Midwest Booksellers Association - Midwest Connections

One of Time magazine’s top-five novels of the year and a New York Times best seller, Leif Enger’s first novel, Peace Like a River, captured readers’ hearts around the nation. His new novel is a stunning successor—a touching, nimble, and rugged story of an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him.

In 1915 Minnesota, Monte Becket—“a man fading, a disappointer of persons”—has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives a simple life with his loving wife and whipsmart son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself.

With its smooth mix of romanticism and gritty reality, SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME often recalls the Old West’s greatest cowboy stories. Much more than just a tall tale, it is also about an ordinary man’s determination as he risks everything in order to understand what it’s all worth, and follows an unlikely dream in the hope it will lead him back home.

Leif Enger is the author of Peace Like a River. He was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, and worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty years. Enger lives in Minnesota with his wife and two sons.

SUN GOING DOWN: A NOVEL
by Jack Todd
Touchstone / Simon & Schuster
ISBN-13 978-1-4165-5048-8
ISBN-10 1-4165-5048-8
$26.00 Hardcover
Fiction set in the Midwest and West

Part history, part romance, and part action-adventure novel, SUN GOING DOWN follows the fortunes of Ebenezer Paint and his descendants -- rough and tough individuals who are caught up in Civil War river battles, epic cattle drives through drought and blizzards, the horrors of Wounded Knee, the desperation of the dust bowl, and the prosperity of the roaring 1920s. The page-turning plot is peopled by a vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters: a grizzled Mississippi steamboat merchant, two horse-thieving brothers, five Annie Oakley-like sisters who can outride any cowboy, a half-Sioux bride who demands her new family claim her heritage, and a courageous daughter who defies her father and braves the West alone. Throughout their lives, the Paint family must battle both internal and external elements, and learn to live with spirit and wit.

Letters and diaries from the author's own family archives form the basis for all the events and characters in SUN GOING DOWN, infusing the novel with richly detailed authenticity and deep emotional power. It is intimate in its portraits of the unforgettable characters who settled our country, sweeping in its geographical reach from Vicksburg up through Montana and the Dakotas, and epic as it spans four generations from the Civil War to the Great Depression.

For the past 10 years, Jack Todd has been sports columnist of the Montreal Gazette. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, where he was a scholarship athlete in track and field. After working for several newspapers, Todd left the U.S. during the Vietnam War and settled in Canada. He has covered two World Cup soccer tournaments and five Olympic Games. Todd won the National Newspaper Award for sports writing in 1999, an honor for which he has been nominated three times. His book, The Taste of Metal, was short-listed for a Governor General's Award and won the Mavis Gallant Award for non-fiction. In addition to his column duties, he is the author of SUN GOING DOWN.

THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG
by Geoff Herbach
Three Rivers Press / Random House
$14.00 Trade Paperback
ISBN-13 978-0-307-39637-2
ISBN-10 0-307-39637-1
Fiction set in the Midwest - and Europe

“I read THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG and I was gob-smacked. It’s a tasty dark treat, inspiring the reader to suck on every last hilarious morsel.”
–Heather McElhatton, author of Pretty Little Mistakes

Having made a huge mess of his life, the suicidal T. (for Theodore) Rimberg strikes out on a journey through history and geography. From Minneapolis to Europe to a fiery accident near the Green Bay Packers stadium, he searches for a father who is likely dead, digs for meaning where he’s sure there is none, writes (but never sends) suicide letters to family, celebrities, presidents, and football stars, and lands in a hospital bed across from a priest who believes that Rimberg has caused a miracle.

THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG -- this funny, thought-provoking, and moving "epistolary" novel -- asks us to consider the nature of second chances and the unexpected form that grace sometimes takes.

Geoff Herbach is a co-founder of the Lit6 Project, a Midwestern literary group and Electric Arc Radio, which is recorded live and has aired on Minnesota Public Radio.

RIVER OF HEAVEN: A NOVEL
Lee Martin
Shaye Areheart Books / Random House
$24.00 Hardcover
ISBN-13 978-0-307-38124-8
ISBN-10 0-307-38124-2
Fiction set in the Midwest

“RIVER OF HEAVEN” is one of the best books I’ve read this season. The author has created characters who are so real and emotionally complex in their flaws and actions that I became completely immersed in their story. Sam and the others have stayed with me ever since.”
-- Kati Gallagher, MBA Assistant Director

Past and present collide in Lee Martin’s highly anticipated novel of a man, his brother, and the dark secret that both connects and divides them. Haunting and beautifully wrought, RIVER OF HEAVEN weaves a story of love and loss, confession and redemption, and the mystery buried with a boy named Dewey Finn.

On an April evening in 1955, Dewey died on the railroad tracks outside Mt. Gilead, Illinois, and the mystery of his death still confounds the people of this small town. RIVER OF HEAVEN begins some fifty years later and centers on the story of Dewey’s boyhood friend Sam Brady, whose solitary adult life is much formed by what really went on in the days leading up to that evening at the tracks. It’s a story he’d do anything to keep from telling, but when his brother, Cal, returns to Mt. Gilead after decades of self-exile, it threatens to come to the surface.

A Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Bright Forever, Lee Martin masterfully conveys, with a voice that is at once distinct and lyrical, one man’s struggle to come to terms with the outcome of his life. Powerful and captivating, RIVER OF HEAVEN is about the high cost of living a lie, the chains that bind us to our past, and the obligations we have to those we love.

Lee Martin is the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Bright Forever, as well as Turning Bones, Quakertown, From Our House, and The Least You Need to Know. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he directs the creative writing program at Ohio State University.

Also note this 2007 Midwest Connections Pick published in paperback in May…

June Midwest Connections Picks

SHELTER HALF: A NOVEL
by Carol Bly
Holy Cow! Press / Consortium
ISBN-13: 978-0-9779458-6-3
$15.95 Trade Paperback
Fiction

A lifetime of hard fought and hard won wisdom surfaces on every page, and I can't imagine anyone being unmoved by the reading of it. This novel is going to be the book you give, the book you keep, and the book you treasure because we will never see its like again.” – Jonis Agee

A young woman’s body lay undisturbed for a week in mid-November.

So begins SHELTER HALF, a novel about a few people in a small northern Minnesota town. Some of them—the town cop, the doctor, and a young couple in love—are smart enough to recognize cruelty that comes at them from huge organizations far outside the town limits. They are not chicken. They don’t duck. If their nation and their world look grisly, they still do what they can for love and justice. They look out for one another.

As Scott Russell Sanders writes, “the question that drives this mesmerizing novel is not why someone committed a murder, but why ordinary people can sometimes rise to acts of great courage and compassion, as the risk of career, reputation, and even life itself. The answers are as various as the pageant of characters who fill these pages, from a German war veteran to a public relations executive, from a social worker to a strawberry farmer, from a bartender to a priest.”

Carol Bly was also the author of Letters from the Country, The Tomcat’s Wife, My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories, and Changing the Bully Who Rules the World. Her stories appeared in The Best American Short Stories; several Pushcart Collections, including the twenty-five-year anniversary edition; The New Yorker; Ploughshares; Glimmer Train (May 2008); and other journals. She lived in St. Paul and Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota, until her death from cancer in December 2007.

CRAZY GOOD: THE TRUE STORY OF DAN PATCH, THE MOST FAMOUS HORSE IN AMERICA
Charles Leerhsen
Simon & Schuster
Horse Racing / Sports / U.S. History
$26.00 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9177-4

Check out the official DAN PATCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY website: www.danpatch.com You'll find lots of fascinating history, photos, and details about the great Dan Patch.

Celebrate “Dan Patch Days” in Savage, MN, and at Canterbury Downs Horse Track, Shakopee, MN -- June 20-21!

America has never loved any horse more than it loved Dan Patch, the champion harness racer who was nearly destroyed at birth, but went on to become an undefeated, record-breaking champion. Charles Leerhsen’s CRAZY GOOD: THE TRUE STORY OF DAN PATCH, THE MOST FAMOUS HORSE IN AMERICA recreates America at the turn of the 20^th century through the story of the greatest sports hero of his day. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, made $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was making over a million dollars. He was front-page news across the country when he broke the record for the mile, and subsequently lowered it by four seconds—a phenomenal achievement that stood for decades. In CRAZY GOOD, Charles Leerhsen reminds modern-day readers just why Dan Patch was so beloved.

Charles Leerhsen is an executive editor at Sports Illustrated. He has worked at Newsweek, People and US Weekly. His stories have also appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine. His previous books include: Press On!: Further Adventures in the Good Life with Chuck Yeager; The Last Great Ride, with Brandon Tartikoff; and Trump: Surviving at the Top and Trump: The Art of Survival, with Donald Trump.

