Grammar Nerds Unite!

Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication, blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror, it’s into its, and coconunut into coconut.

But at the Grand Canyon, they took one correction too far: fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court--with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated “criminal statues.” Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into “grammar vigilantes,” airing errors about their errant errand.

“This pair of kooks, with their high standards and principled civil disobedience, give me hope for the future of humanity.”--Steven Pinker, professor, Harvard University, and author of The Language Instinct and The Stuff of Thought

Meet Deck and Herson and see for yourself--4:00pm, Sunday, September 5, at Magers & Quinn. Details are here.--David E

Companion Animals

The indispensable blog A Journey Around My Skull has posted an excellent article about literary pets. Among the animals listed are Flannery O'Connor's peacocks, Carl Sandburg's goats, and Edith Wharton's dogs (at right). William S. Burroughs, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot, on the other hand, were all cat people. Go figure.

You can read the whole story here.--David E

Mind the Gap

Below is the trailer for Zero History, the latest novel from William Gibson, author of Mona Lisa Overdrive and Neuromancer. Zero History isn't available until September 7, but you can get a sneak peek in the video below. It's narrated by the author himself.





William Gibson will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers on September 16:

• At 5:00pm, William Gibson will meet fans and sign copies of his new novel in our store
• At 7:30pm, William Gibson will read from Zero History at The Minneapolis Central Library, Pohlad Hall, 300 Nicollet Ave S, Minneapolis. Q&A and signing will follow. Tickets for this reading are available at Magers & Quinn Booksellers (3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis. Tickets are $5.00 each, redeemable towards the purchase of Zero History.

Details are here.--David E

Bon Voyage

The indefatigable John Jodzio, author of If You Lived Here You'd Already Be Home, is taking his act on the road. He's touring the West Coast. If you'll be out that way, check him out. And please encourage your friends to go to his readings:

• Saturday, 9/4 -- Portland -- Reading Frenzy, 921 SW Oak, 7pm
• Tuesday, 9/7 -- San Francisco -- The Booksmith, 1644 Haight, 7:30pm
• Thursday, 9/9 -- LA -- Mt San Antonio College, 7:00pm
• Sunday, 9/26 -- LA -- Tongue & Groove Reading Series, Hotel Cafe 1623-1/2 N. Cahuenga, 6pm

Beautiful Words

Toronto's Postertext makes posters that use words from classic books to make pictures for your wall. You can choose Moby Dick, Kafka's The Metamorphis, and even the New Testament. Decorate your mind as well as your wall. See them all at postertext.com.

Tip of the hat to Flavorwire.--David E

"They’re apes and we’re apes.”

In order to write her latest novel, Ape House (available September 7), Sara Gruen--author of the bestselling novel Water for Elephants--studied linguistics and a system of lexigrams so that she could communicate directly with the bonobos living at the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines, Iowa. Gruen now considers them to be part of her extended family, and, according to the bonobos, the feeling is mutual.

“Four years ago, it would never have occurred to me that I would ever be able to say that I have great apes as personal friends, and now I can say that,” she said. “That’s just an amazing life change. I am aware of them all the time, and I want other people to be aware of them. It’s sort of an otherworld experience, and yet it’s not. They are of the same world. They’re apes and we’re apes.”

You can learn more about both bonobos and Sara Gruen in this short video about her new novel.



Magers & Quinn Booksellers is pleased to present an evening with Sara Gruen, reading from Ape House--7:30pm, Thursday, September 9, at The Woman's Club of Minneapolis (410 Oak Grove St, Minneapolis). Sara Gruen will read from Ape House; a Q&A and signing will follow. This will be her only Twin Cities appearance. Tickets for this reading are available at Magers & Quinn Booksellers (3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis). Tickets will be available August 1; they are $5.00 each, redeemable towards the purchase of Ape House.

Details are here.--David E

South Dakota Nice

Jon Lauck reads from Prairie Republic:The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889--Sunday, August 22, 4:00pm, at M&Q.
American democratic ideals, civic republicanism, public morality, and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South Dakota’s formative decade. Taking Dakota Territory as a laboratory for examining a formative stage of western politics, Lauck artuges that settlers from New England and the Midwest brought democratic practices and republican values to the northern plains and invoked them as guiding principles in the drive for South Dakota statehood. Prairie Republic corrects an overemphasis on class conflict and economic determinism. Lauck finds South Dakota’s political founders to be agents of Protestant Christianity and of civic republicanism--an age-old ideology that entrusted the polity to independent, landowning citizens who placed the common interest above private interest.

