime suspect. More stunning is her realization that Owen and Hercules are truly special—perhaps even magical. Now, with a little legwork from her four-legged friends, Kathleen may be able to solve this purr-fect murder..”