Louise Erdrich's latest novel , The. Round House, is likely to be ranked among
her best. It uses characters and settings introduced in The Plague of. Doves.
Bookbites Book e nds on Ma in News le t t e r November 2012
Staff Changes, Holiday Hours, New Storefront Diane Stehr, a familiar presence at the bookstore since it was Bookends owned by Harriett Christy has decided to retire and reappear only infrequently as an emergency back-up. Our high school sophomore, Analeise JarviBeamer started working at the bookstore
this summer and now works after school some days and an occasional Saturday. She also writes reviews for the bookstore newsletter, blogs and posts on our Facebook page. Cady Sunsdahl will be our
teaches in the ROTC program at Stout. Cady is originally from Louisiana.
Holiday Hours Holiday hours begin after Thanksgiving: MondayFriday 10:00—5:30, Saturday 10:00—3:00. December Sundays 1:30-4:00, maybe.
Wm Kent Krueger, rev. by M. Thies
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Mo Yan and Mu2 hammad, rev. by W Laine Louise Erdrich, new books
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New Kids and Teen 3 Y/A Books
new Diane, working a full day a week and occasionally a week at a time. Cady has recently moved with her family to Menomonie from Hawaii— a three-year deployment from paradise to Wisconsin as her husband
Three happy friends on Witches Night Out. It was a jolly evening as usual The cold blasts of wind didn’t deter socializing and shopping.
Poem by Marvin Bell
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Kenny Salwey, “Muskrats for Sup-
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Gift Items
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The New Storefront: It’s beautiful!
Contest … Misc. Main Street News ... “Like” Bookends on Main on Facebook between now and Thanksgiving to be entered in a drawing for a $10.00 gift certificate.
Inside this issue:
New on Main Street: Triangle Antiques is at the intersection of Hwy 25 and Main Street, across from the Chamber Office. A new restaurant, The Abbey, is in the works. The Milavitz building is for sale. Possible new renters are looking at the vacant Coffin Dept. Store.
“A book is the only place in which you can examine a fragile thought without breaking it, or explore an explosive idea without fear it will go off in your face. It is one of the few havens remaining where a mind can get both provocation and privacy.” Edward P.Morgan
William Kent Krueger, review by Matt Thies Over the past couple of days I read Trickster's Point, and a couple of Saturdays ago I read the advanced copy of Ordinary Grace which will come out in 2013. I thought that Trickster's Point was another good Cork O'Connor mystery. I do really like the connections
Krueger makes in his writing to the O'Connor series due to the lack of the north woods and Indian lore. I love the outdoor and Indian lore associations I outdoors and can relate to the writing mentioned earlier that I well. I thought that Ordinary Grace was enjoy so much. a good continuation of Krueger's deterI also enjoyed the opportumination to entertain through down to nity to read the advance earth qualities of relaxing suspense, copy. It was the first time I relaxing suspense meaning edge of your have had a chance to read seat comfortability. However, I do an advance copy like that think that overall I didn't enjoy Ordiand it is pretty neat to do. nary Grace as much as the Cork
Mo Yan, Nobel Prize Winner, review by William Laine Shifu, You’ll Do Anything for a Laugh is a selection by his English translator, Howard Goldblatt, of stories by Mo Yan, the 2012 winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. It seems a good introduction to the author’s work. Yan added a preface on how he became a writer. A child on the land during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Yan was always hungry & often
cold. He writes about China’s common people, mostly poor, rural people with sympathy and earthy humor. He writes lovingly of Nature in richly metaphorical evocations, which Howard Goldblatt translates into graceful English. Some stories are realistic; others are fantastical, the stuff of ignorant superstitions, comparable to magical realism. My two favorites are the title story and the final story. Shifu worked for the same factory for more than 40 years. When he is laid off at age 60, a month before his retirement, he has no pension, no health insurance, little savings,
Muhammad, review by William Laine Muhammad: A Biography of the Prophet by historian of religion, Karen Armstrong, is a sympathetic portrait that should serve well as an antidote to the extremes of terrorism in the name of Islam and religious bigotry toward Muslims. I’ve read several of Armstrong’s books and am always impressed by her intellect and ability to explain the complexities of religions. Muhammad was an extraordinary person, a prophet who began by bringing a monotheistic relig-
ion to polytheistic Arabs. Eventually, he realized that he had to be a politician, a statesman as well, to unite a tribal society under one religion. Denouncing the Arabs’ pagan gods, endangered Muhammad’s life and brought violent conflicts. However, he regarded Jews, Christians and Muslims as all People of the Book, descended from Adam and Abraham and worshiping the same god. The tumult in Muslim countries of since the 19th century Armstrong says is caused by the technological, military and political power of Western nations, which threatens the freedom, culture and religion of Muslim societies.