In rescuing the story of Dakota’s settlers from historical obscurity, Prairie Republic corrects darker portrayals of western history and expands our understanding of the American democratic tradition.

Details are here.--David E

All Fall Down

No one was injured last week when four shelves in Indiana State University's Cunningham Memorial Library collapsed, tipping 25,000 books onto the floor. Workers were replacing the base of an empty set of shelves when it fell over and the other three were knocked down like dominoes in a row. Library officials expect it will be at least two weeks before all the downed books are sorted and reshelved.

Details are here.--David E

Hot Enough For You?

Hear a fascinating slice of history from the Big Apple this coming Thursday, August 12, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, when Joe Flood discusses The Fires: How a Computer Formula, Big Ideas, and the Best of Intentions Burned Down New York City--and Determined the Future of Cities.

In the late 1960s, the RAND Corporation--a California-based military think tank--had an alluring proposal for New York City mayor John Lindsay: using their computer modeling techniques, which had been developed for, and successfully implemented in high-level military operations, the city could save millions of desperately-needed dollars by establishing more efficient public services, planned by the new science of “computer modeling.” A deal was struck: RAND would begin their first major civilian effort with New York City. The result was the worst fire epidemic in modern urban history.

Details are here.--David E

The Short Versions

Too busy to read? Jason Huff has a solution. His AutoSummarize project uses Microsoft Word's feature of the same name to boil classics of literature down to ten simple sentences.

For example, Clippy thinks that The Illiad can best be summed up as "Gods! Gods! Gods! Hector! Gods! Gods! Hector! Gods! Gods! God!"

Huff has compiled his summaries in a book, or you can see them in a PDF here. (Thanks to Taylor A. for the find.)--David E

Annie Baxter kicks off the new season of the What Light Poetry Contest

MPR's Annie Baxter kicks off the new season of the What Light Poetry Contest with her winning poem "The Buildup."

Her poem was selected by Chicago poet Sandi Wisenberg, author of The Sweetheart Is In, and Holocaust Girls: History, Memory, & Other Obsessions.

What Light is a part of mnartist.org's mnLIT progam and is presented online 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 Annie's poem.

Hot Tickets: Sara Gruen and William Gibson

Magers & Quinn is please to bring you two of the fall's best authors.

• Sara Gruen (author of Water for Elephants) comes to the Woman's Club of Minneapolis on September 9.
  
• William Gibson signs copies of his latest novel Zero History September 16 at M&Q; he'll also be reading and talking with fans at the Minneapolis Central Library that evening

Tickets for these readings are $5.00 each--redeemable towards the purchase of a new book the night of the reading. Seating is limited, so get your tickets while they last. Tickets are available only at M&Q.

Available September 7

The author of the bestselling and beloved Water for Elephants returns with a new novel, Ape House (available September 7). Sara Gruen will read from Ape House at the beautiful Woman's Club of Minneapolis. Q&A and signing will follow. This will be her only Twin Cities appearance. Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani, and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships--but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn't understand people, but she gets bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she's ever felt among humans . . . until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what's really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and "liberating" the apes, John's human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he'll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Then a reality TV show featuring the missing apes debuts under mysterious circumstances, and it immediately becomes the biggest phenomenon in the history of modern media. Millions of fans are glued to their screens watching the apes order greasy take-out, have generous amounts of sex, and sign for Isabel to come get them. Now, to save her family of apes from this parody of human life, Isabel must connect with her own kind, including John, a green-haired vegan, and a retired porn star with her own agenda.

"Sara Gruen ... has created a true thriller that is addictive from its opening sentence. Devour it to find out what happens next, but also to learn remarkable and moving things about life on this planet. Very, very few novels can change the way you look at the world around you. This one does."--Robert Goolrick, author of A Reliable Wife

Available September 7

The author of the cult hits Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive returns with a new novel, Zero History (available September 7). Magers & Quinn Booksellers is pleased to announce two appearances by the author. These will be his only events in the Twin Cities.

• William Gibson will meet fans and sign copies of his new novel--5:00pm, Thursday, September 16 at Magers & Quinn Booksellers
  
• William Gibson will read from his new novel Zero History--7:30pm, Thursday, September 16, at the Minneapolis Central Library, Pohlad Hall, 300 Nicollet Ave S, Minneapolis. Q&A and signing will follow.

Tickets for these events will go quickly, so stop by M&Q soon to be sure you get yours. Once they're gone, they're gone.

