At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

• Thursday, Nov. 3, 7:30 p.m. — Twin Cities Live Book Club to discuss Room, by Emma Donoghue — The Twin Cities Live Book Club wraps up its discussion of Emma Donoghue’s novel Room at 6 p.m. and goes until 8 p.m. Enjoy free refreshments from Lucia’s To Go. Win prizes and discuss the book with Elizabeth Ries. No RSVPs are necessary for this event.

Room by Emma Donoghue is a story of unconquerable love in harrowing circumstances. To 5-year-old Jack, Room is the entire world. It is where he was born and grew up; it’s where he lives with his Ma as they learn and read and eat and sleep and play. At night, his Ma shuts him safely in the wardrobe, where he is meant to be asleep when Old Nick visits. Room is home to Jack, but to Ma, it is the prison where Old Nick has held her captive for seven years. Through determination, ingenuity, and fierce motherly love, Ma has created a life for Jack. But she knows it’s not enough… not for her or for him. She devises a bold escape plan, one that relies on her young son’s bravery and a lot of luck. What she does not realize is just how unprepared she is for the plan to actually work.

Told entirely in the language of the energetic, pragmatic five-year-old Jack, Room is a celebration of resilience and the limitless bond between parent and child, a brilliantly executed novel about what it means to journey from one world to another.

• Monday, Nov. 7, 7:30 p.m. — Adam Fell and Karolyn Redoute read from their poetry — Adam Fell is the author of I Am Not A Pioneer. He was born and raised in Burlington, WI, and holds degrees from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. He lives in Madison, where he teaches at Edgewood College.

Karolyn Redoute received an MFA from Indiana University. She enjoys the blue waters in Michigan, her home state, and in Minnesota, her adopted state, but loves the ocean best.

• Tuesday, Nov. 8, 7:30 p.m. — Chuck Klosterman visits Minneapolis to read from his second novel, The Visible Man. The Current’s Steve Seel will lead the discussion following the reading. — Austin (TX) therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. As he slowly reveals himself, Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. He says he uses this ability to observe random individuals within their daily lives, usually when they are alone and vulnerable. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient and the disclosure of his increasingly bizarre and disturbing tales. Over time, it threatens her career, her marriage, and her own identity.

Interspersed with notes, correspondence, and transcriptions that catalog a relationship based on curiosity and fear, The Visible Man touches on all of Chuck Klosterman’s favorite themes: the consequence of culture, the influence of media, the complexity of voyeurism, and the existential contradiction of normalcy. Is this comedy, criticism, or horror? Not even Y__ seems to know for sure.

Chuck Klosterman is the New York Times bestselling author of Eating the Dinosaur, Downtown Owl, Chuck Klosterman IV, Killing Yourself to Live, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, and Fargo Rock City, winner of the ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award. He has written for GQ, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine, Spin, The Washington Post, The Guardian, The Believer, A.V. Club, and ESPN. He lives in Brooklyn, NY.

Steve Seel will lead the post-reading discussion. Steve Seel co-hosts weekday mornings on The Current (89.3FM) with Jill Riley from 6-10 a.m. A longtime a DJ and producer, he has a wide knowledge of music from classical to rock, experimental and jazz, and is an accomplished musician himself.

• Thursday, Nov. 10, 7:30 p.m. — Kathie Bergquist discusses Windy City Queer: LGBTQ Dispatches from the Third Coast. Several contributors will also appear — The Midwest’s queer history comes alive when editor Kathie Bergquist and several contributors discuss the new anthology of writing about Chicago, Windy City Queer. The contributions of the Midwest and, specifically, Chicago to LGBTQ literature have been invaluable, yet largely uncelebrated over the last century. This anthology charts a map of queer Chicago and showcases its thriving urban arts community, which boasts a unique history, legacy, and sensibility deeply rooted in the urban Midwest.

Here is a first-rate collection of queer voices from Chicago’s literary landscape. Celebrated writers Edmund White, Achy Obejas, Sharon Bridgforth, Brian Bouldrey, E. Patrick Johnson, Carol Anshaw, David Trinidad and Mark Zubro are joined by emerging voices from the queer literary scene. The pieces span all literary genres, from fiction and poetry to memoir and essays, and portray a full gamut of gay Chicago lives from the everyday to the quirky, from public spectacles to quiet intimacies, from family life to nightlife, from dating to marriage, from loving to mourning.

Kathie Bergquist teaches writing at Columbia College Chicago. She is co-author of A Field Guide to Gay and Lesbian Chicago, and her writing has appeared in such publications as Advocate, OUT, Girlfriends, and Diva as well as in several collections, including Best Lesbian Romance 2009 and Out in All Directions. She is a former editor of the Windy City Times Pride Literary Supplement and a former fellow at the Lambda Literary Foundation’s Emerging Writers Retreat.

This event is co-sponsored by Quatrefoil Library. Quatrefoil Library is celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2011. The volunteer-run, non-profit library collects, maintains, documents, and circulates gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer materials and information in a safe and accessible space. Quatrefoil’s collection includes books, videos, DVDs, and sound recordings, which members may check out, as well as a large collection of non-circulating periodicals. Learn more at www.qlibrary.org.

• Sunday, Nov. 13, 4 p.m. — Tom Montgomery Fate reads from Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father’s Search for the Wild — Try to imagine Thoreau married, with a job, three kids, and a minivan. This is the serious yet irreverent sensibility that suffuses Cabin Fever: A Suburban Father’s Search for the Wild, as the author seeks to apply the hermit-philosopher’s insights to a busy modern life.

Tom Montgomery Fate lives in a Chicago suburb, where he is a husband, father, professor, and active member of his community. He also lives in a cabin built with the help of friends in the Michigan woods, where he walks by the river, chops wood, and reads Thoreau by candle light. While he divides his time between suburbia and the cabin, Fate’s point is not to draw a line between the two but to ask what each has to say about the other. How do we balance nature (picking blackberries) with technology (tapping BlackBerrys)? What is revealed about human boundaries when a coyote wanders into a Quiznos? Can a cardinal protecting chicks from a hungry cat teach us anything about instincts and parenting? Fate seeks a more attentive, deliberate way of seeing the world and our place in it, not only among the trees and birds but also in the context of our relationships and society.

A seasonal nature memoir, Cabin Fever takes readers on a search for the wild both in the woods and within ourselves. Although we are often estranged from nature in our daily lives, Fate shows that we can recover our kinship with the earth and its other inhabitants if we are willing to pay attention.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

• Wednesday, Oct. 5, 7:30 p.m. – Henry Emmons, M.D., discusses his books The Chemistry of Joy, and The Chemistry of Calm
Renowned psychiatrist and therapist Henry Emmons integrates mind-body and natural therapies, mindfulness and allied Buddhist therapeutics, and psychotherapeutic caring and insight in his clinical work. Dr. Emmons obtained his medical degree from the University of Iowa College of Medicine and did his residency in psychiatry at the University of Rochester Medical Center, where he was Chief Resident. Dr. Emmons is in demand as a workshop and retreat leader for both healthcare professionals and the general public. He practices general and holistic psychiatry and consults to several colleges and organizations nationally. He currently serves as Consulting Psychiatrist at the Allina Medical Clinic in Northfield, MN. The Chemistry of Joy presents Dr. Emmons’s natural approach to depression – supplemented with medication if necessary – blending the best of Western science and Eastern philosophy to create your body’s own biochemistry of joy. Integrating Western brain chemistry, natural and Ayurvedic medicine, Buddhist psychology, and his own joyful heart techniques, Dr. Emmons creates a practical program for each of the three types of depression: anxious depression, agitated depression, and sluggish depression. This flexible approach creates newfound joy for those whose lives have been touched by depression–and pathways for all who seek to actively improve their emotional lives. The Chemistry of Calm presents a step-by-step plan to relieve anxiety and restore physical and mental strength. Marrying the Eastern techniques of meditation with the traditional Western solutions of diet and exercise produces a dramatic effect. Using this program, Dr. Emmons has helped countless patients reduce their anxiety and reclaim the resilience that is their birthright.

• Friday, Oct . 7, 7:30 p.m. – Chris Bohjalian reads from The Night Strangers
From the bestselling author of The Double Bind, Skeletons at the Feast and Secrets of Eden, comes a riveting and dramatic ghost story. In a dusty corner of a basement in a rambling Victorian house in northern New Hampshire, a door has long been sealed shut with 39 six-inch-long carriage bolts. The home’s new owners are Chip and Emily Linton and their twin 10-year-old daughters. Together they hope to rebuild their lives there after Chip, an airline pilot, has to ditch his 70-seat regional jet in Lake Champlain after double engine failure. Unlike the Miracle on the Hudson, however, most of the passengers aboard Flight 1611 die on impact or drown. The body count? Thirty-nine – a coincidence not lost on Chip when he discovers the number of bolts in that basement door. Meanwhile, Emily finds herself wondering about the women in this sparsely populated White Mountain village – self-proclaimed herbalists – and their interest in her fifth-grade daughters. Are the women mad? Or is it her husband, in the wake of the tragedy, whose grip on sanity has become desperately tenuous? The Night Strangers is a poignant and powerful ghost story with all the hallmarks readers have come to expect from bestselling novelist Chris Bohjalian: a palpable sense of place, an unerring sense of the demons that drive us, and characters we care about deeply. Chris Bohjalian is the critically acclaimed author of 12 novels, including the New York Times bestsellers Skeletons at the Feast, The Double Bind, and Midwives, which was a selection of Oprah’s Book Club. His work has been translated into more than 25 languages and twice became movies (Midwives and Past the Bleachers). He lives in Vermont with his wife and daughter. Visit him at www.chrisbohjalian.com.

• Sunday, Oct. 9, 4 p.m. – Beryl Singleton Bissell reads from A View of the Lake
Beryl Singleton Bissell, nationally renowned author of The Scent of God, shares her experience of life on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior in this collection of essays that follows her journey to find her place in a small northern town. Fans of her first book will feel right at home with the warm, insightful prose that has made Bissell so successful. For residents or frequent visitors, and hopeful travelers who have yet to experience its charms, A View of the Lake is a direct route to the North Shore. These tales of the singular joys and challenges of moving from a city to a rural area will resonate with anyone who dreams of downsizing, picking up and moving to a life alongside a lake and its denizens. Each chapter captures the nature of the North Shore and the ways in which everything and everyone is shaped by the Big Lake. Beryl Singleton Bissell was born in Saddle River, NJ, grew up in Puerto Rico, and for the past 30 years has called Minnesota home. Packing several lifetimes into one, Bissell was a cloistered contemplative nun for 15 years before becoming a wife, mother, widow, single mom, divorcee, bereaved parent and grandparent. She’s online at www.berylsingletonbissell.com.

• Monday, Oct. 10, 7:30 p.m. – Paul Metsa discusses his new memoir Blue Guitar Highway and plays music!
This is a musician’s tale: the story of a boy growing up on the Iron Range, playing his guitar at family gatherings, coming of age in the psychedelic ’70s, and honing his craft as a pro in Minneapolis, ground zero of American popular music in the mid-eighties. “There is a drop of blood behind every note I play and every word I write,” Paul Metsa says. And it’s easy to believe, as he conducts us on a musical journey across time and country, navigating switchbacks, detours, dead ends, and providing us the occasional glimpse of the promised land on the blue guitar highway. His account captures the thrill of the Twin Cities when acts like the Replacements, Hüsker Dü, and Prince were remaking pop music. It takes us right onto the stages he shared with stars like Billy Bragg, Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen. And it gives us a close-up, dizzying view of the roller-coaster ride that is the professional musician’s life, played out against the polarizing politics and intimate history of the past few decades of American culture. Written with a songwriter’s sense of detail and ear for poetry, Blue Guitar Highway conveys all the sweet absurdity, dry humor, and passion for the language of music that has made his story sing. Metsa is a legendary musician and songwriter from Minnesota. Born on the Iron Range, he has been based in Minneapolis since 1978. He has received seven Minnesota Music Awards and has played more than five thousand gigs, including forays to Iceland and Siberia. He lives in Northeast Minneapolis with his faithful dog, Blackie; a dozen or so guitars; twenty-five orange crates of LPs; hundreds of books, compact discs, magazines, and vintage postcards; and several kitchen cupboards full of old cassettes.

• Wednesday, Oct. 12, 7:30 p.m. – Photographer Scott Pasfield discusses Gay in America, co-sponsored by Quatrefoil Library
Photographer Scott Pasfield and several of his Minnesota subjects will appear to discuss Pasfield’s new book Gay In America, a groundbreaking, stereotype-shattering and unprecedented 224-page book of intimate photos and deeply personal stories from 140 gay American men, with an introduction by activist Tom Kirdahy and his husband, playwright Terrence McNally. Pasfield traveled 52,000 miles across all 50 states over three years, gathering stories and documenting the lives of gay men from all walks of life. At turns joyful and somber, reflective and celebratory, each narrative and image is an enlightening look into the variety of gay life in the United States. “I wanted to create a book that would change opinions and educate; to produce a profound collection of ordinary, proud, out gay men who defy clichés and stereotypes.” His striking and perceptive portraits reflect the same beautiful diversity found in any sampling of our population. Each of these men is unique and whole, complex and fallible, just as we all are. They come in every size and shape, every religion, color, profession, and background. There are farmers, writers, doctors, lawyers, artists, teachers, and students; there are fathers and husbands, activists, and businessmen. Some are successful, some are struggling, some are political, some are wealthy, some are wounded, and some are deeply content. Their commonality draws from a single shared trait: their homosexuality. These are men who are attracted to men, and have chosen not to disguise that truth. For many, there have been harsh consequences to this decision, but also deep rewards. The message that prevails is one of great hope that true equality is close within our reach, if only we would grasp it. Learn more about Gay In America at www.gayinamerica.us. Scott Pasfield is a New York-based portrait photographer who specializes in portraiture. His work has appeared in numerous publications, from BlackBook to Fortune, Poz to Gotham. His clients include the Independent Film Channel, Time Inc., and the American Red Cross. Scott has taught at the Santa Fe Photography Workshops and is a member of Platon’s celebrated Nutopia Forum. He and his partner Nick divide their time between New York City, Long Island and Vermont. This event is co-sponsored by Quatrefoil Library. Quatrefoil Library is celebrating its 25th Anniversary in 2011. The volunteer-run, non-profit library collects, maintains, documents, and circulates gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer materials and information in a safe and accessible space. Quatrefoil’s collection includes books, videos, DVDs, and sound recordings, which members may check out, as well as a large collection of non-circulating periodicals. Learn more at www.qlibrary.org.

Friday, Oct. 14, 7:30 p.m. – Sonya Huber reads from Cover Me : A Health Insurance Memoir
Growing up in middle-class middle America, Sonya Huber viewed health care as did most of her peers: as an inconvenience or not at all. There were braces and cavities, medications and stitches, the family doctor and the local dentist. Finding herself without health insurance after college graduation, she didn’t worry. It was a temporary problem. Thirteen years and twenty-three jobs later, her view of the matter was quite different. Huber’s irreverent and affecting memoir of navigating the nation’s health-care system brings an awful and necessary dose of reality to the political debates and propaganda surrounding health-care reform. “I look like any other upwardly mobile hipster,” Huber says. “I carry a messenger bag, a few master’s degrees, and a toddler raised on organic milk.” What’s not evident, however, is that she is a veteran of Medicaid and WIC, the federal government’s supplemental nutrition program for women, infants, and children. In Cover Me, Huber tells a story that is at once all too familiar and rarely told: of being pushed to the edge by worry; of the adamant belief that better care was out there; of taking one mind-numbing job after another in pursuit of health insurance, only to find herself scrounging through the trash heap of our nation’s health-care system for tips and tricks that might mean the difference between life and death. Sonya Huber teaches creative writing in the low-residency MFA program at Ashland University and at Georgia Southern University. She is the author of Opa Nobody, as well as several essays which have appeared in publications such as Fourth Genre, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the Washington Post Magazine. More information is available at www.sonyahuber.com. This event is cosponsored by the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition. MUHCC is dedicated to establishing comprehensive single-payer health care for all Minnesotans through advocacy, education, lobbying, and community organizing. They believe that health care is an essential human need, that unequal access to health care is an injustice, and that a single-payer system is the only system that can provide comprehensive, affordable, high quality health care for each and every person. Visit www.muhcc.org for more information.

• Tuesday, Oct. 18, 7:30 p.m. - Russell Banks reads from his new novel Lost Memory of Skin
Lost Memory of Skin shows us a troubled society where zero tolerance has erased any hope of subtlety and compassion. Suspended in a modern-day limbo, the young man at the centre of Russell Banks’s uncompromising and morally complex new novel must create a life for himself in the wake of incarceration. Known in his new identity only as the Kid, he is shackled to a GPS monitoring device and forbidden to go near where children might gather. He takes up residence under a south Florida causeway, in a makeshift encampment with other convicted sex offenders. Barely beyond childhood himself, the Kid, despite his crime, is in many ways an innocent. Enter the Professor, a university sociologist of enormous size and intellect who finds in the Kid the perfect subject for his research. But when the Professor’s past resurfaces and threatens to destroy his carefully constructed world, the balance in the two men’s relationship shifts. Russell Banks is the Pulitzer Prize-nominated author of Affliction, Cloudsplitter, Continental Drift, Rule of the Bone and The Sweet Hereafter.

