Events and Programs

In the tradition of Charles Baxter and Allegra Goodman, Allen's first novel about a hapless wanderer and all the people who touch his life explores the themes of love and betrayal in a splintered family. …More

Wisconsin's rich and diverse ethnic heritage is expressed most robustly in its food traditions. Here, Terese Allen takes us on a sumptuous tour, visiting family-run bakeries, country meat markets, prizewinning cheese factories, and beloved confection shops. We meet the people behind the foods, hear their interesting stories, and come away with some of their favorite recipes. For people who love to eat, cook, and travel, this book is the ultimate companion for both kitchen and car. …More

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"In Every Root an Anchor," writer and arborist R. Bruce Allison celebrates Wisconsin's most significant, unusual, and historic trees. More than one hundred tales introduce us to trees across the state, some remarkable for their size or age, others for their intriguing histories. From magnificent elms to beloved pines to Frank Lloyd Wright's oaks, these trees are woven into our history, contributing to our sense of place. They are anchors for time-honored customs, manifestations of our ideals, and reminders of our lives' most significant events.
For this updated edition, Allison revisits the trees' histories and tells us which of these unique landmarks are still standing. He sets forth an environmental message as well, reminding us to recognize our connectedness to trees and to manage our tree resources wisely. As early Wisconsin conservationist Increase Lapham said, tree histories increase our love of home and improve our hearts. They deserve to be told and remembered.
Distributed for the Wisconsin Historical Society Press. …More

A champion tree is the largest recorded tree of its species. In this book, R. Bruce Allison takes us on a tour of Wisconsin's champion trees. Champion trees have been officially recorded in the state since1941. This book contains the location and measurements of 153 species of Wisconsin champion trees. Here is a guide and a challenge to all Wisconsin big-tree hunters to seek and nominate new record trees. …More

From an acclaimed conservative historian and former military officer comes a bracing call for a pragmatic confrontation with the nation's problems. …More

America's leading cartoon artist of childhood angst2("Entertainment Weekly") demonstrates a tried-and-true creative method that is playful, powerful, and accessible to anyone with an inquisitive wish to write or to remember. …More

Buddhism teaches that each person must overcome 100 demons in a lifetime. In this collection of 20 comic strips, Lynda Barry wrestles with some of hers in her signature quirky, irrepressible voice. Color illustrations throughout. …More

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All aboard for a glimpse of life on the rails! Weaving together tales of railroading days gone by, this collection of personal reminiscences will delight any fail fan or traveler. Featured are stories of conductors, porters, carmen and tower operators from around the Midwest. …More

Part tall tale, part lullaby, this rhythmic story, illustrated with warm pastoral paintings, celebrates the meeting of grandmothers and grandbabies everywhere. Full color. …More

A collection of stories about mothers, daughters & animal kinship

These richly imaginative stories encompass train wrecks, circus acts, river journeys, transspecies transmogrification, and growing up and growing old around the small towns of Michigan. Here both nature and man can threaten a woman, but neither does more damage than her own choices. Bonnie Jo Campbell's hardworking, sometimes hard-drinking protagonists live precisely the lives they make for themselves, and it is not surprising that children look beyond human role models to dogs, milk cows, even gorillas.

Though Campbell never glamorizes poverty, she details a vision in which shabbiness, beauty, brutality, and wisdom all coexist, and the stories can be surprisingly optimistic, often funny. These women of Michigan's lower peninsula may live without automotive safety belts or televisions or the right kind of love, but they are able to trust their instincts and are ultimately drawn to whatever can save them.

In "Sleeping Sickness" a twelve-year-old girl copes with the sexually charged atmosphere created by her mother's new boyfriend. In "Bringing Home the Bones" a woman must lose her leg before she can come to terms with her estranged daughters. In "Running" the narrator obsesses about the mating habits of birds and the promiscuity of her neighbor's daughter while her own fertility trickles away. In "Eating Aunt Victoria" a young woman finally looks into the face of her dead mother's lesbian lover. In "Shifting Gears" a man buys a new truck in order to get over his wife's leaving but can't stop thinking about the pregnant woman next door. …More

The idea of growing vegetables on an abandoned empty lot in Oakland doesn’t seem too unreasonable; expanding to include rabbits, poultry, and even pigs makes it seem like a bigger undertaking, but Novella Carpenter and her partner take it all in stride.  Carpenter documents their experiences in her charming and often humorous book Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer.  This is more than a book about growing one’s own food; it also describes the neighborhood, the people, and life in what seems a dangerous and deteriorating place.