All Designery

How did Knopf arrive at the now-ubiquitous cover design for Wall Street Journal has a slideshow of rejected cover ideas for the American edition. (I still prefer the French versions.)

See all the covers here.--David E

I'm Blushing

A coworker told me about the website I Write Like, and it's been quite the ego boost. The website analyzes your writing--using "a Bayesian classifier, which is widely used to fight spam on the Internet"--and then tells you which author's writing style most closely matches your own.

Your faithful blogger's prose has been likened to the work of Cory Doctorow, Stephen King, Vladimir Nabokov, and James Joyce. Try it out here and see if it doesn't lift your spirits, too.--David E

I write like
Cory Doctorow

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Twice as Nice

Authors Ira Sukrungruang and Kao Kalia Yang visit Magers & Quinn Booksellers to discuss what it means to be Asian in America--Wednesday, August 4, at 7:30pm.

Talk Thai is the story of a first generation Thai-American growing up in a Thai family, and his constant attempts to reconcile cultural and familial expectations. It is a first-generation Asian American story, a mama’s boy story, a Chi-town Southsider story, a child of the 80s story, a child of a broken home story.

Ira Sukrungruang is a Thai American writer born in 1976 in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a suburb just south of Chicago. He now teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida. Sukrungruang is the author, with his good friend Donna Jarrell, of What Are You Looking At? The First Fat Fiction Anthology and Scoot Over, Skinny: The Fat Nonfiction Anthology. Visit him online at www.sukrungruang.com.

When she was six years old, Kao Kalia Yang’s family immigrated to America.Her memoir The Latehomecomer evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language. Through her words, the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her grandmother and shared by the entire Homng community have finally found a voice. The Latehomecomer won the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards Readers' Choice Award.

Together with her sister, Kao Kalia Yang is the founder of a company dedicated to helping immigrants with writing, translating, and business services. A graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University, Yang has recently screened The Place Where We Were Born, a film documenting the experiences of Hmong American refugees. Visit her website at www.kaokaliayang.com.

Details are here.--David E

Sneak Preview

Michelle Hoover’s The Quickening is an epic narrative of the bitter feud between two Iowa farming families—a feud lasting forty years, through two World Wars and the Great Depression. She knows what she's writing about--Hoover based her novel on her own grandmother’s diary and family oral histories.

Hoover will be at Magers & Quinn Booksellers on Sunday, August 1, at 4:00pm. Meanwhile, here's an excerpt from The Quickening.

---------

It wasn’t until late in the summer of 1913 that your grandfather and I began to work this farm from the acres of weeds and grasses it was to a fine place. A place where we could earn a living. That’s what a beginning is. My father and his father and his father before that had lived within the same ten square miles of land. Even after I married, I didn’t move farther from home than a day’s wagon ride. I’d seen no other landscape as a child. Had never dreamt of it. A farm is where I was born. Where I would always live. I’d known it from the day my mother walked me through the fields and rubbed her fingers in the dirt, putting her thumb to my mouth so I could taste the dust and seed we lived on. She said this was home. When I asked her if there was anything else, she shook her head. “Nowhere you need pay any mind to,” she said. “Not for the likes of us.”

It was only a month after I’d lost my father that Frank and I first came to this place. We married on a Sunday, as Frank thought right, the chapel holding only our families and a few friends. There we stood, both in our thirties, Frank the older by eight years and graying at the temples. He wore a borrowed suit that showed his ankles and wrists, I in a dove-colored dress, my red hair combed smooth to lessen my height. Afterward we ate cake and berries and they tasted too sweet. We opened our gifts. My mother swept a spot of frosting from my chin and drew out my arms to look at the fit of my dress. I’d always been a big woman, suited more for the farm than for marrying, an old bride as I was back then. My cousins had to squint to find the ring on my hand.

Only late did we return to what Frank had made our home. This same house, with borrowed furniture in the rooms. The house smelled of earth and smoke. Frank had polished the wood and swept the floors, leaving the broom to rest on the front porch. He’d spent most of his years working to buy the house and land, much of it still in sorry condition. Though he didn’t speak of it, his family were croppers. He’d seldom had a thing of his own. Now the both of us had a fair bit, and after the loss of my father, I was as determined as Frank to keep it. When I hurried in, Frank took that broom under his arm and strummed me a song, a sorry frown on his face when he pretended the broom had snapped a string. I grinned, dropping a penny at his feet. This was my husband, a string of a man himself with a good bit of humor in him. He was fair-skinned with black hair and long limbs, his eyes fainter than any blue I’d ever seen. If anything, I knew him to be kind and hardworking, and that was enough. Behind a curtain of chintz was the bed he’d made. The sheets were white and damp with the weather, and in the night they proved little warmth. Outside, the animals in the barn were still. I could smell them through the window. But inside, this was what marriage was.

