Rachael Hanel’s name was inscribed on a gravestone when she was eleven years old. Yet this wasn’t at all unusual in her world: her father was a gravedigger in the small Minnesota town of Waseca, and death was her family’s business. Her parents were forty-two years old and in good health when they erected their gravestone—Rachael’s name was simply a branch on the sprawling family tree etched on the back of the stone. As she puts it: I grew up in cemeteries.

And you don’t grow up in cemeteries—surrounded by headstones and stories, questions, curiosity—without becoming an adept and sensitive observer of death and loss as experienced by the people in this small town. For Rachael Hanel, wandering among tombstones, reading the names, and wondering about the townsfolk and their lives, death was, in many ways, beautiful and mysterious. Death and mourning: these she understood. But when Rachael’s father—Digger O’Dell—passes away suddenly when she is fifteen, she and her family are abruptly and harshly transformed from bystanders to participants. And for the first time, Rachael realizes that death and grief are very different.

At times heartbreaking and at others gently humorous and uplifting, We’ll Be the Last Ones to Let You Down presents the unique, moving perspective of a gravedigger’s daughter and her lifelong relationship with death and grief. But it is also a masterful meditation on the living elements of our cemeteries: our neighbors, friends, and families—the very histories of our towns and cities—and how these things come together in the eyes of a young girl whose childhood is suffused with both death and the wonder of the living.

Rachael Hanel is a writer, university instructor, and former journalist. She is the author of more than twenty nonfiction books for children, and her honors include two Junior Library Guild premier selections and two Minnesota Book Award nominations. Her essays have been published in the Bellingham Review, and two of her essays were selected as cowinners of the New Delta Review creative nonfiction contest in 2011; one of those was named a notable essay in the 2012 edition of The Best American Essays.

The color, noise, and often cryptic images of classic video games set the prose poems in B.J. Best's But Our Princess Is in Another Castle in motion, but the poems soar far beyond their nostalgic springboards. And while Mario, Pac-Man, and pioneer families forsaken on The Oregon Trail populate these pixelated landscapes, this book translates the games and plays them in the real world, so an Asteroid becomes just one more star shot with lost love, Space Invaders might have communist sympathies, and God is just as bad at Tetris as the rest of us. Written for gamers and non-gamers alike, the book's levels explore how our past virtual lives can inform our present actual ones. A coming-of-age narrative turned love story turned philo­sophical journey, But Our Princess Is in Another Castle deftly combines two mediums into vivid poems as lyrical as they are imaginative.

B.J. Best is the author of two previous books of poetry: Birds of Wisconsin (New Rivers Press) and State Sonnets (sunnyoutside). He is also the author of three chapbooks from Centennial Press, most recently the prose poem collection Drag: Twenty Short Poems about Smoking. He teaches at Carroll University and lives in the Wisconsin countryside with one wife, one son, three cats, and nine video game systems. He asserts he is the only person in the history of the world to have beaten Super Mario Bros. with an actual Nintendo and television on a pontoon boat.

Bernadette Fox is notorious. To her Microsoft-guru husband, she's a fearlessly opinionated partner; to fellow private-school mothers in Seattle, she's a disgrace; to design mavens, she's a revolutionary architect, and to 15-year-old Bee, she is a best friend and, simply, Mom.

Then Bernadette disappears. It began when Bee aced her report card and claimed her promised reward: a family trip to Antarctica. But Bernadette's intensifying allergy to Seattle--and people in general--has made her so agoraphobic that a virtual assistant in India now runs her most basic errands. A trip to the end of the earth is problematic.

To find her mother, Bee compiles email messages, official documents, secret correspondence--creating a compulsively readable and touching novel about misplaced genius and a mother and daughter's role in an absurd world.

Books & Bars is not your typical book club. We provide a unique atmosphere for a lively discussion of interesting authors, fun people, good food and drinks. You're welcome even if you haven't read the book.