Novella and Bill relocate to Oakland, into a neighborhood referred to as “Ghost City” and one that could best be described as an urban ghetto.  With permission from the owner of the vacant lot next door, they begin gardening there - with a growing season and variety of plants that would be the envy of any Wisconsin farmer or home gardener.  Soon they add bees, chickens, and other poultry, and finally 2 pigs.

Although they learn as they go, for the the most part they are successful although they face some unexpected dilemmas with the animals along the way.  When they purchase the pigs, they have no idea what they were getting into and, in what is the most amusing section, Carpenter details how they fed them.  This involves the decision to dumpster dive for the food (for the pigs <g>).  In a nice twist, the dumpster diving turns out to be advantageous.  At an upscale restaurant dumpster, Carpenter meets a gourmet chef with experience preserving meat, who then helps her make salami and other sausages from the pig.

This was a fascinating read and an excellent audiobook.  Karen White is the perfect reader, who reads as though it is her own story.  And the best news of all, Novella Carpenter is on the presenter list for this year’s Wisconsin Book Festival.  Her program will be a Book Fest highlight for me.

Reviewed by Mary K. at MADreads.

In the months since Faith's father died trying to rescue sailors from a sinking schooner, she has been in charge of keeping the light burning at the lighthouse. Now, a new, inexperienced keeper has been named, and Faith promises her mother to stay away from the lighthouse. When an unexpected storm threatens the ship on which her mother is a passenger, Faith is forced to choose between a promise to her mother and one to herself. …More

"Underground Classics" provides the first serious survey of underground comix as art, turning the spotlight on influential and largely under-appreciated artists, including Gilbert Shelton, Kim Deitch, and Trina Robbins. Illustrations throughout. …More

White supremacy and its troubling endurance in American life is debated in these personal essays by two veteran political activists. Arguing that white supremacy has been the dominant political system in the United States since its earliest days--and that it is still very much with us--the discussion points to unexamined bigotry in the criminal justice system, election processes, war policy, and education. The book draws upon the authors' own confrontations with authorities during the Vietnam era, reasserts their belief that racism and war are interwoven issues, and offers personal stories about their lives today as parents, teachers, and reformers. …More

Garden-fresh vegetables are utilized in the illustrations of this Halloween story, in which mice are looking forward to their annual Halloween-night feast. Scary Cat has not been invited to the party, but he seems to think he's coming anyway. Can the mice come up with a clever trick to outsmart him? Full color. …More

In this exuberant collection, Ehlert celebrates the animal kingdom with quirky, playful rhymes and bold collage illustrations that perfectly capture the spirit of each creature. Full color. …More

Born and raised a slave in coastal South Carolina, Smalls worked on the docks, then learned shipbuilding and piloting. In an amazing feat of daring in 1862, he stole a Confederate ship by impersonating the captain, sent a rowboat to pick up waiting family members, sailed past five Confederate forts, and turned the ship over to Union troops blockading the area. …More

While Little Skink hunts yummy ants for breakfast, she is suddenly attacked by a crow! But she has a trick to escape, she snaps off her tail, and it keeps on wiggling! Little Skink is happy to be alive, but she misses her bright blue tail. Readers will enjoy pretending with her, trying on tail after tail. The first is too puffy-fluffy, and another too stinky! Then one day Little Skink gets a big surprise and she doesn't have to dream of tails anymore. The "For Creative Minds" section has information on tail adaptations and communications and a mix-and-match tail activity. All Sylvan Dell titles feature free educational resources at www.SylvanDellPublishing.com, including the "For Creative Minds" sections and additional teaching activities. The "For Creative Minds" section features the following activities: Adaptations: Why do animals have tails? Tail Matching Activity for Skink rabbit squirrel deer skunk porcupine owl Mix-n-Match Tail Activity. …More