From The Quickening by Michelle Hoover. Reprinted by permission of Other Press, LLC.

Iowa Stories

Years ago, Michelle Hoover discovered fifteen poorly-typed pages. Written during the last year of her great-grandmother’s life, they preserved the story of seventy years of hardship and loss on her family’s Iowa farm. The account eventually formed the basis of Hoover's first novel, The Quickening. "I consider the novel a restoration--a successful pursuit of what otherwise might have vanished," she says.

“Michelle Hoover’s fine debut novel recreates for us a way of life and a set of personalities that have vanished from our current scene, and she does so with a solidity of detail that will impress these people and these places forever on your memory.”--Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love

Based on her great-grandmother’s account and family oral histories, Michelle Hoover’s novel The Quickening tells the epic story of a bitter feud between two Iowa farming families--a feud lasting forty years, through two World Wars and the Great Depression. It is a story of survival and hardship, violence and betrayal, and the discovery and loss of lifelong love.

“I grew up among Iowa farm women, and Michelle Hoover has perfectly captured their voices and stories with great wisdom, tenderness, and beauty.”--Ted Kooser, U. S. Poet Laureate, 2004-2006

Michelle Hoover will read from her new novel at 4:00pm, Sunday, August 1, at Magers & Quinn. Details are here.--David E

Vendela Vida reads from The Lovers

Vendela Vida, author of the 2007 New York Times Notable Book Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name comes to Magers & Quinn Booksellers to read from her new novel The Lovers, Tuesday, July 27, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time, Yvonne returns to he beautiful coastal village of Datça, Turkey, where she and her husband Peter honeymooned twenty-eight years before. But instead of comforting her, Yvonne's memories begin to trouble her.

“Stunning. A masterful meditation on grief and love. The Lovers is a sensational novel from one of our finest writers at the height of her craft.”--Stephen Elliott, author of The Adderall Diaries

This event is free and open to the public. Details--as well as information on all our upcoming readings--are on our events page.--David E

Trippy

From the very necessary Bookshelf Porn blog (don't worry--it's not actually dirty), comes this panoramic shot of a baroque library. I think it's in Portugal, but there's no explanation. Still, you can pan around almost 360 degrees. Fasten your seatbelt and click here.--David E

Super Funny

Random House pulled out all the stops when they made their trailer for Gary Shteyngart's latest novel Super Sad True Love Story. The cast includes Edmund White, James Franco, Mary Gaitskill, and Jay McInerny.

Is Gary Shteyngart this funny in real life? You can decide for yourself when he reads at Magers & Quinn, Tuesday, September 21, at 7:30pm. Details are here.--David E

Love, Money, Family... What Could Go Wrong?

Emily Gray Tedrowe's debut novel Commuters is a tale of love, family, and money.

After losing her husband of many years, upstate New Yorker Winnie Easton has finally found love again with Jerry Trevis, a wealthy businessman. But their decision to buy one of the town’s biggest houses ignites an outburst from Jerry’s family--particularly from his daughter, Annette, who goes so far as to freeze Jerry’s assets. Meanwhile, Winnie’s daughter Rachel is secretly humiliated by her mother’s newfound love and money--all the more as Jerry begins lending her money. And Avery’s twenty-year-old chef grandson Trevis has just moved to Manhattan, looking to start his own restaurant--with none other than Jerry’s friendship, advice, and money to back him up.

“In her wonderful and original novel Commuters, Emily Tedrowe explores the reconfigurations of a family and the strange alliances that can occur between young and old, love and work. And she writes brilliantly about money. ...A deeply satisfying debut.”--Margot Livesey, author of The House on Fortune Street

Emily Gray Tedrowe was born in New York City and lives in Chicago with her husband and two daughters. Her short fiction has appeared in several literary journals, including Other Voices and the Crab Orchard Review, and has won a Literary Award from the Illinois Arts Council. Commuters is her first novel.

Details are here.--David E

Turkish Delight

The New York Times likes Vendela Vida's new novel The Lovers. Reviewer Josh Emmons says, "Vida is a subtle writer whose voice is spare and authoritative, at times sounding like a less gothic Paul Bowles, and her third novel is further evidence that she can fashion characters as unpredictable as they are endearing." (The full review is here.)