Benjamin Percy is a fiction author and essayist whose work appears in a variety of contexts including anthology collections, graphic novels, and radio readings. His many honors include a National Endowment for the Arts grant, a Whiting Award, the Plimpton Prize, a Pushcart Prize, and inclusion in Best American Short Stories. His highly praised novel, The Wilding (published by Graywolf Press), won the 2011 Society of Midlands Authors Award for Fiction. His collection of stories,Refresh, Refresh was also published as a graphic novel, and his fiction and nonfiction have been read on National Public Radio, performed at Symphony Space, and published by Esquire, where he is a regular contributor. His newest book is the psychological thriller Red Moon, to be published in May 2013.

Kate Hallett Dayton is the author of Salt Heart (Nodin Press, 2013). In 2004 Pudding House Publications released the chapbook,Missing. Previously, she received an Award of Merit in the ByLine Press Chapbook Competition and ten poems from Missing earned her a finalist position for the Nimrod International Pablo Neruda Poetry Prize. Two poems from Salt Heart appeared in Nimrod's Awards issue in 2012. She has also received a Nolte-Miller Scholarship in fiction from the Split Rock Arts Program at the University of Minnesota and an Art in the Wild fiction fellowship from University of California, Davis. She traveled to Belgium on a Jerome Foundation Travel and Study Grant to do research on her novel, Parallax. She has taught writing for COMPAS, the Loft Literary Center, Hamline University, Normandale Community College, and Century College.

Patricia Barone has published a novella, The Wind, and a book of poetry, Handmade Paper with New Rivers Press. She has a new book of poetry forthcoming from Blue Light Press. Her work has been anthologized and published widely in periodicals. She received a Loft-McKnight Award of Distinction in poetry, chosen by Marilyn Hacker; a Lake Superior Contemporary Writers Award for short fiction, and a Minnesota State Arts Board Career Opportunity Grant to study with the Irish poet Eavan Boland.

Sean Patrick Hill will be reading from his new chapbook, Hibernaculum, 
published by the University of Alabama's Slash Pine Press.  A graduate student in the
Warren Wilson College MFA Program for Writers, Hill is the author of two
other books of poetry: Interstitial (BlazeVOX Books) and The Imagined
Field (Paper Kite Press). He has been awarded fellowships and grants from
the Vermont Studio Center, the Kentucky Arts Council, and the Elizabeth
George Foundation. He lives in Louisville, Kentucky. Click here for more info.

Norman Fischer is Senior Dharma Teacher at San Francisco Zen Center, where he was abbot from 1995 to 2000, and he is currently the director of the Everyday Zen Foundation, which is dedicated to bringing the Zen perspective to the world outside Zen, including to Christian and Jewish religious settings. He is a highly regarded poet and translator, and his numerous books include Opening to You: Zen-Inspired Translations of the Psalms, Taking Our Places: The Buddhist Path to Truly Growing Up, and Sailing Home: Using Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls.

Praise for Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong:

“Zen Master Norman Fischer teaches a fascinatingly powerful Tibetan system of mind training with his characteristic Zen-like simplicity and artful clarity. Norman shows once again why he is one of the most admired Zen teachers in America.”—Chade-Meng Tan, Google’s Jolly Good Fellow, author of Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

“Norman Fischer brings a fresh perspective to the profound Tibetan Buddhist manual of lojong, or mental training. With down-to-earth clarity, he applies its 59 pithy practices to the challenges of modern life. With repetition, these practices gradually change one from the inside out. His writing is direct, penetrating, and powerful, with the authenticity and impact that comes from a great teacher, as he shows readers how to develop resilience and compassion, strength with heart.”—Rick Hanson, PhD, author of Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom

“Norman Fischer has illuminated Atisha’s lojong slogans with the depth of his own Zen koan practice, infused with his savvy, no-nonsense heart. The result is stunning—a fresh slant on Tibetan compassion teachings, making them universal and now.”—Acharya Judith Simmer-Brown, Naropa University, author of Dakini’s Warm Breath: The Feminine Principle in Tibetan Buddhism

The moment you step into a farmers market you are enveloped in a swirl of colors, aromas, and sounds—brilliant orange squash, vibrant green beans, glossy eggplant, crimson crab apples, the spicy bouquet of hot and sweet peppers, ripe muskmelons. Tables are bursting with sunflowers, honey, and eggs. To your right, freshly fried doughnuts and steaming coffee; to your left, acoustic guitar and beautiful flowers. But the local market is not just a place to immerse the senses—it is where communities come together and engage in an exchange as old as civilization.