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The bestselling author of "A Map of the World" and "The Book of Ruth" has written a sex comedy, and the world is a better place for it (Meg Wolitzer, author of "The Ten Year Nap"). …More

A spectacularly taut drama about a rural American family, by the author of The Book of Ruth. Set in the small Midwestern town of Prairie Center, here is an achingly accurate rendering of how one event--the drowning of a child--can change forever the lives of everyone involved. Reading tour. …More

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Vibrant and lively paintings accompany a simple text, in this new picture book by a celebrated husband-and-wife team. With a fine eye for detail, a little girl describes birds--their sizes, shapes, colors, the way they move, and how they are most like her. Full color. …More

A CCBC Book of the Week Selection

The whole time Spencer and Mitch hang out together at Bird Lake, there are secrets keeping them apart--and maybe a secret knowledge keeping them together. This latest novel by Newbery Honor author Henkes tells a story about that pivotal growing-up moment when one stops telling everything and starts holding some things in. …More

"Night of Flames" paints a vivid and terrifying picture of war-torn Europe during WWII. It's the tale of a Krakow university professor Anna and her husband Jan, a Polish cavalryman. Separated and forced to flee occupied Poland, Anna soon finds herself caught up in the Belgian Resistance, while Jan becomes embedded in British Intelligence efforts to contact the Resistance in Poland. He seizes this opportunity to search for his lost wife Anna. …More

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In this border-hopping anthology of travel memoir and fiction, every trip is a big one, as an advance guard of adventurous writers--both seasoned names and fresh voices--scatter across the globe, face the pure euphoria and sheer anxiety of travel, and survive a lot of very fast living. …More

Living up to its title, "Wonderlands" comes fueled by wanderlust and features every kind of wonderland. In fact, the collection' s contributors-- a mix of established gay writers and the best of the new generation-- don' t settle for the obvious. Focusing on the sheer visceral thrill of travel, the adventure of it, they set out all over the world and always find something unexpected: love, passion, history, themselves.
The result is an anthology of dynamic writing that will motivate readers to book their next flight, or at least get them dreaming of other places. And the places are legion. Mack Friedman sets off into the deceptively butch wilds of Alaska. Robert Tewdwr Moss tracks through the back roads of Syria and his own version of Arabian nights. Colm Tobin discovers a Spanish Brigadoon and Edward Field drinks tea with Paul Bowles. For Wayne Koestenbaum Vienna is both a city of high low culture, and for Philip Gambone Asia becomes a place of second chances. Raphael Kadushin settles into the ethereal sun of a Dutch spring. Michael Lowenthal remembers a jarring encounter in the Scottish Highlands, and Tim Miller tallies the 1001 beds he has slept in all over the world. And Edmund White, in a classic of elegiac travel writing, recounts his harrowing drive through the Sahara with a man he loved.
Contributors:
Brian Bouldrey
Mitch Cullin
Edward Field
Mack Friedman
Philip Gambone
Rigoberto Gonza lez
Raphael Kadushin
Wayne Koestenbaum
Matthew Link
Michael Lowenthal
Alistair McCartney
J. S. Marcus
David Masello
Tim Miller
Robert Tewdwr Moss
Boyer Rickel
Bruce Shenitz
Colm To ibi n
Edmund White
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Embracing the volatile issues of race and class, "Dream House" charts the concentric effects of one fateful act on the lives of two families, and explores the connection between property and intimacy, illuminating the terrible price people pay to hold their dreams and homes together. …More

"The Blue Notebook is a deeply moving story and a searing reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. It is a tribute to how writing can give meaning and help one transcend even the most harrowing circumstances. The voice of Batuk, the unforgettable child prostitute heroine, will stay with the reader a long, long time."--Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns …More

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From the acclaimed author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist comes a fascinating look at the new science of decision-making. Lehrer explores two questions: How does the human mind make decisions? and How can those decisions be made better? …More

Lehrer argues in this original book that science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, where the brain is concerned, art got there first. Focusing on a group of artists, Lehrer shows how each one discovered an essential truth about the human mind that science is only now rediscovering. …More