The Lovers is available now, and you can meet Vendela Vida at M&Q later this month. She'll be reading from her novel at 7:30pm, on Tuesday, July 27.--David E

Wee Beasties

The Bookshop Blog has posted a fascinating bestiary of various creepy-crawlies you might find living in a (badly cared-for) book. The list includes silverfish, firebrats, booklice, and my favorite Armadillidium vulgare--more fun to say than it is to see.

Read the whole story here.--David E

Chilling

You can meet Scott Sigler, one of the best science fiction writers of our day, this coming Thursday, July 8, at 7:30pm, right here at Magers & Quinn.

"Michael Crichton may be gone, but he has a worthy successor in Scott. This book takes thriller and science fiction conventions and slams them together to make something new and fascinating."--Simon R. Green, author of The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny and Agents of Light and Darkness

Sigler will be reading from his latest novel, Ancestor, a chilling a tale of genetic experimentation gone awry. On a remote island in the Canadian Arctic, PJ Colding leads a group of geneticists who have discovered this holy grail of medicine--life-saving transplant organs at almost no cost. By reverse-engineering the genomes of thousands of mammals, Colding's team has dialed back the evolutionary clock to re-create humankind’s common ancestor. The method? Illegal. The result? A computer-engineered living creature, an animal whose organs can be implanted in any person, and with no chance of transplant rejection.

Details are here.--David E

France is a Different Country

Not only are the covers of the French editions of Steig Larsson's books incredibly different from their American counterparts, but the titles too are much more continental. What we know as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo hews closer to its Swedish original; it's called Men Who Didn't Like Women in French. The Girl Who Played With Fire is the much more poetic The Girl Who Dreamed of a Can of Gasoline and a Match. And the third book--The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest--is the fantastic The Queen in the Palace of Drafts.--David E

Author. Reading.

I recently read Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra. It's a work memoir by Jordan Fisher Smith, about his time working at a park in California--dust, boredom, flood control issues, suicides, doughnuts, campers, cougars, and so on. I recommend it highly.

So I was charmed to find this video of the author reading from the book--literally reading from it--on his deck. It's summer reading at its simple best.--David E

God Bless the Kent District Library

Working as I do in a bookstore, I am several times a day asked imponderable questions such as, "What's the fourth book in the Dragonlance series?" or "What is the latest Sweet Valley High book?"

Until very recently I've used a combination of Google and bluster to answer these queries, but no longer. The invaluable database What's Next? Books in Series allows me to search by author, title, series name, and so on. And all the answers are grouped by series, so I can appear learned and informed and helpful.

This miracle of the internet is here.

Thanks to the Swiss Army Librarian for the catch.--David E

All men live enveloped in whale-lines.

Scientists unearthed the fossilized remains of a big whale in Peru in 2008, but not until now have they been sure what they had found. It turns out to have been a whale-eating whale--between 45 and 60 feet long, with teeth bigger than those of a T Rex.

The scientists who made the find have a literary bent. They named the new cetacean Leviathan melvillei, after Herman Melville, author of the whaling clasic Moby Dick.

Science News has the details.--David E

All the News

The July newsletter edition of the Magers & Quinn email newsletter has just gone out. It includes suggestions for great summer reading, upcoming author readings, and other literary gems.

August's newsletter will have the first word of some fantastic author events coming up this fall. Sign up here, and you won't miss a thing.--David E

Information, Whether You Want It or Not

Activists in New Hampshire have taken their message to the Portsmouth Public Library. Staff there have found over 5,000 bookmarks in library materials. The inserts direct readers to two websites--one an internet radio show "for all lovers of personal and political freedom" and one which opposes public education. You'll forgive me if I don't name the groups and give them more publicity. The curious can find their names here--David E

Magnetic Poetry 3.0

Remember Magnetic Poetry--the little fridge magnets you used to rearrange while waiting for your microwave burrito to heat up? Well, that was then. MP is now available online. Version 3.0 lets you move the words and word fragments on your computer screen. No word as yet about a mobile app.

Thanks to Wessel & Lieberman for the catch.--David E

Tanks for the Book, Man

Argentine artist Raul Lemesoff has turned a 1979 Ford Falcon into a "weapon of mass instruction." Armored with 900 books, the car--previously owned by the country's actual army, now roams the country distributing its payload free of charge.

