Before He Was Famous

The New York Times reviewed Bruce Machart's debut novel The Wake of Forgiveness, and it's a rave. Says author Philip Caputo,

His accounts of the horse races are as thrilling as his depictions of the harsh Texas landscape are loving and precise. He has a good ear for Western speech, and he writes as convincingly about an era he never experienced as he does about such diverse topics as cotton farming, quail hunting and gelding stallions. The echoes of McCarthy are loud in his lush style, but there are also undertones of Faulkner, Larry McMurtry, Norman Maclean and Charles Frazier. Machart blends these influences into a style uniquely his. “The Wake of Forgiveness” is a fine debut.

The full review is here. You can meet Bruce Machart when he visits Magers & Quinn--7:30pm, Tuesday, November 2. Don't miss this chance to catch a rising literary star.--David E

Canadian, Eh?

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has opened voting to choose the Canada Reads Top Ten Novels of the Decade. Those of us south of the border will be struck by the number of authors who it turns out hail from the Great White North:

• William Gibson
• Yann Martel
• Margaret Atwood
• Emma Donoghue
• Carol Shields

The full list is here.--David E

See Jay-Z & get a signed copy of Decoded

The Library Foundation presents a live telecast interview between Jay-Z and Cornel West from the New York Public Library. Buy a signed copy of Jay-Z’s new book Decoded to guarantee your seat in the Pohlad Auditorium 6:00pm, November 15, at the Minneapolis Central Library, 300 Nicollet Mall. Signed books can be picked at the Library the night of the telecast. Limit one book per attendee. A portion of sales support the Library Foundation. Free overflow seating will be available outside the auditorium.

Pre order your book here.--David E

Paddle North

Explore the Quetico–Boundary Waters with two seasoned paddlers--one a writer, one a photographer--Thursday, November 4, at 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn. Details are here.

Canoe country has a strong hold on the Minnesota imagination. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and neighboring Quetico Provincial Park are still a remote wilderness where lynx, moose, and gray wolves still roam. It is a place and a dream, a source of enjoyment for the hundreds of thousands who have paddled a canoe through these distinctive waters.

Writer Greg Breining and photographer Layne Kennedy have hefted their canoes over many a portage in both the BWCAW and the Quetico, and their new book, Paddle North, in words and full-color photos, inspires dreams of simple days out on the water and quiet nights at home in the woods. Meditations on map making and canoe building, on the rock-pine-water combination that defines the northland, on winter weather and forest fire are all accompanied by views of sparkling lakes and rocky cliffs, challenging portages, campfire reflections, and friendships forged away from the hustle of everyday life. Together, these stories and images convey a sense of reverence for the landscape and the playful joy felt by those who paddle north.

Layne Kennedy’s photographs have been published in National Geographic Traveler, Sports Illustrated, Life, Newsweek, Smithsonian, and other magazines. Greg Breining writes about travel, science, and nature for the New York Times, Audubon, and other national publications. Kennedy and Breining are also the team behind A Hard-Water World: Ice Fishing and Why We Do It. For more information, visit www.laynekennedy.com and www.gregbreining.com.--David E

What's Inside

The Wake of Forgiveness

Bruce Machart's striking debut is a stunning novel that brings to mind Cormac McCarthy’s fiction, with its crushingly tyrannical father and stark, sparse Texas landscape. This story grabs you by the throat from its first words and refuses to let go. In Machart’s hands, frontier Texas is as unforgettable a character as are the Czech and Mexican immigrants who live there. And as the title promises, this is ultimately a very American story of redemption. You can meet the author at M&Q--7:30pm, Tuesday, November 2.

“The prose is polished and evocative, the physicality of rural Texas in the year 1910 shimmers with loving exactitude, and the story of Karel Skala is a gripping American drama of misplaced guilt, familial struggle, and a search for identity. ... What a fine, rich, absorbing book.”--Tim O’Brien, author of The Things They Carried

From an early age young Karel proves so talented on horseback that his father enlists him to ride a high-stakes race against a powerful Spanish patriarch and his alluring daughters. Hanging in the balance are his father's fortune, his brother's futures, and Karel's own fate. Fourteen years later, with the stake of the race still driven hard between him and his brothers, Karel is finally forced to dress the wounds of his past and to salvage the tattered fabric of his family.