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When Dorothy triumphed over the so-called Wicked Witch of the West in Frank Baum's tales, we heard only Dorothy's side of the story. The Wicked Witch we think we know is the predictable, green-faced villainess straight out of MGM's imagination. But there's more to the story than that. Where did the Wicked Witch come from? How exactly was she wicked? Why shouldn't she want her sister's charmed shoes? And, most important, what is the true nature of evil? Years before Dorothy and her dog crash-land, another little girl makes her presence known in Oz. This girl, Elphaba, is born with emerald green skin - no easy burden in a land as mean and poor as Oz, where superstition and magic are not strong enough to explain or to overcome the natural disasters of flood and famine. But Elphaba is smart, and by the time she enters the university in Shiz, she becomes a member of a charmed circle of Oz's most promising young citizens: her roommate Glinda, a dippy socialite with a knack for sorcery; Boq, the lovelorn Munchkin; Fiyero, a tribal prince from the primitive West of Oz; and Nessarose, Elphaba's beautiful, religiously witchy sister, who lacks nothing save two arms and the spirit of compassion. Elphaba's Oz is no utopia. The Wizard's secret police are everywhere. Animals - those creatures with voices, souls, and minds - are threatened with exile. Young Elphaba, green and wild and misunderstood, is determined to protect the Animals - even if it means combating the mysterious Wizard, even if it means risking her single chance at romance. Ever wiser in guilt and sorrow, she can find herself grateful when the world declares her a witch. And she can even make herself glad for that young girl fromKansas. …More

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In this revelatory account of the CIAUs secret, 50-year effort to develop new forms of torture, historian Alfred W. McCoy uncovers the deep, disturbing roots of recent scandals at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. Far from aberrations, these abuses are the product of a long-standing covert program of interrogation. …More

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One pumpkin makes a tasty pie. Two pumpkins can be carved into grinning jack-o'-lanterns, and a couple hundred more make for a decent pumpkin patch. Gather one thousand pumpkins and you'll have a grand fall festival.
But what happens when a town has an accidental abundance of pumpkins?
What do Jose and his brothers do with a mountain of pumpkins? An EXPLOSION of pumpkins? Step into Pumpkin Town and see! …More

Hailed by the "Chicago Tribune" as a tremendous talent, Nguyen infuses her first novel with humor, compassion, and insight, as she explores the story of estranged sisters and the cultural and family history that binds them. …More

In this viscerally powerful memoir, Nguyen pens a nostalgic, candid account of growing up as a Vietnamese girl in the Midwest in the 1980s, and using popular American food--from Pringles potato chips to Toll House cookies--as a way to fit in and become a RrealS American. …More

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The long-awaited new novel--a book of stunning power--by one of the most heralded writers of the past thirty years. Set just after the events of September 2001, about a twenty-year-old woman from a small midwestern farm, making her way, coming of age. Under the novel's languid, easygoing surface, Moore's deft, lyrical writing brings us up against the heart of racism, the shock of war, and the carelessness perpetrated against others in the name of love. …More

From the author of "Self-Help", one of the most exciting writers at work today, comes a new collection of 12 stories remarkable in their range, emotional force, and dark laughter--and in the sheer beauty of their language. …More

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The first biography to unearth the fascinating relationship between Anne Sullivan Macy and Helen Keller. After many years, historian and Helen Keller expert Kim Nielsen realized that she, along with other biographers, had shortchanged Anne Sullivan Macy, a woman remembered primarily as a miracle worker. …More

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This revelatory and exhilarating and funny book not only tells us of the Beat generation, but of a time when we as individuals felt truly free. It is as fresh and pertinent as the latest scholarly history only far more entertaining--Studs Terkel. …More

In over his head with two pigs, a dozen chickens, and baby due any minute, the acclaimed author of "Truck: A Love Story" gives readers a humorous, heartfelt memoir of a new life in the country. …More

After a 12-year absence, a real-life prodigal son returns to his hometown--New Auburn, Wisconsin, population: 485--and joins the volunteer fire and rescue department. By turns fiery and funny, violent and gentle, this is the true account of a search for rootedness in a place from the past. …More

The setting is the Midwest borderland remembered in the writings of Hamlin Garland. Richard Quinney's autobiographical essays begin with his birth and early years on the family farm in southeastern Wisconsin, continue through a lifetime of movement away from the farm, and document a return to it. Along the way are tales of the years of living and writing in a prairie town across the border in Illinois. Part of the return of the native is a remembrance of his father and mother. In the most recent telling, Mr. Quinney continues to move between town and country, but it is always to the farm on the middle border that he returns. Tales from the Middle Border in effect recounts a pilgrimage: the author's journey. …More

The farm has belonged to Richard Quinney's family for generations, since first being settled by his great-grandparents fleeing the potato famine in Ireland, and it is the place of his birth and early years. When the house at the Old Place was torn down more than a half century ago, the family photograph albums were carried up to the farmhouse. Added to these materials, the author has drawn from the photographs of his mother's family, from the photographs made by his mother and father as they documented their young lives, and from the many photographs of the early years of the family. This is the story of the several generations that once lived on these few acres of rolling hills and wetlands in a corner of southern Wisconsin. The book concludes with a photographic survey of the artifacts that remain on the farm. …More

David Rhodes's long-awaited new novel turns an unblinking eye on an array of eccentric characters and situations. The setting is Words, Wisconsin, an anonymous town of only a few hundred people. But under its sleepy surface, life rages. Cora and Graham guard their dairy farm, and family, from the wicked schemes of their milk co-op. Lifelong paraplegic Olivia suddenly starts to walk, only to find herself crippled by her fury toward her sister and caretaker, Violet. Recently retired Rusty finds a cougar living in his haymow, dredging up haunting childhood memories. Winifred becomes pastor of the Friends church and stumbles on enlightenment in a very unlikely place. And Julia Montgomery, both private and gregarious, instigates a series of events that threatens the town's solitude and doggedly suspicious ways. …More

Capturing many of the most influential voices from a century of U.S. history, this collection of essays from "The Progressive" magazine chronicles voices of the women's rights movement, the civil rights movement, the labor movement, and the gay rights movement. …More

Chilling true stories of ordinary Americans whose everyday liberties have been violated since September 11.
""I'm very liberal and sometimes my friends say I'm giving them some kind of paranoid, nutty stuff, and I agree, but then the FBI show up.""--Marc Schultz, reported to the FBI for reading an article called "Weapons of Mass Stupidity: Fox News hits a new lowest common denominator" while he stood in line at a coffee shop
In West Virginia, Renee Jensen put up a yard sign saying "Mr. Bush: You're Fired." She's questioned by the Secret Service. In Alabama, Lynne Gobbell put a Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker on her car. She's fired from her job. In Vermont, Tom Treece had his high school students write essays and make posters either defending or criticizing the Iraq War. After midnight, the police entered his classroom and took photos of the student artwork.
The heated debates about the Patriot Act, about extensive registration and arrest programs for immigrants, and about domestic spying by the FBI, Pentagon, and National Security Agency have all been front-page news. But less understood are the effects of ramped-up national security policies on ordinary people across the country.
In this hard-to-put-down book, Matthew Rothschild, editor of "The Progressive" magazine, shows that post-9/11 America has entered a repressive age. Through dozens of engrossing and disturbing individual stories, "You Have No Rights" makes clear that America is now a country that is both less safe and less free.
From "You Have No Rights": Near Albany, New York, Stephen Downs went to a mall with his son Roger, and the two of them bought shirts in a T-shirt shop. Downs put his shirt on, went toeat in the food court--and was arrested. The T-shirt's message? "Peace on Earth." …More

Finally fed up with the frenzy of city life, Rouse decides to make either the bravest decision or the worst mistake since a botched Ogilvy home perm: uproot his life and try to live a rustic existence. Writing in the vein of David Sedaris . . . [Rouse is] laugh-out-loud funny."--"St. Louis Magazine." …More

David Sedaris meets "The Nanny Diaries" in this hilarious and deliciously catty chronicle of critically acclaimed author Rouses tenure as the mommy handler at one of the countrys top prep schools. …More

In the tradition of such quirky and smart coming-of-age memoirs as Augusten Burroughs' "Running with Scissors" and Haven Kimmel's "A Girl Named Zippy, America's Boy" is an arresting and funny tale of growing up different in America's heartland. …More

Lifelong friends Annie, Zoe, and Genna are growing up and beginning to grow apart. When Annie takes a job at her grandmother's tea shop, she's hopeful that her new job will bond the Teashop Girls back together. Includes recipes for brewing tea and treats. Illustrations. …More

From the best and the worst, the hopeful and the hopeless, the bitter and the sweet, the romantic and the lustful, never before has a collection like this been assembled from so many decades past. …More

Strange things are happening in Rith's house at night. First a spiral staircase replaces the regular stairs. The new stairs lead to a living room that isn't his, a cat that isn't his either, and a bizarre old man whose words are just gibberish. Or are they? Rith's never been into religion. But he realizes those words have a spiritual source?and an uncanny ring of truth. Is he just dreaming? Is the old man God? As Rith tries to circle closer to the truth, the line between reality and unreality blurs? …More

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The Civil War has been studied, written about, even sun about for generations. Most people know that it was a conflict between North and South, Unionists and rebels, blue and gray. We recognize the names of Jefferson Davis, Ulysses S. Grant, and Robert E. Lee. Many people know about Clara Barton, the nurse who did so much to save soldiers' lives. But few have heard of Sarah Emma Edmonds, Rosetta Wakeman, or Mary Galloway. They were among the hundreds of women who assumed male identities, put on uniforms, enlisted in the Union or Confederate Army, and went into battle alongside their male comrades. In this compelling book, Anita Silvey explores the fascinating secret world of women soldiers: who they were, why they went to war, how they managed their masquerade. …More

"500 Great Books for Teens" is divided into 21 sections, including adventure and survival, horror, graphic novels, humor, mystery, and poetry, each with additional reading lists. …More

By selecting only 100 "best books" Silvey distinguishes her guide from all the others and makes it possible to give young readers their literary heritage in the childhood years. …More

Davia is afraid of many things: death, ghosts, unfamiliar places, and the possible return of her mom's cancer. But she can?t avoid these fears now. Far from their Michigan home, Davia and her parents are temporarily living in Louisiana to assist with the in-home hospice care of her elderly Great Aunt Mari. Everything about the old woman and her spooky-looking plantation home terrifies Davia. And when she encounters Emilie, the tortured ghost of a well-to-do adolescent girl from the nineteenth century, she is even more frightened. To her surprise, Emilie seems eager to have Davia for a friend, but the ghost is unpredictable and difficult. Gradually, Davia begins to learn secrets about Emilie and her own family's past from Aunt Mari?stories of premature endings and regrets. As Aunt Mari's health deteriorates, she and Davia become closer. Together, they hope to release Emilie's spirit from the mansion and the world of the living. …More

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As recently as the 1960s, children across America continued to recite in schoolrooms or on auditorium stages poems of strong emotional resonance such as "Paul Revere's Ride," "Little Orphan Annie," and "The Song of Hiawatha." Many still remember poems with soft rhythmic cadences such as "Wynken, Blynken, and Nod" as bedtime verse read to them by their parents.
According to Angela Sorby, these and hundreds of other child-oriented poems, written less for individual introspection than for public performance, became central components of American culture in the period between the Civil War and World War I. She identifies a "schoolroom canon" that some older Americans will still recognize, composed of poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Eugene Field, James Whitcomb Riley, and others whose work was read, memorized, and repeated in pedagogical institutions nationwide. These poems, transmitted through schools, museums, lyceums, and theaters, as well as by newspapers and magazines, accrued cultural power through repetition; as they circulated, they functioned as mnemonic devices that established affective bonds between individuals, institutions, and the nation. Sorby's final chapter, on the child-voice poems of Emily Dickinson, argues that her reception history in the 1890s should be linked to the discourse of infantilization and pedagogy that dominated American popular poetry of the period and, to a great extent, continues to do so today. …More