Minnesota’s Bounty is a user’s guide to shopping and cooking from your local farmers market, and it applies a practical, easy approach to creating a truly seasonal kitchen. Organized alphabetically by type of food, it encourages readers to scrap predetermined recipes and forget the long lists. Instead, shop with an eye for what looks best and what you are hungry for. With more than twenty-five years of firsthand experience and a deep knowledge of Minnesota farmers markets, seasoned cook and food writer Beth Dooley has suggestions and recipes that inspire simple, modern, and healthy meals following an ingredients-first philosophy, helping readers to be more confident and spontaneous both at the market and in the kitchen.

Including a fascinating history of Minnesota farmers markets—with particular focus on the downtown St. Paul and Minneapolis markets—Dooley presents an extraordinary introduction to our markets and the region’s sustainably grown fresh foods. From a warming Coconut Curry Winter Squash Soup and Heartland Brisket to a summer’s meal of Minted Double Pea Soup, Lamb Burgers with Tzatziki, and Blueberry Lemon Ginger Sorbet, the guiding tenet of Minnesota’s Bounty is splendidly uncomplicated: take this book to the market, buy the market’s best offerings that day, then come home, cook, and enjoy.

Beth Dooley has covered the local food scene in the Northern Heartland for more than twenty-five years. Author of The Northern Heartland Kitchen and coauthor with Lucia Watson of Savoring the Seasons of the Northern Heartland (both published by University of Minnesota Press), Beth writes regularly for Mpls. St. Paul magazine, the Minneapolis Star Tribune’s Taste section, Edible Twin Cities, and the Mix. She teaches cooking at the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum and Cooks of Crocus Hill and serves on the Homegrown Minneapolis Food Council.

This event is co-sponsored by hazelandwren.com

Sarah Zuckerman and Jennifer Jones are best friends in an upscale part of Washington, D.C., in the politically charged 1980s. Sarah is the shy, wary product of an unhappy home: her father abandoned the family to return to his native England; her agoraphobic mother is obsessed with fears of nuclear war. Jenny is an all-American girl who has seemingly perfect parents. With Cold War rhetoric reaching a fever pitch in 1982, the ten-year-old girls write letters to Soviet premier Yuri Andropov asking for peace. But only Jenny's letter receives a response, and Sarah is left behind when her friend accepts the Kremlin's invitation to visit the USSR and becomes an international media sensation. The girls' icy relationship still hasn't thawed when Jenny and her parents die tragically in a plane crash in 1985.

Ten years later, Sarah is about to graduate from college when she receives a mysterious letter from Moscow suggesting that Jenny's death might have been a hoax. She sets off to the former Soviet Union in search of the truth, but the more she delves into her personal Cold War history, the harder it is to separate facts from propaganda.

You Are One of Them is a taut, moving debut about the ways in which we define ourselves against others and the secrets we keep from those who are closest to us. In her insightful forensic of a mourned friendship, Holt illuminates the long lasting sting of abandonment and the measures we take to bring back those we have lost.

Elliott Holt's short fiction has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Guernica, and Bellevue Literary Review. She won a 2011 Pushcart Prize and is the runner-up of the 2011 PEN Emerging Writers Award. A graduate of the MFA program at Brooklyn College, where she won the Himan Brown Award, she has received fellowships from the Sewanee Writers' Conference, the Tin House Summer Writers Workshop and Yaddo. She is a former contributing editor at One Story magazine and a former copywriter, who has worked at advertising agencies in Moscow, London, and New York. She currently resides in her hometown of Washington, D.C.

The author of Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? presents his brand-new look at 1990's nostalgia. With refreshments and special guests!

There’s an old Yiddish saying: two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. But two living people could keep a secret—as long as one of them was Augie.

