The Making of...

The Utne Reader's "Great Writing" blog clued me in to this article in Poets & Writers. It tells the story behind the Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary With Additional Material from a Thesaurus of Old English, published earlier this year by Oxford University Press. (Read more about that here.)

P&W includes news of a near-disaster. "In 1978, things nearly went up in smoke when the building housing the sole copy of the work-in-progress caught fire." The whole article is here.--David E

Checking It Twice

Here's a gift for the book collector on your list. This reproduction of Thomas Jefferson's bookstand let the polymath president consult five volumes at once.

Buy one here, but be warned: innovation in solid mahogany doesn't come cheap.--David E

Read Caroline Ore's short fiction on our mnLIT page

Caroline Ore's short story "Solo Performance" is this week's winner in our flash fiction competition miniStories. miniStories is a part of mnLIT, which is presented by Magers and Quinn Booksellers and mnartists.org.

All the winning stories, as well as the poems from our What Light contest will be published on magersandquinn.com and mnartists.org in the months to come. So come back soon!

Caroline was selected as a winner by local novelist David Oppegaard, whose novel Wormwood, Nevada was just published by St. Martin's Press.

Click here to read Caroline's story and to learn more about the mnLIT contest.--Jay P

Alice through the Ages

Flavorwire looks at artists' impressions of Alice over the years. See them all here.--David E

Not Zombies

It has long been thought (on the Wikipedia, for instance) that Jane Austen died of Addison's disease. But today the New York Times reports that Katherine G. White of the Addison’s Disease Self-Help Group has pointed the finger in another direction. She blames cows for giving Ms A bovine tuberculosis.

Details are here.--David E

A new poem by Greg Watson

Greg Watson's poem "My Brother's Tattoo" is this week's winner in our What Light Poetry Project. If memory serves me, I believe that Greg has had a winning poem in each of our What Light contests. He also has a new book due out soon titled Not Elsewhere, But Here.

What Light is a part of mnLIT, which is presented by Magers and Quinn Booksellers and mnartists.org. All the winning poems, as well as the short stories from our flash fiction competition miniStories will be published on magersandquinn.com and mnartists.org in the months to come. So come back soon!

Click here to read Greg's poem and to learn more about the mnLIT contest.--Jay P

Mightier Than the Pen

You don't mess with Katherine Dunn.

The 64-year-old author, best known for Geek Love, was the target of an attempted purse snatching recently, reports The Oregonian newspaper. Twenty-five-year-old Brandy Amber Carroll approached Dunn in the parking lot of Trader Joe's and demanded her bag. Little did Carroll know that the author has been training at the Knott Street Boxing Club for ten years.

Dunn fought back. “I would normally lead, as all good boxers do, with my left hand,” she said. “But my left hand was tied up in the purse.” Still, she managed to hold on to her valuables until police arrived.

Details are here.--David E

Your Moment of Zen--Library Edition

I can't tell you much about this video, but it sure is pretty.



Thanks to architechnophilia for the catch.--David E

Keeping it Simple, Not Stupid

The Onion's "A.V. Club" talked to Carol Sklenicka recently. She's the author of Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life, a comprehensive biography of one of America's foremost writers of short stories.

The Onion poses such down-to-earth questions as "Why all the fuss?" and "Carver’s described as a “dirty realist.” That’s bad, right?", and Sklenicka's responses are just helpful and succinct.

Read the full interview here, then meet Carol Sklenicka when she's in our store tomorrow--7:00pm, Sunday, November 29.--David E

Are You Listening?

Minnesota's own Kevin Kling will read from Holiday Inn at Magers & Quinn--Thursday, December 3, at 7:30pm.

Kevin Kling's first book, The Dog Says How, brought readers into his wonderful world of the skewed and significant mundane. His second book, Holiday Inn, is a romp through a year of holidays.

"Kevin Kling's stories are not merely delightful. They are surprising, wise and redemptive. He is one of our great national treasures."--Krista Tippett, public radio host and founder of Speaking of Faith.