SAVVY
Ingrid Law
Dial Press Books for Young Readers / Penguin Group
Children’s Fiction / Middle Grades
$16.99 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-8037-3306-0

“SAVVY is a wonderfully creative story set in a little place directly between Kansas and Nebraska, known as Kansaska Monday - Wednesday and Nebransas Thursday - Saturday. It reminds us that we all have our own special talents, although they may not be as spectacular as those of the characters in this book, who cause hurricanes and electrical surges until they learn to ‘scumble’ their savvies. Ingrid Law's voice is fresh, humorous, and heartwarming without being sentimental. SAVVY is one of the most satisfying middle grade novels I've read in a long time.” -- Carla Ketner, Chapters Books & Gifts, Seward, NE

SAVVY introduces us to the Beaumonts, an eclectic family whose members each possess a “savvy”— a special power that erupts when they turn thirteen. Savvies haven’t always been kind to their family, however. These paranormal “gifts” have forced them to move around the country and home-school their children. Now young Mibs Beaumont is celebrating her big birthday in two days. Mibs is eager to blow out her thirteen dripping candles, but more importantly, she can’t wait to discover her savvy.

INGRID LAW has sold shoes, worked in a bookstore, helped other people get jobs, and assembled boxes for frozen eggplant burgers. She and her twelve-year-old daughter live in Boulder, Colorado, in a lovely old mobile home that they like to believe is a cross between a spaceship and a shoe box.

JULIA GILLIAN
(AND THE ART OF KNOWING)
Alison McGhee
Scholastic Press
Children’s Fiction / Middle Grades
$15.99 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-545-03348-0

Julia Gillian is a girl of many accomplishments. Among others, she is skilled in the Art of Knowing—about her quirky neighbors, her Minneapolis neighborhood. She even knows exactly what her Saint Bernard, Bigfoot, is saying (even though he doesn’t speak human). Unfortunately, the one skill Julia Gillian doesn’t have is knowing how the book she’s reading is going to end; it doesn’t seem as if it’s going to have a happy ending, and that frightens her. But being afraid teaches her something new: that having good friends and family around you makes life a bit less scary—and much more fun.

Alison McGhee is the author of numerous books for both adults and young readers, including the New York Times bestselling picture books Someday and A Very Brave Witch. She lives with her family in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where (like Julia Gillian) she is known to frequent the Quang Restaurant and enjoy egg rolls and strawberry bubble tea.

Also note these 2007 Midwest Connections Picks coming in paperback in June …

July Midwest Connections Picks

ABBEVILLE: A NOVEL
by Jack Fuller
Unbridled Books
$24.95 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-1-932961-47-8
Fiction

“George Bailey’s security vanished with the dot.com crash. His grandfather lived through the 1929 market crash and subsequent run on his bank and seemed to thrive in the years that followed. Not knowing what else to do, George returns to his grandfather’s house and his grandfather’s town, hoping to find, in his memories, a way forward. This is a wonderful story of America’s heartland. It reminds us that even though we fence it and cultivate it, we never really tame it; and that counting chickens before they hatch is still a fool’s game.” —Keri Holmes, Kaleidoscope: Our Focus Is You Bookstore (IA)

ABBEVILLE sweeps through the history of late-19th through early-21st century America—among loggers stripping the North Woods bare, at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with French soldiers at the Battle of Verdun, into the abyss of the Depression, and finally toward the new millennium’s own nightmares. At the same time it examines life at its most intimate. How can one hold onto meaning amidst the brutally indifferent cycles of war and peace, flood and drought, boom and bust, life and death?

In clean, evocative prose that reveals the complexity of people’s moral and spiritual lives, Fuller tells the simple story of a man riding the crests and chasms of the 20th century, struggling through personal grief, war, and material failure to find a place where the spirit may repose. An American story about rediscovering where we’ve been and how we’ve come to be who we are today, Abbeville tells the tale of the world in small, of one man’s pilgrimage to come to terms with himself while learning to embrace the world around him.

JACK FULLER has published six critically acclaimed novels and one book of non-fiction about journalism. He has been a legal affairs writer, a war correspondent in Vietnam, a Washington correspondent, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer. At the Chicago Tribune he served as editor of the editorial page, editor, and publisher. When he retired, he was president of Tribune Publishing Co.

UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: A NOVEL
by Lin Enger
Little, Brown / Hachette
$23.99 Hardcover
ISBN-13: 978-0-316-00694-1
ISBN-10: 0-316-00694-7
Fiction

"I enjoyed UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY tremendously. I had goosebumps reading Lin Enger's excellent depiction of winter in northern Minnesota, but most of them were from the eerie characters and plot development. This is a modern, Midwestern take on Hamlet, complete with a creepy uncle, mentally unstable mother, and highly confused teenagers. This was a very real depiction of situations going from bad to worse that was a great read!"

-- Leslie Hakala, Best of Times Bookstore, Red Wing, MN

Unaware that his life is about to change in ways he can't imagine, seventeen-year-old Jesse Matson ventures into the northern Minnesota woods with his father on a cold November afternoon. Perched on individual hunting stands a quarter-mile apart, they wait with their rifles for white-tailed deer. When the muffled crack of a gunshot rings out, Jesse unaccountably knows something is wrong-and he races through the trees to find his dad dead of a rifle wound, apparently self-inflicted.

But would easygoing Harold Matson really kill himself? If so, why?

Haunted by the ghost of his father, Jesse delves into family secrets, wrestles with questions of justice and retribution, and confronts the nature of his own responsibility. And just when he's decided that he alone must shoulder his family's burden, the beautiful and troubled Christine Montez enters his life, forcing him to reconsider his plans.

In spare, elegant prose, Lin Enger tells the story of a young man trying to hold his family together in a world tipped suddenly upside down. Set among pristine lakes and beneath towering pines, Undiscovered Country is at once a bold reinvention of Shakespeare's Hamlet and a hair-bristling story of betrayal, revenge, and the possibilities of forgiveness.

LIN ENGER teaches writing in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. He’s a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and he lives in northwestern Minnesota with his family.