Bruce Machart's fiction has appeared in Zoetrope: All-Story, Glimmer Train, Story, One-Story, and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in Best Stories of the American West. A graduate of the MFA program at Ohio State University, he currently lives and teaches in Houston.

Details are here.--David E

A Mother's Story

Nine years ago, Peter Westra was 24 years old, a successful young investment banker. He was in Atlantic City to meet up with his Middlebury college buddies for a friend’s bachelor party. Just 15 hours later, he was dead--kicked to death on a sidewalk by bouncers outside a nightclub.

After the Murder of My Son is Peter's mother’s story of the day her life was shattered and the intimate retelling of how she put the shards back together again, to save herself and her family. Author Mary Westra bares her soul and takes readers along on her journey through utter grief, through the emotionally draining judicial process, to seeking hope and purpose, and finally finding a new normal and reclaiming life.

“In Mary Westra’s story of heartbreak and hope, all of us can see the fragility, the strength, and the love that informs our own lives”--Jeffrey Zaslow, coauthor of The Last Lecture and columnist for The Wall Street Journal

Mary Westra grew up in Northeast Minneapolis. She graduated from Macalester College and taught French for eight years before becoming a stay-at-home mom. When her two daughters and son became teenagers, she went back to work, launching a 10-year career of fundraising for arts organizations. She retired from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2002, shortly after the murder of her son. Mary and her husband, Mark, live in White Bear Lake.

Mary Westra will discuss her book Monday, November 1, at 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn. Details are here.--David E

David Sedaris Signed Books at M&Q

David Sedaris was kind enough to stop by Magers & Quinn today. He is in town for a reading tonight at the State Theater, but took time to visit local bookstores and sign stock.

We now have signed copies of many of David Sedaris' books, including Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk and Holidays on Ice.

They'll make great Christmas gifts. Quantities are limited, so get a copy now. They won't last long.--David E

Love That Dirty Water

Pirates, icebergs, floating cities of sin... The Mississippi River was a wild, wild place. Learn the truth when Lee Sandlin visits M&Q--7:30pm, Monday, October 25.

"A gripping book that plunges you into a rich dark stretch of visceral history. I read it in two sittings and got up shaken."--Garrison Keillor

"What a wickedly wild ride of a read! I loved this book!"--William Kent Krueger, author of Heaven's Keep

Wicked River is a riveting look at one of the most colorful, dangerous, and peculiar places in America’s historical landscape: the strange, wonderful, and mysterious Mississippi River of the nineteenth century. Beginning in the early 1800s and climaxing with the siege of Vicksburg in 1863, Wicked River takes us back to a time before the Mississippi was dredged into a shipping channel, and before Mark Twain romanticized it into myth.

Drawing on an array of suspenseful and bizarre firsthand accounts, Lee Sandlin brings to life a place where river pirates brushed elbows with future presidents and religious visionaries shared passage with thieves--a world unto itself where, every night, near the levees of the big river towns, hundreds of boats gathered to form dusk-to-dawn cities dedicated to music, drinking, and gambling. Here is a minute-by-minute account of Natchez being flattened by a tornado; the St. Louis harbor being crushed by a massive ice floe; hidden, nefarious celebrations of Mardi Gras; and the sinking of the Sultana, the worst naval disaster in American history. And here is the Mississippi itself: gorgeous, perilous, and unpredictable, lifeblood to the communities that rose and fell along its banks.

“Great stuff, essential stuff, and yeah, wicked.”--Roy Blount Jr, author of Alphabet Juice and Long Time Leaving: Dispatches From Up South

“A fascinating book, rich in detail and lore, the kind of strange object one wants to curl up with for long periods of time and gaze into the past we know much less well than we imagine. Wicked River is bound to cause a stir among readers who always want to know a little more about some place or some thing than the usual sources allow.”--Frederick Barthelme, author of Waveland

Lee Sandlin’s essays, most of which were published in the Chicago Reader, have received the Peter Lisagor Award for Exemplary Journalism and an award for Best Arts Criticism from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. His essay “Losing the War” was included in the anthology The New Kings of Nonfiction. He lives in Chicago. For more information, visit leesandlin.com.

