January 2009 - Vol 3, Issue 7
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All of us here at Magers & Quinn Booksellers want to thank you for making this holiday season our best ever. Throughout December, the store was packed with happy book lovers--both new and returning. Many of you asked for recommendations, and we loved helping you find that perfect gift.

This month--beyond working to get the store back in order--it's all about community. We're announcing partnerships with The Loft, the Bell Museum of Natural History, and Intermedia Arts. Plus, we've got great events and some interesting new books to tell you about. So come in out of the cold and visit your local independent bookstore. We're here for you.

If you're packing your bags for somewhere warm, be sure to leave room for a good guidebook. We stock brand-new books from Lonely Planet, Rough Guides, Let's Go, and many other travel publishers for destinations around the world.

In the store: $17.99
Online: $14.99(plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $19.99
In the store: $17.99
Online: $17.99 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $19.99

In the store: $16.99
Online: $16.99(plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $18.99
In the store: $16.99
Online: $14.21 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $18.95

And if you're hunkering down, here are some reading suggestions to warm your spirits.

One Hundred Years of Solitude

In the store: $8.99
Online: $8.99(plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $14.95
Under the Volcano

In the store: $7.99
Online: $7.99 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $14.95

The Savage Detectives

In the store: $13.45
Online: $11.25(plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $15.00
In a Sunburned Country

In the store: $7.99
Online: $7.99 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $14.95

We're pleased to announce our partnership with The Loft Literary Center, a nonprofit arts organization offering services for readers and writers at every level. The Loft sponsors readings, teaches classes and workshops for writers of every skill level, and offers grants and other support to authors.

Magers & Quinn will be the bookseller at Loft events and festivals, and Loft members will receive a discount on all purchases at Magers & Quinn as well as at Loft events where books are being sold by M&Q.

The Loft Literary Center is the nation's largest and most comprehensive literary center, and offers services for writers and readers at every level. More information is available at www.loft.org.

In the store: $15.99
Online: $13.50 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $18.00
Join us at 5:00pm on Saturday, January 11 to celebrate the publication of Milkweed Editions' new Minnesota anthology: Fiction on a Stick. Selected in part to reflect the rapidly changing and increasingly diverse nature of the state's population, this anthology of short fiction presents a literary portrait of Minnesota at the outset of the twenty-first century. Including fiction by and about an extraordinarily wide and diverse range of voices and characters, Fiction on a Stick is an essential volume for those who love the North Star State, and for those who love great literature.

Four of the writers from the collection will read from their work:
  • Sarah Stonich
  • Anastasia Fauce
  • Dominic Saucedo
  • and Steven Lang.
Refreshments will be served.
In the store: $21.59
Online: $18.75 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $25.00
If you got an M&Q gift card for the holidays, here's something you might consider buying. Mark Bittman's new book Food Matters was released December 30--just in time for the post-holidays. Bittman--author of the mandatory cookbook How to Cook Everything--has a simple message: Eating too much hurts you and it hurts the environment.

Bittman knows what he's talking about. He is a longtime columnist, writing as "The Minimalist." He's also the author of the essential cookbook How to Cook Everything--a perennial staff favorite here.

Bittman talked to TIME magazine about cooking, bovine flatulence, and Michael Pollan. "Not to take anything away from him, but he doesn't do recipes," says Bittman.
In the store: $17.99
Online: $14.99 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $19.99
The AP reports that Vicki Myron, whose previous cat Dewey became a posthumous megastar, has a new foundling feline. Earlier this month, a friend,Sue Selzer, swerved to avoid a tabby cat in the middle of an Iowa highway. "It was snowing quite heavily and she was covered in snow. She had ice chunks hanging from her. She had twigs and leaves tangled in her fur," Selzer says. "I took her back to my office and dried her off, put some warm water on her and cleaned her up." She later took the cat the the Spencer Public Library, where the adorable munchkin charmed everyone and began to change their lives.

The cat has been christened Page. She's represented by the William Morris Agency. Details are here.

There's always entertaining news from the world of books on the M&Q blog. Check it out.
Want to get away? Come in for readings that will transport you to London, Peru, and even Antarctica. And check out our events page for details on all the happenings this month and beyond.

Upcoming Events
Visit our events page

for full details.


