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Print and audio books,
music, video, and more!
PLUS, e-books
downloadable to most e-readers!
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Store Hours
10am-5pm
Monday-Saturday
10am-3pm
Sunday
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Featured Title
Little Wolves
Thomas Maltman
Published 1/8/2013
$25.00 (Hardcover)
"Tom Maltman's Little Wolves is one of my favorite books, and, I think, one of the best books ever written about our part of the world. It's a blood novel, but it's also a novel of faith, hope and redemption."
~ Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road and Safe From the Sea
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Featured Title
Reckless Endangerment
by Gretchen Morgenson
Published 6/5/12
Price: $15.99
If, as this book suggests, the architect of the 2008 financial meltdown grew up in a
small Minnesota town rather than on the Upper Eastside or Greenwich, Connecticut,
then we may have more to worry about than we thought. This is a riveting book of chapter and verse on the origins of the crisis, its enablers, and its accelerating
course through the 1990's and 2000's. It names names and spares no one - Democrat nor Republican, public servant nor private actor - but, it focuses its fury
on James Johnson, CEO of Fannie Mae from 1991 to 1998 who was born and grew
up in Benson, Minnesota. It reads like a whodunit as well it should and it's hard to
escape the conclusion that wealldunit under the feckless "leadership" of the White
House, the Congress, and the regulatory agencies and the unrelentingly aggressive
and self-serving "leadership" of the titans of Wall Street.
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Greetings!
It's not uncommon for our summer visitors to ask us, "What do you do here in the winter? Don't you get bored?" These sentiments often make us smile. While the winter months up here certainly have a slower pace, and parking is rarely an issue, we generally find ourselves just as busy as we would be in the summer. The difference is we are busy with community events, activities, and social gatherings. The winter in the Chequamegon Bay area is a time for those of us who live here year-round to spend more time with friends and family, to regenerate for the busier season, and to be creative. And, of course for many, this creativity includes writing.  On January 4th and 5th, we were honored to sponsor the 3rd Annual Writers Read at StageNorth in Washburn. This full house literary event was described by Noah Seigler (former Artistic Director at StageNorth) as, "one big community hug." A group of approximately 30 writers were selected from over 70 applicants to share their written pieces. Essays, short fiction and poetry were accepted. Both nights of readings included laughter, tears, and introspection. Some of the crowd favorites included Elizabeth Genzler's heartfelt and hilarious story about how to dispose of her husbands ashes and Laurie Otis' laugh out loud story entitled, "Fifty Shades of Grey Hair," which received one of the loudest ovations of the weekend. If you'd like to read all of these pieces, we are carrying the Writers Read: Volume One anthology.
While guest judge, author Peter Geye (The Lighthouse Road & Safe From the Sea), did select six "winners" for the weekend, this was an event where every writer felt real accomplishment just by sharing their words. We are hoping to host another event in the Spring for those who missed Writers Read. We hope to include the weekend's winners and possibly a couple of the crowd favorites as well. Stay tuned for more details on that. As winter continues, we are looking forward to many community events such as the Apostle Islands Sled Dog Races, a variety of productions at StageNorth, and our Bayfield Winter Festival to name a few. While there may not be an ice road again this year, or access to the famous ice caves, there is still plenty to see and do here, so we hope to see you! Happy reading, All of us at AIB |
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What we're reading...
 Visiting Tom
By Michael Perry "Weaaahhll", as Tom Hartwig might say with his drawled-out prefatory "well", "this here's a pretty good book. Good pictures, too". And Tom would be right. It's vintage Michael Perry with his reverence for life in the country and his self-deprecatory assessment of his own place in it. In repeated visits to his octogenarian neighbors, Tom and Arlene, Perry teases out old-time, home-spun wisdom and tests himself against it. The tone and vernacular are just right and the parallel stories of the intrusion of the interstate highway into the Hartwig's front yard and Perry's own struggle with the county road commissioner play off each other perfectly. Lurking beneath the breezy, cornpone style at the surface is a truly sophisticated foundation. We hear from Montaigne and Rimbaud, see Tom's appearance compared to that of Samuel Beckett, and are even referred to the uber-nostalgic Portuguese notion of saudade. Take this book seriously!
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 Pitch By Todd Boss
The pickup truck hit a patch of black ice and the family's vintage Steinway was pitched into the ditch. These poems pick up the pieces. Like Michael Perry, Todd Boss explores the grace and pathos of country life as he grew into and through it on the family farm in western Wisconsin. Again like Michael Perry, Boss's language is accessible and straightforward yet tethered to deep experience and wonder at the poignant themes of home, family, loss and the inner music of our lives. The thoughts and words flow light and dark like the keys of a piano keyboard. As Sherman Alexie says of Boss, "He can make any rhyme feel like a concealed weapon". This is a slim gem of a book!
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Are you having as much
fun as our miniature husky?
 Kia is loving (we mean really loving!) winter and will be fully in her element when we plunge into the deep-freeze this week! Taking full advantage of our reduced hours, she joyfully spends lots of free time racing about outdoors with us and her best friend, our black lab-mix, Cyrus. She is still shy but is letting a few more people a little bit closer. Be sure to come visit her and us when you're in Bayfield. We hope that each of you in your own way can capture as much pleasure out of the winter as Kia does!
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