Apostle Islands Booksellers

Lake & Islands Notes

December 2012

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Featured Title
how to cook everything the basics cover image

How to Cook Everything: The Basics, All You Need to Make Great Food         

by Mark Bittman   

Published 3/12/12  

Price: $35.00       


Do you really know how to properly scramble eggs? Or how to roast different meats? Or create consistently tasty stocks for soups? These are all techniques taught in this beautiful new book created by Mark Bittman, author of the How to Cook Everything series. This isn't a traditional cookbook in that there are not many new creative recipes in it. There are, however, great instructionals for both the novice and experienced cook. This is the essential teaching cookbook, with 1,000 photos illustrating every technique and recipe; the result is a comprehensive reference that's both visually stunning and utterly practical.    
Featured Title
pete the cat saves christmas cover image  
Pete the Cat Saves Christmas
Eric Litwin
Published 9/25/12
$17.99 (Hardcover)

Oh! Oh! Santa's sick with a bad cold. Will Christmas be cancelled? What will we do? "Never!" cries Santa, "Let's call Pete the Cat!" In a parody of the traditional The Night Before Christmas, Pete the Cat provides his typical underlying moral theme - that giving your all in the spirit of Christmas is a totally 'groovy' thing to do. As the reindeer pull his mini-bus through the sky we hear Pete's refrain - "At Christmas we give, so give it your all" - reminiscent of Santa's "Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!"
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Greetings! 

 

We often think of our small town (Population 487 - remember?) and wonder at the enormous differences that it engenders among its people. We think of our local authors. Who could be more different than Frank Graves (Balancing Power), Dennis McCann (Badger Boneyards), Bobby Nelson (Apostle Islanders) and Howard Paap (View from the Creek) among others? Yet each is an integral part of the community we call Bayfield. If you sat down for coffee with any one of them (or any of us for that matter!) you would come away with a singular description of our town and its people. And yet, those stories would bind together in the mosaic that is this place.  

This holiday time, when all of the hustle and bustle of the busy season has passed, we are drawn even closer. We complain together not of the cold, but of the warmth! A beautiful, thick cover of downy-light snow sank into a sea of mud in a week-long tropical interlude. Fortunately, eight or nine inches of new snow has now fallen and seems to have gained some purchase. Our reading group/book clubs are meeting regularly at the Bayfield Carnegie Library and the Big Water Cafe. A day-long wreath making party, an energetic cookie making evening at the church, the all-children's Christmas Carol at StageNorth, extended coffee klatsches and a myriad of other community activites punctuate our holiday time.


Our store is busy with gift seekers. Books remain among those special gifts which give immediate pleasure and life-long value. Whether a beautiful coffee-table book (Craig Blacklock - Apostle Islands - signed several dozen of his gorgeous photography books for us) or something one-off from our paperback fiction list (one of our favorite customers took Jorge Amado's Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon and Kobo Abe's Woman in the Dunes for her college-age son), books say a lot about who we are and what the recipient means to us. Many have us make special orders for items that we do not have in the store. Best of all, the holiday season brings our neighbors together in the store where greetings are exchanged and the festive spirit grows.

 

We wish you all a wonderful holiday season

 

and a happy New Year,

 

All of us at AIB
Upcoming events  

2013 Writers Read book image What: 3rd Annual Writers Read
When: Friday & Saturday,
           January 4th & 5th at 7:30pm  

Where: StageNorth, Washburn, WI  

 

We are honored to be a sponsor of this annual northland literary event and the publication in book form of an anthology of the stories presented this year and last. Two nights of readings by two different sets of authors. The theme: In the Elements. Authors will read about everything from climbing Everest to landing in Bagdad under fire and from spreading human ashes to messing with leeches on the rez. This will be two unforgettable, unexpected nights where you will be entertained and enlightened. We are especially proud as two of our AIB staff members, Thom Rauch and Kristen Sandstrom, have been selected as two of the readers.    

The other exciting news surrounding this event is that one of our favorite regional authors, Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road, has agreed to serve as the final judge! 

 

All of the written pieces from both 2012 and 2013 have been collected and put into an affordable book that will be available for purchase at the event, and will of course be available for purchase at Apostle Islands Booksellers after the event.  

What we're reading...    

 

behind beautiful forevers cover image Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity

By Katherine Boo  

 

Katherine Boo spent three years on the ground in a Mumbai slum reporting on life in one of the most destitute places in the world. The result is the 2012 National Book Award for non-fiction. Boo enters so deeply into the culture of Annawadi and, at the same time, remains so far in the background herself that one might easily mistake this for a work of fiction. As it is, Boo, who writes for The New Yorker magazine, develops each 'character,' relationship and event with empathy and respect despite the desperate circumstances where they play out. The "beautiful forevers" is, in fact, a barrier between the slum and the airport road with its high-rise luxury hotels. The story of what goes on behind it is moving and engaging as well as deeply troubling.

By the way, Louise Erdrich's The Round House which we featured last month won the 2012 National Book Award for fiction.

 

a thousand mornings cover image A Thousand Mornings
By Mary Oliver  


Mary Oliver quotes Bob Dylan as saying, "Anything worth thinking about is worth singing about." To that we would add that, "Anything worth singing about is worth writing poetry about." Mary Oliver continues to write poems that bring our thoughts and songs to life. Whether writing of Blake Dying or of The First Time Percy [her dog] Came Back everything is exalted, nothing is dismissed. In this beautiful little volume we are taken deep into the natural world and deep inside the Poet herself. With its enchanting cover image of a late season sunrise over a dark forested ridge and frozen water, this is a perfect Christmas gift for someone special.

A last minute gift idea
and $10 for you!

 

Apostle Islands Booksellers As we approach the last shopping days of the holiday season, we know that books are truly a perfect gift idea. There is something for every person on your list. The problem might be that you simply don't know what book they'd like. That's where an AIB Gift card becomes the perfect gift!  

 

Now through December 24th, buy $100 in AIB gift cards and you'll receive a $10 voucher! Feel free to give this voucher as a gift or use it yourself!  

Save 25%
This month only - Save 25% off one book! 

Book must be in stock, some restrictions apply. Print this coupon and present it in store for your discount. This coupon may not be combined with any other promotions or discounts. Limited to one use and one coupon per customer.
Offer Expires: December 31, 2012