• Wednesday, Oct. 19, 7:30 p.m. – Henry Rollins discusses Occupants
Musician, author, poet and photographer Henry Rollins has searched out the most desolate corners of the Earth – from Iraq to Afghanistan, Thailand to Mali, and beyond – for the past twenty-five years, articulating his observations through music and words, on radio and television, and in magazines and books. Though he’s known for the raw power of his expression, Rollins has shown that the greatest statements can be made with the simplest of acts: to just bear witness, to be present. In Occupants, Rollins pairs visceral full-color photographs – taken in Bangladesh, Burma, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and elsewhere over the last few years – with writings that not only provide context and magnify the impact of the images but also lift them to the level of political commentary. Simply put, this book is a visual testimony of anger, suffering and resilience. Occupants will help us realize what is so easy to miss when tragedy and terror become numbing, constant forces – the quieter, stronger forces of healing, solidarity, faith, and even joy. Rollins joined the Southern California band Black Flag as vocalist in 1981. Upon its demise, he formed Rollins Band, and has been making records, writing books and touring the world ever since. Rollins has averaged over one hundred shows a year for over 30 years. He also performs in movies and TV shows and hosts a weekly L.A. radio show. He lives in Los Angeles.

At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

• Tuesday, Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m. – Nathan Everett reads from The Gutenberg Rubric - Just months before the famous Bible that bears his name was finished, Johannes Gutenberg was sued by his business partner for misappropriating funds for a private enterprise. When Gutenberg refused to share the secret project, the court awarded the entire Bible-printing operation to Johan Fust, leaving Gutenberg with nothing but his secret. Was it an alchemical formula? A heretical treatise? A new technology? Or something far more dangerous?

Brilliant, eccentric professor Keith Drucker and rare books librarian Madeline Zayne are reluctant heroes in a centuries-old search for Gutenberg’s secret. Crossing continents to follow clues from an encoded rubric and stolen manuscript, the couple face injury and encounter arcane rituals and biblio-terrorism as they race to find the fabled treasure.

Nathan Everett has worked in the publishing industry for over 30 years as a publisher, author, trainer and technologist. Nathan was among the first authorized trainers of desktop publishing software in the country and trained hundreds of graphic artists on computers. During this time he also taught typography, print history, and color theory. He holds seven patents in computer layout and reading technology. He is on the Board of Directors of the Seattle Center for Book Arts (SCBA), an organization devoted to teaching and preserving traditional and contemporary book arts including typesetting, printing, book-binding, and eBook arts. The SCBA receives a portion of the royalties from The Gutenberg Rubric to help fund education programs in the Seattle area.

• Thursday, Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m. – John Reimringer reads from Vestments - Hailed as a Best Book of 2010 by Publishers Weekly, the bracing tale of a young man caught between faith, family, and his love for a woman from the past. Originally drawn to the priesthood by the mystery, purity and sensual fabric of the Church, as well as by its promise of a safe harbor from his tempestuous home, James Dressler finds himself attracted again to his first love, Betty García – just a few years after his ordination. Torn between these opposing desires, and haunted by his familial heritage, James finds himself at a crossroads. Exploring age-old and yet urgently contemporary issues in the Catholic Church, and infused throughout by a rich sense of the history and vibrant texture of St. Paul, Vestments is an utterly honest and subtly lyrical novel.

A former newspaper editor and a graduate of the MFA program at the University of Arkansas, John Reimringer lives in St. Paul with his wife, the poet Katrina Vandenberg. Vestments is his first novel. For more, see www.johnreimringer.com.

• Wednesday, Sept. 14, 7:30 p.m. – Catherine Holm, Sheila Packa and Becca Brin Manlove read from their work - My Heart Is a Mountain by Catherine Holm is a collection of eleven fiction stories and one memoir piece. From northern Minnesota to Alaska, from the Dustbowl to Appalachia, from swamps to mountains to the afterlife, these tales blend the magic and the mundane as characters discover themselves, their limitations, and their greatness. Catherine Holm is an award-winning writer who lives with her husband Chris in rural Cook, MN, on ten acres of boreal forest. Her short stories have been published in several anthologies and chapbooks. She writes about human yearning and how it is shaped by land and place.

Cloud Birds by Sheila Packa is a breathtaking flight through the western shoreline of Lake Superior north to the Iron Range of Minnesota. The poems are about bears, immigrants, bird migration, and women moving through violence. Sheila Packa is the poet laureate of Duluth, MN. She has written three books of poetry, The Mother Tongue, Echo & Lightning, and Cloud Birds. She is the recipient of an Arts and Cultural Heritage Community Arts Learning grant to do poetry and writing workshops for those in transition, with a special outreach to those dealing with domestic violence. For more information about her work, visit www.sheilapacka.com.

Becca Brin Manlove is the author of Hauling Water: Reflections on Making a Home in the North Woods. It is a collection of little love stories – love for the land, love between a man and woman, love of children and family, love for all the beings that share the neighborhood (even the occasional annoying bear in the garbage), and eventually love for a life well lived. The freshness of maple sap plunking into pails, the chill of a strong wind at an ice fishing hole, the satisfaction of a Thanksgiving dinner tradition, the dismayed thoughts at a lightning-struck pine, the camaraderie of the sauna, and much more are shared with humor, warmth, and respect for the wild places.

• Sunday, Sept. 18, 4 p.m. - Kathryn Kysar and Jim Moore read from their poetry – From her St. Paul kitchen to the historical shores of Lake Superior, from a rock outside of Baghdad to a clothing factory in Guangdong, Kathryn Kysar constructs and reconstructs a world in poems that confront our false sense of safety and explores the inequities and fissures in women’s lives. Kathryn Kysar is the author of two books of poetry, Dark Lake and Pretend the World, and she edited Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers. She has received fellowships from Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts, the Minnesota State Arts Board, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies. Kysar recently served on the board of directors for the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and teaches at Anoka-Ramsey Community College and the Loft Literary Center and lives with her family in St. Paul.

Jim Moore is the author of six collections of poetry, including Invisible Strings, Lightning at Dinner, The Freedom of History, and The Long Experience of Love. His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, the Nation, the New Yorker, the Paris Review, the Threepenny Review, the Pushcart Prize Anthology, and in many other magazines and anthologies. He teaches at Hamline University in St. Paul.

• Monday, Sept. 19, 7:30 p.m. – Russ Van Heel reads from A Life in Purgatory – A Life in Purgatory: A Selection of Short Stories is an honest depiction of different phases of the author’s healing process as the survivor of an abusive relationship. Destructive moments in an abusive relationship come full circle as they ultimately reverse themselves, becoming the foundational pieces in a healing process. Scattered pictures, some remembered, others forgotten, reappear as one man documents his desperate journey from the darkest cataclysms of his soul into a resurrection of daylight where miracles can somehow become real and life can go on.

• Sunday, Sept. 25, 4 p.m. - Sunny Love discusses An Incomplete Story of a Whole Person – In her book An Incomplete Story of a Whole Person, Sunny Love specializes in revealing insights from a victim’s perspective, giving real life accounts from her past experiences with physical, emotional and sexual abuse. Sunny also speaks on the healing process of a victim and relays stories of success and hope proving that recovery is not only possible but very achievable. Sunny Love’s message is motivational to all who have ever experienced, witnessed, or counseled those in situations of abuse. Her firsthand knowledge of how abuse can destroy the body but never break the spirit is inspirational to all who hear it. Sunny Love is a member of the National Speakers Association and last year alone she won the 2010 Spirit of Peace Award, the 2010 Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, and the 2010 Governor’s Faith Based and Community Services Initiatives Award.

Midwest Authors:

Soul to Soul: Poems, Prayers and Stories to End a Yoga Class, compiled and edited by John Mundahl (Red Elixir), 202 pages, $16.95
Soul to Soul is a beautiful collection of inspiring selections that will add zest, depth, humor and tears to your yoga class. Enjoy quotes from the Dalai Lama, Eckhart Tolle, Thich Nhat Hanh, Shakti Gawain, Swami Kripalu, Mother Teresa, David Frawley and others. Honoring many cultures, spiritual traditions and spiritual masters, it’s the perfect gift for yoga teachers and practitioners, or it can be read by anyone seeking an uplifting, often tender message. The 150 selections are a wonderful way to send your yoga students home rested and peaceful.

Quantum Prayer: It’s Already Answered! Quantum Reality: It Already Exists! by Cathy Combs, 130 pages, $15.95 through www.cathycombs.com
Author, poet, educator and counselor Cathy Combs wrote Quantum Prayer for a reason: to remind us that God is “so very much more than the angry, judgmental, capricious bearded white man in the sky.” Her book embodies the knowing that we are deeply loved by a beneficent universe, that we are sacred, that we are holy. She writes, “We are here to fully actualize our true divine nature in physical reality.”

Classic Reissue:

Living with Joy: Keys to Personal Power & Spiritual Transformation, by Sanaya Roman (HJ Kramer/New World Library), 280 pages, $14.95
The newly updated 25th Anniversary edition of Living with Joy celebrates a book that has touched hundreds of thousands of lives. The author writes: “Many great artists, writers, businessmen, athletes and musicians have reported that their greatest works, inventions and inspiration seemed to be ‘given’ to them from a source beyond their ordinary reality. In a similar way, this book was given to Sanaya by her spiritual guide Orin, who she has been channeling for many years. The book offers a powerful message: We can choose to grow through joy rather than through pain and struggle. This book shows the reader how to do so. For the new edition, text was added to deepen and expand upon the principles taught in the original book, and completely new material – 18 “Daily Joy Practices” and hundreds of “Joy Affirmations – highlight the key points in the book.

Books for Body, Mind & Soul:

The Art of Flourishing: A New East-West Approach to Staying Sane and Finding Love in an Insane World, by Jeffrey B. Rubin (Crown Archetype), 352 pages, $24
In this original, surprising, and deeply revealing exploration of the self and relationships, Dr. Jeffrey Rubin brings the art of flourishing to life. The idea is startlingly simple: self-care is the foundation of intimacy, and intimacy is the culmination of self-care. The Art of Flourishing provides the reader with the tools necessary to thrive, to live a life of meaning, passion and fulfillment. An expert on both Eastern meditative and Western psychotherapeutic traditions, Dr. Rubin draws on the best practices of each to create a new and accessible path to living authentically. His unique synthesis provides a remarkably lucid guide for handling our emotions wisely, discovering our purpose and uncovering barriers to intimacy – the hidden emotional weeds that kill passion, such as conflicts over communication and power, boundaries and sexuality.

The Bhagavad Gita: A Walkthrough for Westerners, by Jack Hawley (New World Library), 224 pages, $14.95
The Bhagavad Gita is read daily by millions of people in India and throughout the world and is considered by a great many to be the finest source of spiritual teaching in the world. It was in India where Jack Hawley, a high-tech executive in search of new approaches to individual and organizational transformation, found the 5,000-year-old poem so profoundly relevant to contemporary life. Since then, he has been studying and sharing the teachings not as an abstract classic, but as a “universal love song” that covers a wide range of topics, from healing inner pain to celebrating life.

The Caregiver’s Tao Te Ching, by William and Nancy Martin (New World Library), 144 pages, $14
Those who care for the ailing, whether helping someone recover, grapple with a long-term disability, or face a terminal illness, often feel alone, overwhelmed, exhausted. William and Nancy Martin have worked as counselors, hospice trainers, and Zen guides — and as caregivers themselves. With empathy and insight, they offer readers solace drawn from the eternal wisdom of the Tao Te Ching. Like the original Chinese text, this book contains 81 chapters. Each chapter includes a poem for caregivers, evocative of the verses of the Tao Te Ching, followed by a reflection that presents practical guidance for navigating the emotional and physical hardships of caregiving. The resulting resource gently awakens readers to the grace, growth, and even joy possible at each step along their path.

Cell-Level Healing: The Bridge from Soul to Cell, by Joyce Whiteley Hawkes (Atria Books / Beyond Words), 158 pages, $15
Our bodies glow with the miracle of life pulsing in 100 trillion cells. Spiritual resources can positively influence the wizardry of our natural cell science that repairs and renews the body. Cell-Level Healing provides instruction at the interface of biology and spirit. While Masaru Emoto shows us that our thoughts change the structure of water, Dr. Hawkes shows that our thoughts change the functioning of our cells. Profoundly effective, yet simple to understand and use, the principles of appreciation, clearing, flow, and cell-level healing described and illustrated in Cell-Level Healing promote vibrant health. The book embarks on the premise that healing is a basic part of human nature, and provides a guide for the reader to tap into their innate healing abilities.

The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Discovering Your Past Lives, by Michael R. Hathaway (Alpha), 320 pages, $16.95
By discovering your past lives, you can unlock the secret influence they have on your present one – enabling you to enjoy greater balance, success and happiness. This updated and revised Second Edition includes a stronger focus on understanding past lives so readers can find balance in the present and move forward in the future. It includes a new chapter on understanding relationships from the past, new information on twin flames and parallel lifetimes, and Soul Memory Healing Exercises to help resolve past-life issues.

Downward Dog, Upward Fog – A Novel, by Meryl Davids Landau (Alignment Publishing Co.), 285 pages, $15
Lorna Crawford has a great boyfriend, longtime friends, and a well-paying job as special-events coordinator at a premium ice-cream manufacturer. But, out of sorts and filled with self-doubt, the 33-year-old soon realizes that what she really wants is to stay on the spiritual path she keeps diving off of. Lorna jump-starts her efforts at a silent yoga retreat. But after returning from the mountain, she quickly loses her connection in the face of scheming co-workers, judgmental girlfriends, and, especially, her overly critical mother. Lorna also wrestles over her future with her boyfriend, a hot guy who takes her to the hottest places, but who can’t discern a meditation cushion from a toad stool. Reading spiritual books and visiting a channeler and energy healer move Lorna forward, but her confusion remains. Lorna’s seeking is put to the ultimate test when personal tragedy strikes. Will she come to truly understand that living spiritually has little to do with how you pretzel yourself on the yoga mat (although she gets plenty good at that), and everything to do with embracing the twists in everyday life?

The Essential Guide to Healthy Healing Foods, by Victoria Shanta Retelny and Jovanka JoAnn Milivojevic (Alpha Books), 400 pages, $19.95
The Essential Guide to Healthy Healing Foods provides readers with expert knowledge on foods that can help them achieve optimal health, and treat and prevent various diseases – foods that have the power to improve their well-being. Included are a multitude of healthful, whole food options for various conditions, such as heart disease, certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, sleep disorders, memory problems, allergies, PMS, migraines, and arthritis. Learn ways to incorporate  more healthful foods and eating behaviors into your day to boost and replenish your well-being.

Fearlessness in the 2012 Paradigm Shift, by Christine Breese (University of Metaphysical Sciences), 250 pages, free download: http://www.umsonline.org/2012/2012Pgs/2012-Book/Fearlessness-In-The-2012-Paradigm-Shift.html
Fearlessness In The 2012 Paradigm Shift is a book to help you deal with the challenges and changes that are going to become evident very soon for humanity as December 21, 2012 comes closer. While University of Metaphysical Sciences adheres to no particular belief about this date over any other view, it does desire to help those who have questions about how to survive, deal with and handle the 2012 Paradigm Shift. It is possible to live fearlessly even during these times when fear will seem unavoidable. You can choose how you want to feel and live with peace during a time when many will be displaced, upset, confused and terrorized. You are the helpers and the healers during times of crisis, and being fearless is the first step in fulfilling your role to others around you as they deal with things they never thought possible.

If Only God Would Give Me a Sign! by Linda M. Potter (Bibliocast), 224 pages, $16.95
If Only God Would Give Me a Sign! is a delightful read, from the Erma Bombeck of Metaphysics – Linda M. Potter – of inspirational how-to’s (and how-not-to’s) in finding meaning in everyday signs. You encounter the literal and subtle signs along the journey of this entertaining, anecdotal, and light-hearted smorgasbord of personal stories, life lessons and encounters with “signs.” As you set out in search of spiritual guidance, you begin your discovery of signs, and life transforms itself from the mundane to the divine. If you’re ready to lighten up a little about spiritual enlightenment, this book’s for you.

Ignite Your Psychic Intuition: An A to Z Guide to Developing Your Sixth Sense, by Teresa Brady (Llewelyn Worldwide), 288 pages, $14.95
Designed for people with busy lives, Ignite Your Psychic Intuition presents quick and easy techniques for sparking your intuitive abilities and using them to enhance your life every day. This innovative guide simplifies psychic development with step-by-step exercises and engaging true stories from the author’s own experiences. Designed in an A-to-Z format, this book offers twenty-six practical teaching tools, one for each letter of the alphabet. You’ll discover the five main types of intuitive communication – clear seeing, hearing, touching, feeling, and knowing – and learn how to use simple practices such as white light bathing, energy scans, directed dreaming, chakra cleansing, and crystal gazing to empower and illuminate your life.