Details on this and all our events are always on the M&Q events page.--David E

Shop Local, Eat Local

Sunday, M&Q is hosting James Norton and Becca Dilley. They traveled the length and breadth of Wisconsin, talking to all the graduates of the UofW's Master Cheesemaker certification program. The result is their new book The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin. They'll be in the store at 4:30pm on Sunday, November 29, to talk about their travels and the great cheeses they found. Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl will emcee the evening's discussion.

But wait, there's more....

Cheese samples at the event will be provided by France 44 Wine & Spirits. France 44 Cheese Shop and its new sister across the river, St. Paul Cheese Shop are committed to offering the best customer service and the best tasting cheeses from near and far. Stop by for a taste of something delicious and check out france44.blogspot.com for the cheesiest blog. And remember, "Friends don't let friends eat cold, precut cheese."

Details on the event are here.--David E

Keep It in the Community

Got the Black Friday Big Box Blues? The Downtown Journal has posted a list of local gift ideas for the holiday season. "Give Local: 2009 Holiday Gift Guide" will help you find clothes, music, housewares, and even... ahem... books from local, independent vendors. The full list is here.--David E

Beat Black Friday... on Thursday

Want to cut down on holiday spending? Eat more turkey today.

Scientific American's "60-Second Science" podcast has the details. The tryptophan in turkey is converted into serotonin, which has been shown to reduce impulsive behavior. Hear the news here. It'll only take a minute.--David E

Chin Chin

Magers & Quinn Booksellers is pleased to announce an evening of wine information you can really use. On Friday, December 4, at 7:30pm, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl will be in the store to talk about her new book Drink This: 473 Answers to Your Most Impolite Questions About Wine (available November 24).

If you've been baffled by a wine list, stood perplexed before endless racks of bottles at the liquor store, or ordered an overpriced bottle out of fear of the scathing judgment of a restaurant sommelier, Dara is here to help. Before she became a James Beard Award-winning food and wine writer, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl (formerly of the City Pages, currently at Minnesota Monthly) experienced all these things. Now she presents a handy guide that will show you how to stop being overwhelmed and intimidated, how to discover, respect, and enjoy your own personal taste, and how to be whatever kind of wine person you want to be, from budding connoisseur to someone who simply gets wine you like every time you buy a bottle.

Refreshingly simple, irreverent, and witty, Drink This explains all the insider stuff that wine critics assume you know. It will teach you how to taste and savor wine, alone, with a friend, or with a group. And perhaps most important, this book gives you the tools to learn the only thing that really matters about wine: namely, figuring out what you like.

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl draws on her own experience and savvy and interviews some of the world's most renowned critics, winemakers, and chefs, including Robert M. Parker, Jr., Paul Draper, and Thomas Keller, who share their wisdom about everything from pairing food and wine to the inside scoop on what wine scores and reviews really mean. Readers will learn how to master tasting techniques and understand the winemaking process from soil to cellar. Drink This also reveals how to get your money's worth out of wine without spending all you've got.

"Dara Grumdahl is right about absolutely everything. If she calls me up at four in the morning, says 'Get dressed, get some money--and a gun--you'll need it where we're eating,' I don't ask any questions. I just go."--Anthony Bourdain

Twitterature

Rick Moody, author of The Ice Storm, will serialize his latest short story via Twitter. From November 30 to December 2, a new 140-character-long installment will appear every fifteen minutes from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. Here's a sample:

Saw him on OKCupid. Agreed to meet. In his bio he said he had a “different conception of time.” And guess what? He didn’t show.

Online literary magazine Electronic Literature is sending out the story chunks. Details are in Entertainment Weekly. Follow the stories on Twitter.--David E

$24,517.36

How much do you make if your book gets on the New York Times' bestseller list? Lynn Viehl, author of Twilight Fall, has posted her royalty statement from Penguin.

Income for the eleven months since the book came out is $24,517.36. Or as Viehl puts it, "My income per book always reminds me of how tough it is to make at living at this gig, especially for writers who only produce one book per year. If I did the same, and my one book performed as well as TF, and my family of four were solely dependent on my income, my net would be only around $2500.00 over the income level considered to be the US poverty threshold (based on 2008 figures.) Yep, we'd almost qualify for foodstamps."