Jan 9 The Loft Presents: Dobby Gibson celebrates the publication of Skirmish from Graywolf Press--The Loft Literary Center at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, 7:00pm

Jan 10 The Loft Presents: An Education Open House--The Loft Literary Center at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, 10:00am

Jan 11 Celebrate the publication of Milkweed Editions' new Minnesota anthology Fiction on a Stick, 5:00pm at Magers & Quinn Booksellers

Jan 13 The Loft Presents: Raking Through Books Happy Hour Book Club discusses Neal Karlen's The Story of Yiddish : How a Mish-Mosh of Languages Saved the Jews--Kieran's Irish Pub, 330 2nd Avenue South, Minneapolis, 5:30pm

Jan 13 Books and Bars discusses No One Belongs Here More Than You--Bryant-Lake Bowl, 6:30pm

Jan 16 The Loft Presents: Julie Landsman celebrates the publication of Growing Up White: A Veteran Teacher Reflects on Racism--The Loft Literary Center at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, 7:00pm

Jan 17 Scott Sigler (Contagious) 7:00pm at Magers & Quinn Booksellers

Jan 25 Polly Grose (A London Scrapbook) 7:00pm

Jan 27 Luis Fuentes (Rugitus et Silentium) 7:30pm at Magers & Quinn Booksellers--This reading will be in Spanish.

Jan 29 The Loft Presents: A Young Adult Reading by John Coy, author of Box Out, with Patricia Cumbie and Ed Bok Lee; photos by Wing Young Huie--The Loft Literary Center at Open Book, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Minneapolis, 7:00pm

Jan 30 Stewart Klipper (The Antarctic: Antarctica From the Circle to the Pole) 7:30pm at Magers & Quinn Booksellers

Feb 2 Local poets John Krumberger and Diane Jarvenpa read from their work, 7:30pm at Magers & Quinn Booksellers

Feb 3 Elissa Elliot (Eve) 7:30pm at Magers & Quinn Booksellers
Saturday, January 17, 7:00pm-- Scott Sigler reads and signs his novel Contagious.

Online: $18.71 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $24.95
From the acclaimed author of Infected comes an epic and exhilarating story of humanity's secret battle against a horrific enemy. Across America, a mysterious pathogen transforms ordinary people into raging killers, psychopaths driven by a terrifying, alien agenda. The human race fights back, yet after every battle the disease responds, adapts, using sophisticated strategies and brilliant ruses to fool its pursuers. The only possible explanation: the epidemic is driven not by evolution but by some malevolent intelligence.

Catapulting the reader into a world where humanity's life span is measured in hours and the president's finger hovers over the nuclear button, rising star Scott Sigler takes us on a breathtaking, hyper-adrenalized ride filled with terror and jaw-dropping action. Contagious is a truly grand work of suspense, science, and horror from a new master.

Sunday, January 25, 3:00pm--Polly Grose reads and signs her memoir A London Scrapbook

Publisher's price: $16.95
Polly Grose, author of three books about her Quaker ancestors, has turned her pen to her own life, inviting readers into the story of the love of her life-which came unbidden when she was a divorced mother with grown sons and a career in high gear. In mid-stride, she fell in love with an Englishman. With a willingness for risk-taking and adventure, Grose packed her bags and moved to London. A London Scrapbook takes readers from the theater and public affairs world of Minneapolis to society life in London and sailing the Mediterranean, all the while building the intimate and honest story of love found.

"[Polly Grose's] response to this later-life romance, and the directions it took her life, fill this memoir. Her candid account of those years is both vivid and moving. Grose's appetite for life's adventures is infectious and inspiring," wrote Fiona McCrae, publisher of Graywolf Press.

Tuesday, January 27, 7:30pm--Peruvian scholar and poet Luis Fuentes reads from his poetry book Rugitus et Silentium--This reading will be in Spanish

Luis Fuentes (born 1964 in Lima) is a graduate of the Officers School of the Air Force of Peru and earned a degree in business administration from the University of Lima and a Master of Science in Communications with a minor in Computer Engineering from the University of San Augustine. He has studied Musical Theory and Sound Engineering. In 2006 he published The personal archives of Julio Ram�n Ribeyro.