I’m Not Dead, I’m Different: Kids in Spirit Teach Us about Living a Better Life on Earth, by Hollister Rand (Harper), 288 pages, $14.99
When Hollister Rand became a psychic medium to children who had died, she soon discovered their young, opinionated spirits still had a lot to say to those left behind. Rand was initially puzzled as to why young spirits wanted to speak through her – as she had no children of her own and the responsibility of talking with people who had lost theirs seemed too great to bear. But the compelling answers came with time and patience: No one finds death more inexplicable than a grieving parent, thus no spirits are more motivated to make sense of it all for those they’ve left behind than young ones. These spirits clearly want to heal broken hearts and deepen our understanding of life and death. Through Rand, young spirits talk freely about how to make sense of murder, suicide and accidental deaths. They also discuss the different ways relationships on both sides can be mended, how the intergenerational cycle of abuse and addiction can be stopped, and how “joy guides”– miscarried and aborted children – can actually help those they’ve left behind move forward.

Minding Closely: The Four Applications of Mindfulness, by B. Alan Wallace (Snow Lion Publications), 368 pages, $24.95
The ability to sustain close mindfulness is a learned skill that offers profound benefits in all situations. This book explains the theory and applications of the practice the Buddha called the direct path to enlightenment. By closely minding the body and breath, we relax, grounding ourselves in physical presence. Coming face to face with our feelings, we stabilize our awareness against habitual reactions. Examining mental phenomena nakedly, we sharpen our perceptions without becoming attached. Ultimately, we see all phenomena just as they are, and we approach the ground of enlightenment. Bringing in his experience as a monk, scientist and contemplative, Alan Wallace offers a rich synthesis of Eastern and Western traditions, along with a comprehensive range of meditation practices interwoven throughout the text. The guided meditations are systematically presented, beginning with very basic instructions, which are then gradually built upon as one gains increasing familiarity with the practice.

Natural Abundance: Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Guide to Prosperity, edited by Ruth L. Miller (Atria Books / Beyond Words), 240 pages, $14
While Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essays on transcendentalism and nature are well known, few know the powerful truths he shared that can make our lives more satisfying and fulfilling today. Dr. Ruth L. Miller, a cultural systems scientist and New Thought minister, interprets a few essential essays that tell us how the world always responds to our thoughts, words and actions, and what we can do to ensure that our life is truly joy-filled in all aspects. In clear, simple language, she gives us a direct sense of what Emerson felt, saw, and struggled to share with his fellow human beings. Natural Abundance makes the hidden treasures of Emerson’s wisdom accessible to 21st century readers. Through it, this great man’s alignment of his heart’s knowing and his intellect’s understanding can lead all of us to a more abundantly fulfilling life, today.

The Real Men in Black: Evidence, Famous Cases, and True Stories of These Mysterious Men and Their Connection to the UFO Phenomena, by Nick Redfern (New Page Books), 256 pages, $15.99
Who are the “Men in Black”? In the blockbuster Hollywood movie of the same name, they were fictional characters. In real life, they are fearsome individuals who attempt to silence the witnesses of UFO and other paranormal phenomena. In his latest blockbuster book, bestselling author Nick Redfern reveals the hidden world of these notorious government operatives. He documents their origin and lays out classic cases, previously unknown reports and secret government files, while laying out the many theories that explain the mystery. Read the story of Albert Bender, the first man to claim an encounter with Men in Black, learn about the involvement of Men in Black at Loch Ness, and in the Mothman saga in the town of Point Pleasant, WV.

Train Your Brain to Get Happy: The Simple Program that Primes Your Gray Cells for Joy, Optimism, and Serenity, by Teresa Aubele, Stan Wenck and Susan Reynolds (Adams Media), 245 pages, $16.95
In Train Your Brain to Get Happy, neuroscientist Dr. Teresa Aubele and psychologist Dr. Stan Wenck draw upon the very latest research to  show you how to program your brain for happiness. From firing up your neurons and flooding them with your body’s own “happy” chemicals to feeding your brain the vitamins and supplements proven to enhance mood and serenity, you’ll learn how to rewire yourself for bliss – from the cellular level up. This groundbreaking guide helps lay the groundwork for brain restructuring that will make lead to new levels of happiness, satisfaction, and peace.

Coming in September:

Ego: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity, by Peter Baumann and Michael W. Taft (NE Press), 255 pages, $24.95, www.egothebook.com
Ego: The Fall of the Twin Towers and the Rise of an Enlightened Humanity is the first book to explore the positive evolutionary potential hidden in one of the most destructive events in history. In their examination of the evolutionary implications of 9/11 and its aftermath, the authors contend we are not falling into the grip of a new dark age at all, rather we are on the verge of a much brighter one as the Darwinian process of natural selection continues to advance humankind. Using the latest research from neuroscience, evolutionary biology, psychology, and paleontology, Baumann and Taft show that modern humanity may be on the verge of an expansion of cognitive abilities akin to the development of the ego. This next step will free the human mind to see beyond the confines of the prison, and open the vast potential of conscious awareness.

Devoted

Stripped of pretense and camouflage, trees, like human beings, are bare bones and spirit. They grow, stretch, ache, bend and break; they provide protection and comfort. Throughout our lives we remain fascinated by the aesthetic beauty of these dynamic sculptures of nature. We feel their spiritual energy. We sense their wisdom.

Trees seem to make their strongest appeals to the human spirit when the leaves have fallen away from their bones. Faces of bark and fiber that have been hidden all summer suddenly laugh out loud and bellow their lust for life. The spaces between the branches reveal their true spirit, reminding us that without spaces in our own lives we may miss the most important and poignant moments.

Show Off

Trees are great teachers of time and space. When we quiet ourselves enough to see and feel the spaces, we might also notice that trees can show us how to live, how to celebrate, how to age with dignity, and yes, even how to die — all with a sense of serenity, honor and place — if we let them. That is the essence of the HumaniTrees exercise.

I’d like you to meet some of my teachers:

Pompous

Pompous — The forest’s politician has a lot of ideas and he’s not afraid to share them. Now, this could also be a baritone letting loose his woodsian opera titled, “This Beautiful Autumn Day Will Never Be Repeated.” Again, you see what you see when you see it.

Enlightened

Enlightened — Bending back, arms outstretched as if in celebration of a sudden and unexpected (aren’t they all?) epiphany, this forest dweller accepts the full warmth and light of the winter sun. There is a feeling of gratitude, well-being and overwhelming happiness in its presence.

Intrepid

Devoted — This sweet old couple has but a short time left in their present form, and they are spending it in celebration of their life and time here together. It is the ultimate Anniversary Waltz, perhaps their 50th, 75th or maybe 100th. It will endure forever in spirit, in the eternal now.

Intrepid — It stands on the ridge in fearless anticipation of another great day on the frontier outpost. There is nothing this adaptable creature has not seen and nothing it cannot survive.

Show Off — There’s one in every crowd.

Proud — Stout, weathered and facing the light, this tree makes its stand with all the pride of an eagle and the alertness of a hawk. As with so many venerable characters, we feel a comfortable assurance that something great is here, a higher consciousness present on a different plane, to be sensed but not accessed, for we are not equipped to understand. Like so many peoples and cultures before us, we are free to ignore it, acknowledge it, respect it, and worship it.

Proud

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

August 18, 7:30 p.m. – Anders Nilsen discusses his graphic novel Big Questions – A haunting postmodern fable, Big Questions is the magnum opus of Anders Nilsen, one of the brightest and most talented young cartoonists working today. This beautiful minimalist story, collected here for the first time, is the culmination of ten years and more than 600 pages of work that details the metaphysical quandaries of the occupants of an endless plain, existing somewhere between a dream and a Russian steppe. A downed plane is thought to be a bird and the unexploded bomb that came from it is mistaken for a giant egg by the group of birds whose lives the story follows. The indifferent, stranded pilot is of great interest to the birds – some doggedly seek his approval, while others do quite the opposite, leading to tensions in the group. Nilsen seamlessly moves from humor to heartbreak. His distinctive, detailed line work is paired with plentiful white space and large, often frameless panels, conveying an ineffable sense of vulnerability and openness. Big Questions has roots in classic fables – the birds and snakes have more to say than their human counterparts, and there are hints of the hero’s journey, but here the easy moral that closes most fables is left open and ambiguous. Rather than lending its world meaning, Nilsen’s parable lets the questions wander where they will. Anders Nilsen lives in Chicago. He has a BFA in painting and illustration from the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He is the author of Dogs and Water and Don’t Go Where I Can’t Follow.

August 26, 7:30 p.m. – Steve Brezenoff launches his new novel Brooklyn, Burning – When you’re 16 and no one understands who you are, sometimes the only choice left is to run. If you’re lucky, you find a place that accepts you, no questions asked. And if you’re really lucky, that place has a drum set, a place to practice, and a place to sleep. For Kid, the streets of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, are that place. Over the course of two scorching summers, Kid falls hopelessly in love and then loses nearly everything and everyone worth caring about. Brooklyn, Burning is a fearless and unconventional love story that addresses the challenges of teens questioning their gender or sexuality. Throughout the entire book, Brezenoff never identifies the gender of his two main characters, leaving readers to draw their own conclusions about Kid and Scout. Steve Brezenoff is the author of two young adult novels, The Absolute Value of -1 and Brooklyn, Burning (both published by Minneapolis-based Carolrhoda Lab, an imprint of Lerner Publishing Group). Born in Queens, Steve spent much of his twenties and early thirties living in Brooklyn. He writes about Greenpoint, the northern-most Brooklyn neighborhood, in vivid and unmistakable detail. Steve left his apartment in Greenpoint when he moved to Minnesota with his dog, Harry. It was in that apartment that he proposed to his wife, Beth (the reason he moved to Minnesota). He lives in St. Paul with Beth, their son, Sam and Harry.

August 29, 7:30 p.m. – James Reeves discusses The Road to Somewhere: An American Memoir – One day James A. Reeves realized that he no longer understood his country or what he should be doing in it. There was a time when the road to manhood was clear – go to war, find a job with a big company, wear a tie, and start a family – but then the wars got strange and companies changed. He decided to go for a drive to clear his head. What resulted is a scattershot journey spanning five years, 40,000 miles, twelve speeding tickets, and several moments of unexpected kindness through the neon corridors and dark corners of America. James A. Reeves is a writer, educator and designer. He has taught courses in design, research, history and visual culture at Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design. He lives in New Orleans.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

July 12, 7:30 p.m. – Brad Herzog discusses Turn Left at the Trojan Horse - “Go away. Figure it out,” she was saying. “Don’t come back until you do.” She looked at the calendar. “You have thirty-one days.” With these words, like Helen of Troy launching a thousand ships across the Aegean, Brad Herzog’s wife launched a Winnebago Aspect onto the open road. A modern-day Odysseus in Kerouac clothing, Brad Herzog plunges into a solo cross-country search for insight. With middle age bearing down on him, he takes stock: How has he measured up to his own youthful aspirations? In contemporary America, what is a life well lived? What is a heroic life? From the foothills of Washington’s Mount Olympus, through the forgotten corners of America, and finally to his college reunion in Ithaca, New York, Brad shares his personal odyssey. Stopping in classically named towns, he meets everyday heroes, including a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Troy, OR; a modern-day hobo in Iliad, MT; and a bomb-squad soldier in Sparta, WI. These encounters and Brad’s effortlessly infused musings make for an exciting, one-of-a-kind ride.

Brad Herzog lives on California’s Monterey Peninsula with his wife and their two sons. Lonely Planet has ranked his travel memoirs among eight classics of the genre, along with books like Travels with Charley and On the Road. As an award-winning freelance writer, he has chronicled some of the nation’s most unusual and intriguing subcultures, from nudists to North Pole explorers and from Pez collectors to pro mini golfers. Learn more at www.bradherzog.com.

July 14, 7:30 p.m. – Thatcher Imboden and Cedar Phillips discuss Lyn-Lake - Minneapolis history comes alive in hundreds of historic photographs. Thatcher Imboden and Cedar Imboden Phillips draw upon both private and public collections to bring together a fascinating compilation of seldom-seen images from Lyn-Lake’s long and often quirky past. The Lyn-Lake area of Minneapolis, centered around the intersection of Lyndale Avenue and West Lake Street, is one of the city’s most distinctive neighborhoods. The core commercial district is one of the oldest in South Minneapolis, thanks in part to its strategic location along several early streetcar lines. A rail line along 29th Street, now the Midtown Greenway, brought an industrial element to the neighborhood and provided additional jobs for the thousands of residents who lived in the surrounding houses and apartment buildings. As the neighborhood evolved, it took on a distinctive bohemian bent and filled with a diverse mix of artists, musicians, and writers living side by side with blue-collar industrial workers, along with those who worked at professional office jobs downtown. Lyn-Lake retains its unique flavor today, characterized by its blend of both the historical and the cutting edge.

Cedar Phillips is an author and an independent historian. Thatcher Imboden is a local business district leader and a Minneapolis commercial real estate development specialist. The siblings grew up in the area and together authored Uptown Minneapolis, also in Arcadia Publishing’s “Images of America” series.

July 15, 7:30 p.m. – Sapphire reads from her novel The Kid - Fifteen years after the publication of Push, one year after the Academy Award-winning film adaptation Precious, Sapphire gives voice to Precious’s son, Abdul. A story of body and spirit, rooted in the hungers of flesh and of the soul, The Kid brings us deep into the interior life of Abdul Jones. We meet him at age 9, on the day of his mother’s funeral. Left alone to navigate a world in which love and hate sometimes hideously masquerade, forced to confront unspeakable violence, his history, and the dark corners of his own heart, Abdul claws his way toward adulthood and toward an identity he can stand behind. In a generational story that moves with the speed of thought from a Mississippi dirt farm to Harlem in its heyday; from a troubled Catholic orphanage to downtown artist’s lofts, The Kid tells of a 21st-century young man’s fight to find a way toward the future. A testament to the ferocity of the human spirit and the deep nourishing power of love and of art, The Kid chronicles a young man about to take flight. In the intimate, terrifying, and deeply alive story of Abdul’s journey, we are witness to an artist’s birth by fire.

Sapphire is the author of two collections of poetry and the bestselling novel Push. The film adaption of her novel, Precious (2009), received the Academy Award for Best Screenplay and Best Supporting Actress, in addition to the Grand Jury Prize and Audience Awards in the U.S. Dramatic Competition at Sundance. In 2009 she was a recipient of a United States Artist Fellowship. She lives in New York City.

Books that support Body, Mind & Soul

LOCAL AUTHORS

The Promise of Surfing Rainbows: Opening Your Energy Flow Attracts a Treasured Life, by P.D.M. Dolce (Balboa Press), 236 pages, $23.95
Positive thinking can go a long way, but how do we translate our thoughts into true change in our lives? The Promise of Surfing Rainbows, a new book by P.D.M. Dolce, reveals the crucial link between two widely accepted methods for improving life, resulting in an approach that can bring immediate results. The Promise of Surfing Rainbows shows exactly how to use the energy inside and around you to intentionally create the life of your dreams. Knowing how to “surf rainbows” means knowing how to combine the Law of Attraction with Energy Alignment. The first has been proven by quantum physics; the latter comes from ancient wisdom used in healing for centuries. P.D.M. Dolce is a pen name for the book’s co-authors, Dale Brunner of Eau Claire, WI, and Pam Sullivan of Worcester, United Kingdom. They met on a bus at a conference; Brunner had read just about every self-help book imaginable but hadn’t found the success he dreamed of, and Sullivan had nearly given up on her desperate attempts to have children. “We began a conversation about life that has lasted for six years and endured over thousands of miles,” Sullivan says. “As we shared information with each other, it became clear that something was missing from all the self-help books we had read. We set about finding what that ‘something’ was.”

What Really Works: Blending the Seven Fs for the Life You Imagine, by Paul Batz and Tim Schmidt (Beaver’s Pond Press), 145 pages, $20
The new book by local authors Paul Batz and Tim Schmidt examines key elements that bring satisfaction to life: Faith, Family, Finances, Fitness, Friends, Fun and Future. Through thousands of surveys, research and personal interviews, Paul and Tim explore compelling and powerful personal stories from real people who rate their life satisfaction levels high. This crisply written book is digestible in one airplane ride or one beach chair sitting. These stories will energize you to think about your own sense of satisfaction with the Seven Fs, and will help you build strategies to lead the life you imagine.

NEW BOOKS

Financial Recovery: Developing a Healthy Relationship with Money, by Karen McCall (New World Library), 224 pages, $14.95
Twenty-seven years ago, Karen McCall hit rock bottom. Though she looked successful, her finances were a catastrophe — she had a large and growing pile of unopened and unpaid bills on the top of her refrigerator, and she was perilously close to living on the streets. “I had been living in a ‘money coma,’ completely unconscious of my finances until desperate circumstances finally roused me,” she said. “I had to discover what had led to my problems so that I wouldn’t find myself in this situation ever again.” She went on to found the Financial Recovery Institute, where she has spent more than 20 years working with individuals and groups with difficulty managing money. Financial Recovery is full of tested, powerful methods to create a new healthy relationship with money.

The Four Purposes of Life: Finding Meaning and Direction in a Changing World, by Dan Millman (New World Library), 144 pages, $17
In his first work of new teachings in 12 years, beloved author and teacher Dan Millman faces life’s fundamental questions. You know. The big ones. The ones that keep us awake (or wake us up) at night: Why am I here? What am I meant to do? What is my purpose? What am I not understanding? Why does this keep happening? How shall I spend The. Rest. Of. My. Life? “I wrote The Four Purposes of Life,” Millman says, “to offer perspective and encouragement for anyone seeking deeper insight into themselves and their lives, but especially for those at a crossroads or transition, facing a challenge or change, when our past approaches no longer work.”