Thanks to Nathan Bransford for the catch.--David E

Cheese, Please

Magers & Quinn Booksellers and Heavytable.com invite you to learn about the artisans making Wisconsin's most famous--and tastiest--food: cheese. Eating local has never been more important to diners. A personal connection to the people who produce our food is an important and valuable part of fine dining. The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin is your guide to some of the most skilled craftsmen and -women right here in the Upper Midwest. Authors James Norton and Becca Dilley discuss their new book at 4:30pm, Sunday, November 29, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin--beautifully photographed and engagingly written--introduces hardworking, resourceful men and women who represent an artisanal craft that has roots in Europe but has been a Wisconsin tradition since the 1850s. Wisconsin produces more than six hundred varieties of cheese, from massive wheels of cheddar and swiss to bricks of brick and limburger to such specialties as crescenza-stracchino and juustoleipa. These masters combine tradition, technology, artistry, and years of dedicated learning--in a profession that depends on fickle, living ingredients-to create the rich tastes and beautiful presentation of their skillfully crafted products.

James Norton and Becca Dilley interviewed these dairy artisans, listened to their stories, tasted their cheeses, and explored the plants where they work. They offer here profiles of forty-three active Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin, as well as a glossary of cheesemaking terms, suggestions of operations that welcome visitors for tours, tasting notes and suggested food pairings, and tasty nuggets (shall we say curds?) of information on everything to do with cheese.

Researching the book, the authors logged more than 7,600 miles on Wisconsin highways and back roads, visiting 35 cheese plants and interviewing 43 cheesemakers. They don't even want to think about how many pounds of cheese they ate.

James Norton is a weekly columnist for Chow magazine and editor of Heavy Table, a food magazine for the Upper Midwest. He is also author of Saving General Washington. Becca Dilley has photographed food for numerous publications and works as an independent photojournalist. Follow their blog is at mastercheesemakerbook.wordpress.com.



Details are here.--David E

"It was the dilemma of the watchers"

Earlier this week, Collum McCann's novel Let the Great World Spin won this year's National Book Award for fiction. The story takes place in New York City in 1974. A street full of people stands rapt as a tightrope walker crosses between the towers of the World Trade Center. McCann follows their lives after the event, eventually bringing them together again for an astounding finale.

Dave Eggers said, "This is a gorgeous book, multilayered and deeply felt, and it’s a damned lot of fun to read, too." The New York Times said, "Let the Great World Spin is an emotional tour de force."

Is it true? Find out for yourself. Random House has posted a long excerpt here.--David E

The Examined Life

In the cover story of this weekend's New York Times Book Review, Stephen King discusses the life and career of Raymond Carver, one of America's great short story writers. Carver was also, however, "the destructive, ­everything-in-the-pot kind of drinker who hits bottom, then starts burrowing deeper."

King's summary draws heavily from Carol Sklenicka's new biography Raymond Carver: A Writer's Life. King says, "[A]s a chronicle of Carver’s growth as a writer... Sklenicka’s book is invaluable." (The full review is here.)

Carol Sklenica will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers to discuss her book at 7:00pm on Sunday, November 29. We hope you can join us. It's sure to be a fascinating evening.--David E

Thanksgiving Day Sale at Magers & Quinn

On Thanksgiving Day from 12:00 until 9:00pm everything at Magers & Quinn Booksellers will be 20% off. No coupons, no crowds. Come in while the turkey's in the oven or later when you're fighting off the tryptophan. Either way, you can get a jump on your holiday shopping. Beat the crowds during this very special sale.

Throughout the holiday season, Magers & Quinn will be collecting donations to the Joyce Food Shelf. High-protein foods (peanut butter, tuna, dried bean and peas), infant formula, and toiletries are particularly useful and welcome. Share the bounty of the holiday season with your neighbors.

The Fine Print: During our Thanksgiving Day sale, no further discounts or coupons apply.--David E