Details are here.--David E

The Buddy System

Laurie Ellis-Young leads a mini-workshop on partner yoga at Magers & Quinn Booksellers--Sunday, October 24, at 4:00pm. It will be experiential for those who want to join in, but still enjoyable for those who would simply like to watch. Laurie's simple practices that anyone can do include

• Eye exercises that can help us learn to focus on the best in ourselves and the best in our friends.
  
• Simple neck rolls for relaxation and better communication between the brain and the body. The focus would be on the importance of communication with our own selves and with our friends.
  
• Practices for letting go of irritations and the tendency to become easily irritated.

Friendship: The Art of the Practice by Laurie Ellis-Young & Nancy Chakrin pairs stunning photographs of women, ages 10-100, practicing yoga in beautiful settings around the world with inspiring quotes celebrating friendship. Laurie Ellis-Young has been teaching yoga and breath work for over 30 years. Nancy Chakrin, a talented photographer, artist, and breast cancer survivor, is the person behind the camera lens. Together Laurie & Nancy share a special message of inspiration in their book. Laurie Ellis-Young and Nancy Chakrin became friends in Guatemala in 2008. An unlikely but complementary duo, they challenge each other to alternately "Do" and "Be”, sharing a dance between structure and spontaneity. Their quest compelled them to explore volcanoes, lakes, mountains, deserts, ocean beaches, jungles and cityscapes all in pursuit of showing the synergy between yoga and friendship. Their collection of dazzling photographs captures friends practicing yoga and friendship in spectacular settings around the world. The photographs are coupled with inspiring quotes that celebrate the sometimes simple and sometimes complex connections that form from the cherished practice of friendship. Details are here.--David E

Mondale's Minnesota Memories

Walter Mondale spoke today at the Westminster Town Hall Forum today. He discussed his new memoir The Good Fight: A Life in Liberal Politics. If you weren't among the thousand-strong crowd who turned out to hear the former Vice President, you can hear his remarks when they're broadcast on Minnesota Public Radio. (The air date will be announced soon.)

Signed copies of The Good Fight are available at M&Q, while they last.--David E

Surprise!

Longshot contender Howard Jacobson today won the £50,000 Man Booker Prize for Fiction for his novel The Finkler Question.

Details are here.--David E

Indie Publishing Meets Indie Bookselling

Jacob Paul reads from Sarah/Sara at 7:30pm, Tuesday, October 19, at Magers & Quinn.

An engrossing meditation on the meaning of faith, Sarah/Sara is the story of a young Orthodox Jewish woman who undertakes a solo kayaking journey across the Arctic Ocean after her parents are killed and she is disfigured by a terrorist bomb in a Jerusalem café. Haunted by her parents' death, and in particular by memories of her father, a 9/11 survivor whose dream was to kayak through the Arctic, Sarah embarks on her expedition unprepared for the strenuous physical and emotional trial that lies ahead. What begins as a series of diary entries on her struggle with faith ends in a fight for survival, as Sarah slowly comes to realize that she is lost in the Arctic wilderness with the ice closing in around her.

Jacob Paul is the author of the novel Sarah/Sara, which Poets & Writers called one of the best first fictions of 2010. He lives, writes, cycles, skis, and teaches creative writing in Salt Lake City, Utah, when he is not teaching at the University of Utah or Westminster College. A 9/11 World Trade Center survivor, he won the Utah Writers' Contest in 2008 and the Richard Scowcroft Prize in 2007. He is originally from New York City.

Details are here.--David E

Peter Geye Comes to M&Q

Peter Geye reads from his new novel at Magers & Quinn--Monday, October 18, at 7:30pm. Details are here.

Set against the powerful lakeshore landscape of northern Minnesota, Safe from the Sea is a heartfelt novel in which a son returns home to reconnect with his estranged and dying father thirty-five years after the tragic wreck of a Great Lakes ore boat that the father only partially survived and that has divided them emotionally ever since. When his father for the first time finally tells the story of the horrific disaster he has carried with him so long, it leads the two men to reconsider each other.

“Peter Geye has caught the essence of Minnesota’s exotic and remote North Shore of Lake Superior juxtaposed with a story of the poignant struggle between adult children and elderly parents.”--Anita Zager, Northern Lights Bookstore, Duluth, MN

Peter Geye received his MFA from the University of New Orleans and his PHD from Western Michigan University, where he was editor of Third Coast. He was born and raised in Minneapolis and continues to live there with his wife and three children. Safe from the Sea is his first novel.--David E

Rock On

Friday, October 15, at 7:30pm, Sara Marcus discusses Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution. She will be joined by local musician Laurie Lindeen, author of Petal Pusher.
Details are here.