MBA Booksellers and other members, please login now to the Members Area and go to the members Midwest Connections page for complete details and updates on… NEW - MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS titles and authors for Spring & Summer 2008 NEW - marketing opportunities and special offers for 2008 NEW - promo and display materials – signs, bookmarks, shelf-talkers, stickers, and more NEW - cash rebates for Spring 2008, and more! If you are a Midwest Booksellers Association member and need login and password assistance, please contact us.	MIDWEST CONNECTIONS REGIONAL MARKETING PROGRAM SPRING, SUMMER 2008 -- Plus Early Fall 2008 NEW MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS FOR SPRING & SUMMER -- PLUS EARLY FALL! Click here to see the terrific new books we're promoting. MBA Booksellers Sell More Books with our MIDWEST CONNECTIONS Regional Marketing Program Click here to see the many ways our successful MIDWEST CONNECTIONS regional marketing program helps MBA bookstores promote and sell more books! Our new MIDWEST CONNECTIONS brochure will give you an overview of our program, including basic facts, MBA's role, a supporting publisher's' role, and enthusiastic kudos from both booksellers and publishers. NEW MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS FOR SPRING & SUMMER! Early Fall 2008 previews, too. These new 2008 MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS are sure to be hand-selling favorites in MBA bookstores during the coming months in 2008. We’ve read all of them, and every one has a special quality that makes it entertaining or informative and well worth your time. All of these books have strong Midwest regional appeal, too. To purchase these books, please visit or shop online at your favorite locally-owned independent MBA member bookstore. Use our Bookstore Locator for more information. Check out our new "Midwest Suggestions" annotated list of more Midwest interest books and authors, too. New June titles, additional Spring titles, and forthcoming July and August titles just added! Midwest Connections Titles & Authors February – October 2008 February 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. APPLE BETTY & SLOPPY JOE: STIRRING UP THE PAST WITH FAMILY RECIPES AND STORIES by Susan Sanvidge, Diane Sanvidge Seckar, Jean Sanvidge Wouters, and Julie Sanvidge Florence (Wisconsin Historical Society Press) – adult – cookbook and family memoir LITTLE KLEIN by Anne Ylvisaker (Candlewick Press) – children – middle grade fiction March 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. CHARLATAN: AMERICA'S MOST DANGEROUS HUCKSTER, THE MAN WHO PURSUED HIM, AND THE AGE OF FLIMFLAM by Pope Brock (Crown Publishers/Random House) -- adult -- biography, American history EIGHT WOMEN, TWO MODEL Ts, AND THE AMERICAN WEST By Joanne Wilke (University of Nebraska Press / A Bison Original) -- adult -- American History / Women’s Studies / Travel THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES by Jody Feldman illustrated by Victoria Jamieson (Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins) -- children -- middle grade fiction April 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. THE SORROWS OF AN AMERICAN: A NOVEL by Siri Hustvedt (Henry Holt/Macmillan) – adult -- fiction THE LATEHOMECOMER: A HMONG FAMILY MEMOIR by Kao Kalia Yang (Coffee House Press / Consortium) – adult -- memoir MAN KILLED BY PHEASANT AND OTHER KINSHIPS [A MEMOIR] by John T. Price (Da Capo Press / Perseus Books Group) -- adult -- memoir / essays More April Midwest Connections Picks to be announced soon *Also note these 2007 Midwest Connections Picks published in paperback in April …* LAND OF LINCOLN by Andrew Ferguson (Atlantic Monthly Press/PGW) -- trade paperback coming in April LITTLE HEATHENS by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (Bantam Books/Random House) -- trade paperback coming April 29 May 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME by Leif Enger (Atlantic Monthly Press / Grove Atlantic, Inc.) -- adult -- fiction set in Midwest and West The new novel from the author of PEACE LIKE A RIVER! SUN GOING DOWN: A NOVEL by Jack Todd (Touchstone / Simon & Schuster) -- adult -- historical fiction set in Midwest and West RIVER OF HEAVEN: A NOVEL by Lee Martin Shaye Areheart Books / Random House -- adult -- Fiction set in the Midwest THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG by Geoff Herbach Three Rivers Press / Random House -- adult -- Fiction set in the Midwest - and Europe *Also note this 2007 Midwest Connections Pick published in paperback in May…* THE NIGHT BIRDS by Thomas Maltman (Soho Press/Consortium) -- trade paperback New June 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. SHELTER HALF: A NOVEL by Carol Bly (Holy Cow! Press / Consortium) – adult -- fiction set in Minnesota CRAZY GOOD: THE TRUE STORY OF DAN PATCH, THE MOST FAMOUS HORSE IN AMERICA by Charles Leerhsen Simon & Schuster -- adult -- Horse Racing / Sports / U.S. History -- set in part in the Midwest SAVVY by Ingrid Law Dial Press Books for Young Readers / Penguin Group -- children -- Fiction / Middle Grades - set in Nebraska and Kansas JULIA GILLIAN (AND THE ART OF KNOWING) by Alison McGhee Scholastic Press -- children -- Fiction / Middle Grades -- set in Minneapolis *Also note these 2007 Midwest Connections Picks coming in paperback in June …* F5: DEVASTATION, SURVIVAL, AND THE MOST VIOLENT TORNADO OUTBREAK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Mark Levine (Miramax/Hyperion/HarperCollins) -- trade paperback coming in June THE REST OF HER LIFE by Laura Moriarty (Hyperion) -- trade paperback coming in June THE RIVER QUEEN by Mary Morris (Picador/Macmillan) -- trade paperback coming in June THE RIVER WIFE by Jonis Agee (Random House) -- trade paperback coming June 10 New July 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. ABBEVILLE: A NOVEL by Jack Fuller (Unbridled Books) – adult -- fiction set in the Midwest UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: A NOVEL by Lin Enger (Little, Brown / Hachette) -- adult -- fiction set in Minnesota and Midwest SO LONG AT THE FAIR by Christina Schwarz Doubleday / Random House -- adult -- Fiction set in Wisconsin More July Midwest Connections Picks titles to be announced soon *Also note this 2007 Midwest Connections Pick coming in paperback in July …* KEEPING THE HOUSE by Ellen Baker (Random House) – trade paperback coming July 15 New August 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. STALKING SUSAN by Julie Kramer Doubleday / Random House -- adult -- Fiction / Mystery & Suspense -- set in Minnesota RED SKY IN MORNING by Patrick Culhane William Morrow / HarperCollins -- adult -- Fictions / Mystery / World War II More August Midwest Connections Picks titles to be announced soon New September 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD BELT SANDER RACES, BLIND WOODWORKERS, AND BASEBALL BATS by Spike Carlsen (Collins / HarperCollins) -- adult -- natural and social history of wood THE PLAIN SENSE OF THINGS by Pamela Carter Joern Bison Books / University of Nebraska Press -- adult -- Fiction set in Nebraska RED KNIFE: A CORK O'CONNOR MYSTERY by William Kent Krueger Atria Books / Simon & Schuster -- adult -- Fiction / mystery & suspense set in Minnesota New October 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books. THANK YOU FOR ALL THINGS by Sandra Kring Bantam Dell / Random House -- adult -- Fiction set in Wisconsin Midwest Connections Picks from 2007 Great books published in 2007 which you’ll want to read, too! Just in case you might have missed some of these, take a look at our 2007 Midwest Connections Picks, which were some of our independent booksellers’ favorite books last year. Many of these are coming out in paperback in 2008, so you can catch them the second time around, too. February Midwest Connections Picks APPLE BETTY & SLOPPY JOE: STIRRING UP THE PAST WITH FAMILY RECIPES AND STORIES Susan Sanvidge, Diane Sanvidge Seckar, Jean Sanvidge Wouters, and Julie Sanvidge Florence Wisconsin Historical Society Press $18.95 Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-87020-386-2 “I want to share with other Midwest booksellers a book tip for APPLE BETTY & SLOPPY JOE by the Sanvidge sisters. In just two days, I sold 75 copies of this new memoir/cookbook. I’ve never had a new title come out and sell so well!! It’s so much fun to read as a memoir, and the book is filled with homey recipes and makes the perfect nostalgic gift for the readers that frequent my bookshop. It’s definitely our hottest pick.” – Candy Pearson, Apple Blossom Books, Oshkosh, WI “I just made the recipe for Date Chocolate Chip Cake, and it was EXACTLY LIKE MY MOM USED TO MAKE – delicious and very moist!” – Kati Gallagher, MBA Assistant Director We urge you to read this wonderful cookbook’s family anecdotes and sample the tried-and-true recipes. We guarantee that they’ll transport you right back to your childhood (or maybe your mom’s childhood…) We know you’ll love this book as much as we do, and we’re sure that it will be a favorite with your own family – and a great gift for others. It’s also a perfect selection for a cookbook book club meeting, a community family recipes celebration or contest, or “in the kitchen with grandma” story time for the kids in your family. The Sanvidge sisters grew up in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at family cottages “up North,” and in their old city bus-turned-camper. Susan Sanvidge is a freelance graphic designer. She lives in Chicago. Diane Sanvidge Seckar is a journeyman electrician and co-owner of Seckar Electric in Winneconne, Wisconsin. She also designs and makes crocheted hats and purses. Jean Sanvidge Wouters is a homemaker, seamstress, and volunteer in Winneconne. Julie Sanvidge Florence is the director of the Lebanon Public Library in Lebanon, Ohio. Since completing Apple Betty & Sloppy Joe, the Sanvidge sisters have been working on another collection of family memories, Oshkosh Stories. LITTLE KLEIN by Anne Ylvisaker Candlewick Press ISBN-13: 978-0-7636-3359-2 $15.99 Hardcover middle-grade novel "I loved LITTLE KLEIN! This book is a wonderful combination of nostalgia for childhood's seemingly limitless freedom and the dreams of every littlest brother to be the hero. This short novel makes a terrific kids' book club pick and classroom read-aloud." -- Ellen Scott, The Bookworm, Omaha, NE "Big things really do come in 'Little' packages. An entertaining, affectionate and heartwarming read, LITTLE KLEIN proves there are few bonds stronger than those forged between an impressionable young boy and his closest friend." -- Teri Wood TeBockhorst, East Village Books, Des Moines, IA This wonderful little novel about a boy and his dog is available in hardcover now. If you liked our 2007 Midwest Connections Picks The Linden Tree, Little Heathens, and In Search of Mockingbird, you’re going to love LITTLE KLEIN! Born Harold Sylvester George Klein, Little Klein can’t seem to measure up to the "Bigs." His older brothers are a boisterous gang held together by the bustling, bighearted Mother Klein. Try as he might to stand tall and be heard above the din, Harold often feels little and left out -- until one day when a stray dog named LeRoy answers his whistle and the two become inseparable, with LeRoy’s nose leading them from one adventure to the next. Join a cast of colorful characters in a rural river town circa 1949 where boys wrestle and fish, swipe pies, brave perilous waters on homemade rafts -- and sometimes quietly become heroes. Anne Ylvisaker grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota and now lives in Iowa with her family. She is also the author of DEAR PAPA, named one of the Top Ten First Novels for Youth of 2002 by Booklist. She received the 2005 McKinght Artist Fellowship for Writers Loft Award in Children’s Literature for LITTLE KLEIN. March Midwest Connections Picks CHARLATAN: AMERICA'S MOST DANGEROUS HUCKSTER, THE MAN WHO PURSUED HIM, AND THE AGE OF FLIMFLAM by Pope Brock Crown Publishers/Random House ISBN-13: 978-0-307-33988-1 ISBN-10: 0-307-33988-2 $24.95 Hardcover Biography, American