This week, we have a new event to announce with a beloved local mystery author who ISN'T William Kent Krueger; Anthony Doerr's hit Cloud Cuckoo Land in paperback; new releases from Richard Osman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Fredrik Backman; my current top contender for book of the year...

I'm going to take this space at the beginning to make sure you're aware of some upcoming events that we're particularly excited about! First off, on Wednesday, October 5, we've got Peter Geye, whose newest book is titled The Ski Jumpers, in conversation with Nicole Helget. And on Wednesday, November 2nd, we are thrilled to announce, we'll have a reading with the author of the Cash Blackbear Mystery series, Marcie Rendon! Both events will begin at 6pm.

In Peter Geye's The Ski Jumpers, retired jumper Jon Bargaard struggles to turn his memories of daring leaps into the novel he’s always wanted to write. But Jon has never been able to get past the last, ruinous episode of his ski-jumping history, and now that he's received a terrible diagnosis, he’s afraid he never will. Traveling back and forth in time, we follow Jon as he tells his family’s story to his beloved wife Ingrid, circling ever closer to the truth about his younger brother and father, and revealing the perhaps unforgivable violence done to the brothers’ bond.

Peter Geye is author of the award-winning novels Safe from the Sea, The Lighthouse Road, Wintering (winner of the Minnesota Book Award), and Northernmost. He teaches the yearlong Novel Writing Project at the Loft Literary Center. Born and raised in Minneapolis, he lives there with his family. Nicole Helget (she/her) is the author of The Summer of Ordinary Ways, The Turtle Catcher, Stillwater , Horse Camp, Wonder at the Edge of the World, and The End of the Wild. She is editor-in-chief of Minneopa Valley Press, an independent publishing company devoted to diverse voices from rural America. She lives in southern Minnesota with her children, husband, and dogs.

The forthcoming Sinister Graves is the third book in Marcie Rendon’s series following Cash Blackbear, a 19-year-old Ojibwe woman who helps her guardian Sheriff Wheaton in his investigations. A snowmelt has sent floodwaters down to the fields of the Red River Valley, dragging the body of an unidentified Native woman into the town of Ada. The only evidence the medical examiner recovers is a torn hymnal written in English and Ojibwe. Cash's search for justice for this victim takes her to the White Earth Reservation, a place she once called home, where she is pulled into the lives of a malevolent pastor and his troubled wife. Sinister Graves releases October 11th; you can preorder it on our website here, by phone, or in person,

Marcie Rendon is an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation, a Pinckley Prize-winning author, playwright, poet, and community arts activist. She is a speaker on Native issues, leadership, and writing. Her second novel in the Cash Blackbear mystery series, Girl Gone Missing, was nominated for the Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Rendon was recognized as a 50 over 50 Change-maker by the Minneapolis AARP and Pollen in 2018. She lives in Minneapolis.

The Bullet That Missed – Richard Osman

Trouble is never far away where the Thursday Murder Club are concerned. A decade-old cold case—their favorite kind--leads them to a local news legend and a murder with no body and no answers. Then a new foe pays Elizabeth a visit, and suddenly the cold case has become red hot. While Elizabeth wrestles with her conscience (and a gun), Joyce, Ron, and Ibrahim chase down the clues with help from old friends and new. But can the gang solve the mystery and save Elizabeth before the murderer strikes again? This third adventure of the Thursday Murder Club series is full of all the cleverness, intrigue, and irresistible charm that readers have come to expect.

Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization – Neil deGrasse Tyson

Bringing his cosmic perspective to civilization on Earth, Neil deGrasse Tyson shines new light on the crucial fault lines of our time—war, politics, religion, truth, beauty, gender, and race—in a way that stimulates a deeper sense of unity for us all. With crystalline prose, Starry Messenger walks us through the scientific palette that sees and paints the world differently. From insights on resolving global conflict to reminders of how precious it is to be alive, Tyson reveals, with warmth and eloquence, an array of brilliant truths that apply to us all, informed and enlightened by knowledge of our place in the universe.