“Sara Marcus’s Girls to the Front is a great & true & real history. Thank God. At last.”--Eileen Myles, author of Chelsea Girls and Cool For You

Girls to the Front is the epic, definitive history of Riot Grrrl--the radical feminist uprising that exploded into the public eye in the 1990s and included incendiary punk bands Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, Heavens to Betsy, and Huggy Bear. A dynamic chronicle not just a movement but an era, this is the story of a group of pissed-off girls with no patience for sexism and no intention of keeping quiet.

“For a Second Wave feminist like myself, Girls to the Front evokes wonderfully the way the generation after mine soaked up the promise and the punishment of feminist consciousness: all in all, a richly moving story.”--Vivian Gornick

Sara Marcus is a write and musician living in Brooklyn, New York. Her prose and poetry have appeared in publications including Slate, Time Out New York, The Advocate, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Heeb, where she was the politics editor for five years.--David E

Minnesota For Cute

--So you live in Minnesota, eh?
--Yep.
--Yep.

Peter Smith lives in Hopkins, Minnesota. He is a weekly contributor to Minnesota Public Radio's Morning Edition with Cathy Wurzer. A Porch Sofa Almanac is the first collection of Smith’s essays for MPR, and you can meet the author himself--Tuesday, October 12, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Bookellers. Details are here.

These are stories that keep close to the ground and reflect on the common experiences of being a Minnesotan: small-town football, stacks of Hudson’s Bay blankets in an antique store, ice fishing, and even those soggy gloves that emerge from melting snowbanks each spring. Following the calendar year, Smith’s reflections are the perfect season-by-season companion for that chair by the fireplace, a bench by the campfire, a seat on the bus or train--or, of course, a porch sofa. A Porch Sofa Almanac is a hilarious, often wry, and always remarkable portrait of everyday life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes that will resonate with Minnesotans from the state’s biggest cities to its smallest towns.

"In his wonderful new book Peter Smith has assembled a year’s worth of short pieces that prove the true power of story lies not in the ability to reveal but to conjure. In Peter’s world we are verbs not nouns, always changing, living, experiencing, and yet like the seasons, bound to come around again. These little gems, or at times more like Pop Rocks, burst forth; we belong."--Kevin Kling

The Big Time

Laurie Hertzel signed copies of her memoir News to Me: Adventures of an Accidental Journalist alongside fellow Minnesota author (oh, and former Vice President) Walter Mondale, who has penned his own memoir The Good Fight : A Life in Liberal Politics. They were both at the Midwest Booksellers Association trade show this past weekend.

If you missed Laurie when she read at Magers & Quinn last month, you can still see her. Check her Facebook page for information on upcoming readings. She's indefatigable.

Walter Mondale will launch his book to the public Thursday, October 14, with a noontime reading at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in downtown Minneapolis. Details are here.--David E

Will Weaver Visits M&Q

Minnesota’s Will Weaver has been a hunter since he was a young boy, following in the footsteps of his father, a dedicated and seasoned outdoorsman. As he writes in The Last Hunter, “in the fall, when Canada geese came through and when partridge season opened, [we] heard the far-off thudding report of shotguns--and in November the heavier poom-poom! of deer rifles.” Hunting frames Weaver’s childhood memories, his relationship with his father, and his own definition of self. And although one side of his family lineage includes men who would not hunt, or go to war, or carry a rifle, Weaver is caught off guard when his son and daughter show no interest in upholding the tradition of the hunt.

You can meet Will Weaver when he reads from his latest book at Magers & Quinn Booksellers--Wednesday, October 13, at 7:30pm. Details are here.

“Weaver . . . is a writer of uncommon natural talent. He’s that rare Real Thing,a writer writing eloquently, often between the lines but always with an undertow of passion about what he knows, where he lives, what he’s been through.”--Los Angeles Times

Will Weaver is a writer of many books, including Red Earth, White Earth; Sweet Land: New & Selected Stories; and Full Service, one of several of his award-winning young adult novels. An avid outdoorsman, Weaver lives with his wife in Bemidji. Visit www.willweaverbooks.com for more information.--David E

So you live in Minnesota, eh?