history Hear audio clips of the good "Doctor" Brinkley himself, broadcasting on the radio in the 1930s! Go to www.popebrock.com "CHARLATAN is an amazing story, incredibly told. Writer Pope Brock -- actor; feature journalist for GQ, Rolling Stone, Esquire and Life; and author of Indiana Gothic -- is uniquely equipped to tell the story of one of the most bizarre and colorful characters to come out of Kansas. Meet John Brinkley, huckster extraordinary, the man who directly or indirectly helped bring both border radio and the AMA into existence." — Sarah Bagby, Watermark Books & Café, Wichita, KS “Told with uproarious brio…heavenly…A book so lively that its wild stories are virtually wall-to-wall.” — Janet Maslin, The New York Times “You will devour CHARLATAN, Pope Brock’s tale of fools and fanatics. With a vast and wild cast of characters, and filled with issues and topics that resonate through the years CHARLATAN begs comparison with Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City and deserves to be a bestseller.” — Chicago Tribune “A rollicking biography—at turns funny and horrifying, brimming with wit, insight and who-knew facts…Brock’s prose is a joy to read, bold and colorful and a little irreverent...CHARLATAN reads like a novel—but no one could make this stuff up.” —Wichita Eagle In 1917, having no medical training aside from years of selling worthless patent cures, “Dr.” John Brinkley opens a medical practice in the tiny town of Milford, Kansas. Fifteen years later, he’s become America’s most famous surgeon, having pioneered an outlandish and highly dangerous method for restoring male virility. It’s pure flimflam, of course, but this is the Age of Flimflam, when toxic snake-oil tonics sell under hundreds of brand names and traveling minstrel shows hawk bizarre machines that supposedly cure everything from cancer to the common cold. Chicago firebrand intellectual Morris Fishbein, editor of a little-read publication called the Journal of the American Medical Association, has done more than anyone else in fighting this tidal wave of charlatanism, and he makes it his life’s mission to bring Brinkley down. Assisted by such luminaries as H. L. Mencken and Sinclair Lewis, Fishbein launches offensive after offensive. Yet each time Fishbein closes a door, Brinkley opens a window, eventually becoming America’s most popular broadcaster so that he can plug his services on the radio. While murdering dozens of patients, he runs for governor of Kansas and nearly wins. Finally, his decades-long cat-and-mouse game with Fishbein culminates in a spellbinding trial. *CHARLATAN* is a marvelous portrait of a boundlessly audacious rogue on the loose in an America that was ripe for the bamboozling. POPE BROCK is the author of Indiana Gothic, the story of the murder of his great-grandfather. He lives in upstate New York. __________________________________________________ EIGHT WOMEN, TWO MODEL Ts, AND THE AMERICAN WEST By Joanne Wilke University of Nebraska Press / A Bison Original ISBN-13 978-0-8032-6019-1 $18.95 Original Trade Paperback American History / Women’s Studies / Travel March is Women's History Month! “Eight Women, Two Model Ts and the American West is a great read. I appreciate any book that advances the history of women. Like many other women histories, it utilizes journal entries. I like how the book was written/assembled by the granddaughter of one of the travelers, adding to the importance of personal actions upon future generations. Wilke is concerned about showing WHO these women are as she draws connections between her grandmother and the woman she is herself. I feel Wilke's pride and appreciation as she tells the story of her grandmother, her great aunt and the other women who made this road trip. In historical context, what they did seems even more significant, and really very brave.” -- Angie Grafstrom, Inspiration Hollow, Roseau, MN “This is a beautifully told story of adventure, and also a story of eight young women from Iowa who not only drew upon the resourcefulness of their brave immigrant ancestors to embark upon a remarkable journey, but lived the rest of their lives with a zest they passed on to children and grandchildren.” —Mary Clearman Blew, author of All but the Waltz and Balsamroot In 1924 eight young women drove across the American West in two Model T Fords. In nine weeks they traveled more than nine thousand unpaved miles on an extended car-camping trip through six national parks, “without a man or a gun along.” It was the era of the flapper, but this book tells the story of a group of farm girls who met while attending Iowa’s Teacher’s College and who shared a “yen to see some things.” A blend of oral and written history, adventure, memoir, and just plain heartfelt living, *Eight Women* is a story of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. Weaving together a granddaughter’s essays with family stories and anecdotes from the 1924 trip, the book portrays four generations of women extending from nineteenth-century Norway to present-day Iowa—and sets them loose across the western United States where the perils and practicalities of automotive travel reaffirm family connections while also celebrating individual freedom. Joanne Wilke’s work has appeared in the Crazy Woman Creek: Women Rewrite the American West and Leaning into the Wind: Women Write from the Heart of the West anthologies. She has also written pieces for the Montana Quarterly, the Pacific Review, and the Christian Science Monitor. ______________________________________________ THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES By J o d y Feldman Illustrated by Victoria Jamieson Greenwillow Books / HarperCollins ISBN-13: 978-0-06-121450-9 ISBN-10: 0-06-121450-7 $16.99 Hardcover Children’s Middle Grade Fiction “The game is about to begin, and readers can compete alongside Gil Goodson and his fellow contestants in the Gollywhopper Games, sponsored by the Golly Toy and Game Company. A million dollars is the prize, but for Gil it goes much deeper. His father’s been unjustly accused of embezzling from the Golly Company, so Gil wants to clear his dad's name – then use the money to move as far away as he can get. This is a well-written story with great characters and an interactive element. Kids of all ages will enjoy and learn from THE GOLLYWHOPPER GAMES. So, are you ready -- to win?” -- Vicki Erwin, Main Street Books, St Charles MO “Poor Gil is trying to rise above the negative public sentiment leveled upon his family due to his dad’s termination from the Golly Toy and Game Company. His dad was accused of stealing, and despite that, Gil decides to enter a contest celebrating the company’s 50^th anniversary. Contestants participate in challenges resembling Survivor, and other popular TV game and reality shows, giving the book a strong, contemporary context. The GollyWhopper Games starts casually and picks up speed as the competition tension increases. This is my new favorite not-for-kids-only book!” -- Bev Denor, LaDeDa books & beans, Manitowoc, WI Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and girls! Welcome to the biggest, bravest, boldest competition the world has ever seen! The Gollywhopper Games! Are you ready? Gil Goodson sure hopes he's ready. His future happiness depends on winning the Golly Toy & Game Company's ultimate competition. If Gil wins, his dad has promised the family can move out of Orchard Heights—away from all the gossip, the false friends, and bad press that have plagued the Goodsons ever since The Incident. Gil's been studying for months. He thinks he knows everything about Golly's history and merchandise. But does he know enough to answer the trivia? Solve the puzzles? Complete the stunts? Will it be more than all the other kids know? Gil's formidable opponents have their own special talents. He must be quicker and smarter than all of them. The ride of Gil's life is about to begin. Win! win! win! Jody Feldman holds a journalism degree from the University of Missouri, and she worked in advertising before becoming a full-time author. Her writing has appeared in newspaper and magazine ads, as well as on television and radio. The Gollywhopper Games is her first children's book. She lives in St. Louis, Missouri. April Midwest Connections Picks THE SORROWS OF AN AMERICAN by Siri Hustvedt Henry Holt / Macmillan www.henryholt.com ISBN-13: 978-0-8050-7908-1 ISBN-10: 0-8050-7908-4 $25.00 Hardcover Fiction “In THE SORROWS OF AN AMERICAN, Siri Hustvedt deals with our lives when they are jolted by death. The mysteries that are uncovered sometimes are without answers, the people we thought we knew in life turn out to be different, and the impact of others’ lives on our own is unpredictable. There are two major deaths in the book, of a parent and a spouse, but she also examines other deaths, those of relationships and ideals. “Hustvedt creates characters of varied ages and both genders who are all struggling with perceptions and realities. The reader is drawn into their world from the first page. This is not a bleak novel, however. Throughout we are inspired by not only the frailties of human nature, but the overwhelming resilience of spirit. Ultimately this is a story of heroes both dead and living.” -- Sue Zumberge, Common Good Books, Saint Paul, MN The Sorrows of an American is a soaring feat of storytelling about the immigrant experience and the ghosts that haunt families from one generation to another. When Erik Davidsen and his sister, Inga, find a disturbing note from an unknown woman among their dead father’s papers, they believe he may be implicated in a mysterious death. The Sorrows of an American tells the story of the Davidsen family as brother and sister uncover its secrets and un-bandage its wounds in the year following their father’s funeral. Returning to New York from Minnesota, the grieving siblings continue to pursue the mystery behind the note. While Erik’s fascination with his new tenants and emotional vulnerability to his psychiatric patients threaten to overwhelm him, Inga is confronted by a hostile journalist who seems to know a secret connected to her dead husband, a famous novelist. As each new mystery unfolds, Erik begins to inhabit his emotionally hidden father’s history and to glimpse how his impoverished childhood, the Depression, and the war shaped his relationship with his children, while Inga must confront the reality of her husband’s double life. A novel about fathers and children, listening and deafness, recognition and blindness; the pain of speaking and the pain of keeping silent, the ambiguities of memory, loneliness, illness, and recovery. Siri Hustvedt’s exquisitely moving prose reveals one Scandinavian-American family’s hidden sorrows through an extraordinary mosaic of secrets and stories that reflect the fragmented nature of identity itself. Siri Hustvedt is the author of three previous novels, What I Loved, The Blindfold, and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl, as well as a collection of essays, A Plea for Eros. Originally from Minnesota, she lives in Brooklyn with her husband, Paul Auster. _________________________________________________ THE LATEHOMECOMER: A HMONG FAMILY MEMOIR by Kao Kalia Yang Coffee House Press / Consortium ISBN-13:978-1-56689-208-7 $14.95 Trade Paperback Memoir “This is the best account of the Hmong experience I’ve ever read -- powerful, heartbreaking, and unforgettable.”