Augie Ratner, the proprietor of Augie’s Theater Lounge & Bar on Hennepin Avenue, was the unofficial mayor of Minneapolis’s downtown strip in the 1940s and ’50s. In a few blocks between the swanky clubs and restaurants on Eighth Street and the sleazy flophouses and bars of the Gateway District, the city’s shakers-and-movers and shake-down artists mingled. Gangsters and celebrities, comedians and politicians, the rich and the famous and the infamous—all of them met at Augie’s: Jimmy Hoffa, Henny Youngman, Kid Cann, John Dillinger, Jack Dempsey, Peggy Lee, Groucho Marx, Lenny Bruce, and Gypsy Rose Lee. Augie Ratner knew everyone, and everyone knew and liked Augie, and they told him everything.

Mixing careful research with long suppressed family and community stories, Neal Karlen, Augie’s great-nephew, tells the real story of the seamy underside of Minneapolis, where Jewish mobsters controlled the liquor trade, invented the point spread in sports betting, and ran national sports gambling operations. Even after Mayor Hubert H. Humphrey supposedly cleaned up the town, organized crime quietly flourished. And Augie was at the center, observing it all.

Neal Karlen, who has written for the New York Times, Newsweek, and Rolling Stone, is the author or co-author of six books, including The Story of Yiddish: How a Mish-Mosh of Languages Saved the Jews.

This event is co-sponsored by the Wedge Community Co-op, 2105 Lyndale Ave South, Minneapolis 55405

Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of Food & Water Watch, but she also runs an organic family farm in Northern Virginia that provides healthy vegetables to over five hundred families in the Washington, D.C., area as part of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. Despite this, as one of the nation’s leading healthy food advocates, Hauter believes that the local food movement is not enough to solve America’s food crisis and the public health debacle it has created. In Foodopoly, she takes aim at the real culprit: the massive consolidation and corporate control of food production, which prevents farmers from raising healthy crops and limits the choices that people can make in the grocery store.

Through meticulous research, Hauter presents a shocking account of how agricultural policy has been hijacked by lobbyists, driving out independent farmers and food processors in favor of the likes of Cargill, Tyson, Kraft, and ConAgra. She demonstrates how the impacts ripple far and wide, from economic stagnation in rural communities at home, to famines in poor countries overseas. In the end, Hauter illustrates how solving this crisis will require a complete structural shift, a grassroots movement to reshape our food system from seed to table—a change that is about politics, not just personal choice.

Wenonah Hauter is the executive director of Food & Water Watch, a D.C.-based watchdog organization focused on corporate and government accountability relating to food, water, and fishing. She has worked and written extensively on food, water, energy, and environmental issues at the national, state, and local levels. She owns a working farm in The Plains, Virginia.

The Chaperone is a captivating novel about the woman who chaperoned an irreverent Louise Brooks to New York City in the 1920s and the summer that would change them both.

Laura Moriarty is the author of The Center of Everything, The Rest of Her Life, and While I’m Falling. She lives in Kansas.

The people who orbit around Renn Ivins, an actor of Harrison Ford-like stature--his girlfriends, his children, his ex-wives, those on the periphery--long to experience the glow of his fame. Anna and Will are Renn's grown children, struggling to be authentic versions of themselves in a world where they are seen as less important extensions of their father. They are both drawn to and repelled by the man who overshadows every part of them. Most of us can imagine the perks of celebrity, but Little Known Facts offers a clear-eyed story of its effects--the fallout of fame and fortune on family members and others who can neither fully embrace nor ignore the superstar in their midst. With Little Known Facts, Christine Sneed emerges as one of the most insightful chroniclers of our celebrity-obsessed age, telling a story of influence and affluence, of forging identity and happiness and a moral compass; the question being, if we could have anything on earth, would we choose correctly?

Christine Sneed is the author of the novel Little Known Facts and the story collection Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry . She lives in Chicago.

The beloved author of Driftless delves into the heart of rural America in this unforgettable portrait of community.