This unremitting search and multifaceted exploration into the life of the author is manifested in these pages through his personal vision of noise and silence - interpreted as essential components of the polarity between human existence and the world. The poems in the first part, Rugitus, reflect the constraints of tradition, the religious piety, the excessive use of adjectives tending toward verbosity, elements that cloud the understanding and deny Being. The second part, Silentium, expresses the precision of action, the soothing of the voice, the harmony of the void, the amoral nature of life, the true God, elements that explain Being.

Refreshments will be served.

Friday, January 30, 7:30pm--Stewart Klipper discusses his photography book The Antarctic: Antarctica From the Circle to the Pole

In the store: $30.00
Online: $30.00 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $40.00
Stuart Klipper has traveled to Antarctica six times in twenty years to photograph this astounding body of work, offering a sweeping look at this majestic continent, which has lately become central to global climate change concerns. Shot in panoramic format-the only way to encompass a landscape that seems to stretch on forever-Klipper's work captures major features and surprising details: ships suspended in the frozen sea, glowing blue icebergs, vistas of endless snow, and troops of penguins. This volume's substantial size, panoramic shape, and unique vertical-opening case emphasize the grandeur of these austere and lovely photographs from the bottom of the world.

Stuart Klipper is among the most experienced photographers of Antarctica. He lives in Minneapolis. He is a mainstay of the National Science Foundation's Antarctic Artists and Writers program. His photos of the Antarctic have been on display at the Museum of Modern Art.


More information on these and all our upcoming events can be found on our events page.
Magers & Quinn and the Bell Museum of Natural History are pleased to announce our new joint venture--the Big Bang Book Club. Join us on the fourth Tuesday of each month to dissect a popular science or nature book at Grumpy's Bar and Grill--1111 Washington Ave. S. in Minneapolis.

The BBBC's first meeting will be 7:00pm, Tuesday, February 26. We'll be discussing The Other Side of Desire: Four Journeys into the Far Realms of Lust and Longing by Daniel Bergner. Bergner looks at the range of human sexuality through the stories of four people with unusual desires.

Books will be available for purchase at the event or in advance at Magers & Quinn Booksellers in Minneapolis, the Bell Museum, and online at www.magersandquinn.com.
We still have a great selection of beautiful wall calendars. There is art to match any decor and any interest--and they're all on sale for an additional 33% off the stickered price. Stop in and see them now because once they're gone, they're gone.

Please note that this additional discount applies only to wall calendars. It does not include other planners and desk calendars.
Each year, the SASE/Jerome Awards, sponsored by the Jerome Foundation, awards grants of up to $5,000 to emerging Minnesota writers. An emerging writer is a writer whose work demonstrates a sustained level of accomplishment and commitment, but who has not yet received recognition/ acknowledgement as an established creator from fellow writers and/or other arts professionals.

Join us Saturday, January 31, at 7:00pm for an evening with the 2008 grant recipients, featuring readings by
  • Dhana-Marie Branton
  • Charles Conley
  • Elissa Elliott
  • Laura Flynn
  • John Medeiros
  • Rachel Moritz
  • Matt Rasmussen
Donations are requested.

Intermedia Arts is located at 2822 Lyndale Ave S, Minneapolis. For more information, call 612-874-2815.
The next meeting of the Twin Cities' most unusual and interesting book club is Tuesday, January 13. Books & Bars meets at Bryant-Lake Bowl, 810 W Lake Street, in Minneapolis. Doors open at 6:00pm; the discussion begins at 7:00pm.

In the store: $12.55
Online: $10.50 (plus S/H)
Publisher's price: $14.00
January's book is No One Belongs Here More Than You. The collection of short stories by filmmaker Miranda July has won praise--the New York Times said July can be "funny and insightful, offering moments of utter heartbreak through deeper, more sophisticated storytelling"--and awards, including the Quality Paperback New Visions Award.

Books & Bars is not your typical book club. We provide a unique atmosphere for a lively discussion of interesting authors, fun people, good food and drinks. You're welcome even if you haven't read the book.

Visit booksandbars.com for details and to talk to fellow members!

PS: We still have a few Books and Bars tshirts available. Stop by the store to get yours.

There's always something new at Magers & Quinn. Stop in today or check our inventory on our website any time.

We'll be back next month with more book news.

Until then,
David Enyeart
Magers and Quinn Booksellers

Call us: 612/822-4611
Or visit our website: http://www.magersandquinn.com
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