—ANNE FADIMAN “Reading this book is about experiencing the Hmong American transformation.” —MINNESOTA STATE SENATOR MEE MOUA “Yang tells her family’s story with grace; she narrates their struggles, beautifully weaving in Hmong folklore and culture. By the end of this moving, unforgettable book . . . readers will delight at how intimately they have become a part of this formerly strange culture.” —PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review) The first mainstream book by a Hmong writer in the United States, Kao Kalia Yang’s memoir is destined to touch every reader’s heart. Her story begins in the 1970s with her parents’ wedding during the aftermath of America’s Secret War in Laos—as the Hmong were being massacred for their collaboration with the US during the Vietnam War. In this time of great terror, Yang recounts the harrowing story of her family’s captivity by Laotian soldiers, the daring rescue undertaken by her father and uncles, and their narrow escape into Thailand, where Yang was born in Ban Vinai Refugee Camp. When she was six years old, Yang’s family immigrated to America, and she evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language. Filled with photographs documenting her family’s tremendous journey—from their beginnings in Laos, their life in Thailand’s largest refugee camp, and their rites of passage in America—Yang’s memoir speaks eloquently to the history we all share, while relating the stories of a culture few of us know. And through her captivating narrative, the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her ancestors and shared by an entire community have finally found a voice. “An inspiring person . . . [Yang will] be the first Hmong female author . . . finally putting Hmong stories on the shelves alongside stories from the rest of the world.” —HMONG TODAY Kao Kalia Yang is the co-founder with her sister of WordsWanted, a company dedicated to helping immigrants with writing, translating, and business services. A graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University, Yang has recently screened The Place Where We Were Born, a film documenting the experiences of Hmong American refugees. Visit her website at www.kaokaliayang.com. _________________________________________________ MAN KILLED BY PHEASANT AND OTHER KINSHIPS [A MEMOIR] by John T. Price Da Capo Press / Perseus Books Group ISBN-13: 978-0-306-81605-5 ISBN-10: 0-306-81605-9 $25.00 Hardcover “John Price’s memoir is a powerful inquiry into what it means to be a Midwesterner. In a style that replicates the laconic surface and passionate undercurrents of that region, he has fashioned not only a personal story, but a powerful evocation of the land and its European immigrant families.” -- Patricia Hampl, author of The Florist’s Daughter Grounded in place in the great grasslands of the Midwest, John Price’s large-hearted memoir is nevertheless a story that knows no boundaries. Kinship is the thread that runs throughout, with creatures in his back yard and in the wild, with Swedish ancestors, with neighbors, with the Midwestern prairies, and with his wife and children. Often smiling at the earthly absurdity of ordinary life, and at other moments resonant with both joy and sorrow, MAN KILLED BY PHEASANT AND OTHER KINSHIPS bears poignant witness to the bonds that link us all. John T. Price, Professor of English at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, is the recipient of an NEA grant and the author of Not Just Any Land: A Personal and Literary Journey into the American Grasslands. His work, deeply rooted the Midwest, is, like that of Edward Abbey or Aldo Leopold, tied to place yet elevated by experiences that transcend the region. Price lives in western Iowa with his wife and sons. *Also note these 2007 Midwest Connections Picks published in paperback in April …* LAND OF LINCOLN by Andrew Ferguson (Atlantic Monthly Press/PGW) Trade paperback, $14.00 ISBN-13 978-0-8021-4361-7; ISBN-10 0-8021-4361-X LITTLE HEATHENS by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (Bantam Books/Random House) Trade paperback, $12.00, illustrated with family photos ISBN-13 978-0-553-38424-6 On sale April 29 May Midwest Connections Picks SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME by Leif Enger Atlantic Monthly Press / Grove Atlantic, Inc. ISBN-13 978-0-87113-985-6 ISBN-10 0-87113-985-5 $24.00 Hardcover Fiction set in the Midwest and West The new novel from the author of PEACE LIKE A RIVER! Leif Enger has done it again: a novel that reads like a modern fable, with characters to cheer for and despise. A reformed bank robber begins a journey to reconcile with a long lost love. He is accompanied on this journey by a has-been author and chased by an obsessed ex-Pinkerton agent. What more can you ask for? Circus freaks? O.K. It has those too. For those of you who loved Peace Like a River, So Brave, Young, and Handsome will not disappoint. -- Chris Livingston, The Book Shelf, Winona, MN One of Time magazine’s top-five novels of the year and a New York Times best seller, Leif Enger’s first novel, Peace Like a River, captured readers’ hearts around the nation. His new novel is a stunning successor—a touching, nimble, and rugged story of an aging train robber on a quest to reconcile the claims of love and judgment on his life, and the failed writer who goes with him. In 1915 Minnesota, Monte Becket—“a man fading, a disappointer of persons”—has lost his sense of purpose. His only success long behind him, Monte lives a simple life with his loving wife and whipsmart son. But when he befriends outlaw Glendon Hale, a new world of opportunity and experience presents itself. With its smooth mix of romanticism and gritty reality, SO BRAVE, YOUNG, AND HANDSOME often recalls the Old West’s greatest cowboy stories. Much more than just a tall tale, it is also about an ordinary man’s determination as he risks everything in order to understand what it’s all worth, and follows an unlikely dream in the hope it will lead him back home. Leif Enger is the author of Peace Like a River. He was raised in Osakis, Minnesota, and worked as a reporter and producer for Minnesota Public Radio for nearly twenty years. Enger lives in Minnesota with his wife and two sons. SUN GOING DOWN: A NOVEL by Jack Todd Touchstone / Simon & Schuster ISBN-13 978-1-4165-5048-8 ISBN-10 1-4165-5048-8 $26.00 Hardcover Fiction set in the Midwest and West Part history, part romance, and part action-adventure novel, SUN GOING DOWN follows the fortunes of Ebenezer Paint and his descendants -- rough and tough individuals who are caught up in Civil War river battles, epic cattle drives through drought and blizzards, the horrors of Wounded Knee, the desperation of the dust bowl, and the prosperity of the roaring 1920s. The page-turning plot is peopled by a vibrant, unforgettable cast of characters: a grizzled Mississippi steamboat merchant, two horse-thieving brothers, five Annie Oakley-like sisters who can outride any cowboy, a half-Sioux bride who demands her new family claim her heritage, and a courageous daughter who defies her father and braves the West alone. Throughout their lives, the Paint family must battle both internal and external elements, and learn to live with spirit and wit. Letters and diaries from the author's own family archives form the basis for all the events and characters in SUN GOING DOWN, infusing the novel with richly detailed authenticity and deep emotional power. It is intimate in its portraits of the unforgettable characters who settled our country, sweeping in its geographical reach from Vicksburg up through Montana and the Dakotas, and epic as it spans four generations from the Civil War to the Great Depression. For the past 10 years, Jack Todd has been sports columnist of the Montreal Gazette. He is a graduate of the University of Nebraska, where he was a scholarship athlete in track and field. After working for several newspapers, Todd left the U.S. during the Vietnam War and settled in Canada. He has covered two World Cup soccer tournaments and five Olympic Games. Todd won the National Newspaper Award for sports writing in 1999, an honor for which he has been nominated three times. His book, The Taste of Metal, was short-listed for a Governor General's Award and won the Mavis Gallant Award for non-fiction. In addition to his column duties, he is the author of SUN GOING DOWN. THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG by Geoff Herbach Three Rivers Press / Random House $14.00 Trade Paperback ISBN-13 978-0-307-39637-2 ISBN-10 0-307-39637-1 Fiction set in the Midwest - and Europe “I read THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG and I was gob-smacked. It’s a tasty dark treat, inspiring the reader to suck on every last hilarious morsel.” –Heather McElhatton, author of Pretty Little Mistakes Having made a huge mess of his life, the suicidal T. (for Theodore) Rimberg strikes out on a journey through history and geography. From Minneapolis to Europe to a fiery accident near the Green Bay Packers stadium, he searches for a father who is likely dead, digs for meaning where he’s sure there is none, writes (but never sends) suicide letters to family, celebrities, presidents, and football stars, and lands in a hospital bed across from a priest who believes that Rimberg has caused a miracle. THE MIRACLE LETTERS OF T. RIMBERG -- this funny, thought-provoking, and moving "epistolary" novel -- asks us to consider the nature of second chances and the unexpected form that grace sometimes takes. Geoff Herbach is a co-founder of the Lit6 Project, a Midwestern literary group and Electric Arc Radio, which is recorded live and has aired on Minnesota Public Radio. RIVER OF HEAVEN: A NOVEL Lee Martin Shaye Areheart Books / Random House $24.00 Hardcover ISBN-13 978-0-307-38124-8 ISBN-10 0-307-38124-2 Fiction set in the Midwest “RIVER OF HEAVEN” is one of the best books I’ve read this season. The author has created characters who are so real and emotionally complex in their flaws and actions that I became completely immersed in their story. Sam and the others have stayed with me ever since.” -- Kati Gallagher, MBA Assistant Director Past and present collide in Lee Martin’s highly anticipated novel of a man, his brother, and the dark secret that both connects and divides them. Haunting and beautifully wrought, RIVER OF HEAVEN weaves a story of love and loss, confession and redemption, and the mystery buried with a boy named Dewey Finn. On an April evening in 1955, Dewey died on the railroad tracks outside Mt. Gilead, Illinois, and the mystery of his death still confounds the people of this small town. RIVER OF HEAVEN begins some fifty years later and centers on the story of Dewey’s boyhood friend Sam Brady, whose solitary adult life is much formed by what really went on in the days leading up to that evening at the tracks. It’s a story he’d do anything to keep from telling, but when his brother, Cal, returns to Mt. Gilead after decades of self-exile, it threatens to come to the surface. A Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Bright Forever, Lee Martin masterfully conveys, with a voice that is at once distinct and lyrical, one man’s struggle to come to terms with the outcome of his life. Powerful and captivating, RIVER OF HEAVEN is about the high cost of living a lie, the chains that bind us to our past, and the obligations we have to those we love. Lee Martin is the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist The Bright Forever, as well as Turning Bones, Quakertown, From Our House, and The Least You Need to Know. He lives in Columbus, Ohio, where he directs the creative writing program at Ohio State University. *Also note this 2007 Midwest Connections Pick published in paperback in May…* THE NIGHT BIRDS by Thomas Maltman (Soho Press/Consortium) -- trade paperback June Midwest Connections Picks SHELTER HALF: A NOVEL by Carol Bly Holy Cow! Press / Consortium ISBN-13: 978-0-9779458-6-3 $15.95 Trade Paperback Fiction A lifetime of hard fought and hard won wisdom surfaces on every page, and I can't imagine anyone being unmoved by the reading of it. This novel is going to be the book you give, the book you keep, and the book you treasure because we will never see its like again.” – Jonis Agee A young woman’s body lay undisturbed for a week in mid-November. So begins SHELTER HALF, a novel about a few people in a small northern Minnesota town. Some of them—the town cop, the doctor, and a young couple in love—are smart enough to recognize cruelty that comes at them from huge organizations far outside the town limits. They are not chicken. They don’t duck. If their nation and their world look grisly, they still do what they can for love and justice. They look out for one another. As Scott Russell Sanders writes, “the question that drives this mesmerizing novel is not why someone