and little chance of employment at his age. His solution is to become a capital-
He writes about China’s common people, mostly poor, rural people with sympathy and earthy humor. ist, self-employed in a comic, bawdy business. “Abandoned Child” is a satire of how a Good Samaritan is punished for rescuing a baby in a society that restricts parents to one child and prefers boys. Other Mo Yan novels at the bookstore: Life and Death are Wearing Me Out Big Breasts and Wide Hips
Best seller list for October file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Ad ministrator/Local%20Settings/Temporary%20I nternet%20Files/Content.IE5/6IJF6IAS/bkda 1342.htm Page 2
Louise Erdrich Louise Erdrich’s latest novel , The Round House, is likely to be ranked among her best. It uses characters and settings introduced in The Plague of Doves. The first novel is about a horrific murder in 1911 in a town on the edge of the reservation. The current novel is set in 1988 when another terrible crime is committed on the Ojibwe reservation. The victim is too traumatized to talk about it and her fourteen-year old son
Kids Books Chickadee is Book Four in Louise Erdrich’s Birchbark House series. In 1866, Omakayas' son Chickadee is kidnapped by two ne'erdo-well brothers from his own tribe and must make a daring escape, forge unlikely friendships, and set out on an exciting and dangerous journey to get back home.
Teen, Y/A Books From the #1 "New York Times"bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and "The Scorpio Races" comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead readers to a place they've never been before.
goes to the Round House, the traditional place of healing to try to resolve the crime and help his mother. It is the start of an intense journey into the adult world. Readers familiar with Erdrich’s style and characters, will recognize her trenchant mixture of comedy and drama. Here’s an example from p. 65 of The Round House: “There are Indian grandmas who get too much church and Indian grandmas where the church doesn’t take, and who are let loose in their old age to shock the young. Zack
had one of those last sort. Grandma Ignatia Thunder. She had been to Catholic boarding school but it just hardened her, she said, the way it hardened the priests. She spoke Indian and talked about men’s secrets. When she and Mooshum got together to reminisce about the old days, my father said they talked so dirty the air around them turned blue.” As a lecturer, Erdrich comes across as a gentle, quiet, and introspective person. Her novels have those qualities too, but also layers of violence and unpredictable events. Those layers are what make the novels compelling. Several of Erdrich’s books have been finalists for the National Book Award and on the Pulitzer list. Besides fourteen novels for adults, she has written poetry and novels and picture books for children.
Z Is for Moose is a funny alphabet sure Stan Tekiela, who edits to amuse children. Zebra sets out to the extremely popular organize an alphabet book but Moose is field guides such as Birds hopelessly inclined to get a lot of attenof Wisconsin has pubtion and keeps getting on the wrong lished an unusual field page. guide this year that teaches us how to recognize animals from behind. The rear-view images are paired with short descriptions and a frontal photo. “Whose Butt” offers an easier alternative to recognizing animals than their tracks.
Unable to speak or remember the events surrounding her mother's mysterious death eleven years earlier, sixteen-yearStiefvater’s popular Shiver Trilogy is of old Sadie Rose, the foster child of a corrupt senator in 1920s northern Minnethe Werewolf genre. She lives in Virginia. Mary Casanova is a Minnesotan sota, struggles to regain her voice, memory, and identity. Frozen is set on the living in a small town near the Canashores of Rainy Lake. dian border. Both writers are prolific and have won much acclaim for their books.
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Bookends on Main Newsletter 214 East Main St. Menomonie, WI 54751 Phone: 715-233-6252 Fax: 715-233-6252 Email:
[email protected]
Around Us by Marvin Bell We need some pines to assuage the darkness when it blankets the mind, we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind, and a blur or two of a wild thing
An Indie Bookstore
that sees and is not seen. We need these things between appointments, after work,
New, used and rare books~ Bookends~Toys~Puzzles~ Games~Gifts~Greeting cards~Guitars~Guitar strings & other guitar accessories~
and, if we keep them, then someone someday, lying down after a walk and supper, with the fire hole wet down, the whole night sky set at a particular time, without numbers or hours, will cause a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap--
www.bookendsonmain.com
to close round the moment and the thought of whatever good we did.
Kenny Salwey, A Dying Breed There are outdoorsmen who march to their own drum. Kenny Salwey seems to be one of them. The subtitle of his fourth and latest book, Muskrat for Supper is “Exploring the Natural World with the Last River Rat.” Not too many people trap wild animals these days and probably fewer eat muskrat which, according to Kenny, is a lot like duck , all dark meat. This little book also tells a lot more about muskrat than most people think they need to know. It’s a fairly com-
mon animal , apparently so numerous that there is no regulation on numbers that can be trapped, though there is a six-month trapping season. Muskrat for Supper evokes nostalgia for a by-gone era. It’s a memoir, brief but packed with interesting details about the natural world from the point of view of a live-off-the-land sort of person.
Gift items We have a new supply of polished agate bookends and ceramic tiles/ trivets, some with images of Wisconsin, some with trillium and “Menomonie.”