The Winners – Fredrik Backman

Two years have passed since the events that no one wants to think about. The destruction caused by a late-summer storm reignites the old rivalry between Beartown and the neighboring town of Hed. Maya and Benji return home and joyfully reunite with their childhood friends, while Maya’s parents, Peter and Kira, are caught up in an investigation of the hockey club’s murky finances. Star player Amat has lost his way after being rejected by the NHL. Meanwhile, a fourteen-year-old boy grows increasingly alienated from his hockey-obsessed community and decides to take revenge on the people he holds responsible. As it explores questions of friendship, loss, and identity, this emotion-packed novel asks us to reconsider what it means to win, to lose, and to forgive.

The West Wing and Beyond – Pete Souza

Pete Souza has spent more time in the Oval Office than almost any person in history. During the Obama administration alone, Souza was inside the presidential bubble for more than 25,000 hours and made nearly 2 million photographs. Now Souza invites you into the inner sanctum of the American presidency, sharing rarely seen photographs and untold stories of life and work in the White House and traveling with the President around the world. Brimming with gorgeous photographs paired with fascinating storytelling, The West Wing and Beyond offers a one-of-a-kind look into the personalities, intrigues, and fascinating details that comprise the modern presidency.

Shrines of Gaiety – Kate Atkinson

In 1926, Soho, London has become the focus for a delirious new nightlife. The notorious queen of this glittering world is Nellie Coker, ruthless but also ambitious to advance her six children, including the enigmatic eldest, Niven, whose character has been forged in the crucible of the Somme. But success breeds enemies, and Nellie’s empire faces threats from without and within. For beneath the dazzle of Soho’s gaiety, there is a dark underbelly, a world in which it is all too easy to become lost. With her unique Dickensian flair, Kate Atkinson gives us a window into a vanished world. Slyly funny, brilliantly observant, and ingeniously plotted, Shrines of Gaiety showcases the myriad talents that have made Atkinson one of the most lauded writers of our time.

Fen, Bog, and Swamp – Annie Proulx

From Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx—whose novels are infused with her knowledge and deep concern for the earth—comes a riveting, revelatory history of our wetlands, their ecological role, and what their systematic destruction means for the global ecosystem. A lifelong environmentalist, Proulx brings her wide-ranging research and scholarship to the subject of wetlands and the vital yet little-known role they play in preserving the environment. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are the earth’s most desirable and dependable resources, and in four stunning parts, Proulx documents the long-misunderstood role of these wetlands in saving the planet.

Kathryn Savage (Groundglass) and Juliet Patterson (Sinkhole)

Kathryn Savage's writing has appeared in American Short Fiction, Ecotone Magazine, the Virginia Quarterly Review, BOMB, and the anthology Rewilding: Poems for the Environment. Recipient of the Academy of American Poets James Wright Prize, she lives with her family in Minneapolis and teaches creative writing at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Groundglass takes shape atop a polluted aquifer in Minnesota, as Kathryn Savage confronts the transgressions of U.S. Superfund sites against land, groundwater, neighborhoods, and people. Savage traces concentric rings of connection — between our bodies, our communities, and our ecosystem. Equal parts mourning poem and manifesto for environmental justice, Groundglass reminds us that no living thing exists on its own.

Juliet Patterson is the author of two full-length poetry collections, Threnody and The Truant Lover, a finalist for the 2006 Lambda Literary Award. She teaches creative writing and literature at St. Olaf College and is also a faculty member of the college’s Environmental Conversation program. She lives in Minneapolis. Sinkhole is an elegant, fractured reckoning with the legacy and inheritance of suicide in one American family. In 2009, Juliet Patterson learned her father had died by suicide. Her father's father had taken his own life too; so had her mother's. Why had her family lost so many men, and what lay beneath the silence that had taken hold? Sinkhole layers personal, familial, political, and environmental histories to provide not answers but essential, heartbreaking truth.

Literary Bridges is happy to present poets Annette Gagliardi, Laura Kozy Lanik, and Linda White in a matinee reading, highlighting Gagliardi's new poetry collection A Short Supply of Viability. Host Donna Isaac states, "It will be so fun and exciting to hear these women's' voices, women dedicated to their art, teaching, and the community. All three are active in the League of MN Poets and deserve their place in the spotlight!"