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"Curious Attractions: Essays on Fiction Writing" is a book about what makes fiction work. In nine entertaining and instructive essays, novelist and master teacher Debra Spark pursues key questions that face both aspiring and accomplished writers, including: How does a writer find inspiration? What makes a story's closing line resonate? How can a writer "get" style? Where should an author "stand" in relation to his or her characters?
While the book will have immediate appeal for students of writing, it will also be of interest to general readers for its in-depth reading of contemporary fiction and for its take on important issues of the day: Should writers try to be more uplifting? How is emotion best conveyed in fiction? Why are serious writers in North America wedded to the realist tradition?
When she was only twenty-three, Debra Spark's best-selling anthology "20 Under 30" introduced readers to some of today's best writers, including David Leavitt, Susan Minot, Lorrie Moore, Ann Patchett, and Mona Simpson. Almost twenty years later, Spark brings this same keen critical eye to Curious Attractions, discussing a broad range of authors from multiple genres and generations.
A collection of essays in the belles-lettres tradition, "Curious Attractions" offers lively and instructive discussions of craft flavored with autobiographical reflections and commentary on world events. Throughout, Spark's voice is warm, articulate, and engaging as it provides valuable insights to readers and writers alike.
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Based on Hughess family history, this beautifully crafted story follows a young boy who wants to join the Union Army to see the elephant--soldier talk for going into battle for the first time. When he meets a Rebel solider while working at a field hospital, he realizes that war isnt as simple as he once believed. Full color. …More

The story behind ginseng is as remarkable as the root itself. Prized for its legendary curative powers, ginseng launched the rise to power of China's last great dynasty; inspired battles between France and England; and sparked a boom in Minnesota comparable to the California Gold Rush. It has made and broken the fortunes of many and has inspired a subculture in rural America unrivaled by any herb in the plant kingdom.
Today ginseng is at the very center of alternative medicine, believed to improve stamina, relieve stress, stimulate the immune system, enhance mental clarity, and restore well-being. It is now being studied by medical researchers for the treatment of cancer, diabetes, and Parkinson's disease.
In "Ginseng, the Divine Root," David Taylor tracks the path of this fascinating plant-- from the forests east of the Mississippi to the bustling streets of Hong Kong and the remote corners of China. He becomes immersed in a world full of wheelers, dealers, diggers, and stealers, all with a common goal: to hunt down the elusive " Root of Life." Weaving together his intriguing adventures with ginseng's rich history, Taylor uncovers a story of international crime, ancient tradition, botany, herbal medicine, and the vagaries of human nature. …More

A brilliant and revealing biography of the two most important Americans during the Cold War era--written by the grandson of one of them. …More

In this riveting social and medical history of madness in America from the 17th century to today, medical journalist Whitaker finds that schizophrenics in this country fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries. …More

Don’t you love it when a book is set in a locale you’re familiar with? You’re Not You by Michelle Wildgen is set right here in Madison. Not just the setting, the city is an integral part of the story as the main character, Bec, spends a great deal of time at the Farmers’ Market, the UW Terrace, the University and the near East side neighborhoods. Wildgen gets Madtown spot on.

The novel is pretty heavy. Bec is a 19-year-old UW student, not really interested in her major and bored with her job as a waitress. She is having an affair with a married professor. Impulsively, she answers an ad for a caretaking position for a woman with ALS, Lou Gehrig’s disease. Kate, still young and married to Evan, is already in an advanced stage of the disease: wheelchair-bound, unable to swallow well enough to eat, and barely able to speak. She’s wealthy, which affords her the luxury of hiring several caretakers so she can live at home.

Bec really takes to Kate and the job, and blossoms under its demands. She helps Kate dress, shop, especially at the Farmers’ Market, fundraise for ALS, and, best of all, learns to gourmet cook with Kate’s direction. She interprets for others what Kate says, as Kate is so difficult to understand. In certain situations, Bec needs to become Kate. Hence the title.

Then, Kate kicks Evan out. Bec takes on more hours, eventually moving in. The two become increasingly close, in some cases painfully intimate. Wildgen uses this intimacy to tackle a few sensitive topics, including a husband’s responsibility to his dying wife, how the sick need sex, and ultimately end-of-life issues. She handles them gracefully and manages not to get preachy, or too formulaic in her characterization of Kate as a handicapped person. This is an excellent debut novel. Reviewed in MADreads.