Peter Smith lives in Hopkins, Minnesota. He is a weekly contributor to Minnesota Public Radio's Morning Edition with Cathy Wurzer. A Porch Sofa Almanac is the first collection of Smith’s essays for MPR, and you can meet the author himself--Tuesday, October 12, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Bookellers.

These are stories that keep close to the ground and reflect on the common experiences of being a Minnesotan: small-town football, stacks of Hudson’s Bay blankets in an antique store, ice fishing, and even those soggy gloves that emerge from melting snowbanks each spring. Following the calendar year, Smith’s reflections are the perfect season-by-season companion for that chair by the fireplace, a bench by the campfire, a seat on the bus or train--or, of course, a porch sofa. A Porch Sofa Almanac is a hilarious, often wry, and always remarkable portrait of everyday life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes that will resonate with Minnesotans from the state’s biggest cities to its smallest towns.

"In his wonderful new book Peter Smith has assembled a year’s worth of short pieces that prove the true power of story lies not in the ability to reveal but to conjure. In Peter’s world we are verbs not nouns, always changing, living, experiencing, and yet like the seasons, bound to come around again. These little gems, or at times more like Pop Rocks, burst forth; we belong."--Kevin Kling

Details are here.--David E

Two Poets at M&Q

Sample new poetry at Magers & Quinn. John Tottenham reads from The Inertia Variations, and Brian Beatty reads from his chapbook DUCK!--7:30pm, Saturday, October 9.

When the original edition of the Inertias was published in 2005, it was hailed as “a terrific collection” by the Guardian, “quiescent genius” by Mojo Magazine, and “comedy gold” by 3AM Magazine, and turned Tottenham into something of a minor celebrity in his neighborhood. Now a new edition, packed with fresh material and including a lengthy addenda, is available--twice as long and satisfying as the original.

A multi-media interpretation of The Inertia Variations by English musician Matt Johnson (otherwise known as The The) is currently in production and a series of short 16mm films, directed by actor Adam Goldberg, will soon be making the rounds at film festivals.

-----------

Brian Beatty's writings have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Conduit, elimae, The Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Gigantic, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, McSweeney's Quarterly Concern, METRO, mnartists.org, Opium, Phoebe, The Quarterly, The Rake, and Seventeen. He was a grand prize winner of the 2009 miniStories contest, and is a frequent guest of the Rockstar Storytellers and Talking Image Connection reading series. He made his solo performance debut at the 2010 Minnesota Fringe Festival with "The Big Four Oh: 40 Jokes, Poems and Stories by Brian Beatty."

Details are here.--David E

Ben Franklin Is Rolling Over

According to the New York Times, Library Systems & Services has taken over ailing municipal systems in California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, and has thereby grown to be the fifth largest public library system in the nation.

I'm not opposed to privately held companies--I work for one, after all--but the loss of citizen input and influence on the major source of free information is distressing.

You can read the article here.--David E

Three for One for Free

Local scholar Ann Mullaney takes us back to the Italian Renaissance. She will discuss her work translating Teofilo Folengo, an extraordinary writer who lived at the same time as Machiavelli and Michelangelo--Sunday, October 10, 4:00pm, at Magers & Quinn. Folengo is best known for the epic poem Baldo, named for its protaganist. Baldo is a smalltown thug with the heart of a knight. He and his ragtag band of friends drink and gamble, and fight police, pirates, witches, and demons.

In 1527, Teofilo Folengo published a fascinating semi-autobiographical book called the Chaos of Triperuno ("Three-in-One"). We meet the protagonist at his conception, and witness his development as he struggles to form a single coherent self from among Folengo's other established selves: Merlino (bon vivant bard, homosexual, prophet, priest and author of the epic Baldo and polemical letters, etc.); Limerno (feisty heterosexual court troubadour, author of the 1525 Orlandino); and Fulica (theologian, celibate hermit). These personae hold lively discussions on the meaning of life, love, fame, sex, language and much more.

Folengo's work has long been unavailable to readers of English. Ann Mullaney published the first English translation in 2007 as part of the I Tatti Renaissance Library from Harvard University Press. For more information, visit www.teofilofolengo.com.--David E