A tip of the hat to Wessel & Lieberman for the catch.--David E

Sneak Preview

Bonnie Blodgett spoke to All Things Considered's Melissa Block this week about her new book Remembering Smell. Blodgett lost her sense of smell after using an over-the-counter nasal spray. The results--both personal and authorial--are a fascinating read. You can hear the interview here.

Oh but it gets better. Bonnie Blodgett will be at Magers & Quinn to read from her book on Friday, June 25, at 7:30pm. Details are here.--David E

Absolutely Entertaining

Magers & Quinn Booksellers is pleased to host the launch party for one of the first books from Carolrhoda Lab--The Absolute Value of -1 by St Paul's Steve Brezenoff--Thursday, September 23, at 7:30pm.

In his luminous YA novel, Steve Brezenoff explores the changing value of relationships as the characters realize that the distances between them are far greater than they knew. Noah, Lily, and Simon have been a trio forever. But as they enter high school, their relationships shift and their world starts to fall apart. Privately, each is dealing with a family crisis--divorce, abuse, and a parent’s illness. Yet as they try to escape the pain and reach out for the connections they once counted on, they slip--like soap in a shower. Noah’s got it bad for Lily, but he knows too well Lily sees only Simon. Simon is indifferent, suddenly inscrutable to his friends. All stand alone in their heartache and grief.

“Brezenoff’s enviable prose captures distinct, compelling characters as they struggle through the often heartbreaking work of becoming adults. Readers will identify with Lily, Noah, and Simon as they try to reconcile their longing for connection with their need to break free."--Sara Zarr, National Book Award Nominee and author of Once Was Lost

Steve Brezenoff has written several chapter books for young readers, and The Absolute Value of -1 is his first novel for teens. As he tells it, "I was born and raised in and around New York City, and I lived in the tri-state area for over thirty years. But I met and fell for a shiksa, and my exile began in earnest in March of 2006. Now we live in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with our infant son and our scrappy, smelly dog." Learn more at stevebrezenoff.blogspot.com.

Details are here.--David E

You + Tutoring = Awesome

Last week, M&Q hosted a video crew. They--and actor Michael Ritchie--were filming ads for Rock Star Supply Co, which pairs tutors with high school students in Saint Paul. (Learn more about them at rockstarsupplyco.org.)

Now the ads are finished. The first is below and there are two more online.



See the other two videos here and here.--David E

This Land Was Your Land

How well do you know Minnesota's history? Test your knowledge Thursday, June 24, at 7:30pm, when Mary Lethert Wingerd discusses her new book North Country: The Making of Minnesota from the University of Minnesota Press.

Wingerd's book chronicles the untold history of how the land of the Dakota and Ojibwe became the State of Minnesota. In North Country, Mary Lethert Wingerd unlocks the complex origins of the state--origins that have often been ignored in favor of legend and a far more benign narrative of immigration, settlement, and cultural exchange.

"By teaching us the story of this land, Wingerd tells us where we are today, and by opening up this neglected and hidden history of its native people, she helps us to understand the debt and respect that we owe them and points the way for us to make a better future for our children."--Jack Weatherford, professor of anthropology at Macalester College and author of Native Roots : How the Indians Enriched America

Mary Lethert Wingerd is associate professor of history at St. Cloud State University. She is the author of Claiming the City: Politics, Faith, and the Power of Place in St. Paul.

Details are here.--David E

All Over the Radio

The airwaves have been full of people talking about Ander Monson's new book Vanishing Point: Not a Memoir.

Last week, Lucia Silva, the book buyer at Portrait of a Bookstore in Studio City, California, said "Monson's writing makes you realize how very alive thinking and writing can be," on NPR's Bookseller's Picks. Then this week, Jodi Chromey, editor of the fantastic blog Minnesota Reads sang his praises on MPR's Art Hounds.

You won't need batteries to hear Ander Monson. He'll be reading at M&Q at 7:30pm, Tuesday, June 15. Unplug and enjoy. Details are here.--David E

Father's Day at M&Q

Celebrate Father's Day with Nick Hayes as he recounts his own father's life and accomplishments--4:00pm, Sunday, June 20, at Magers & Quinn.

And One Fine Morning is a memoir of Hayes’ father, Mark, an award-winning architect and artist who was equally at home sitting in the backyard or at a North Side Minneapolis restaurant or bar, laughing and telling stories. In the prime of his life in 1954, a series of heart attacks and strokes “cut him down, cost him his left leg, impair his speech and cripple his gift for painting and drawing,” Nick Hayes wrote. Two years later, one last heart attack killed Mark Hayes.

