Dear Friends and Book Lovers of the World and the Twin Cities in particular,

Thank you for your visits all through the summer.  I didn't visit this blog because this is Minnesota.  Who can bear to sit inside and write when this brief, golden, breathlessly hot, high pressure perfect, time is upon us?  Niibin.  The word for summer in Ojibwe.  No blogging in Niibin.  But now it is the first of September and things get serious.  The school bell rings across from Birchbark Books and there is the periodic hysterical joy of recess sounds.  There is a new garden placed beside the lunch room, right across from us.  There are books to be read.

Keeping Heart on Pine Ridge by Vic Glover gave me heart one day, and indelible images.  A book filled with everyday wisdom, gentle survival humor, and practical advice for those who wonder what it is like to be in Indian.  

Let's Take the Long Way Home, a memoir of friendship by Gail Caldwell, is (disclosure) by my friend Gail Caldwell.   For anyone who has ever lost another precious human, and that includes all of us, this is a map of grief and joy you'll hold to your heart.  For anyone who has struggled with addiction or likes dogs, and that includes many of us, this is a map of terror and hope .

I've resisted reading Roberto Bolano's 2666 and now I cannot stop.  It is like entering a strange and compelling dream.

I have just picked up Empire of the Summer Moon, Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History, by S.C. Gwynne.  It is a promising read.

I also have the advanced readers copy of Philip Roth's Nemesis, which I think is one of his best books.  The ending says all there is to say about the arc and beauty of our mortality.

For me the end of August and its long light is a time of relentless nostalgia  -- Faulker knew about this light.  I am watching the sun creep behind the still green leaves, lighting them fiercely from behind so they glow.  Unearthly.  Gorgeous.  Mundane.






 

We are absolutely thrilled about the upcoming world premiere of The Master Butchers Singing Club at the Guthrie Theater in September!  Hear the comments of the Guthrie's Artistic Director Joe Dowling.  Listen to Birchbark Books owner Louise Erdrich talk about the novel that inspired the play.  Catch some of director Francesca Zambello's excitement about directing at the Guthrie.  And click on over to The Master Butchers Singing Club page on the Guthrie website for further information.


 

This June will mark the TEN YEAR anniversary of Birchbark Books.  I just spent a rainy morning in the bookstore.  It feels like a hundred years and no time at all; it feels like the most unlikely place in the world and the most inevitable; it feels like everywhere in the world and it feels like home.   

The story of our store is on the website -- how we leased the space and took thirteen layers of floor and dentist office equipment.  Check it!

We started out with books culled from BOOKMAN, our local book distributor.  Bookman was absorbed by Ingram and its funky/lovely warehouse turned into Lofts.  Ten years ago, I went there with a shopping cart and loaded the cart, hand picking the likely titles from dim piles, riding up and down a freight elevator, checking out at the end with Bookman clerks including one who was and became the terrific writer Kate DiCamillo.  We put the books on the shelves and tried to figure out how to sell them.  We weren't very good at it.   Denny Magers of Magers and Quinn let me buy some books from him.  I set out books from my own library -- at the time we had a used/new mixture.   

Thank god I kept my day job and the asema that was placed in the walls kept on attracting people who understood that the art of bookselling is unlike any other business.  It is a way of life.  It is an odd and mundane passion.

Books must contain mysteriously the whole of human experience. -- yet sometimes one can hardly believe that there remains yet a new book to be written.  

I just fell in love all over with a big stack of books that have never been written before.  (The Farmer's Daughter by Jim Harrison, and More Remarkable Trees, and everything by Ha Jin). Or books I haven't read yet. (Bleak House)  Or books that made me laugh until I got sick.  (Awkward Family Photos).

I'll write more all summer about bookstore life.  I am just absorbing the fact that we are still here.  Thank you to our devoted customers and delighted newcomers!  Thank you tribal schools and tribal colleges, thank you local schools and teachers.  Thank you everyone who has passed through the blue door.

Louise Erdrich