You have probably heard about it and most likely experienced it in action. And if you've spoken to transplants for more than five minutes, it's bound to have come up in conversation. Minnesota Nice. It can make what might seem like the most benign interaction absolutely perplexing to an outsider. And it's no secret that Minnesota Nice can create real challenges for transplants attempting to work and live successfully in Minnesota. If you could use some help, you've come to the right place. Minnesota Nice? A Transplant's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in Minnesota Nice is a decoder book for Minnesota culture. In it you'll learn why Minnesotans are the way they are, including the characteristics and origins of this culture. But, more importantly, you'll learn numerous ways to work and live harmoniously with Minnesotans- even if they're being passive-aggressive, conflict avoidant, and hard to get to know!
An insiders' look at the land of 10,000 laughs--how Minneapolis became a hotspot for comedy. It is a lively look back at the wild '80s scene and the creative legacy it wrought.
Stories, essays, poems, and personal reminiscences from the sage of Lake Wobegon When, at thirteen, he caught on as a sportswriter for the Anoka Herald, Garrison Keillor set out to become a professional writer, and so he has done—a storyteller, sometime comedian, essayist, newspaper columnist, screenwriter, poet. Now a single volume brings together the full range of his work: monologues from A Prairie Home Companion, stories from The New Yorker and The Atlantic, excerpts from novels, newspaper columns. With an extensive introduction and headnotes, photographs, and memorabilia, The Keillor Reader also presents pieces never before published, including the essays “Cheerfulness” and “What We Have Learned So Far.” Keillor is the founder and host of A Prairie Home Companion, celebrating its fortieth anniversary in 2014. He is the author of nineteen books of fiction and humor, the editor of the Good Poems collections, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
Minnesota has a code, don't cha know? Knowing this code is essential for living in the state famous for an accent only the Coen Brothers could replicate. But if you only focused on the accents in Fargo, you might have missed the nuance. After all, there has to be some reason Minnesotans live in a state where winter lasts six months out of the year. What is it? We call it “Minnesota Nice.” It permeates all aspects of life, including the way we talk, what we eat, how we entertain guests, the way we practice our faith, and how we enjoy the great outdoors. Do you want to know more—or better yet, know someone in your life who should? Grab a copy today so you can have something to set your coffee mug on. Plus, it’s thick enough you’ll really annihilate that fly that won’t stop buzzing around.
"Local editors Schaper and Horwitz have assembled a noteworthy collection of noir-infused stories mixed with laughter...The Akashic noir short-story anthologies are avidly sought and make ideal samplers for regional mystery collecting." --Library Journal "Crime fans who missed the first round will find this expanded version worthwhile." --Publishers Weekly "The best pieces in the collection turn the clich s of the genre on their head . . . and despite the unseemly subject matter, the stories are often surprisingly funny." --City Pages (Minneapolis) "If you've never read an Akashic Noir book, Twin Cities Noir is a fine place to start." --San Francisco Book Review/Sacramento Book Review "A fun...read...particularly ripe for picking by locals who'll delight in recognizing their stomping grounds in the stories, but with enough unexpected turns to make it worthwhile for those outside the Midwest, too." --KnightsArts Brand-new stories from John Jodzio, Tom Kaczynski, and Peter Schilling, Jr., in addition to the original volume's stories by David Housewright, Steve Thayer, Judith Guest, Mary Logue, Bruce Rubenstein, K.J. Erickson, William Kent Krueger, Ellen Hart, Brad Zellar, Mary Sharratt, Pete Hautman, Larry Millett, Quinton Skinner, Gary Bush, and Chris Everheart. "St. Paul was originally called Pig's Eye's Landing and was named after Pig's Eye Parrant--trapper, moonshiner, and proprietor of the most popular drinking establishment on the Mississippi. Traders, river rats, missionaries, soldiers, land speculators, fur trappers, and Indian agents congregated in his establishment and made their deals. When Minnesota became a territory in 1849, the town leaders, realizing that a place called Pig's Eye might not inspire civic confidence, changed the name to St. Paul, after the largest church in the city . . . Across the river, Minneapolis has its own sordid story. By the turn of the twentieth century it was considered one of the most crooked cities in the nation. Mayor Albert Alonzo Ames, with the assistance of the chief of police, his brother Fred, ran a city so corrupt that according to Lincoln Steffans its 'deliberateness, invention, and avarice has never been equaled.' As recently as the mid-'90s, Minneapolis was called 'Murderopolis' due to a rash of killings that occurred over a long hot summer . . . Every city has its share of crime, but what makes the Twin Cities unique may be that we have more than our share of good writers to chronicle it. They are homegrown and they know the territory--how the cities look from the inside, out . . ."