“Nick Hayes has written a moving tribute to his father--an artist, architect and dreamer who died too young but left behind a first-class legacy of buildings . . . a wonderful memoir of growing up in Minneapolis in the 1950s."--Larry Millett, author of AIA Guide to the Twin Cities, The Lost Twin Cities

“I’m going to do selected readings that I think gives the audience a good snapshot of the nature of the book,” Hayes said. “Some of those passages just reflect upon the story of my father, and a lot of which I’ll be reading reflects on the Irish-American community of Minneapolis in the 1920s and 1930s.”Although Nick Hayes says it is still difficult to talk about Mark’s death over 50 years later, he will conclude the reading with a portrait of the day his father passed away.

“Nick Hayes delivers a brilliant, touching and engrossing epic, which rings the bell of recognition as it moves gracefully through a rich and varied terrain. His captivating work captures, with respectful verve, not only the travail, but the magic, humor, and joy, that endures in lives well-lived.”--Carol Connolly, poet-laureate of St. Paul and author of All This and More: New and Selected Poems and Payments Due

Nick Hayes is professor of history at the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University and University Chair in Critical Thinking at SJU. He is a regularly featured commentator for the daily public affairs program Midday on issues ranging from political turmoil in post-communist Europe to the war in Iraq. He has appeared on PBS’s The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and Religion and Ethics News Weekly.

Details are here.--David E

It's Inevitable

It's not over. Two short stories by the late author/phenomenon Stieg Larsson (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) have been discovered in the Swedish National Library.

Will the stories be published? Well, they have a lot of strikes against them:

• They're short stories, not novels.
• They're science fiction.
• They were written when when Larsson was only 17.
• They were rejected by the Swedish magazine Jules Verne.

The final decision as to whether or not to publish the stories rests with Larsson's estate, but there's really no question that they will make their way to bookstores eventually. Details are here.--David E

Sneak Peek

M&Q has passes to a preview screening of Jonah Hex. The movie, which stars Josh Brolin, John Malkovich, and Megan Fox, is based on the graphic novel of the same name.

The advance show will be Wednesday, June 16, in Roseville. Tickets are limited, so stop in soon. When they're gone, they're gone.--David E

David Byrne Comes to Uptown

Nice Ride Minnesota, the non-profit operator of the Twin Cities' new bike share system, will host a panel of community artists, civic leaders and biking advocates discussing the future of transportation in the United States at a special "Policy and a Pint" event at the Uptown Theatre on June 17 at 7:00pm. The forum, "Cities, Bicycles and the Future of Getting Around," will include Twin Cities author Jay Walljasper; musician, author and artist David Byrne; Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak; and Steve Clark, manager of the Twin Cities' Transit for Livable Communities Walking and Bicycling Program. It will be moderated by 89.3 The Current host Steve Seel.

David Byrne, a founding member of the musical group The Talking Heads, will discuss his latest book, The Bicycle Diaries. Since the early 1980s, David Byrne has been riding a bike as his principal means of transportation in New York City. Two decades ago, he discovered folding bikes and started taking them on tour. Convinced that urban biking opens one's eyes to the inner workings and rhythms of a city's geography and population, Byrne began keeping a journal of his observations and insights. Bicycle Diaries recounts David Byrne's adventures as he pedals through cities from Berlin to Buenos Aires, Istanbul to San Francisco, Manila to New York. Part travelogue, part journal, part photo album, Bicycle Diaries is an eye-opening celebration of seeing the world from the seat of a bike.

Signed copies of David Byrne's book Bicycle Diaries will be available at the event.

"Cities, Bicycles and the Future of Getting Around" is part of the "Policy and a Pint" series, a collaboration of The Citizens League and 89.3 The Current, where important policy conversations are held in informal settings. Tickets are $10.00 and are available now at the Uptown Theatre box office and at the Minneapolis Commuter Connection, 220 6th Street South.

History Set on Repeat

You already know the first part of this story. James Joyce's magnum opus Ulysses was banned in the US from its publication in 1921 until 1933.

Now it seems that history is repeating itself. Apple has banned a graphic novel adaptation called Ulysses Seen from its gadgets. It seems one of the comic's panels shows some fleeting male nudity, and thus the whole work has been deemed pornographic.

Thanks to The Big Money for the catch.--David E

Where the Cool Kids Are

The New Yorker will publish its “20 Under 40” list of fiction writers worth watching on Monday, but the New York Times has leaked the names already. First on the list--OK, it's alphabetical, but still--is Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche, author of The Thing Around Your Neck. She'll be at M&Q on Sunday, June 13, at 4:00pm, so you can hear for yourself what all the hubbub is about. (Short version: She's awesome.)