When David Rhodes burst onto the American literary scene in the '70s, he was hailed as “a brilliant visionary” (John Gardner). In Driftless, his “most accomplished work yet” (Joseph Kanon), Rhodes made Words, Wisconsin, resonate with readers across the country. Now with Jewelweed this beloved author returns to the same out-of-the-way community and introduces a cast of characters who must overcome the burdens left by the past. After serving time for a dubious conviction, Blake Bookchester is paroled. As Blake attempts to adjust, he reconnects with Danielle Workhouse, a single mother whose son, Ivan, explores the woods with his precocious friend, August. While Danielle goes to work for Buck and Amy Roebuck in their mansion, Ivan and August befriend Lester Mortal, a recluse who lives in a melon field; a wild boy; and a bat, Milton. These characters — each flawed, deeply human, and ultimately universal — approach the future with a combination of hope and trepidation. Jewelweed offers a vision in which the ordinary becomes mythical, the seemingly mundane transformed into revelatory beauty.

As a young man, David Rhodes worked in fields, hospitals, and factories across Iowa. After receiving an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he published three acclaimed novels: The Last Fair Deal Going Down (1972), The Easter House (1974), and Rock Island Line (1975). In 1976, a motorcycle accident left him partially paralyzed. In 2008, Rhodes returned to the literary scene with Driftless, a novel that was hailed as “the best work of fiction to come out of the Midwest in many years” (Alan Cheuse). Following the publication of Driftless, Rhodes was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2010, to support the writing of Jewelweed. He lives with his wife, Edna, in Wisconsin.

Talk of the Stacks is an author series exploring contemporary literature and culture, presented by the Library Foundation of Hennepin County. Readings are held at the Central Library, Pohlad Hall, 300 Nicollet Mall, in downtown Minneapolis. The Talk of the Stacks Premier Sponsor is The Private Client Reserve if U.S. Bank. The Supporting Sponsor is Dorsey and Whitney LLP. Additional support provided by Minn Post, Marquette Hotel, and Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

The programs are free and open to the public. Seating is first come, first served. Doors open at 6:15pm, and programs begin at 7:00pm. Book sale and signing follow presentations. Call 612-630-6174 for more information.

One of our most brilliant social critics--author of the bestselling "The Middle Mind"--presents a scathing critique of the "delusions" of science alongside a rousing defense of the tradition of Romanticism and the "big" questions.

With the rise of religion critics such as Richard Dawkins, and of pseudo-science advocates such as Malcolm Gladwell and Jonah Lehrer, you're likely to become a subject of ridicule if you wonder "Why is there something instead of nothing?" or "What is our purpose on earth?" Instead, at universities around the world, and in the general cultural milieu, we're all being taught that science can resolve all questions without the help of philosophy, politics, or the humanities.

In short, the rich philosophical debates of the 19th century have been nearly totally abandoned, argues critic Curtis White. An atheist himself, White nonetheless calls this new turn "scientism"--and fears what it will do to our culture if allowed to flourish without challenge. In fact, in "scientism" White sees a new religion with many unexamined assumptions.

In this brilliant multi-part critique, he aims at a TED talk by a distinguished neuroscientist in which we are told that human thought is merely the product of our "connectome," a map of neural connections in the brain that is yet to be fully understood. . . . He whips a widely respected physicist who argues that our new understanding of the origins of the universe obviates any philosophical inquiry . . . and ends with a learned defense of the tradition of Romanticism, which White believes our technology and science-obsessed world desperately needs to rediscover.

It's the only way, he argues, that we can see our world clearly. . . and change it.

CURTIS WHITE is the author of the novels Memories of My Father Watching TV and Requiem. A widely acclaimed essayist, his work appears regularly in Context and Harper's. He is an English professor at Illinois State University and the current president of the Center for Book Culture/Dalkey Archive Press. His The Middle Mind: Why Americans Don't Think for Themselves was a national bestseller in 2003.

MAGGIE KOERTH-BAKER is Science editor at BoingBoing.net and a columnist for The New York Times Magazine. She is the author of Before the Lights Go Out , about how our energy systems were built, how they work today, and how they will influence what we can and can’t do over the next 30 years.

Catherine Holm is the author of the memoir Driving with Cats: Ours for a Short Time (North Star Press) and the short story collection My Heart is a Mountain: Tales of Magic and the Land (Holy Cow! Press). She lives in northern Minnesota with her husband, where she teaches yoga, writes, gardens, takes care of cats, and is outdoors as much as possible.