Falling Into Grace, by Adyashanti (Sounds True), 234 pages, $24.95
Adyashanti asks us to let go of our struggles with life and open to the full promise of spiritual awakening: the end of delusion and the discovery of our essential being. In his 15 years as a spiritual teacher, Adyashanti has found that the simpler the teaching, the greater its power to change our lives. In Falling into Grace, he shares what he considers fundamental insights that will “spark a revolution in the way we perceive life.” Falling into Grace is a book that gets to the core of why we suffer.

A Book of Dibbles: Stories that Inspire the Soul (CreateSpace) 177 pages, $12.99
A Dibble is a unique illumination that defies definition. Ever gone cloud riding? Had a meaningful conversation with a leaf? Found peace in a bubble? Communicated without words? Good for you! You’re probably a Dibbler, then. Prepare yourself for Angels in human and canine forms, trees dispensing ancient Wisdom and a wise rock spouting life Energy. Dibbles are delectable morsels of wisdom, honesty and humor that delight and inspire from Spirita, the voice in all of us speaking from our soul. Spirita is the Twinkle you see when you connect with someone. Spirita is the Twinkle you feel when you get excited inside or gooey all over. Spirita is the Twinkle you hear when a voice or music or nature communicates in special ways. Spirita is not a person or a face or a shape or an object to see or hold. Spirita is your Soul announcing your presence and welcoming inspirations. Spirita is Awareness Transformed to Being.

In Search of the Light, by Leonard Jacobson, illustrated by Fiammetta Dogi, (Conscious Living), 30 pages, $16.99, available at www.leonardjacobson.com
In Search of the Light is a 1,500-word children’s picture book for ages 4 and up. The rhyming dialogue tells an enchanting story of animals in the meadow who experience a sudden eclipse of the sun. Not knowing what has happened, they believe that somehow the sun has lost its way, and they are concerned that it could mean the end of light. Considering the situation to be most urgent, they form an expedition of four who journey to unknown places in search of the source of the light. This uplifting, suspense adventure — beautifully illustrated by Italian illustrator Fiammetta Dogi, who lives in Florence — invites an independence of spirit, encouraging the return to love and oneness and strength within.

The Well That Never Runs Dry, by Joann Davis (HarperOne), 140 pages, $19.99
After a package from an antiquarian bookshop in Frankfurt, Germany, arrives in Dorset, VT, the recipient finds that it contains a mysterious note and a rare book. Efforts to translate the work result in The Well That Never Runs Dry, a journey of discovery and a companion to The Book of the Shepherd. In the tradition of Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist, Joann Davis’ The Well That Never Runs Dry is a remarkable tale of faith, hope and love. Author James Redfield writes, “…Joann Davis delivers another parable of immense power and transformation…Want to have your life changed? Read this book.”

The Pot Book: A Complete Guide to Cannabis: Its Role in Medicine, Politics, Science and Culture, edited by Julie Holland (Park Street Press), 551 pages, $19.95
The Pot Book offers a compendium of the most up-to-date information and scientific research on marijuana from leading experts, including Lester Grinspoon, M.D., Rick Doblin, Ph.D., Paul Armentano and Raphael Mechoulam. Also included are interviews with Michael Pollan and Andrew Weil, M.D. Encompassing the broad spectrum of marijuana knowledge from stoner customs to scientific research, this book investigates how humanity and cannabis have co-evolved for millennia; the brain’s cannabis-based neurochemistry; the complex politics of cannabis law; its potential medicinal uses for cancer, AIDS, Alzheimer’s, multiple sclerosis, and other illnesses; its role in creativity, business, and spirituality; and the complicated world of pot and parenting.

The Flying Drum, by Bradford Keeney (Atria), 304 pages, $24
In The Flying Drum, author and therapist, Bradford Keeney, presents evidence of real mojo — magical objects and practices from around the globe that have an authenticated history of healing, transformation and inspiration. Whether it is a flying drum, dancing doll, vanishing pot, magical drawing, Samurai pillow, divining sticks, mystery book or Amazonian feather, the mojo of ancient heart-medicine can appear at social service agencies, university clinics and psychotherapy centers to help transform people’s lives and heal their souls. As a modern mojo doctor and therapist, Keeney helps everyday people with real problems by working with the ancient, living mojo in sacred objects. In this book he offers specific prescriptions for taking a journey that introduces a treasure chest of magical experience capable of bringing authentic magic and wonder into everyday life.

Shine in Kashmir, by D. Chris Castagna (Amerincan Publishing), 533 pages, $26.78, available on Amazon.com
The novel, Shine in Kashmir, follows young Justin Conrad on his travels through India. Fresh off a Fulbright Scholarship in Sri Lanka, he delves into the travel life searching for companions, romance and greater spiritual truth. A cross between The Celestine Prophecy and The Beach, this book is a spiritual adventure novel that delves into tantra, Peruvian shamanism, Buddhism, hermetic philosophy, tarot, Ba Gua, plant-spirit medicine and other traditions.

Authenticity Accelerator: How to Live an Authentic Life in Ten Words, by Robert Rabbin, (RealTime Speaking), 122 pages, $15
After more than 40 years of intense self-study through a variety of spiritual disciplines, seven books, and more than 200 articles, Robert Rabbin has distilled what he has learned into the Five Principles of Authentic Living, comprising ten simple words — two words per principle. Robert is a groundbreaking speaker, author, leadership adviser and self-awareness teacher who has written a “scripture” for authentic living. It is wise, practical, and accessible. It’s deceptive simplicity is packed with what global futurist John Renesch calls “high-density wisdom.” Ten words that offer every reader instant access to their own source of wisdom, with which they can create their own vibrant, authentic life.

The Secret Life of Water, by Masaru Emoto (Atria), 224 pages, $16.99
The first step toward protecting the earth and water is to focus on our prayers. It is Masaru Emoto’s hope to bring the world closer to peace through the use of water and prayer. Now available in paperback, The Secret Life of Water guides us along water’s remarkable journey through our planet and continues his work to reveal water’s secret life to humankind. Emoto shows how we can apply its wisdom to our own lives, and how, by learning to respect and appreciate water, we can better confront the challenges that face the 21st century — and rejuvenate the planet. Water has a memory and carries within it our thoughts and prayers. As you yourself are water, no matter where you are, your prayers will be carried to the rest of the world.

Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life, by Jillian Michaels (Crown Archetype) 272 pages, $26
Bestselling author and TV health and wellness expert Jillian Michaels takes her expertise on the topic of self-transformation to the next level with Unlimited, which explains how to lose the chains that are holding you back by building your inner strength. A life-changing motivational force on The Biggest Loser, Michaels uses her new book to help readers overcome the emotional land mines and self-doubt that weigh people down. “Many self-help books tell you what to achieve,” she says, “but they don’t give you particularly useful tools for how to achieve it. New Age platitudes and sappy self-help mantras aren’t how it works, and you know it. A lifetime’s worth of struggle is not overturned in a moment of positive thinking. But if you have the right attitude and skills, you can and will accomplish anything you want.”

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

Thursday, May 12, 7:30 p.m. — Catherine Friend reads from Sheepish: Two Women, Fifty Sheep & Enough Wool to Save the Planet – Discover the advantages of having sheep as the planet’s “self-propelled lawn mowers” and the scary truth behind “wrinkle free” clothing as Catherine Friend reveals what it really means to be sheepish — and why it might not be such a bad thing after all. What do you do when you love your farm…but it doesn’t love you? After 15 years of farming, Catherine Friend is tired. After all, while shepherding is one of the oldest professions, it’s not getting any easier. The number of sheep in America has fallen by 90 percent in the last ninety years. But just as Catherine thinks it’s time to hang up her shepherd’s crook, she discovers that sheep might be too valuable to give up. What ensues is a funny, thoughtful romp through the history of our woolly friends, why small farms are important, and how each one of us — and the planet — would benefit from being very sheepish, indeed. Catherine Friend is the author of Hit by a Farm and The Compassionate Carnivore, as well as seven children’s books and three novels. She farms in Minnesota with her partner of 27 years.

Sunday, May 15, 4 p.m. — Six authors from Wising Up Press discuss their writing about health, wellness, love, and spirituality – Wendy Brown-Baez, Patricia Barone, Emilio De Grazia, Benjamin Doty, Jane Levin and Mary Kay Rummel will discuss:

• Double Lives, Reinvention & Those We Leave Behind — We frown upon double lives, but laud reinvention as the perpetual rebirth of our best self. But are these two states so very different for us as we live them?
• Families: The Frontline of Pluralism — The difficulties of living up close and personal with diversity — of sensibility, race, culture, class, or religion — is the subject of the stories, memoirs, and poetry in this anthology.
• Illness & Grace, Terror & Transformation — In this anthology of personal memoirs, stories, and poetry contemporary writers explore themes of illness and trauma and the wide variety of ways in which we respond to them.
• Love After 70 — What is love, in all its forms, like after 70? If you didn’t know most of these writers were over 70, you would not think so as you listen to their most personal of voices.
• View from the Bed, View from the Bedside — Thirty-eight contemporary writers explore with memoir, story, and poetry the different ways we talk about, to — and through — each other at the doctor’s office, hospital or sickbed.

Wednesday, May 18, 7:30 p.m. — Gen Kelsang Drubwang discusses Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom (by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso) – Geshe Kelsang Gyatso’s book Modern Buddhism is a dynamic and comprehensive presentation of Buddha’s teachings, including practical explanations on how to attain lasting happiness and freedom from problems for ourselves and others. With clear and accessible language, Gyatso guides the reader from the fundamentals of Buddhist meditation and philosophy and offers practical advice to solve daily problems. His inspiring handbook for daily practice is designed for those seeking solutions within Buddhism to the problems of everyday life, as well as to encourage people of all faiths to deepen their understanding and enjoyment of the spiritual paths. Gen Kelsang Drubwang is a resident teacher at the Akanishta Buddhist Center in Madison, WI.

Thursday, May 19, 7:30 p.m. — Rebecca Rasmussen reads from her debut novel The Bird Sisters – The inspiration for The Bird Sisters came to Rebecca Rasmussen while reading her grandmother Kit’s journals. Kit lost both her parents at age 17, just after a crisis revealed the failings in their marriage. As she grew older, she grew away from her only sister, Virginia. This novel is Rasmussen’s imaginings of what could have been, had Kit and Virginia learned to cling to each other rather than turn away. Milly and Twiss weren’t always two old spinsters known to everyone in Spring Green, WI,  as the Bird Sisters. There was a time when people called Milly “Goldilocks” because of her beautiful hair, and Twiss played Lewis and Clark on the course with her golf-pro father. Rebecca Rasmussen’s masterfully written debut novel, The Bird Sisters, takes readers though the routines of a single day in the lives of these elderly sisters, from waking up in their childhood beds to sharing a glass of ice tea on the porch of the wind-worn house they grew up in.  Their minds are fixed on the summer of 1947, the summer their Cousin Bett came down from Deadwater, MN, to stay and nothing was ever the same again.  The two narratives twist and turn like the Wisconsin River, ultimately revealing how the sisters’ hearts came to be broken and why they have spent their lives healing birds and sometimes people. Rebecca Rasmussen teaches creative writing and literature at Fontbonne University. Her stories have appeared in Triquarterly magazine and the Mid-American Review. She was a finalist in both Narrative magazine’s 30 Below Contest for writers under the age of thirty and Glimmer Train’s Family Matters Contest. She lives with her husband and daughter in St. Louis.

Sunday, May 22, 4 p.m. — Martin Kihn reads from Bad Dog (A Love Story) – All dogs are allowed when Martin Kihn reads from his comic novel Bad Dog (A Love Story). Hola is a nightmare, but it’s not her fault if she tackles strangers and chews on furniture, or if she runs after buses and fried chicken containers and drug dealers. No one ever told her not to. Hola may be the most beautiful Bernese mountain dog in the world, but she’s never been trained. At least not by anyone who knew what he was doing. Hola’s supposed master, Marty, is a high-functioning alcoholic. A TV writer turned management consultant, Marty’s in debt and out of shape; he’s about to lose his job, and one day he emerges from a haze of peach-flavored vodka to find he’s on the verge of losing his wife, Gloria, too, if he can’t get his life — and his dog — under control. Martin Kihn is a writer, digital marketer, dog lover, balletomane and spiritual athlete. He was born in Zambia, grew up in suburban Michigan, has degrees from Yale and Columbia Business School. His articles have appeared in New York, the New York Times, GQ, Us, Details, Cosmopolitan, and Forbes, among many others, and he was on the staff of Spy, Forbes, New York, and Vibe. More information is available at www.martinkihn.com.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

Monday, April 4, 7:30 p.m. — Jay Walljasper discusses All That We Share: A Field Guide to the Commons. All That We Share is a wake-up call that will inspire you to see the world in a new way. As soon as you realize that some things belong to everyone — water, for instance, or the Internet or human knowledge — you become a commoner, part of a movement that’s reshaping how we will solve the problems facing us in the 21st century. Edited by award-winning journalist Jay Walljasper, All That We Share is an indispensable introduction to fresh ideas that touch all of us. Filled with practical solutions for today’s economic, political, and cultural issues, it’s a much-needed and thoroughly accessible field guide to the new world of the commons. Including success stories from communities across the country and around the world, this book is for anyone seeking new ways of thinking about our shared values. Jay Walljasper is co-editor of its website, OnTheCommons.org. He is also a contributing editor of National Geographic Traveler, Senior Fellow at Project for Public Spaces, an Associate of the Citistates group and a cities columnist for Shareable.net. He was editor of Utne Reader for 15 years, during which the magazine was nominated three times for a National Magazine Award for General Excellence. He is author of The Great Neighborhood Book and co-author of Visionaries. He writes widely about travel, cities, ecology and politics.

Tuesday, April 5, 7:30 p.m. — Wendy Brown-Baez and Diego Vazquez Jr. read from their new poetry. Wendy Brown-Báez is a writer, teacher, performance poet and installation artist. She has facilitated writing groups since 1994. She has managed shelters for the homeless and visited incarcerated adults and teens. She is trained as a hospice volunteer and as a facilitator of Monologue Life Stories. In 2008, she received a McKnight grant to teach a bilingual writing workshop with at risk youth and in 2009, a McKnight grant to develop a writing workshop with impoverished youth into an art installation, both provided through COMPAS Community Art Program. She is the author of Ceremonies of the Spirit, a full-length collection of love poems published by Plain View Press in 2009 and chapbook transparencies of light, forthcoming from Finishing Line Press, 2011. Learn more at www.wendybrownbaez.com. Diego Vasquez Jr. is known as “the Grandfather of Poetry Slams.” He writes poems to flowers, birds, rocks, rivers & salmon, and even people. Vázquez was born in Chicago and raised in El Paso, Texas. His books include Growing Through the Ugly (1997), a novel about a Chicano Vietnam War vet killed in action, and Twelve Branches: Stories from St. Paul (Coffee House Press, 2003). For more information, visit www.diegovazquezjr.com.

Wednesday, April 6, 7:30 p.m. — Philip Connors reads from Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout. Nearly a decade ago, Philip Connors ditched his job as an editor at the Wall Street Journal to spend his summers sitting in a glass-walled perch, 10,000 feet above sea level, watching for smoke. As a fire lookout, Connors follows in a venerable literary tradition — Jack Kerouac, Edward Abbey, Norman Mclean, and Gary Snyder were all firespotters — and in Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout (available April 5), Connors writes with eloquence and awe about his unusual job and the mythic landscape he watches. “The life of a lookout,” Connors writes, “is a blend of monotony, geometry, and poetry, with healthy dollops of frivolity and sloth. It’s a life that encourages thrift and self-sufficiency, intimacy with weather and wild creatures. We are paid to master the art of solitude, and we are about as free as working folk can be. To be solitary in such a place and such a way is not to be alone. Instead one feels a certain kind of dignity.” Philip Connors has worked as a baker, a bartender, a house painter, a deliveryman, and an editor at the Wall Street Journal. His writing has appeared in Harper’s, the Paris Review, n+1, and in Dave Egger’s Best Nonrequired Reading anthology. Originally from Minnesota, he now lives in New Mexico with his wife and their dog.

Friday, April 8, 7:30 p.m. — Sam Lipsyte reads from The Ask. Milo Burke, a development officer at a third-tier university, has “not been developing”: after a run-in with a well-connected undergrad, he finds himself among the burgeoning class of the newly unemployed. Grasping after odd jobs to support his wife and child, Milo is offered one last chance by his former employer: he must reel in a potential donor — a major “ask” — who, mysteriously, has requested Milo’s involvement. But it turns out that the ask is Milo’s sinister college classmate Purdy Stuart. And the “give” won’t come cheap. Probing many themes–or, perhaps, anxieties–including work, war, sex, class, child rearing, romantic comedies, Benjamin Franklin, cooking shows on death row, and the eroticization of chicken wire, The Ask is a burst of genius by a young American master who has already demonstrated that the truly provocative and important fictions are often the funniest ones. Sam Lipsyte is the author of the story collection Venus Drive (named one of the top 25 books of its year by the Voice Literary Supplement) and two novels: The Subject Steve and Home Land, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the first annual Believer Book Award. He lives in New York.