committed a murder, but why ordinary people can sometimes rise to acts of great courage and compassion, as the risk of career, reputation, and even life itself. The answers are as various as the pageant of characters who fill these pages, from a German war veteran to a public relations executive, from a social worker to a strawberry farmer, from a bartender to a priest.” Carol Bly was also the author of Letters from the Country, The Tomcat’s Wife, My Lord Bag of Rice: New and Selected Stories, and Changing the Bully Who Rules the World. Her stories appeared in The Best American Short Stories; several Pushcart Collections, including the twenty-five-year anniversary edition; The New Yorker; Ploughshares; Glimmer Train (May 2008); and other journals. She lived in St. Paul and Sturgeon Lake, Minnesota, until her death from cancer in December 2007. CRAZY GOOD: THE TRUE STORY OF DAN PATCH, THE MOST FAMOUS HORSE IN AMERICA Charles Leerhsen Simon & Schuster Horse Racing / Sports / U.S. History $26.00 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9177-4 Check out the official DAN PATCH HISTORICAL SOCIETY website: www.danpatch.com You'll find lots of fascinating history, photos, and details about the great Dan Patch. Celebrate “Dan Patch Days” in Savage, MN, and at Canterbury Downs Horse Track, Shakopee, MN -- June 20-21! America has never loved any horse more than it loved Dan Patch, the champion harness racer who was nearly destroyed at birth, but went on to become an undefeated, record-breaking champion. Charles Leerhsen’s CRAZY GOOD: THE TRUE STORY OF DAN PATCH, THE MOST FAMOUS HORSE IN AMERICA recreates America at the turn of the 20^th century through the story of the greatest sports hero of his day. At a time when the highest-paid baseball player, Ty Cobb, made $12,000 a year, Dan Patch was making over a million dollars. He was front-page news across the country when he broke the record for the mile, and subsequently lowered it by four seconds—a phenomenal achievement that stood for decades. In CRAZY GOOD, Charles Leerhsen reminds modern-day readers just why Dan Patch was so beloved. Charles Leerhsen is an executive editor at Sports Illustrated. He has worked at Newsweek, People and US Weekly. His stories have also appeared in Esquire, Rolling Stone and the New York Times Magazine. His previous books include: Press On!: Further Adventures in the Good Life with Chuck Yeager; The Last Great Ride, with Brandon Tartikoff; and Trump: Surviving at the Top and Trump: The Art of Survival, with Donald Trump. SAVVY Ingrid Law Dial Press Books for Young Readers / Penguin Group Children’s Fiction / Middle Grades $16.99 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-8037-3306-0 “SAVVY is a wonderfully creative story set in a little place directly between Kansas and Nebraska, known as Kansaska Monday - Wednesday and Nebransas Thursday - Saturday. It reminds us that we all have our own special talents, although they may not be as spectacular as those of the characters in this book, who cause hurricanes and electrical surges until they learn to ‘scumble’ their savvies. Ingrid Law's voice is fresh, humorous, and heartwarming without being sentimental. SAVVY is one of the most satisfying middle grade novels I've read in a long time.” -- Carla Ketner, Chapters Books & Gifts, Seward, NE SAVVY introduces us to the Beaumonts, an eclectic family whose members each possess a “savvy”— a special power that erupts when they turn thirteen. Savvies haven’t always been kind to their family, however. These paranormal “gifts” have forced them to move around the country and home-school their children. Now young Mibs Beaumont is celebrating her big birthday in two days. Mibs is eager to blow out her thirteen dripping candles, but more importantly, she can’t wait to discover her savvy. INGRID LAW has sold shoes, worked in a bookstore, helped other people get jobs, and assembled boxes for frozen eggplant burgers. She and her twelve-year-old daughter live in Boulder, Colorado, in a lovely old mobile home that they like to believe is a cross between a spaceship and a shoe box. JULIA GILLIAN (AND THE ART OF KNOWING) Alison McGhee Scholastic Press Children’s Fiction / Middle Grades $15.99 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-545-03348-0 Julia Gillian is a girl of many accomplishments. Among others, she is skilled in the Art of Knowing—about her quirky neighbors, her Minneapolis neighborhood. She even knows exactly what her Saint Bernard, Bigfoot, is saying (even though he doesn’t speak human). Unfortunately, the one skill Julia Gillian doesn’t have is knowing how the book she’s reading is going to end; it doesn’t seem as if it’s going to have a happy ending, and that frightens her. But being afraid teaches her something new: that having good friends and family around you makes life a bit less scary—and much more fun. Alison McGhee is the author of numerous books for both adults and young readers, including the New York Times bestselling picture books Someday and A Very Brave Witch. She lives with her family in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where (like Julia Gillian) she is known to frequent the Quang Restaurant and enjoy egg rolls and strawberry bubble tea. *Also note these 2007 Midwest Connections Picks coming in paperback in June …* F5: DEVASTATION, SURVIVAL, AND THE MOST VIOLENT TORNADO OUTBREAK OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY by Mark Levine (Miramax/Hyperion/HarperCollins) -- trade paperback coming in June THE REST OF HER LIFE by Laura Moriarty (Hyperion) -- trade paperback coming in June THE RIVER QUEEN by Mary Morris (Picador/Macmillan) -- trade paperback coming in June THE RIVER WIFE by Jonis Agee (Random House) -- trade paperback coming June 10 July Midwest Connections Picks ABBEVILLE: A NOVEL by Jack Fuller Unbridled Books $24.95 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-1-932961-47-8 Fiction “George Bailey’s security vanished with the dot.com crash. His grandfather lived through the 1929 market crash and subsequent run on his bank and seemed to thrive in the years that followed. Not knowing what else to do, George returns to his grandfather’s house and his grandfather’s town, hoping to find, in his memories, a way forward. This is a wonderful story of America’s heartland. It reminds us that even though we fence it and cultivate it, we never really tame it; and that counting chickens before they hatch is still a fool’s game.” —Keri Holmes, Kaleidoscope: Our Focus Is You Bookstore (IA) ABBEVILLE sweeps through the history of late-19th through early-21st century America—among loggers stripping the North Woods bare, at the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893, with French soldiers at the Battle of Verdun, into the abyss of the Depression, and finally toward the new millennium’s own nightmares. At the same time it examines life at its most intimate. How can one hold onto meaning amidst the brutally indifferent cycles of war and peace, flood and drought, boom and bust, life and death? In clean, evocative prose that reveals the complexity of people’s moral and spiritual lives, Fuller tells the simple story of a man riding the crests and chasms of the 20th century, struggling through personal grief, war, and material failure to find a place where the spirit may repose. An American story about rediscovering where we’ve been and how we’ve come to be who we are today, Abbeville tells the tale of the world in small, of one man’s pilgrimage to come to terms with himself while learning to embrace the world around him. JACK FULLER has published six critically acclaimed novels and one book of non-fiction about journalism. He has been a legal affairs writer, a war correspondent in Vietnam, a Washington correspondent, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial writer. At the Chicago Tribune he served as editor of the editorial page, editor, and publisher. When he retired, he was president of Tribune Publishing Co. UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: A NOVEL by Lin Enger Little, Brown / Hachette $23.99 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-316-00694-1 ISBN-10: 0-316-00694-7 Fiction "I enjoyed UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY tremendously. I had goosebumps reading Lin Enger's excellent depiction of winter in northern Minnesota, but most of them were from the eerie characters and plot development. This is a modern, Midwestern take on Hamlet, complete with a creepy uncle, mentally unstable mother, and highly confused teenagers. This was a very real depiction of situations going from bad to worse that was a great read!" -- Leslie Hakala, Best of Times Bookstore, Red Wing, MN Unaware that his life is about to change in ways he can't imagine, seventeen-year-old Jesse Matson ventures into the northern Minnesota woods with his father on a cold November afternoon. Perched on individual hunting stands a quarter-mile apart, they wait with their rifles for white-tailed deer. When the muffled crack of a gunshot rings out, Jesse unaccountably knows something is wrong-and he races through the trees to find his dad dead of a rifle wound, apparently self-inflicted. But would easygoing Harold Matson really kill himself? If so, why? Haunted by the ghost of his father, Jesse delves into family secrets, wrestles with questions of justice and retribution, and confronts the nature of his own responsibility. And just when he's decided that he alone must shoulder his family's burden, the beautiful and troubled Christine Montez enters his life, forcing him to reconsider his plans. In spare, elegant prose, Lin Enger tells the story of a young man trying to hold his family together in a world tipped suddenly upside down. Set among pristine lakes and beneath towering pines, Undiscovered Country is at once a bold reinvention of Shakespeare's Hamlet and a hair-bristling story of betrayal, revenge, and the possibilities of forgiveness. LIN ENGER teaches writing in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Moorhead. He’s a graduate of the Iowa Writer’s Workshop, and he lives in northwestern Minnesota with his family. SO LONG AT THE FAIR Christina Schwarz Doubleday / Random House $24.95 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-385-51029-5 Fiction The bestselling author of Drowning Ruth returns to the small-town Wisconsin she so brilliantly evoked with this gripping novel about love, marriage, and adultery. In the summer of 1963 a plot for revenge destroys a career, a friendship, and a family. The consequences of the scandalous event continue to reverberate, touching the next generation. Thirty years later, over the course of one day, Jon struggles to decide whether to end his affair or his marriage. His wife, Ginny, moving closer to discovering his adultery, begins working for an older man who is mysteriously connected to their families’ pasts. And Jon’s mistress is being courted by a suitor who may be more menacing than he initially seems. As relationships among the characters ebb and flow on that July day, Christina Schwarz illuminates the ties that bind people together—and the surprising risks they take in the name of love. As in Drowning Ruth, Schwarz weaves past and present into a richly textured portrait of the secrets and deceptions that simmer beneath everyday life in a small midwestern town. With page-turning intensity and in prose at once lush and precise, she beautifully conjures the emotional labyrinth of a marriage on the brink of collapse and proves that no matter how hard we work to stifle them, the secrets of the past refuse to be ignored. Betrayal versus loyalty . . . lust versus love . . . infidelity versus honor. Welcome to the complex web of Christina Schwarz’s dazzling new novel, So Long at the Fair. CHRISTINA SCHWARZ is the author of the critically acclaimed All Is Vanity and Drowning Ruth, a #1 bestseller in both hardcover and paperback, which was selected for Oprah’s Book Club and optioned by Wes Craven for Miramax. She lives in New Hampshire. *Also note these 2007 Midwest Connections Picks coming in paperback in July …* KEEPING THE HOUSE by Ellen Baker (Random House) – trade paperback coming July 15 August Midwest Connections Picks STALKING SUSAN Julie Kramer Doubleday / Random House $22.95 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-385-52476-6 Fiction / Mystery & Suspense set in the Twin Cities Available in July Visit author Julie Kramer's website: http://www.juliekramerbooks.com/ Watch the YouTube video about STALKING SUSAN! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g937Xw3zSXk “STALKING SUSAN is a good read – it kept my interest! I enjoyed the look into the world of television news, and I liked the way the characters developed. I will recommend this book to our customers.” -- Sharon Jirasek, Books & More, Pequot Lakes, MN Inside the desperate world of TV ratings, an investigative reporter discovers that a serial killer is targeting women named Susan and killing one on the same day each year. Television reporter Riley Spartz is recovering from a heartbreaking, headline-making catastrophe of her own when a longtime police source drops two homicide files in her lap in the back of a dark movie theater. Both cold cases involve women named Susan strangled on the same day, one year apart. Last seen alive in one of Minneapolis’s poorest neighborhoods, their bodies are each dumped in one of the city’s wealthiest areas. Riley senses a pattern between those murders and others pulled from a computer database of old death records. She must broadcast a warning soon, especially to viewers named Susan, because the deadly anniversary is approaching. But not just lives are at stake— so are careers. November is television sweeps month, and every rating point counts at Channel 3. Riley must go up against a news director who cares more about dead dogs than dead women, a politician who fears negative stories about serial killers will hurt the city’s convention business, and the very real possibility that her source knows more about the murders than he is letting on. When Riley suspects the killer has moved personal items from one victim to the next as part of an elaborate ritual, she stages a bold on-air stunt to draw him out and uncovers a motive that will leave readers breathless. JULIE KRAMER is a freelance television news producer for NBC’s Today show, Nightly News, and Dateline. Prior to that, she was a national award-winning investigative producer for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. She lives in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, with her husband and sons. RED SKY IN MORNING Patrick Culhane William Morrow / HarperCollins $24.95 Hardcover ISBN-13: 978-0-06-089255-5 Fiction / Mystery /World War II Here’s a terrific World War II novel with a “Midwest Connection!” “This historical mystery, while set in the Pacific, does have a Midwest feel to it. The main character is from Iowa, and he talks about it often. Midwest values shape him as a character, and even the other characters talk about his farm boy way of dealing with life. The ship they are assigned to is named after a town in Iowa, too. This is a little different kind of book for us, but well done -- mystery, has a plot line about racism in the military, Navy life, and World War II.” -- Vicki Erwin, Main Street Books, St. Charles, MO Iowa native Ensign Peter Maxwell longs for action after two years of leading the Navy choir after being called up from the reserves following Pearl Harbor. He gets a new posting on the USS Liberty Hill, stationed at San Francisco’s Port Chicago, but his new captain has no respect for junior officers like Peter and even less for the African-Americans who make up his crew. Despite tensions between captain and crew, a two-week shakedown cruise goes well. When the ship returns to San Francisco, however, Port Chicago is blown up and Liberty’s second in command is murdered. There is an enemy within, and Maxwell will do everything to stop him, including putting himself on the front line of danger. PATRICK CULHANE is the pseudonym of MAX ALLAN COLLINS, the award-winning, bestselling author of three celebrated contemporary suspense series and four widely praised historical thrillers. He lives in Muscatine, Iowa. RED SKY IN MORNING is based in part on his own father’s WWII experiences. THE MAN IN THE BLIZZARD Bart Schneider Three Rivers Press / Random House $14.95 Trade Paperback ISBN-13: 978-0-307-23813-9 Literary Fiction This hilariously tongue-in-cheek little crime novel takes place shortly before the Republican National Convention comes to St. Paul! Twin Cities pothead private eye Augie Boyer is out of sorts. He’s been smoking too much Ponchartrain Pootie, expanding his waistline with too much fried food, thinking too much about his ex-wife, suffering from a dismal testosterone level, and grousing about the current Republican governor’s vetoes and blatant right-wing favoritism. When Augie discovers a plot to kill three abortion doctors in connection with a Neo-Nazi-funded “Labor Day” anti-abortion rally on the state capitol grounds, he rallies his troops – a St. Paul detective who’s a rabid poetry evangelist; a suave black-Irish code master, and Blossom, his spike-haired ex-con assistant. The plot thickens by the minute, Augie’s radical songwriter/singer daughter arrives for a counter-rally, and danger comes ever closer…… BART SCHNEIDER is the author of the novels Blue Bossa, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and Secret Love, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. He was the founding editor of the Hungry Mind Review (later Ruminator Review) and now edits Speakeasy magazine. _______________________________________________ Also note this paperback by one of our October Midwest Connections Picks authors -- CARRY ME HOME by Sandra Kring Author of the forthcoming book Thank You for All Things (October) (Delta/Random House) New trade paperback edition coming July 29 September Midwest Connections Picks A SPLINTERED HISTORY OF WOOD BELT SANDER RACES, BLIND WOODWORKERS, AND BASEBALL BATS by Spike Carlsen Collins / HarperCollins ISBN-13 978-0-06-137356-5 $24.95 Hardcover Natural and Social History of Wood *More details about this title to come soon* THE PLAIN SENSE OF THINGS Pamela Carter Joern Bison Books / University of Nebraska Press Fiction More details about this title to come soon RED KNIFE: A CORK O'CONNOR MYSTERY by William Kent Krueger Atria Books / Simon & Schuster Fiction / mystery & suspense set in Minnesota *More details about this title to come soon* More September Midwest Connections Picks to come! October Midwest Connections Picks THANK YOU FOR ALL THINGS Sandra Kring Bantam Dell / Random House Fiction *More details about this title to come soon* More October Midwest Connections Picks to come! The Midwest Connections Program At A Glance Click here to see the many ways the Midwest Booksellers Association supports YOU -- our member bookstores and publishers -- with our MIDWEST CONNECTIONS regional marketing program. An illustrated overview of our successful MIDWEST CONNECTIONS program is included in a new full color brochure. MIDWEST CONNECTIONS is a turn-key program that is both comprehensive AND customized for each book and author. MBA works closely with the publisher to develop and execute the program for a specific title. The types of books featured in the MIDWEST CONNECTIONS program are adult fiction and non-fiction (particularly memoirs, history, or current affairs); cookbooks; and children’s books. Other subjects may be considered, too. MIDWEST CONNECTIONS is not limited to titles of Midwest regional interest or authors who live in our region (see maps). However, it is particularly well suited to promoting books with ties to our region. MIDWEST CONNECTIONS gives featured titles high visibility, and it sells books – Whistling in the Dark by Lesley Kagen (NAL/Penguin), one of our Spring 2007 MIDWEST CONNECTIONS Picks, was published on May 1, and it appeared on the Heartland (Midwest regional) Independent Bestseller List for the week of May 13, where it remained almost until the end of 2007! Little Heathens by Mildred Armstrong Kalish (Bantam), one of our May 2007 Midwest Connections Picks, became a Book Sense Notable Book two months later, hit the Heartland Independent Bestseller List, and went on to be named one of the Ten Best Books of 2007 by the New York Times. Truck: A Love Story by Michael Perry (HarperCollins), one of our two MIDWEST CONNECTIONS Picks for fall 2006/winter 2007, was on our Heartland Independent Bestseller List for 11 weeks. It won the 2007 Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Award for Nonfiction, and ran for many weeks on the bestseller list in its paperback edition. The Midwest Booksellers Association itself helps to pay for MIDWEST CONNECTIONS. For each MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICK, we provide up to $75 per store in rebates that stores can earn by running ads for that book, featuring it on their websites and in their newsletters, and displaying it and sending in photos to document their displays. We produce ad formats and shelf-talkers for our stores to use. We also can provide additional money that we decide is needed to support author events, other special events, promotional materials, etc. Because this program is new and developing, there is NO participation fee for a publisher to promote a book with MBA in our MIDWEST CONNECTIONS program. This program can enhance the promotion and sales of a book in the MBA region, while costing the publisher no more – or very little more – money than the publisher would typically plan to spend on that book. MBA supports our MIDWEST CONNECTIONS regional marketing program in these ways: We customize an Excel spreadsheet of MBA bookstores best suited to promoting a book, hosting events for the author, etc. This information is given to the publisher free of charge. MBA’s Advance Access program gets reading copies to selected booksellers and collects written recommendations and quotes from those booksellers to use in promoting the book. MBA assists in coordinating author events, book club and other events, informal author visits with booksellers at MBA stores. MBA also can help arrange for authors to sign stock at our office to be shipped to MBA bookstores. MBA’s Excel format “Bookstore Events & Media Guide” is available to the publisher to help publicize the book. Local assistance from bookstores helps publicize the book and events in stores. MBA store events are featured on MBA’s new Bookstore Events website, www.midwestbooksellers.org/events. Free banner ads for MIDWEST CONNECTIONS books are featured on the MBA website and events website, www.midwestbooksellers.org and www.midwestbooksellers.org/events. Midwest Connections web pages feature the chosen books and authors. Sell sheets, shelf-talkers, ads, and other materials are produced by MBA for stores to use. Click here for the Midwest Connections shelf-talker PDF. This black & white shelf-talker is generic and has space for the store to add personal comments; it’s ready to print out and use. In the Fall, MIDWEST CONNECTIONS titles can be advertised by their publishers in the MBA Catalog for the lower regional title rate. MIDWEST CONNECTIONS titles appear on the front cover of the MBA Catalog for maximum visibility, without paying the cover rate. In the Fall, MIDWEST CONNECTIONS authors are featured at the MBA Trade Show as prominent participants or speakers, and their books are highlighted as MIDWEST CONNECTIONS Picks. In the Spring, MIDWEST CONNECTIONS authors and titles are featured at MBA’s Spring Meetings for booksellers. MIDWEST CONNECTIONS can lead to books being nominated for the Midwest Booksellers’ Choice Awards – and winning! This Midwest Connections information will be updated on an on-going basis. Be sure to check back frequently for new details! Questions? Comments? Ideas to contribute? Please contact us. Thanks in advance for your interest and participation! MBA members, please login now to the Members Area and then go to the members Midwest Connections page for additional details. back to top	FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THESE FEATURED BOOKS -- CLICK ON THEIR BANNERS!