Beyond Belief – John Koethe

The eleventh book of poetry from America’s premier philosopher-poet is an intimate, searching collection that gives life to the mundane and lends words to our most interior and abstract musings. What makes a life real? Words on a page, the accumulation of moments and memories, or nothing at all? And what is it worth? Locked inside, have we lost our future and its promises or are we merely pressed to inhabit our present and ourselves? The award-winning poet invites us into his consideration of our world, as “an ordinary person sitting on his balcony on a summer afternoon, / Waiting patiently for someone to explain it to and meanwhile / Living quietly in his imagination, imagining the afterlife.” John Koethe is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy Emeritus, Department of Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA.

NCB Manga Club: Nightfall Travelers (vol. 1)

Come to NCB at 5pm on the second Saturday of every month to talk manga with other weebs! Hosted by our resident manga experts Emily and Graham (yours truly), the Manga Club provides free Japanese snacks, a 10% discount on ALL manga in the store, and most importantly, a forum to discuss a new title every month. For our Spooktober meeting, a manga about the feeling of walking safe but unfamiliar roads at dusk. In Nightfall Travelers: Leave Only Footstepts, two young heroines chase ghost stories up and down a sprawling, beautiful mountainside town, and discover mundane but beautiful truths. Walking the delicate line between cozy and slightly spooky, this is one to read for the vibes. We'll be discussing the first volume, which will be 15% off through 10/8, so give it a read!

Dr. Craig Bowron MD (Man Overboard!)

Learning about your health doesn’t have to read like a colonoscopy (informative, but difficult to sit through without sedation). Staying healthy is serious business, but it doesn’t have to be boring. This must-read guide provides actionable advice, so you can stop worrying about your health, do something about it, and get on with your life. You’ll learn how to eat right, address your risks for heart disease, exercise effectively, manage your weight, reduce stress, deal with back pain, avoid the three cancers that men commonly develop, know if your T levels are right, and handle getting older­ – not unscathed, but with a sense of control and dignity. Think of it as the ultimate checklist for your next checkup.

Dr. Craig Bowron, MD, FACP, is a practicing physician and a board-certified internist. He works with first-year medical students at the University of Minnesota Medical School and trains resident physicians at the Internal Medicine Residency Program of Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis. His writing has appeared in the pages of Forbes, Slate, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Minnesota Monthly, and MinnPost. A member of the Association of Health Care Journalists and a fellow of the American College of Physicians, Dr. Bowron lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Kerri Miller is host of MPR News with Kerri Miller and Talking Volumes. She was the political reporter for KARE 11 television in Minneapolis-St. Paul before coming to MPR in 2004.

Leech –  Hiron Ennes

This is a new release, so maybe it's cheating to put it here, but I've gotta gush about it. It's almost October and this is my favorite title of 2022 so far. It is, to employ a cliché that I have heretofore assiduously avoided, 'unputdownable.' Leech is one of those books that feels wholly unique in the world, yet has a little something for everyone. Frozen north Gothic? Medical mysteries? Far-future archaeologies? Philosophical / ethical quandaries?? A little body-horror and a LOT of delicious psychological horror?? Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes! All told by perhaps the most interesting narrator I've ever encountered. Pick it up and let it into your mind!"

-Graham

In the "Midnight Zone," the depth of the ocean which no light from the surface reaches, few organisms can survive. The largest species of mermaid are found at these depths, some over seventy feet long. This includes the giant squid mermaid, which swims slowly and endlessly through the dark water, rarely seeing land, the ocean floor, the surface, or even other mermaids. This mermaid has massive eyes to better see in the dark, and lights its way using bioluminescence.

A Field Guide to Mermaids, by Emily B. Martin

The sneering dismissal of conspiracy theories in favor of uncritical acceptance of institutionalist narratives is aimed at protecting the powerful, bolstering the reputation of the disdainful as "rational actors," and again directing people away from the search for accurate information. The mantra of the "rational actor" is Occam's Razor -- the belief that the simplest explanation is the correct one -- but this belief not only falls apart when examining an actual criminal conspiracy, it enables the criminals by making a mockery of the spirit of inquiry. In the 21st Century, American democracy slit its wrists on Occam's Razor, and no one answered for the blood.

-Sarah Kendzior, They Knew: How a Culture of Conspiracy Keeps America Complacent

What do you do when you get a credit through our rewards program?

Looks like you guys have better delayed gratification skills than I do!! I definitely would have failed the Stanford marshmallow experiment.

Now for this week's poll! Click on "Select" to choose your answer! The results will be in the next newsletter. And our question is: