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November Store Hours
Sunday-Thursday 10am-5pm
Friday-Saturday 10am-6pm
First Fridays
Open Until 7pm!
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We have gift cards in almost any denomination!
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New Release!
Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Cabin Fever
Jeff Kinney
Published:Amulet Books (November 15, 2011)
Price: $13.95
Greg Heffley is in big trouble. School property has been damaged, and Greg is the prime suspect. But the crazy thing is, he's innocent. Or at least sort of.
The authorities are closing in, but when a surprise blizzard hits, the Heffley family is trapped indoors. Greg knows that when the snow melts he's going to have to face the music, but could any punishment be worse than being stuck inside with your family for the holidays?
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Featured Title
Art of Eating: Essential Recipes From the First 25 Years Edward Behr
Published:University of California Press
Price: $39.95
Are you one of those people (or do you know someone) who loves to actually "read" cookbooks? If so, this is the perfect book!
Edward Behr has offered companionship and creativity to culinary enthusiasts, including some of America's most famous chefs. This book collects the best recipes of the magazine's past twenty-five years-from classic appetizer and vegetable side dishes to meat entrees and desserts. Each section or recipe is introduced with a note on its relevant cultural history or something particular about a technique it uses, revealing how French and Italian cultural influences have shaped American cuisine.
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Featured Title
The Artist Who Painted a Blue Horse
Eric Carle
Published: Philomel
Price: $17.99
Not only blue horses, but orange elephants, black polar bears and a polka-dotted donkey in the inimitable Eric Carle (The Very Hungry Caterpillar; Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See?; A Very Busy Spider; et al) style of vivid splashes of color. Those who love Carle will not be disappointed. Those who don't know him (if that's possible) will be hooked. The book is another paean to exuberant free expression as well as an opening to the world of art in an intellectual dimension appropriate to the child's mind. It pays tribute in a closing note to German expressionist Franz Marc whose Blue Horse from 1911 was his signature piece. "I am an artist and I paint...", says a boy in the opening lines of the book. "I am a good artist", he concludes at the book's close. So is Carle!
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Featured Title
The Warmth of Other Suns
Isabel Wilkerson
Published: Vintage; Reprint edition (October 4, 2011)
Price: $16.95
At the outset of the Great War in Europe in the mid-teens of the last century a remarkable migration ("exodus" if you will) was taking place under the radar in the United States. Since 1915 and up through the 1970's some 6 million African Americans had abandoned the South and made their way to the North. Wilkerson likens these black migrants to the hoard of Europeans who came ashore on the east coast in the decades before. Like them the goal was a better future for themselves and their families. Though derided as the dregs of society they, like most of the Europeans, typically had more stable families, better education and more skills than the people they left behind. Though massive at 622 pages, this book is immensely readable as it follows the journeys of three Southern blacks to three different Northern destinations in three different decades of the migration. The title pays homage to Richard Wright who left Mississippi in the 1920's in search of other suns.
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Greetings!,
 Some, who visit our store for reasons other than just books, comment on the "real" bookstore feel: the sensory pleasure of the salvaged oak bookcases, the tin ceilings, the hardwood floor and, of course, Bob Holton's superb and capricious artwork. Then, there are those who come only to visit "Kia" - the beloved store mascot. Kia is our two-year-old, miniature Husky who hangs out serenely beneath the check-out counter and awaits with trepidation that she will be called out to be viewed and admired. This happens dozens of times each day: "Oh! Look, a puppy!" "What kind of dog is that?" "A miniature husky? I didn't they made those!" "She's so soft!" "OMG!"
Technically, Kia is an Alaskan Klee Kai (Inuit for "Little Dog") and has the physique and markings of the full-sized Husky, but weighs-in at a mere twelve pounds. We like to say that she looks like a big Husky far away. The breed was pioneered in the mid-1970's in (of all places!) Wasilla, Alaska from a genetically diminutive seventeen pound Husky from Oklahoma named "Curious." After an extremely strict and rigorous breeding program the Klee Kai pedigree was recognized officially in 1995. All, like Kia, have an extreme cautionary shyness matched by an equally strong lapdog cuddliness. She reads very little, but easily recognizes by sight and sound the UPS truck which always brings a treat along with boxes of books. Being in one of the most beautiful places in the world - the Apostle Islands of western Lake Superior - our clientele come from all corners of the US and around the world. A common lament is the loss of their own independent local bookstores in towns and cities from coast to coast. One of our aspirations is to be the "adopted" independent local bookstore for those who have lost theirs. This newsletter goes far and wide and our website has a very high visitor rate, so our story is always in reach. The "virtual" can be made even more "real" by the fact that even at distance our books are available for sale in our Online Store. It's just as easy as Amazon! Or, contact us directly and we will send your order out to you. You will have supported your local, independent bookstore. Just in time for the holidays! And, speaking of the holidays, we have a great collection of books ideal for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or any other special giving. Whatever might be desired - the traditional holiday classics (for kids or adults); the beautiful books of the Apostle Islands, Lake Superior and the Great Lakes; cookbooks of every style; and, great fiction, non-fiction, poetry - we probably have (or can readily get) the perfect gift for you. The gift of books is a special message to the recipient that says much, much more than the mere object wrapped and sent. It says, "I have not only thought of you, but I thought this about you!" Well, we've had our first snowfall today and our first all-night fire in the woodstove. We'd like to keep it that way. but these last few days of October and the historically dark days of November have triggered a few firings of the propane furnace. So we shift from sun to woodlot. We think we have enough firewood piled and under cover, but we'll continue to load it in just in case. The trees are "outlined against a blue-gray October sky" as Grantland Rice said about something else. The leaves are gone. The grass has stopped growing. The dogs are shedding. The tractor and snow blower are set for annual service. There's no turning back and we hope we are set. Do we have enough books?
Happy reading, Apostle Islands Booksellers |
Upcoming events... Bayfield's Hometown Holiday Season is rapidly approaching! It's hard to believe that the holidays will be here so soon, but Thanksgiving is only three weeks away, and of course that means the gift giving season is just beyond that. December First Friday kicks off shopping season! Friday, December 2nd from 4-7pm the majority of Bayfield's retailers will be open. There will be plenty of sales and promotions to make it worth your while to buy your holiday gifts locally this year. We will provide further details of our promotions soon! Thursday, December 15th Bayfield Gives Back! Please consider buying your last minute holiday gifts locally this year, and know that you'll be helping a community give back at the same time. This year Bayfield businesses will be joining forces by donating a portion of their sales on December 15th (4-7pm) to the Bayfield Area Food Pantry.
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First Wednesday Group Update
The initial meeting of our First Wednesday Reading and Discussion Group brought together twelve men - most of a "certain age." Our assignment was Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton, a poignant story of pre-Apartheid South Africa with universal themes regarding race, colonialism, place, religion, aging, loss, hope and despair. The reading evoked conversation of deep personal reflection, historical context, and the parallels with our lives here on the Bayfield Peninsula. Our next reading will be Halfway Man by Wayland Drew, the story of an Ojibwe on the North Shore of Lake Superior struggling with the past, present and future of cultures in conflict. It circles around the same themes as Cry, the Beloved Country in a different place and different time.
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We were thrilled to have a great reception this year for our first meeting of the Apostle Islands Booksellers Book Club. After a brief discussion of how we would go about selecting titles for this year's group we had time to talk about The Help by Kathryn Stockett.
Deciding what books to select this year was no easy feat. We ended up with an interesting pool almost equally divided between fiction and nonfiction. There are so many good books we wanted to read! But we had to narrow it down, of course, and we selected by consensus the following books as our first four:- December - Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. We realize this is one of those books that generated wildly differing opinions. The New York Times in a highly favorable review called it "...a masterpiece of American fiction," yet a number of customers that came through our store this summer asserted that they couldn't stand it, making it a very intriguing proposition for a book club discussion.
- January - The Sense of An Ending by Julian Barnes. This very highly acclaimed book is the recent winner of the 2011 Man Booker Prize. As a contrast to Freedom, it is relatively short and quite tightly written. As one reviewer said, "every word has its part to play."
- February - Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Jobs is one of the most influential figures in modern history, half the people at the table were taking notes on some sort of Jobs invention, and he was a natural to fill the biography category!
- March - Cleopatra by Stacy Schiff. Then we went back a couple of years to another epic figure, this time a woman. Excellent reviews and a very compelling subject.
We also chose a book of particular local interest that we could all read on our own time throughout the next several months and discuss at some point in the Spring - Environmental Politics and the Creation of a Dream: Establishing the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore by Bud Jordahl. All of the books listed above are available at our store for a 20% discount to Book Club participants. |
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What we're reading...
 Boomerang
by Michael Lewis Do subjects like European sovereign debt, collateralized debt obligations, subprime mortgages and other financial mumbo-jumbo make your eyes glaze over and wish for a copy of Mad Magazine? Well, in the hands of Michael Lewis (Liar's Poker; Moneyball; The Big Short; and, The Blind Side) these terms and their consequences around the new European Third World come alive and resonate as a part of real life human folly. Lewis visited Iceland, Ireland, Greece and Germany before whipping back - boomerang style - to where it all began on Wall Street where, as Lewis puts it, its people were "taking what they can, just because they can, without regard for the larger social consequences". It's a beautiful narrative - smooth and exciting - about a story like something out of, well, Mad Magazine!
ISBN: 978-0393081817
Published: W. W. Norton & Company (October 3, 2011)
Price: $25.95
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 The Sense of an Ending
by Julian Barnes
Well, "finally," you might say. Certainly that is so for Julian Barnes who had three of his previous books short-listed for the Man Booker Prize in the UK. This time was a charm as The Sense of an Ending received the 2011 prize. We sat last night with the twelve men of our winter reading and discussion group most of whom are sixtyish or more. We had read Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton and the conversation evoked much of the sense of growing older, more reflective, more agonizingly poised on the cusps of hope and despair that lie at the heart of Barnes' novel. It is this angst of time, memory and remorse that fuels The Sense of an Ending. However bleak this morality tale, the elegant, multi-layered prose provides a beautiful narrative and uplifting reading experience. Barnes has earned his $82,000 award and then some!
ISBN: 978-0307957122
Published: Knopf (October 5, 2011)
Price: $23.95
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A final thought...
 As Winter approaches, the water gives off steam as it prepares to freeze. These are some of the quietest and most beautiful moments of the year on Lake Superior.
And yet, on the other hand, Bayfield resident Steve Sandstrom, snug in his own cabin here in the North Woods, remembers well the ferocious winds of November 10, 1975, the infamous storm that brought down the Great Lakes Freighter, SS Edmund Fitzgerald. The two faces of Lake Superior! |
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