Debbie Lampi is the author of Shadow Play, published by North Star Press and Repercussions, due to be published in 2013. She has a Master of Arts in Psychology and enjoys writing mysteries, practicing and teaching yoga, and walking. She lives in Southeastern Minnesota with her husband and son and a sheltie named Scout.

Sharon Chmielarz' poems are published in several literary magazines including The Laurel Review, The Iowa Review, Water~Stone, Kalliope, Ascent, Margie, The Hudson Review, Commonweal, Prairie Schooner, Salmagundi, The Seneca Review, Louisiana Literature and many others. She is the recipient of the 2012 Jane Kenyon Poetry Prize from Water~Stone Review. A finalist in the National Poetry Series, she was nominated for a Pushcart Prize in ’99, ’01, ’02, ’05, ’07, and ’10.

Zach Sutton’s little brother has been missing for over a year.  His parents have divorced. The police have found no clues. But it isn’t until Zach travels to Minnesota’s north woods on a field trip that the mystery really begins.  Faced with supernatural visions and ghostly images, Zach finds himself in a scary adventure he couldn’t have dreamed.

Nick Hupton studied writing at Hamline University. He lives with his family in Minneapolis.     

Sarah Fox is the author of 'Because Why' and 'The First Flag,' both published by Coffee House Press. She's a program consultant for the Friends of the Hennepin County Library, a contributor to the multi-author arts and culture blog Montevidayo, and she co-imagines the Center for Visionary Poetics—in NE Minneapolis and across the universe. She also serves as a doula.

John Colburn is an editor and co-publisher for Spout Press. His book Invisible Daughter is available from firthFORTH books and a second, Psychedelic Norway, is forthcoming from Coffee House Press in 2013. With his wife, Sarah Fox, he tends The Center for Visionary Poetics in Minneapolis and he is also a member of the improvised music collective Astronaut Cooper’s Parade.

This taut yet lyrical memoir tells of the author's experience with a baffling illness poised to take her sight, and gives a deeply felt meditation on vulnerability and on what it means to lose the faith you had and find something better.

One day at the end of 2009, during a routine eye exam that Nora Gallagher nearly skipped, her doctor said, "Darn." Her right optic nerve was inflamed, the cause unknown, a condition that if left untreated would cause her to lose her sight. And so began her departure from ordinary life and her travels in what she calls Oz, the land of the sick. It looks like the world most of us inhabit, she tells us, except that "the furniture is slightly rearranged" her friends can't help her, her trusted doctors don't know what's wrong, and what faith she has left just won't cover it. After a year of searching for a diagnosis and treatment, she arrives at the Mayo Clinic and finds a whole town built around Oz.

In the course of her journey, Gallagher encounters inhuman doctors, the modern medical system--in which knowledge takes fifteen years to trickle down--and the strange world that is the famous Mayo Clinic, complete with its grand piano. With unerring candor, and no sentimentality whatsoever, Gallagher describes the unexpected twists and turns of the path she took through a medical mystery and an unfathomably changing life. In doing so, she gives us a singular, luminous map of vulnerability and dark landscapes."It's the nature of things to be vulnerable," Gallagher says. "The disorder is imagining we are not."

Nora Gallagher is the best-selling author of Changing Light, a novel that received outstanding reviews and of two memoirs, Things Seen and Unseen: A Year Lived in Faith and Practicing Resurrection. She is licensed to preach by the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles, a preacher-in-residence at Trinity Episcopal Church in Santa Barbara, and is on the Board of Advisors of the Yale Divinity School. She is married to novelist and poet, Vincent Stanley.

In a coming-of-age story unlike any other, feisty young Kacey Doyle retreats to a secluded Minnesota convent as the challenging turbulence of the sixties is about to begin. Torn between her calling to leave the world behind, and the world that seems to call to her more urgently each day, Kacey's journey leads beautifully, humorously, and powerfully up to the moment of her final vows. Will she? Should she? Would you?

Sandra Kjarstad Bloom had an early career writing for radio and television before going into non-profit man­agement. She holds a BA from the University of Minne­sota and a MA from Augsburg College. A life-long writer, Waiting to Believe is her first novel. She lives with her part­ner, Colleen Breen, in Minneapolis, her hometown.