Wednesday, April 13, 7:30 p.m. — Rae Meadows reads from her novel Mothers and Daughters, a rich and luminous novel about three generations of women in one family: the love they share, the dreams they refuse to surrender, and the secrets they hold. Samantha is lost in the joys of new motherhood, but she is still mourning another loss: her mother, Iris, died just one year ago. When a box of Iris’s belongings arrives on Sam’s doorstep, she learns that her grandmother Violet left New York City as an 11-year-old girl, traveling by herself to the Midwest in search of a better life. But what was Violet’s real reason for leaving? And how could she have made that trip alone at such a tender age? Moving back and forth in time between the stories of Sam, Violet, and Iris, Mothers and Daughters is the spellbinding tale of three remarkable women connected across a century by the complex wonder of motherhood. Rae Meadows is the author of Calling Out, which received the 2006 Utah Book Award for fiction, and No One Tells Everything, a Poets & Writers Notable Novel. She lives with her husband and two daughters in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Learn more at www.RaeMeadows.com.

Thursday, April 28, 7:30 p.m. — Matthew Logelin reads from Two Kisses for Maddy: A Memoir of Loss and Love. Matt and Liz Logelin were high school sweethearts. After years of long-distance dating, the pair finally settled together in Los Angeles, and they had it all: a perfect marriage, a gorgeous new home, and a baby girl on the way. Liz’s pregnancy was rocky, but they welcomed Madeline, beautiful and healthy, into the world on March 24, 2008. Just twenty-seven hours later, Liz suffered a pulmonary embolism and died instantly, without ever holding the daughter whose arrival she had so eagerly awaited. Though confronted with devastating grief and the responsibilities of a new and single father, Matt did not surrender to devastation; he chose to keep moving forward — to make a life for Maddy. In this memoir, Matt shares bittersweet and often humorous anecdotes of his courtship and marriage to Liz; of relying on his newborn daughter for the support that she unknowingly provided; and of the extraordinary online community of strangers who have become his friends. Born and bred in Minnesota, Matt Logelin was a project manager at Yahoo! until he left the company to focus on writing this book and raising his daughter, Madeline. The two live in Los Angeles, traveling often to see as much of the world as possible. Visit them at www.mattlogelin.com.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

• Monday, March 7, 7:30 p.m. — Ron Tanner will discuss the new book Kiss Me, Stranger. He will be joined by local graphic artist Lars Martinson, author of Tonoharu. Featuring over fifty illustrations by the author, Kiss Me, Stranger is a comical and tragic commentary on war, violence and consumerism. Set in an unnamed country sometime in the past, present or future, Kiss Me, Stranger is the story of one woman’s attempts to keep her family together while a civil war rages around her. Ron Tanner’s awards for fiction include a Faulkner Society gold medal, a Pushcart Prize, a New Letters Award first prize, a Best of the Web Award, and many others. His stories have appeared in dozens of literary magazines, including The Iowa Review, West Branch, and the Quarterly. His collection of stories, A Bed of Nails, won both the G.S. Sharat Chandra award and the Towson Prize for Literature. He teaches writing at Loyola University in Baltimore, MD, and directs the Marshall Islands Story Project (mistories.org).Lars Martinson’s Tonoharu (Parts One and Two) tell the story of Dan Wells, an assistant junior high school teacher in the rural Japanese village of Tonoharu. Isolated from those around him by language and cultural barriers, he leads a solitary existence, until the day an unrequited crush extends him a dinner invitation. What follows shakes up Dan’s quiet life and expands his social circle into unexpected quarters. But do these new associates exert an influence that is beneficial, or detrimental? Lars Martinson was born on Mother’s Day, 1977. He has met a princess, seen a five-legged cow, and eaten raw octopus eggs. From 2003 to 2006 he taught English in Fukuoka, Japan through the Japan Exchange and Teaching Program. In 2007 he received the prestigious Xeric Grant for his graphic novel Tonoharu: Part One. He lives in Minneapolis. You can learn more at www.larsmartinson.com.
• Sunday, March 13, 4 p.m. — Sharon Chmielarz & Dylan Garcia-Wahl read from their new poetry. Sharon Chmielarz’s fifth collection poetry is a cornucopia of small, lyric poems on various topics, encompassing Chopin and Pushkin, dolphins and cows, zippers and gourds, bar scenes and garden scenes. Dylan Garcia-Wahl’s poetry weds romanticism with a thoroughly modern sensibility. In Becoming, the poet travels from jazz bars to the Ganges, from the Boundary Waters to the boudoir, subtly tracing the outlines of the human condition.
• Tuesday, March 15, 7:30 p.m. — Peter Grandbois reads from his novel Nahoonkara. Set simultaneously in the farm country of Wisconsin and a small mining town in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado during the 19th century, the new novel by Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” and Border’s “Original Voices” author Peter Grandbois follows the lives of three brothers as each strives to re-create himself despite the forces that work to determine his identity. Though told from the point-of-view of many characters, the novel revolves around Killian, the oldest of the three, as he attempts to recapture a childhood as ephemeral as a dream. While Killian’s brother Henry strives to make the town prosperous and his brother Eli prays to maintain the town’s spiritual center, it becomes clear as the novel progresses that the center will not hold. Violence, lust and greed tear at the fabric of the town until the only possibility for healing arrives in the form of a snowfall that lasts for three months, burying the town. Peter Grandbois is the author of The Gravedigger (Chronicle Books, 2006), a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” and Borders “Original Voices” selection as well as the hybrid memoir, The Arsenic Lobster (Spuyten Duyvil, 2009). His essays and short fiction have appeared in magazines such as: Boulevard, Narrative, Post Road, Gargoyle, Zone 3, Eleven Eleven, The Denver Quarterly, Word Riot, Pindeldyboz, and The Writer’s Chronicle, among others, and have been short listed for the Pushcart Prize. He serves as associate editor for Narrative magazine and is an assistant professor at Denison University in Ohio.
• Thursday, March 24, 7:30 p.m. — Joshua Foer discusses Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything. Joshua Foer tells how he changed from chronically forgetful science journalist to U.S. Memory Champion. On average, people squander 40 days annually compensating for things they’ve forgotten. Joshua Foer used to be one of those people. But after a year of memory training, he found himself in the finals of the U.S. Memory Championship. Even more important, Foer found a vital truth we too often forget: In every way that matters, we are the sum of our memories. Moonwalking with Einstein draws on cutting-edge research, a surprising cultural history of memory, and venerable tricks of the mentalist’s trade to transform our understanding of human remembering. Under the tutelage of top “mental athletes,” he learns ancient techniques once employed by Cicero to memorize his speeches and by medieval scholars to memorize entire books. Using methods that have been largely forgotten, Foer discovers that we can all dramatically improve our memories. Joshua Foer has written for National Geographic, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Slate.
• Saturday, March 26, 7:30 p.m. — Steve Healey and Matthew Zapruder read from their poetry. Fluid, lively, and referential, 10 Mississippi samples language from many cultural tributaries, performing sequels of celebrated 20th-century poems, riffing on advertising slogans, tongue twisters, formulaic news reports, and everyone’s favorite twenty-six-letter sentence, “The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.” Like the proverbial river that is never the same twice, Steve Healey’s poems channel the constant transformation of the modern world and embrace the human drama in a way that makes them a joy to read and revisit. Steve Healey is the author of Earthling and most recently 10 Mississippi. His essays and criticism have appeared in the Writer’s Chronicle and Rain Taxi, and his poems have appeared in the anthology Legitimate Dangers: American Poets of the New Century and the journals American Poetry Review, Boston Review, jubilat, and others. He currently divides his time between Minneapolis, and East Lansing, MI, where he teaches creative writing and literature at Michigan State University.Come On All You Ghosts, Matthew Zapruder’s third book, mixes humor and invention with love and loss, as when the breath of a lover is compared to “a field of titanium gravestones / growing warmer in the sun.” The title poem is an elegy for the heroes and mentors in the poet’s life — from David Foster Wallace to the poet’s father. Zapruder’s poems are direct and surprising, and throughout the book he wrestles with the desire to do well, to make art, and to face the vast events of the day. Matthew Zapruder is the author of two previous books, including The Pajamaist, which won the William Carlos Williams Award and was honored by Library Journal with a “Best Poetry Book of the Year” listing. He lives in San Francisco and is an editor at Wave Books.

At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

March 3, 7:30 p.m. — Scott Edelstein discusses his new book, Sex and the Spiritual Teacher: Why It Happens, When It’s a Problem, and What We All Can Do.

Sex and the Spiritual Teacher is for anyone who is or might become part of a spiritual community: students, teachers, clergy, lay leaders, and even casual visitors. It’s a reader-friendly, no-nonsense guide to making spiritual life safer and fuller for all of us — one person, relationship, and community at a time.

Scott Edelstein has studied happily and productively with several spiritual teachers, including Toni Packer, Dainin Katagiri, Tim McCarthy, and (currently) Steve Hagen. As the friend of several spiritual teachers, he has also spent much time with them “off duty,” sometimes serving as confidant. He is a longtime practitioner of both Buddhism and Judaism, and a committed proponent of serious spirituality in all forms and traditions. Scott’s short work on spiritual topics has appeared in Shambhala Sun, American Jewish World, The Writer, the anthology What About God?, and elsewhere. He is also the author of 15 other books on a wide range of subjects. Learn more at www.sexandthespiritualteacher.com.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

January 21, 7:30 p.m. — Heidi Durrow reads from The Girl Who Fell From the Sky — This searing and heart-wrenching portrait of a young biracial girl dealing with society’s ideas of race and class — winner of the Bellwether Prize for best fiction manuscript addressing issues of social justice — will be available in paperback on January 11. Rachel, the daughter of a Danish mother and a black G.I., becomes the sole survivor of a family tragedy after a fateful morning on their Chicago rooftop. Forced to move to a new city, with her strict African American grandmother as her guardian, Rachel is thrust for the first time into a mostly black community, where her light brown skin, blue eyes, and beauty bring a constant stream of attention her way. It’s there, as she grows up and tries to swallow her grief, that she comes to understand how the mystery and tragedy of her mother might be connected to her own uncertain identity.

January 27, 7:30 p.m. — Three authors of the Minnesota-based poetry press Lowbrow Press read from their new books: Matt Mauch, MC Hyland, and Brad Liening. Among the laundromats, VFWs, parking lots, and backyard cookouts of Matt Mauch’s Prayer Book are humorous portraits of vulnerability warring with a kind of I-don’t-want-to-wilt-too-much strength. Mauch teaches writing and literature in the AFA program at Normandale Community College. The poems in  MC Hyland’s Neveragainland construct a poetics of space, evoking films, maps, magazines, homes — things with plots, markers, events. Hyland lives in Minneapolis, where she runs DoubleCross Press and the Pocket Lab Reading Series, and works at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts. Author Gregory Lawless writes that “the poems in Brad Liening’s Ghosts and Doppelgängers offer up a surrealist melting pot full of oozing, bubbling, nightmarish Americana. They sound like Emma Lazarus on acid; like Thomas Paine and Eric Bogosian playing Exquisite Corpse exquisitely; like a young Charles Simic guest hosting TMZ.” Liening is a graduate of the University of Michigan and the University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and he lives in Minneapolis.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

November 10, 7:30 p.m. – Gene Stone discusses The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick - He will be joined by special guest Dan Beuttner, author of The Blue Zones and Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way. Gene Stone is a bestselling health-savvy journalist who’s investigated virtually every form of regimen, diagnostic test, therapy and fad. His new book The Secrets of People Who Never Get Sick is a fascinating and original book of science. In it, Stone tells the stories of 25 people who each possess a different secret of excellent health – and shows how we can all use these insights to change our lives for the better. From probiotics to veganism to a daily dose of garlic, from yoga to cold showers, it’s an invaluable list: 25 secrets to health, and how to make each work for you. Gene Stone is a writer, journalist and former Peace Corps volunteer. He’s written and/or ghostwritten more than 30 books, most recently the national bestseller The Engine 2 Diet, with Rip Esselstyn; his articles and columns have appeared in New York, Playboy, Esquire, Vogue, Elle and GQ. He lives in New York City.

November 21, 4 p.m. – Michael Fischman discusses Stumbling Into Infinity: An Ordinary Man in the Sphere of Enlightenment - Stumbling Into Infinity is the intimate and sometimes startling account of Michael Fischman’s spiritual journey and the encounter that changed his life forever. His story opens on a flight to India, as he reflects on the unusual chain of events that led him from a challenging childhood to his unexpected role as friend and helper to a renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader. Fischman’s fascinating and personal memoir takes us into the compassionate and mysterious world of an enlightened seer. It is a compelling narrative that blends remarkable experiences with an inner struggle and search for meaning. Fischman is a leader in the field of personal development. He is a founding member and current president of the U.S. Art of Living Foundation, a global non-profit educational and humanitarian organization, and is also the CEO of the APEX course, the corporate training division of the International Association for Human Values, an NGO founded by spiritual leader and humanitarian Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. “Michael Fischman’s journey,” Deepak Chopra says, “reveals how fears and negative emotions can be transformed into love, compassion and higher consciousness when a student has an authentic relationship with a wise teacher.”

November 22, 7:30 p.m. – Dan Buettner discusses his new book Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way – In Thrive: Finding Happiness the Blue Zones Way (National Geographic Books), New York Times bestselling author and explorer Dan Buettner reports on the surprising findings from his five-year global study on the keys to personal happiness. In addition to sharing his extraordinary accounts of the happiest people on the planet, Buettner examines how their unique lifestyles correlate to their extraordinary well-being. Finally – and most importantly – Buettner details how to incorporate these powerful characteristics into our daily routine so that we, too, can thrive. The National Geographic Society sent Buettner on assignment to the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark; the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon; the town of San Luis Obispo in California; and the island of Singapore, a region known for its draconian justice system. To unravel the complicated mystery of how each of these four geographic pockets, and specifically their culture, geography, government policies and behavior of their thriving citizens, stack the deck in favor of happiness, Buettner began his research plumbing the most comprehensive databases – tens of millions of data points collected over the past 70 years and representing 95 percent of the world’s population – to determine which factors most directly impact happiness. Buettner’s National Geographic cover story on longevity, “The Secrets of Living Longer,” was one of the top-selling issues in history and a made him a finalist for a national magazine award. His 2008 book, The Blue Zones, hit the New York Times bestseller list.

November 30, 7:30 p.m. – Michael Nordskog and Aaron W. Hautala discuss The Opposite of Cold: The Northwoods Finnish Sauna Tradition – Beginning with the origins of Finnish sauna and arrival of the practice to North America, and continuing all the way to contemporary design, The Opposite of Cold is an exquisite commemoration of the history, culture, and practice of Finnish sauna in the north woods. With stunning photographs of unique and historic saunas of the region – including the oldest sauna in North America, incredible surviving saunas from immigrant farmsteads, and the gorgeous contemporary saunas from noted architects – Michael Nordskog and Aaron W. Hautala unveil the importance and beauty of sauna culture in modern Midwestern life. Richly illuminated by Hautala’s photographs of distinctive saunas from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ontario and Finland, The Opposite of Cold is for people who grew up with Wednesday and Saturday evening saunas (or watched their steaming neighbors running toward the lake) and for those who dream of one day having their own. Through this book we see why Finnish sauna tradition is vital and enduring, from the warmest summer evenings to the coldest winter nights. Michael Nordskog grew up in the heart of North American sauna country. He works as an attorney, writer and editor, and he lives with his wife and three children in Viroqua, WI. Aaron W. Hautala is the creative director and owner of RedHouseMedia in Brainerd, MN. He has helped launch a variety of magazines and was the founding art director at Lake Country Journal. His photographs have appeared widely throughout Minnesota.

at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

October 8, 7:30 p.m. – Three authors of experimental fiction – Adam Golaski, John Cotter and Alan DeNiro – read from their work.

• Adam Golaski’s latest novel, Color Plates, is a museum, alive in the now crystallized brain of a sort-of Mary Cassatt. She’s dead, you know. Four rooms of Mary’s museum are open to the public, and they are named Éduoard Manet, Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, and Mary Cassatt. Each room exhibits little stories – plates – drawn from real paintings by the painters who are the rooms’ namesakes. Adam Golaski is the author of the short story collection Worse Than Myself (Raw Dog Screaming Press, 2008) and the editor, with Matthew Klane, of the anthologies A Sing Economy and Oh One Arrow from Flim Forum Press. He is also the editor and publisher of New Genre, an annual journal of literary and experimental horror and science fiction.
• John Cotter’s first novel, Under the Small Lights, was published this June by Miami University Press. Under the Small Lights traces five twentysomethings through two years of fights, hopes and fallout, the different roles they try, and the surprising way their natures betray those roles. Under the Small Lights addresses the doubtful possibility of collective love and the painful experiences which, once having endured them, we wouldn’t be without. John Cotter is a founding editor of the online magazine Open Letters Monthly, an arts & literature review dedicated to thoughtful and unbiased arts writing: new reviews, essays, poems, and blogs. John has published fiction and poetry in Volt, Hanging Loose and other journals.
• Alan DeNiro is the author of a collection of short stories (Skinny Dipping in the Lake of the Dead) and a novel (Total Oblivion, More or Less). Booklist said of Total Oblivion, “There aren’t many writers who take weirdness as seriously as DeNiro does, and fewer still who can extract so much grounded emotion, gut-dropping humor, and rousing adventure from it. A dizzying display of often brilliant, always strange, and definitely unique storytelling.”

October 9, 7:30 p.m. -  Two Poets: John Tottenham reads from The Inertia Variations, and Brian Beatty reads from his chapbook DUCK!

• When the original edition of The Inertia was published in 2005, it was hailed as “a terrific collection” by the Guardian, “quiescent genius” by Mojo Magazine, and “comedy gold” by 3AM Magazine, and turned poet John Tottenham into something of a minor celebrity in his neighborhood. Now a new edition, packed with fresh material and including a lengthy addenda, is available, twice as long and satisfying as the original. A multimedia interpretation of The Inertia Variations by English musician Matt Johnson (otherwise known as The The) is currently in production and a series of short 16mm films, directed by actor Adam Goldberg, will soon be making the rounds at film festivals.
• Brian Beatty’s writings have appeared in numerous print and online publications, including Conduit, elimae, The Evergreen Review, Exquisite Corpse, Gigantic, Gulf Coast, Hobart, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, METRO, mnartists.org, Opium, Phoebe, The Quarterly, The Rake and Seventeen. He was a grand prize winner of the 2009 miniStories contest, and is a frequent guest of the Rockstar Storytellers and Talking Image Connection reading series. He made his solo performance debut at the 2010 Minnesota Fringe Festival with “The Big Four Oh: 40 Jokes, Poems and Stories” by Brian Beatty.

October 10, 4 p.m. – Ann Mullaney discusses the Renaissance poet Teofilo Folengo - Local scholar Ann Mullaney takes us back to the Italian Renaissance. She will discuss her work translating Teofilo Folengo, an extraordinary writer who lived at the same time as Machiavelli and Michelangelo. Folengo is best known for the epic poem “Baldo,” named for its protagonist. Baldo is a smalltown thug with the heart of a knight. He and his ragtag band of friends drink and gamble, and fight police, pirates, witches, and demons. In 1527, Teofilo Folengo published a fascinating semi-autobiographical book called the Chaos of Triperuno (“Three-in-One”). We meet the protagonist at his conception, and witness his development as he struggles to form a single coherent self from among Folengo’s other established selves: Merlino (bon vivant bard, homosexual, prophet, priest and author of the epic Baldo and polemical letters, etc.); Limerno (feisty heterosexual court troubadour, author of the 1525 Orlandino); and Fulica (theologian, celibate hermit). These personae hold lively discussions on the meaning of life, love, fame, sex, language and much more. Folengo’s work has long been unavailable to readers of English. Ann Mullaney published the first English translation in 2007 as part of the I Tatti Renaissance Library from Harvard University Press. For more information, visit www.teofilofolengo.com.

October 12, 7:30 p.m. – Peter Smith reads from A Porch Sofa Almanac – Peter Smith lives in Hopkins, MN, and is a weekly contributor to Minnesota Public Radio’s Morning Edition with Cathy Wurzer. A Porch Sofa Almanac is the first collection of Smith’s essays for MPR – stories that keep close to the ground and reflect on the common experiences of being a Minnesotan: small-town football, stacks of Hudson’s Bay blankets in an antique store, ice fishing, and even those soggy gloves that emerge from melting snowbanks each spring. Following the calendar year, Smith’s reflections are the perfect season-by-season companion for that chair by the fireplace, a bench by the campfire, a seat on the bus or train – or, of course, a porch sofa. A Porch Sofa Almanac is a hilarious, often wry, and always remarkable portrait of everyday life in the Land of 10,000 Lakes that will resonate with Minnesotans from the state’s biggest cities to its smallest towns.

October 24, 4 p.m. – Laurie Ellis-Young discusses from Friendship: The Art of the Practice – Laurie Ellis-Young leads a mini-workshop on partner yoga. It will be experiential for those who want to join in, but still enjoyable for those who would simply like to watch. Laurie’s simple practices that anyone can do include:

• Eye exercises that can help us learn to focus on the best in ourselves and the best in our friends.
• Simple neck rolls for relaxation and better communication between the brain and the body. The focus would be on the importance of communication with our own selves and with our friends.
• Practices for letting go of irritations and the tendency to become easily irritated.

Friendship: The Art of the Practice by Laurie Ellis-Young & Nancy Chakrin pairs stunning photographs of women, ages 10-100, practicing yoga in beautiful settings around the world with inspiring quotes celebrating friendship. Laurie Ellis-Young has been teaching yoga and breath work for over 30 years. Nancy Chakrin, a talented photographer, artist, and breast cancer survivor, is the person behind the camera lens. Together Laurie and Nancy share a special message of inspiration in their book.

The following author events will take place at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

• September 12 at 4 p.m. - Julie Doxsee and Paula Cisewski, two great poets – one from Istanbul, one from Minneapolis – read from their new poetry. Born in London, Ontario, Julie Doxsee is a professor of writing and literature at Koc University in Istanbul, Turkey. She is the author of Objects for a Fog Death (Black Ocean, 2010) and Undersleep (Octopus Books, 2008). Ghost Fargo, the second poetry collection by Paula Cisewski, was chosen by Franz Wright for the 2008 Nightboat Poetry Prize and released in the spring of 2010. She is also the author of Upon Arrival (Black Ocean, 2006).

• September 16 – William Gibson, the author of the cult hits Neuromancer and Mona Lisa Overdrive, returns with a new novel, Zero History. Gibson will meet fans and sign copies of his new novel at 5 p.m. at Magers & Quinn, and he will read from his new novel Zero History at 7:30 p.m. at The Minneapolis Central Library, Pohlad Hall, 300 Nicollet Ave. S., followed by Q & A and booksigning. Tickets ($5) for this reading are available at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

Gibson is the author who coined the term “cyberspace” and whose novel Mona Lisa Overdrive sparked the cyberpunk movement. His new novel Zero History is set in the present day, but is no less visionary and thought-provoking. Hollis Henry worked for the global marketing magnate Hubertus Bigend once before. She never meant to repeat the experience. But she’s broke, and Bigend never feels it’s beneath him to use whatever power comes his way – in this case, the power of money. When a Department of Defense contract for combat-wear turns out to be the gateway drug for arms dealers so shadowy that even Bigend, whose subtlety and power in the private sector would be hard to overstate, finds himself outmaneuvered and adrift in a seriously dangerous world. Gibson lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, with his wife. He is the author of Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive, Burning Chrome, Virtual Light, Idoru, All Tomorrow’s Parties, Pattern Recognition, and Spook Country.

• September 19 at 4 p.m. - Poets Richard Terrill and Joyce Sutphen will read from their new poetry. Terrill reads from his new collection of poems Almost Dark. Terrill’s previous collection of poems, Coming Late to Rachmaninoff, received the Minnesota Book Award for Poetry, and his memoir Saturday Night in Baoding won the Associated Writing Programs Award for nonfiction. His essays and poems have appeared in journals including North American Review, Tampa Review, Iowa Review, Fourth Genre, River Teeth, and New Letters. He has taught as a Fullbright professor in China, Korea, and Poland, and currently teaches writing in the MFA program at Minnesota State University, Mankato.

Joyce Sutphen grew up on a farm near St. Joseph, MN, and currently lives in Chaska. Her book, Coming Back to the Body, was a finalist for a Minnesota Book Award, and Naming the Stars won a Minnesota Book Award in Poetry. Her most recent book is First Words (Red Dragonfly Press, 2010).

• October 4 at 7:30 p.m. – Sena Jeter Naslund reads from her latest novel Adam & Eve. One of the most imaginative and inspired writers of our time, Sena Jeter Naslund delivers her most ambitious and encompassing tale yet. The New York Times bestselling author of Ahab’s Wife, Four Spirits, and Abundance returns with an audacious and provocative novel that envisions a world where science and faith contend for the allegiance of a new Adam & Eve. When Thom Bergmann discovers extraterrestrial life with his wife, Lucy, they fear that the world is not ready for proof of life elsewhere in the universe. Upon Thom’s untimely – and highly suspicious – death, Lucy keeps the secret, until Thom’s friend, anthropologist Pierre Saad, contacts Lucy with an unusual and dangerous request about another sensitive matter. Pierre needs Lucy to help him smuggle a newly discovered artifact out of Egypt: an ancient codex concerning the human authorship of the Book of Genesis. Offering a reinterpretation of the creation story, the document is sure to threaten the foundation of the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions…and there are those who will stop at nothing to suppress it. A native of Birmingham, AL, Naslund is a Distinguished Teaching Professor and Writer in Residence at the University of Louisville; program director of the Spalding University brief-residency MFA in Writing. A winner of the Harper Lee Award for Distinguished Writers, she is the author of seven previous works of fiction.

Editor’s note: The author of this interview, a noted publicist, passed away suddenly shortly after submitting this piece for publication. We honor the passion and love that he shared throughout his life.

The Barn Dance is James Twyman’s 13th book, and his most personal to date. Though known internationally as The Peace Troubadour and the author of many bestselling books like Emissary of Light and The Moses Code, the Twin Cities native became even more well known when the news of his former wife’s murder outside Chicago was reported around the country. Nearly five years later, Twyman is releasing a book that not only chronicles the tragedy, but dives into the mystery of life after death, and direct communication with loved ones on the other side of the veil.

The book has already been called a triumph, and in the few short weeks since its release, has inspired thousands. Neale Donald Walsch, the author of The Conversations with God series, said: “Once in every generation a book comes along that changes the way we look at life itself. This is one such book.”

Now, in this very personal interview, Twyman explains why he felt inspired to tell such an intimate story, as well as how he thinks it will help people who are also suffering from the loss of a loved one.

First of all, it must have been a very difficult story to tell. Clearly Linda meant a great deal to you and you felt compelled to honor her memory through The Barn Dance.
James Twyman: Linda did mean a tremendous amount to me. She was my first love and I never stopped trying to win her back. She was actually considering moving out to Oregon to be with our daughter and me when she was killed.

You’re right when you say that I wanted to honor her with this story, but there’s also a deeper reason. I wrote this book because I knew that everyone would be able to relate to it, regardless of whether they’ve suffered a similar type of loss or not. We’ve all had to say goodbye to loved ones, and we’ve all had to experience grief in our lives. But the idea that there really is a magical place in-between Heaven and Earth is very deep in our subconscious. We all would love to meet someone we’ve lost, someone who is on the other side of the veil, and The Barn Dance is a way for us to realize that dream.

There seems to be a large word-of-mouth campaign happening around this book. Are you finding that people are passing the book on once they’ve read it?
JT: That’s been one of the most satisfying things about the experience so far – all the positive feedback I’ve been getting. I’ve received so many letters from people saying that they couldn’t put it down once they began reading, often from people who say they rarely finish books they begin. They’re also passing it on once they’ve finished reading, which is what any author wants. That’s how a book becomes a best seller, by touching an emotional chord in people. I think of The Shack, an enormous bestseller that never really had any advertising. It was all through word of mouth. Of course I hope the same thing happens here, because I think it’s a story that will both entertain and inspire. I didn’t want to write a book about life after death. I wanted to write one about my experience, one that deeply impacted my life. And if people relate to my experience, then it will be a big success.

You mentioned The Shack, which was a huge success. Are there any correlations between that book and The Barn Dance?
JT: No, I really don’t think there are. Both books begin with the protagonist experiencing the murder of someone very important to them, but I have to say that that’s where the similarity ends. At the same time, The Shack challenged the way people view God and our relationship with the Divine. In that sense, they have a similar theme. The Barn Dance is really challenging our ideas about what happens when we cross over, and the possibility that we can have true, even face-to-face contact with the loved ones we’ve lost. In my story I find a place where Heaven and Earth seem to blend together and people from the other side find their way back to the physical world, even if it’s just to have a great party.

Has anyone told you that you might be taking advantage of her death by writing this book?
JT: It’s something that I’ve tried to be aware of, even though I’m very secure in my reasons for releasing The Barn Dance. First of all, this is a story that will inspire people, and one that they probably won’t be able to set down. That was my primary objective…to show that death is not an end, but a beginning. But the other reason is definitely more personal. I wanted to write a book that would honor the woman who changed my life and taught me about love and how to be a good father. I also hope that it will continue to bring attention to a case that is still very much unsolved. That’s one of the reasons I’m very interested in getting The Barn Dance into every bookstore in Chicago, as well as around the world.

The story really develops when you find out that someone has been arrested for her murder. Is that true?
JT: Yes, it’s very true. And yet at the same time, the police are being very careful, which we all understand. One of the things I was really impressed with was how personally the police and detectives were taking this case. It was almost as if Linda was their sister, as if the same thing could have happened to someone they love.

How much of this story is actually true? It’s one of the most magical books to be released in a long time, but there are bound to be questions about whether this is fact or fiction.
JT: That’s a hard question to answer since the story takes place at different times and on different dimensions. To me it’s completely true, and I’m never going to back down from that. What I can say for sure is that every detail about Linda and my life with her is not exaggerated, and as far as the barn goes, that’s something people are going to be asking about for a very long time.

If there’s only one lesson you hope people walk away with after reading this book, what would it be?
JT: I want people to believe in magic, and to know that life is not something that ends with the death of the body. Of course, most of us believe that already, at least mentally, but to have a tangible experience of that, even if it’s through a story like The Barn Dance, makes it very real. I really do believe that there’s a place between Heaven and Earth where the magic never ends. For me that was in a secluded barn in the middle of a magical forest. For the rest of us, it could be anywhere and everywhere. We just have to open our eyes to see it.

Internationally known book publicist Kathryn Hall, who was instrumental in promoting such seminal books as Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain and Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, writes a highly popular gardening blog, “Plant Whatever Brings You Joy!” She is now the author of the book, Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden (Estrella Catarina), in which she shares 52 life lessons from the garden. This is a continuation of her interview with us about her work as a publicist, author and blogger.

In your work as a publicist, do you have a sense that the media reflects what the general public really wants, or does the general public drive the media?
KH: I think the media – and I would include publishing as part of that – has been profoundly arrogant. I remember a really long time ago listening to a panel of publishing people from New York saying, “We don’t really care what the people think, we’re the ones who make the decisions.” I thought that was profoundly arrogant. I think that has changed, because we’re now all reporters because of social media, Facebook and Twitter. We’re all so much more woven together.

The media shifted to relying (reluctantly) on iReports during the Green Movement on the streets of Iran. Nothing has been the same since that event. If they wanted to tell the story, the media were suddenly compelled to rely on people on the street getting messages and images through on cellphones. And that event legitimized the reporter on the street. I participated in this firsthand by spending two full weeks, several hours a day, passing along images and messages from people in the streets of Iran to the public, via Twitter. It was a very intense time, but enormously important and very empowering for citizens seeking change in repressive conditions. I was glad to have helped.

CNN was saying, “Well, these are the only images we have.” And they were kind of apologetic and embarrassed because they were iReports, but then somehow they had to legitimize it and now they’re using it regularly. Just within the last year that has shifted dramatically. They are now competing with the individual. They can’t do those power things anymore. It’s not going to work.

How did promoting such books as Creative Visualization and Way of the Peaceful Warrior influence your life?
KH: I don’t think it was an accident that the first book that I was asked to promote was Creative Visualization. I was there at the inception of that publishing company (New World Library). Shakti was basically self-publishing her book. She did exactly what I am now doing. They hired me and said, “Be the publicist.” We were all winging it and figuring it out in this house in Mill Valley (CA), so long ago.

Shakti and Marc Allen were teaching workshops and they said, “Maybe we should write this down.” They did another book first, called Reunion, before I came around and before they actually started the publishing company. Then Shakti did Creative Visualization and they said, “Promote this book!” At least I had a degree in English. I had something to rely upon, and I was innovative, and I had background in booking because I had been a professional singer in Europe, so it worked.

Creative Visualization was important to me because I was already doing that, but once I read Shakti’s book I thought, “Oh, okay.” It solidified what I was already doing. It brought to full consciousness how I was already living my life. It connected the dots in a much more solid way.

Dan Millman was just part of the scene at the time. He was published by H.J. Kramer, and I promoted some books for them. Dan’s always been in the background in my life somehow. We’re very similar in certain ways. We’re both Pisces. He’s just part of my extended network, but also I like him very, very much. He’s a wonderful person.

When did you get the inkling that a book was in the works for you personally?
KH: I got the idea for the book when I was completing a major task in my life, which was raising my daughter as a single parent. I was so ready to just be by myself. She went off to college and I went to live in the woods next to the ocean in a very quiet place. I looked around where I had brought myself – to Little River, just south of Mendocino (125 miles north of San Francisco) – and I thought, “I need to start a garden.” This was 20 years ago. I started seeing that what was true about working with the earth was also true in my life, so I started taking notes, and then I started writing.

Clearly you are a natural storyteller, and if you don’t mind I’ll mention some topics and I’d love to hear a condensed version of a story related to that. First, describe a special relationship you have with a special plant.
KH: The first thing that comes to mind is nasturtium. I always have nasturtium around me, always. It’s a very simple, very happy flower, and it comes mostly in oranges and yellows and reds. It grows in almost any kind of soil, so it is completely adaptable. It doesn’t care, it’s not fussy, but it gives so much. It has a charming energy around it and it always makes people happy. You grow it in big bunches, so it just fills up the space and it climbs and it twines around things and has its own mind and people always respond to it favorably. They always just stop and look at it and they love it. You can even eat it. You can put the flowers in salads. Apparently you can eat the leaves. I have done neither, but I know it’s a possibility. I always have this little survival thing in the background of my mind: “Well, if it gets bad I can eat the nasturtium.”

Describe your connection to chickens. You seem to like them.
KH: I love chickens. There is the story in my book about Chanticleer, a rooster that I found when I was living on four acres of land up near Santa Rosa, CA. At the bottom of the dirt road where we lived, this rooster shows up with a partner, and the neighbors were just so completely blasé about it. I couldn’t believe it.

I was like, “It’s a rooster!”

They went, “Yeah, so?”

I started feeding him. Within days, I went down and there were just feathers everywhere so I knew his little partner had been captured in the middle of the night by an owl or a hawk. There were so many things that could have eaten it. But I was worried about the rooster. So I put a cage at the bottom of the road and put some corn inside the cage, which he really wanted, and then I tied a string to the door. Eventually he was so hungry and wanted the corn so much that he went into the cage and I pulled the string and captured him and got help to bring him home.

I just loved him. He was beautiful. He was a bantam, so he wasn’t that big, but I was scared to pick him up because I didn’t know if he would bite me. I knew that some roosters were mean. Eventually I found a 4-H guy to come to my house and he showed me how to pick him up. Upside down.

So his name was Chanticleer. And then I got a beautiful bantam hen for him, whom I named Henny Penny. They were so utterly charming. They would scratch around in the daytime and then at night I had to keep them safe someplace, right? So I put them in a dog kennel and popped the dog kennel in the back of my Explorer so that nothing could get them, which was pretty funny, but it worked. I had them until I moved to North Carolina and then I had to very tearfully give them to a neighbor.

Are chickens loyal? If you let them out during the day will they stay around your house and not run away?
KH: No, they never tried to run away. They stayed right by the house. I was always worried because there were turkey vultures and hawks everywhere, but they would hide. They are intuitive and would hide under bushes. I just loved them. They were just so dear. I love chickens so much. I think it stems from when I was a little girl and had chickens.

And for the animal-lover in you, you must tell us about Sweet Pea, the kitten.
KH: Oh, Sweet Pea. Sweet Pea came to us out of the woods. I always say, “The woods giveth and the woods taketh away.” That’s what I think. If you live in the woods, you know what I am talking about.

Sweet Pea came and was sitting in the driveway, and I told Moxie, my Border Collie, to chase her back into the woods because I didn’t want her fighting with my outdoor cats. But she didn’t. She rolled up on a step and put her feet up in the air, and I thought, “Oh, God, she’s got rabies of something. This is not good!”

And so I called my dogs in the house, and I just watched her. And then, of course, I put food out to see what would happen, and she came closer and ate. Eventually she would let me get maybe 10 feet away. I would sneak up on her, and I played this game with her for days and days, trying to build trust with her.

Then one day I found her asleep in the sun. She was a little kitten, not very big, and I said, “Kitty?” And she didn’t move. So I said it louder, and she didn’t move. I clapped my hands and I said, “Kitty!” Then I realized that she was completely deaf. That’s why she’d been throwing her head around and acting so strangely. The only way she could protect herself was to slink around.

This went on for six weeks, just very slowly getting her to trust me. One day I took these feathers and tied them to a stick and stuck them underneath the cabin. There was a guesthouse on that property where she used to hide underneath. I stuck the feathers underneath and she was grabbing at them, and I thought, “Okay, this is kind of scary, but this is good,” and then she came out and she let me pick up her little feet. She’s still with me. Sweet Pea has been an incredibly loving addition to my life.

Tell us why scarves now mean more to you than they ever did before.
KH: It was my experiment, a very unexpected result in exploring the possibilities of using a blog for a social project. I read the book Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time. I can’t remember how I learned about it, but I was really inspired by Greg Mortenson’s experience in Pakistan, starting schools in Pakistan for girls. If you haven’t read it, you should. I couldn’t get it out of my heart. Somehow, it just really captured my imagination and my heart and I wanted to help those girls.

I had already reviewed the book on my blog, and I wrote to my readers and said, “What if we knitted some scarves for those girls?” I thought maybe I would get a dozen scarves, but what happened is that people kept writing to me from all over the world, from the UK, from Canada and from all over the United States, asking, “How big? What should we use?” I got this amazing response, and then I’m going to the post office and every day or two I’m getting another beautiful scarf from someone from somewhere. That was extraordinary until I had about 100 scarves. Then I had the task of how was I going to get them to Pakistan.

I contacted Greg Mortenson’s office and I thought they would say, “Oh, that’s wonderful,” but they didn’t. They said, “We can only take cash.”

I thought, “Oh, God, what have I started? How will I do this?”

So, I went online and I found Nazir Sabir, the head of the Alpine Club of Pakistan. He is wonderful. I read that he had experience in helping to get supplies to earthquake victims. I wrote to him and he said, “I would love to help you with this.” We packed everything up and then I had to raise money to send the package. People sent me checks, and my next door neighbors gave me $100 and made me cry. It was so sweet, this elderly couple next door.

We mailed the scarves to Pakistan, but then they couldn’t get through because the Karakoram Highway was closed for winter. So those 100 scarves sat with Nazir Sabir for a many months, and when the snow melted they took them up to Askole village where we were sending them. I managed to connect with a woman who was a doctor from Italy who worked in a tiny clinic in Askole village. When she was able to get through the Karakoram Highway and up to Askole village, she wrote me to say, “The girls are coming into the clinic and they are telling me how much they love the scarves.” Oh, it was so dear, so dear. So, that was an incredibly moving experience and shows the power of using a blog for social change.

What is your next project?
KH: I’m not completely committed, but I have a feeling what it will be. There is a big sign in this town where I live that says, “Future Home of Skateboard Park,” but that sign has been there for five years. I’ve been talking to the kids on the street who are on skateboards, saying, “What’s the story with this skateboard park?” What the locals are telling me is they have been talking about it for decades. Because I am a person who makes things happen, I told them, “I can’t do it this year, I’m working on a book, but next year I’m going to get this skateboard park built!” So, let’s see if my inner guidance agrees with that assessment and I make it happen.

I think little boys should have a place to safely come together and not be risking their lives on the streets and being chased out of parking lots. The land is there; let’s build it.

Internationally known book publicist Kathryn Hall, who was instrumental in promoting such seminal books as Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain and Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman, has led a rich life full of friendship, travel, motherhood, and a love of animals and nature. As a young woman, she felt the call of her generation and fled the Midwest for San Francisco as the Summer of Love began to bloom. She became half of a singing duo in Amsterdam, and she has lived in Mexico and the Caribbean. She taught Spanish in her daughter’s Rudolf Steiner School. She studied social and cultural anthropology in graduate school. As a young woman, she had been inspired by the Findhorn Community’s experiments in conscious gardening. Later, when her daughter left for college, this empty nester began to nurture her own seeds, establish relationships with her own plants and express her observations about gardening and life in magazines across the nation and in a highly popular blog, “Plant Whatever Brings You Joy!”

She is now the author of the book, Plant Whatever Brings You Joy: Blessed Wisdom from the Garden (Estrella Catarina), in which she draws on over two decades of gardening experience to share 52 life lessons from the garden. Her relationship with The Edge magazine has been a long one, making possible many interviews that have appeared in these pages during the past 15 years. She spoke with us about her personal writing from her home in Northern California.

You are now a well-known gardening blogger, but your book, Plant Whatever Brings You Joy, isn’t really a traditional gardening book at all, is it?
Kathryn Hall: No, it really isn’t. It’s a Trojan horse. Because I’m known as a gardener and a gardening blogger, people will buy the book thinking it’s a gardening book with life lessons from the garden. Remember “Everything I Needed to Learn I Learned in Kindergarten?” This is “Everything I Needed to Learn I Learned in the Garden,” but I’ve taken it a much bigger step further. Some people will love it and get it, and others will not get it, or be surprised.

The book is a collection of metaphors. It was originally conceived as one line on a page, because at that time it was popular to do that in the media, in the publishing world. The book was originally called “Metaphors From the Garden,” but “Metaphors From the Garden” is a little esoteric for the mainstream, and I wanted to write for mainstream. I wanted to write from my heart. The book was written before the blog got started, really.

If you were a plant, what variety would you be?
KH: Oh, I never thought about that. Many gardening bloggers have this test that asks what flower are you? I’ve never done it. The very first thing that comes to mind is rose. It is really my favorite flower, for all the obvious reasons. It’s just so gorgeous, but you asked what am I. Hmmm, I’m pretty fussy. I am going to say a rose because I am so drawn to them and I am very particular and I’m always kind of over-dressed for the culture. I can’t help it. I was a hippie in the 1960s, you know what I mean? It’s like, I love beautiful things.

As the reader moves through your book, he or she moves through your life. Tell me about the process that led you to believe that your life had something to say to the rest of us.
KH: Well, I’ll just be honest. I’ve been promoting other people for a really long time, and I’m known for being incredibly picky and selective about the messages I am willing to put out there. Sometimes I was promoting people and I’d think, “Hmmm, I could say something about that.”

It just became obvious that I had something to say, because I haven’t exactly just been promoting people. I’ve been traveling and learning and growing and studying and reading and working with different people for a really long time. I became consciously awake in 1964. That’s the God’s truth. I was a hippie in San Francisco in the 1960s. I’ve been committed to change and transformation and helping the planet since the mid-1960s. I know at a deep level I promised to do this in this lifetime, so here I am showing up, listening to Spirit and having the courage to follow through.

How would you describe the transformation you have seen in our culture during that span of time?
KH: You’re asking the right person, because I have been working with the media, changing the story, staying in touch with the conversation for three decades, so I have a very good barometer.

Now, creative visualization is no big deal. When I first took Shakti Gawain’s book Creative Visualization to the media, most people thought I was completely out of my mind, except for the Olympic trainers who knew what I was talking about. It was very interesting that someone out there understood what I was talking about and was utilizing it as a tool.

I worked a lot with the New Agers in the beginning. I worked with The Tarot Handbook for Angeles Arrien. I worked with Helen Palmer (noted teacher of intuition and psychology), with Dan Millman and Shakti, with Shakti’s mother, a book about dolphins.

And then I went to grad school – as I talk about in the book – very unexpectedly. I felt like God tapped me on the shoulder and said, “You are done with this. You need to start taking change and transformation into corporations.”

And I said, “What?! What?!”

But, that’s exactly what happened, but the clients I attracted were people like: David White and taking poetry into corporations; Michael Jones, taking music and piano into corporations; Peter Block; and launching Meg Wheatley’s Leadership of the New Science, comparing Newtonian science and quantum physics. I’ve been able to track change and transformation by the receptivity of the media to the material that I’m taking to them – and, I’m happy to say, it’s a huge change.

You have lived a rich life with much travel, companionship, and variety. Please share with us the secret to your happiness.
KH: Listening to my heart, taking big risks, believing in myself, listening to my Spirit, being grounded in Spirit, and trusting that.

We all want to believe that there’s a place between Heaven and Earth where the magic never ends, but how many of us ever get the chance to visit that sacred ground? In the summer of 2009, I had the opportunity to spend several days in the space “in-between,” and the result was a book I feel I was born to write: The Barn Dance. The story may begin in sorrow, but it concludes with the hope that life doesn’t end with death. It’s just the beginning.

Three days after Thanksgiving in 2005, the woman I married when I was 23, raised a child with and considered my best friend, was murdered in her apartment outside Chicago. Linda was the type of woman you couldn’t help but love, and I wasn’t the only person who felt that way. I always said that if you didn’t like her, then there’s something wrong with you, not her. In many ways she was the example of how to live a loving, service-oriented life. Her senseless death was more than a blow; it was the type of shock I was afraid I would never recover from.

“You’ll never get over this, but there will come a day when it’s no longer over you.” Those were the words spoken by my friend Neale Donald Walsch, who flew to Chicago the day after the tragedy to stand at my side. Three and a half years after Linda’s death, I realized he was right. The clouds seemed to be parting, and even though I still missed her, the profound sadness seemed to have lifted.

The fact that this realization only lasted a matter of hours surprised me, though. An email came with news I didn’t expect: “Someone just confessed to Linda’s murder.” I went from feeling healed to diving back into the thick of despair.

The story centers around an experience my daughter and I had when we were traveling from Chicago back to Oregon immediately after Linda’s funeral. While driving along a small highway in Nevada that hugged the side of a terrifying cliff, we found ourselves caught in a blizzard and nearly went over the edge. Several years later, when I first heard that someone was in custody for Linda’s murder, I felt compelled to return to that cliff, and though the thought seemed alien and strange, I decided to follow.

I drove five hours to the remote highway and hiked to the bottom where I ultimately discovered a remarkable barn, a place where dreams came true. Imagine finding a place where the barriers separating the physical and spiritual dimensions begin to blur, and you suddenly find yourself dancing in a barn with people who are not meant for this world. And imagine if, in the midst of that amazing gathering, you met the one person you thought you would never see again, the person who held the key to the greatest lesson of your life. This is what I encountered in the wilderness of Nevada, and though it will seem impossible to some, to many more it will be the answer to a prayer.

Since then I’ve tried to find ways to help others make similar connections with their loved ones. In a recent scientific test called DreamDancing, over 50 percent of the people involved had at least one connection with a loved one on the other side of the veil, an actual face-to-face conversation that they were able to verify at a later time. Over 300 people participated in the study, and I believe we’ve begun laying the groundwork for a whole new exciting field. In the past, we thought we needed mediums or psychics to help us make contact with the other side, but now it seems to be possible for almost anyone. Because of the success of the study, we’ve decided to open it up to the general public, giving everyone the possibility to connect with loved ones they thought they had lost [visit www.dream-dancing.com].

The events I describe in The Barn Dance changed my life, and the book is already touching thousands of people in a similar way. The magical adventure I experienced is something everyone can relate to, because we’ve all lost people we love, tragically or otherwise. The experience of grief is the same, and so is the hope that comes when we realize our loved ones never have left at all, but are still with us in a way that is intimate and real. That was what I learned from Linda, and now it’s the only thing I want to share.

People will ask about the adventure I wrote in The Barn Dance, wondering if it’s a completely true story or simply one man’s need to heal his heart through a fantastic and magical tale. I’ll answer that question even before you begin reading: To me this story is completely true, but in a way most people will find surprising. If you believe that we really do live in a magical universe and that dreams do come true, then you’ll probably believe every word you read. If not, then that’s fine, as well.

As for me, I believe that there really is a barn in the middle of a secluded forest where Heaven and Earth meet, and where we really can stand side-by-side with our loved ones on the other side of the veil. I should know, because I’ve been there.

The Return of Intuition: Awakening Psychic Gifts in the Second Half of Life, by Kathryn Harwig (Llewellyn) $15.95, 216 pages, www.harwig.com
Natural psychic sensitivity is often associated with children. The Return of Intuition reveals the little-known, widespread phenomenon of profound intuitive awakening occurring in adults – usually around the age of 50. Bringing this emerging trend to light is psychic medium Kathryn Harwig, who has helped thousands of clients understand, nurture, and embrace their new-found psychic awareness. Their inspiring stories highlight the transformative power of intuition and reveal how this life-changing gift can be used to help others, receive messages from friends and family in spirit, and gain new levels of confidence, courage, and clarity. In this unique guide, Harwig presents tips for enhancing your own intuition and determining whether you are a part of this momentous spiritual movement. The Return of Intuition affirms the gifts of aging, encouraging those over age 50 to reclaim their once-revered roles as elders and sages by passing on spiritual wisdom to a new generation.

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Long before self-help gurus Deepak Chopra and Eckhart Tolle, there was Ernest Holmes. Hailed as the architect of the modern self-help movement, Holmes and his Church of Religious Science continue to attract a growing fellowship with an emphasis on the unity of all life and the importance of positive thought processes. For years, several of Homes’ most important texts have been unavailable. This fall, Tarcher is bringing back three titles as part of its Ernest Holmes Library.

A New Design for Living, by Ernest Holmes (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin), $14.95, 304 pages, www.ernestholmesnet.com
In its scope, and in its effect on readers, A New Design for Living is second only to Ernest Holmes’ magnum opus, The Science of Mind. In this cherished spiritual classic, Holmes demonstrates that wishes – from health, love, and friendship to the career and home of your dreams – are not only possible to realize but are within each person’s very reach. At last available again, this galvanizing book teaches how to turn mind-power into an infinitely positive force – the very force of creation itself. Harmonize with the beauty and intelligence of the universe, watch the magnificence of life transform before you, and awaken to the nature of reality. With this new-found power of transformative thinking, every goal is attainable.

Discover a Richer Life, by Ernest Holmes (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin), $12.95, 160 pages
Is something missing in your life? The quality of our life’s experience, from health and success to prosperity and happiness, stems directly from our relationship with the Universe and the patterns of thought that it inspires. In this beloved inspirational guidebook, Holmes provides the tools and blueprint for the foundation of a new and more successful life, grounded by and centered on the nature and meaning of reality. The world is ripe for discovery, and Discover a Richer Life is the map that will guide readers on a great adventure to a vibrant, fully realized life.

Living Without Fear, by Ernest Holmes (Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin), $12.95, 160 pages
Does fear stop you from living your life to the fullest? In Living Without Fear, Holmes brilliantly navigates the reader through and away from anxiety, despair, and stress and toward the path to a richer experience in living. Learn to think constructively and creatively and to liberate yourself, finally, from all limitations so you can lead a life of greater health, happiness, and abundance. Living Without Fear is your guide to a life of peaceful self-actualization, free from the fear of what you don’t want in your life, as well as from the fear of not receiving what you do want. This courageous, luminary book puts the power back into the reader’s hands. Here is the end of fear.