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MIDWEST CONNECTIONS
REGIONAL MARKETING PROGRAM
SPRING, SUMMER 2008
-- Plus Early Fall 2008

NEW MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS
FOR SPRING & SUMMER -- PLUS EARLY FALL!
Click here to see the terrific new books we're promoting.

Midwest Connections Titles & Authors
February – October 2008

February 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

March 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

April 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

May 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New June 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New July 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New August 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New September 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New October 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

Midwest Connections Picks from 2007

February Midwest Connections Picks

March Midwest Connections Picks

April Midwest Connections Picks

May Midwest Connections Picks

June Midwest Connections Picks

July Midwest Connections Picks

August Midwest Connections Picks

September Midwest Connections Picks

October Midwest Connections Picks

The Midwest Connections Program At A Glance

MIDWEST CONNECTIONS REGIONAL MARKETING PROGRAM SPRING, SUMMER 2008 -- Plus Early Fall 2008

NEW MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS FOR SPRING & SUMMER -- PLUS EARLY FALL! Click here to see the terrific new books we're promoting.

Midwest Connections Titles & Authors February – October 2008

February 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

March 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

April 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

May 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New June 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New July 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New August 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New September 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

New October 2008 Picks -- click on the link to jump down to the details on these books.

Midwest Connections Picks from 2007

February Midwest Connections Picks

March Midwest Connections Picks

April Midwest Connections Picks

May Midwest Connections Picks

June Midwest Connections Picks

July Midwest Connections Picks

August Midwest Connections Picks

September Midwest Connections Picks

October Midwest Connections Picks

The Midwest Connections Program At A Glance

MIDWEST CONNECTIONS
REGIONAL MARKETING PROGRAM
SPRING, SUMMER 2008
-- Plus Early Fall 2008

NEW MIDWEST CONNECTIONS PICKS
FOR SPRING & SUMMER -- PLUS EARLY FALL!
Click here to see the terrific new books we're promoting.

Midwest Connections Titles & Authors
February – October 2008