At last!  After our deep freeze winter, the weekend.  40, 50 degrees.  Tee shirt weather.  People were out on the still frozen lakes.  Minnesotans emerged, pale and dazzled, from their caves, and walked their dogs or conversed euphorically as they walked the paths and sidewalks and ice free trails.  It was lovely to see the action in the streets.  The bookstore was packed.  I thought of us all emerging from The Winter Vault.  The Winter Vault is actually the title of Ann Michael's new novel (Fugitive Pieces, her last book).  My daughter gave it to me, and I read it right through.  The first half especially is extraordinary.  This is a love story, a river story, a story about how all we do changes what and whom we love.  It is exquisitely written.  The wrenching and lovely book of a poet with great narrative skills.
 

Dearly Beloved Customers From Minneapolis and Saint Paul,

Reading back through the logs and posts after a long (wasn't it almost endless) winter I came across Janet's comment -- have I missed thanking the customers from The Most Romantic City in the World -- and the Equally Most Romantic City in the World -- our Twin Cities?  You have brought our little ship through the doldrums of January.   Or, you know, that very quiet time in January.   I am in a twelve step Patrick O'Brian resistance program but have occasional relapses into sailor talk.  Thank you brave book lovers who set your spankers and ventured out into the one way streets paved with ice.  Thank you for coming to Birchbark Books.  
 
I had to turn to William Trevor because I was in irons with the British Royal Navy. Love and Summer is a small gem of characterization, rural self containment and quiet pain.  Again, this book the choice of March's book club, I was enthralled by those who shared a homage to the Irish meal and talked about the book.  What a pleasure it was.  The next book choice is Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel.  Our Celebrity Host will be the marvelous cookbook writer and great reader -- Beth Dooley.  With Katherine Viegel of the Kenwood Cafe, they are inventing a meal right off the royal table of Henry VIII.  I thought that everything possible had been written that could be written with wicked relish about that period of history, but no.  Wolf Hall.  Oh no.  From the Napoleonic Wars into the marital savagery of Tudor England!  Another purely addictive read.

Entirely on another note -- the language activist, Bemidji State Professor, author and all around wonderful Anton Treuer visited to read from and lecture on his book.  Recently published by The Minnesota Historical Society Press, Ojibwe in Minnesota is a distinct achievement.  This book finally, AT LAST, serves as the perfect text to introduce Ojibwe history here in Minnesota.  Treuer manages to pack a world into each sentence.  This is the perfect book for anyone curious about the Ojibwe, the perfect book for those who want to consolidate understanding of the Ojibwe, the perfect book for . . . well, everyone.  I wish that this book was required reading for living here in Minnesota.  

Mike and Niizhoo Sullivan sang a great hand drum song before the Anton Treuer reading.  Look up Niizhoo on You Tube.  His singing will blow you away and make you happy.  He is five years old.  Kudos to Mike for pursuing his doctorate in linguistics at the U and for singing with his son and passing on these moving, exquisite, lovely Ojibwe songs.

If I wrote blogs more often they would be shorter.  This has been a week of At Lasts -- health reform, after all.  Tune in to Bill Moyer's Journal this Friday, March 26, for what I am sure will be a valiant attempt to parse what just happened.

Yours for books,

Louise