You will also be able to meet the list-worthy Gary Shteyngart at M&Q at 7:30pm, Tuesday, September 21, when he stops by to read from his new satirical novel Super Sad True Love Story.

There's even a third author on the list who will be here later this year, but I can't tell you who just yet. Stay tuned.

Oh, oh... and Wells Tower is on the list and he was here in February, reading from Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned. But you knew that because you get our newsletter already.

The NYT's full list is here. Or just read the M&Q event page. It's about the same thing.--David E

Citizen Review #2: Vanishing Point

Last month Jess Horowitz gave us her "Citizen Review" of Ander Monson's collection of essays Vanishing Point: Not A Memoir. Now Hilary Wentworth brings us another take on this fascinating book. Get your own copy now and meet the author when he visits the store on June 15.

Vanishing Point

Hey, remember when books were fun? Remember staying up all night with a Choose Your Own Adventure, the story playing out in seemingly infinite ways? Ander Monson gets it. He understands the need for something more than just printed words on a page. Monson describes his new project, Vanishing Point, as “a hacked out space between book and whatever’s beyond book.” And it’s just that. Throughout the physical book are dagger-shaped symbols that lead not to the bottom of the page or to the end, but to that most wonderful of places: the internet. The actual book is only part of the experience. In order to have fully “read” Vanishing Point, you need to go to Monson’s website and type in the noted words, an act that unlocks additional texts and images. Many of Monson’s essays are about layers--of paint, of flavor, of self--so this electronic accessing, this unpeeling, of information makes sense to me. And like the life behind it, the book doesn’t just end. It goes on, perhaps indefinitely if Monson keeps adding to the site. I happen to love footnotes and endnotes; I think that’s where the real juicy stuff resides. If you’re like me, then buy this book . . . and let the games begin.

Hillary Wentworth recently moved to Minneapolis from New Hampshire. She misses her state motto.

Poetry? There's an App For That

The Poetry Foundation has released its own iPhone application. Called, logically enough, POETRY, the program lets you find poems based on their subject or mood--or shake your phone to read a random new poem. William Shakespeare, César Vallejo, T.S. Eliot, Pablo Neruda, Lucille Clifton, and Emily Dickinson are all represented. And best of all POETRY is free.

Download it here.--David E

Get Smart

Anya Kamnetz will discuss her new book DIY U: Edupunks, Edupreneurs, and the Coming Transformation of Higher Education--Thursday, June 10, 7:30pm, at Magers & Quinn.

"A vibrant democracy depends on vibrant education. Anya Kamenetz shows a way to shake up education to release more potential at every level."--Naomi Wolf, bestselling author of The End of America

Nine out of ten American high school seniors aspire to go to college, yet the price of college tuition has increased more than any other major good or service for the last twenty years. Almost half of college students don’t graduate; those who do have unprecedented levels of federal and private student loan debt, which constitutes a credit bubble similar to the mortgage crisis. The future lies in personal learning networks and paths, learning that blends experiential and digital approaches, and free and open-source educational models. Increasingly, college students will decide for themselves what, when, where, and with whom they want to learn. Education is going do-it-yourself.

"Never before has a college degree been more important, making the need to address the failure of many higher ed institutions to deliver on that promise that much more critical. Kamenetz captures a higher ed system on the brink of dramatic transformation, and paints two provocative futures: revolution from within the system and disruption from the outside. This is valuable reading for higher education leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in understanding how innovation and market forces can begin to drive real and necessary change."--Josh Jarrett, Senior Program Officer for Postsecondary Success, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Anya Kamnetz's new book DIY U tells how students are forging their own educational paths, and how parents, educators, and administrators can help. Read an excerpt from DIY U here.

Details are here.--David E

Listen Up

The Bookworm is a long-running program on KCRW, Santa Monica's public radio station. Host Michael Silverblatt interviews the creme de la creme of authors every week.

Tomorrow's show features a forward-looking lineup: Ander Monson (author of Vanishing Point) and David Shields (Reality Hunger) will talk about nothing less than "a new kind of writing." The show's teaser says, "This prose uses fact and randomness rather than story and structure."

The show will be broadcast in California on Thursday and will be archived here. Ander Monson will be reading at Magers & Quinn on Tuesday, June 15, at 7:30pm.--David E

How the Latin Alphabet Developed

Click to see a larger version.--David E