"This collection extends a line of critique from Castagno's book, Educated in Whiteness: white teachers' default position of 'being nice' and its problematic relationship with larger inequities in education and society. Castagno and her contributors explore how the frame of niceness is the primary one through which teachers problematically engage diversity and maintain ideological commitments to colorblindness, equality, and politeness"--
Minnesota Nice gets shoved offstage when Bad Behavior hogs the spotlight in this gripping, often delightful collection of mystery and crime stories. Eighteen local authors rip away the curtains to our states legendary Niceness to rummage through dusty emotional attics to find, emerging from the shadows, our worst impulses growling back with bared teeth. Book jacket.
For the traveler seeking to find the spirit--however he or she chooses to define that term--Minnesota is blessed with a large number of sacred sites, many of which are unique. This book profiles approximately 350 sites, including retreat centers, churches, temples, cemeteries, and effigy mounds. Learn about each site's history, uniqueness, aesthetic beauty, and awe. Specific location and contact information is also included.
Minnesotans are a highly skilled bunch, whether pursuing traditional activities like wild ricing and pickling, or tastefully displaying taxidermy, or selecting the right fishing bait. Skills particularly appropriate to Minnesota-- such as creating seed art or baking a Bundt cake--may be fully on display at the state fair, a prime opportunity to join with neighbors in celebrating our many talents. The Minnesota Book of Skills brings to life the basic know-how that makes us uniquely Minnesotan. Seasonal tips like how to gracefully exit a ski lift mingle with skills your grandparents knew well, such as what to forage for while on a hike. How soon is too soon to bring a child to the Boundary Waters or set her up on hockey skates? The answers are here. Maybe you'll never carve an ice sculpture or build your own coffin--but isn't it comforting to know that one handy book offers just the guidance you'll need?
“Darkly delicious . . . Nice Girls is about the girlhood we never really leave behind, and what happens when we dare to confront our past demons. A pulsating mystery with a narrator you won't soon forget.” — Laura Dave, #1 New York Times Bestselling Author of The Last Thing He Told Me "If you’re a total true crime addict, Catherine Dang’s debut novel will have you hooked real fast." — Cosmopolitan Recommended by New York Times Book Review • Entertainment Weekly • Cosmopolitan • Los Angeles Times • Harper's Bazaar • New York Post • E! Online • Bustle • Popsugar • CrimeReads • The Nerd Daily • PureWow • Mystery & Suspense Magazine • Criminal Element • and more! A pulse-pounding and razor-sharp debut with the emotional punch of Luckiest Girl Alive and All the Missing Girls that explores the hungry, angry, dark side of girlhood and dares to ask: Which is more dangerous for a woman—showing the world what it wants to see, or who she really is? What did you do? Mary used to be such a nice girl. She was the resident whiz kid of Liberty Lake, Minnesota—the quiet, chubby teen with the scholarship to an Ivy League school. But three years later, “Ivy League Mary” is back—a thinner, cynical, restless failure who was kicked out of Cornell at the beginning of her senior year and won’t tell anyone why. Taking a job at the local grocery store, Mary tries to make sense of her life’s sharp downward spiral. Then beautiful, magnetic Olivia Willand goes missing. A rising social media star, Olivia is admired by everyone in Liberty Lake—except Mary. Once Olivia’s best friend, Mary knows better than anyone that behind the Instagram persona hides a willful, manipulative girl with sharp edges. As the town obsesses over perfect, lovely Olivia, Mary wonders if her disappearance might be tied to another missing person: nineteen-year-old DeMaria Jackson, whose case has been widely dismissed as a runaway. Who is the real Olivia Willand, and where did she go? What happened to DeMaria? As Mary pries at the cracks in the careful facades surrounding the two missing girls, old wounds will bleed fresh and force her to confront a horrible truth. Maybe there are no nice girls, after all. “Complex characters, questionable choices, and conflicted feelings about who we are and the people we leave behind combine in a compelling thriller that will have you flipping pages to discover how it all fits together.”— Darby Kane, #1 internationally bestselling author of Pretty Little Wife “Nice Girls finds itself among the most haunting of mysteries, those that resonate with our current affairs, like Alyssa Cole’s When No One Is Watching and Rumaan Alam’s Leave the World Behind. Perfect for the millennial armchair detective, Nice Girls will satisfy your true crime addiction and intensify your desire for justice.”— Paperback Paris