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The Crystal Experience, by Judy Hall (Godsfield Press Ltd.), $14.99, 256 pages, www.octopusbooks.co.uk
This is a fascinating book that gives you a personalized, practical and direct experience of the thought-provoking wisdom that crystal healing has conveyed to thousands throughout the world. Going far beyond a reference guide, The Crystal Experience is more like a personal tutor, leading you through the key ideas and concepts of crystal healing via inspirational and holistic hands-on exercises and rituals. Interactive exercises in this book help you to tailor the book to your needs. An exclusive CD featuring meditations and inspirational music will bring you into a receptive state for deeper work.

The Angel Experience, by Hazel Raven (Godsfield Press Ltd.), $14.99, 256 pages, www.octopusbooks.co.uk
This book provides a personalized, practical and direct experience of the profound healing that can be yours when you connect with your angels. Going far beyond a reference guide, The Angel Experience is more like a personal tutor, leading you through key ideas and concepts via inspirational and holistic hands-on exercises and rituals. Interactive exercises of this book help you to tailor the book to your needs. An exclusive CD featuring meditations and inspirational music will bring you into a receptive state for deeper work.

The Meditation Experience, by Madonna Gauding (Godsfield Press Ltd.), $14.99, 256 pages, www.octopusbooks.co.uk
Practiced throughout the world and within many different religions, meditation has long been a pathway to spiritual harmony and enlightenment. This fascinating book provides you with a personalized, practical and direct experience of meditation, and demonstrates the powerful healing that can be achieved by mastering this art. The Meditation Experience is more like a personal tutor, explaining how to meditate and access the benefits it offers including stress reduction, greater awareness and spiritual development. Interactive exercises of this book help you to tailor the book to your needs. An exclusive CD featuring meditations and inspirational music will bring you into a receptive state for deeper work.

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The Divine Life of Animals: One Man’s Quest to Discover Whether the Souls of Animals Live On, by Ptolemy Tompkins (Crown), $22.99, 256 pages, www.randomhouse.com/crown/
A journey through 20,000 years of history and myth in search of the answer to a single question: Do animals have souls? Anyone who has ever mourned the loss of a cherished pet has wondered about the animal soul. Do animals survive the death of the body, or are they doomed to disappear completely when they leave this world behind? Both scientists and religious authorities have long scoffed at the idea of animals in heaven. Yet the question endures. In this wise, immensely readable book, Ptolemy Tompkins embarks on a quest for the answer – taking us on a top-speed tour of the history of the animal soul. Equally at home with mainstream and alternative spiritual philosophies, Tompkins takes us from the savannas of Africa to the earth’s first cities to the early days of the great faith traditions of both East and West. Along the way, he shows that, despite what many of us have been taught, the world’s various spiritual traditions all have profoundly meaningful things to say about the animal soul, if we simply know where to look. The Divine Life of Animals offers a compelling and timeless vision of the relationship between humans and animals that will have you looking at the animals in your life with new eyes.

Healing, by David Elliott (Hawk Press), $18, 288 pages, available as a free PDF download at www.davidelliott-healing.com
What if you could heal yourself of any illness, addiction or chronic condition? How much freedom would you experience if you were not dependent on health care? How empowered would you feel if you had the keys to healing, not only on the physical level, but on emotional, mental and spiritual levels as well? Healing, the second book by healer and author David Elliott, is a comprehensive and thorough exploration of the limitless potential within you to discover the healing you have been searching for. David Elliott’s unique understanding of energy helps him guide clients, students and trained healers past their fears so they may discover their own inner ability to heal. His simple message of self-love and exchange has allowed thousands from around the world to derive life-changing benefits from the teachings of this formerly reluctant healer.

I AM: The Power of Discovering Who You Really Are, by Howard Falco (Tarcher/Penguin), $15.95, 352 pages, www.howardfalco.com
At age 35, former investment banker Howard Falco found himself asking the fundamental question, “Who am I?” In his illuminating new work, I AM: The Power of Discovering Who You Really Are, Falco reveals how a sudden and dramatic shift in his awareness helped him discover answers to the existential questions that we all encounter. Insightful and highly readable, I AM takes readers on a life-changing journey where they will discover that the doorway to eternal peace, happiness and fulfillment lies in a complete understanding of the self. I AM helps readers realize that they have the power to create the existence that they have always wanted.

The Instant Millionaire: A Tale of Wisdom and Wealth, by Mark Fisher (New World Library), $13.95, 144 pages, www.newworldlibrary.com
Do those who succeed work harder than those who only dream about success? Are they smarter, luckier, more ruthless? And does financial success bring happiness? These perennial questions are perhaps more timely than ever. The Instant Millionaire answers them in the unforgettable voice of a very wise and wealthy old man. Known as the “Instant Millionaire” because he grasped the true secret of making a fortune overnight, this sage mentors a young man with frustrated dreams and nine-to-five disappointments. In practical, ready-to-implement lessons, he reveals the ideas and actions that can give anyone the mentality of a millionaire. This simple, yet powerful, mental shift paves the way not only for financial success but also for profound personal fulfillment and well-being.

Knock and the Door Will Open: 6 Keys to Mastering the Art of Living, by Jeffrey A. Wands (Atria), $18, 224 pages, jeffreywands.com
Embark on a wondrous journey of discovery and harness the power within. The author believes that each of us is a giant treasure chest waiting to be filled with the gifts that we’ve been given, but most of us have not summoned the courage to open ourselves up to discover our personal treasures. When you are brave enough, you can change your mind and change your life. Here, Jeffrey breaks the process down into six simple, easy-to-follow keys:

1. Evaluate Yourself
2. Gather Your Soul Mates
3. Make Sure Your Home Is Your Castle
4. Bring More Prosperity into Your Life
5. Seek More Spiritual Strength
6. Maintain Your Emotional and Physical Health

These six keys will allow you to dig deep inside, to look at every aspect of your life, and to achieve your greatest potential.

Notes from the Edge Times, by Daniel Pinchbeck (Tarcher/Penguin), $23.95, 208 pages, www.realitysandwich.com
Often referred to as a Timothy Leary for our current age, Daniel Pinchbeck is known for examining current issues from an intelligent and countercultural perspective. In his highly anticipated new book (release date October 14), Pinchbeck explores the “edge realms,” touching upon topics ranging from the financial collapse to our need for a new media paradigm to the meaning of 2012. In the process, he challenges readers to consider some pressing questions:

• “[A]t a time when war has become a ‘permanent social relation,’ and the planet’s life support systems are in jeopardy,” can we really cut ourselves off from political and societal involvement?
• Does our monetary system require a fundamental redesign?
• How can the millions of us who currently practice disciplines such as Buddhism, Yoga and Shamanism apply our spiritual ideals in a spiritual movement?
• Can we overcome deeply ingrained cultural stereotypes to spark a new sexual revolution defined by self-awareness and acceptance?

Pope Annalisa: Book One of the First Souls Trilogy, a novel by Peter Canova (Trimountaine Publishing), $26.95, 472 pages, www.popeannalisa.com
What forces were at work when the unthinkable became reality and an African nun was elected the first female pope? Amid conflicting prophecies of destruction and renewal she came. She is a healer, a miracle worker, a captivator of men’s souls. But when demonic-looking symbols begin appearing around the Vatican upon her arrival, were her enemies correct about her being the prophesied figure that would destroy the church and lead the world order to ruin? As the world nears nuclear holocaust, four people must race against time to learn her secret. As sinister hidden forces from within her own church and terrorism from without rear their heads, one thing becomes crystal clear – Pope Annalisa is at the very center of all the deadly plots within plots in a world where nothing is as it seems. And though it was a miracle for a woman to become pope, it will be a far greater miracle if she survives. Peter Canova has written a trilogy entitled The First Souls, concerning the first awakening of spirit into materiality in the form of human consciousness. Pope Annalisa is the first book of the series.

When Prayers Aren’t Answered: Opening the Heart and Quieting the Mind during Challenging Times, by John E. Welshons (New World Library), $14.95, 296 pages, onesoulonelove.com
In the depths of grief, some find solace in their faith while others wonder why God has deserted them. In this gentle and wise guide, a beloved spiritual teacher counsels that prayer works – but not always in the ways we expect. Welshons, who has worked closely with Ram Dass, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and Stephen Levine, confronts life’s most challenging experiences directly, acknowledging both the reality and inevitability of suffering. Then, with insights gathered from the world’s spiritual traditions, he demonstrates how to use painful circumstances as fuel for enlightenment. Welshons shares stories of transformation from his own life and the lives of those he has counseled. With the empathy of experience, he lights a path toward the communion, peace, and even joy possible not in spite of suffering, but through it.

At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

• August 22 – At 4 p.m., historian Jon K. Lauck reads from Prairie Republic: The Political Culture of Dakota Territory, 1879-1889, which explores South Dakota’s civic spirit. American democratic ideals, civic republicanism, public morality and Christianity were the dominant forces at work during South Dakota’s formative decade. Taking Dakota Territory as a laboratory for examining a formative stage of Western politics, Lauck argues that settlers from New England and the Midwest brought democratic practices and republican values to the northern plains and invoked them as guiding principles in the drive for South Dakota statehood. Prairie Republic corrects an overemphasis on class conflict and economic determinism. Lauck finds South Dakota’s political founders to be agents of Protestant Christianity and of civic republicanism – an age-old ideology that entrusted the polity to independent, landowning citizens who placed the common interest above private interest. Historian and attorney Jon K. Lauck is senior advisor to U.S. Senator John Thune of South Dakota and the author of Daschle vs. Thune: Anatomy of a High-Plains Senate Race and American Agriculture and the Problem of Monopoly.
• September 5 – At 4 p.m., Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson discuss The Great Typo Hunt: Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time. Of the two authors, Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard University and author of The Language Instinct and The Stuff of Thought notes, “This pair of kooks, with their high standards and principled civil disobedience, give me hope for the future of humanity.” Jeff Deck and Benjamin Herson created the Typo Eradication Advancement League (TEAL). Armed with markers, chalk, and correction fluid, they circumnavigated America, righting the glaring errors displayed in grocery stores, museums, malls, restaurants, mini-golf courses, beaches, and even a national park. Jeff and Benjamin championed the cause of clear communication, blogging about their adventures transforming horor into horror, it’s into its, and coconunut into coconut. But at the Grand Canyon, they took one correction too far: fixing the bad grammar in a fake Native American watchtower. The government charged them with defacing federal property and summoned them to court – with a typo-ridden complaint that claimed that they had violated “criminal statues.” Now the press turned these paragons of punctuation into “grammar vigilantes,” airing errors about their errant errand. Jeff Deck served as an associate editor for Rocks & Minerals magazine and his short stories have appeared in The Furnace Review and Boston Literary Magazine. He won two spelling bees in junior high. Benjamin Herson has been a bookseller for the past eight years. His short stories have appeared in Dan River Anthology and Down in the Dirt. Visit www.GreatTypoHunt.com for more information.
• September 9 – Magers & Quinn Booksellers presents Sara Gruen reading from her new novel Ape House at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, September 9. The author of the bestselling and beloved Water for Elephants returns with a new novel. A Q&A and signing will follow. Tickets for this reading are available at Magers & Quinn Booksellers for $5, redeemable towards the purchase of Ape House. Sam, Bonzi, Lola, Mbongo, Jelani and Makena are no ordinary apes. These bonobos, like others of their species, are capable of reason and carrying on deep relationships – but unlike most bonobos, they also know American Sign Language. Isabel Duncan, a scientist at the Great Ape Language Lab, doesn’t understand people, but she gets bonobos. Isabel feels more comfortable in their world than she’s ever felt among humans…until she meets John Thigpen, a very married reporter who braves the ever-present animal rights protesters outside the lab to see what’s really going on inside. When an explosion rocks the lab, severely injuring Isabel and “liberating” the apes, John’s human interest piece turns into the story of a lifetime, one he’ll risk his career and his marriage to follow. Sara Gruen is the author of the award-winning, bestselling novel Water for Elephants, as well as the bestseller Riding Lessons and Flying Changes. She lives in Western North Carolina, with her family, four cats, two dogs, two horses, and a goat.

Events at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

August 4 – Ira Sukrungruang will read from Talk Thai: The Adventures of Buddhist Boy at 7:30 p.m. He will be joined by Kao Kalia Yang, author of The Latehomecomer. Both authors will discuss what it means to be Asian in America.

Talk Thai is the story of a first generation Thai-American growing up in a Thai family, and his constant attempts to reconcile cultural and familial expectations. It is a first-generation Asian American story, a mama’s boy story, a Chi-town Southsider story, a child of the 80s story, a child of a broken home story. In this book we meet a mother who started packing for her return to Thailand the moment she arrived in this country, whose dreams of a normal Thai son, of a normal Thai family, slowly erode; that mother’s best friend, the narrator’s second mother, who lives with and cooks for the family; and a wayward father whose dreams never quite come to fruition. Yet, despite the cultural conflict that manifests in the home, in the community, and in Sukrungruang’s mind, this book is written with humor and playfulness, by a writer not afraid to make a little fun of himself nor to expose the moments of poignancy in his life. Ira Sukrungruang is a Thai American writer born in 1976 in Oak Lawn, IL, a suburb just south of Chicago. He now teaches in the MFA program at University of South Florida. Visit him online at www.sukrungruang.com.

When she was six years old, Kao Kalia Yang’s family immigrated to America. Her memoir, The Latehomecomer, evocatively captures the challenges of adapting to a new place and a new language. Through her words, the dreams, wisdom, and traditions passed down from her grandmother and shared by the entire Hmong community have finally found a voice. The Latehomecomer won the 2009 Minnesota Book Awards Readers’ Choice Award. Together with her sister, Kao Kalia Yang is the founder of a company dedicated to helping immigrants with writing, translating and business services. A graduate of Carleton College and Columbia University, Yang has recently screened The Place Where We Were Born, a film documenting the experiences of Hmong American refugees. Visit her website at www.kaokaliayang.com.

Coming to: Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com

April 25 – Connie Baldrica will read from Tree Spirited Woman at 4 p.m.
As the former lead school counselor for the St. Paul Public School District and a Past President of the Minnesota School Counselors Association, Baldrica is no stranger to helping people listen to their inner voice. Her book Tree Spirited Woman is a narrative that takes the reader through one woman’s intimate transformation from the death of her maternal grandmother to the establishment of a new and guiding friendship with a wise and mystical woman. Along the way, she learns to “let go and trust” in love, personal relationships, and, ultimately, death. Baldrica says the inspiration for the various chapters, which correspond to life’s stages, came from her personal life, as well as from the teachings of her Native American grandmother. “I thought a lot about subjects that were important to me,” she says. “I knew these would have resonance with other women. Women are reaching out, and this book is touching many lives. For more information, visit www.colleenbaldrica.com.

April 28 – Jonathan Balcombe discusses Second Nature: The Inner Lives of Animals at 7:30 p.m.
Danger-junkie orangutans in Borneo climb dead trees and destabilize them until they begin to fall. They scream with excitement as they cling to the falling tree. Just before the tree hits the ground the orangs leap to another tree or vine, narrowly escaping death. Researchers call this peculiar behavior snag-riding and liken it to bungee jumping for monkeys. While no one can ask orangutans if they enjoy the same adrenaline rush as a person playing an extreme sport, one animal behaviorist sees this monkey fun as a bit of harmless thrill-seeking. A growing number of scientists agree that animals are conscious and capable of experiencing basic emotions, such as happiness, sadness, boredom and depression. New scientific studies of animal behavior reveal perceptions, intelligences, awareness and social skills that would have been deemed fantasy a generation ago. The implications make our troubled relationship to animals one of the most pressing moral issues of our time. Jonathan Balcombe was born in England, raised in New Zealand and Canada, and has lived in the United States since 1987. He has written many scientific papers and popular articles on animal behavior, humane education, and animal research. He is now an independent consultant based in Germantown, MD. For more information, visit www.jonathanbalcombe.com.

February 6 — Cristina Norcross (www.FirkinFiction.com) of Oconomowoc, WI, will celebrate the release of her third book, Unsung Love Songs, at 7 p.m. at The Artavina Gallery, 378 Main St., Waukesha, WI. This collection of poems celebrates the quiet, everyday moments of love and how the recognition of this deep, abiding calmness can be the heart’s biggest flourish of all. Cristina Norcross will give a reading from her new book following live music by Nick Scholz and Shino Ishioka. Intermission will feature the ukulele stylings of special guest, Eric Raskopf, as well as a fine wine and gourmet chocolate tasting.  After intermission there will be a poetry open mic. Bring your original, love-themed poems or read a love poem by one of your favorite authors. RSVP to author@firkinfiction.com to get your name on the poetry open mic list.

February 19 — Jennifer Salima Holt will discuss her inspirational book Sacred Gateway of Grief and Loss: Freeing the Imprisoned Soul at 7:30 p.m. at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis [612.822.4611, www.magersandquinn.com]. This book describes the breakthroughs Jennifer witnessed by leading grief and loss groups for women prisoners. Many personal stories of miraculous change, love and light fill the book, as well as practical information about how each one of us can approach our grief and loss in sacred, loving ways. Sacred Gateway is a deeply felt, loving testament to the power and beauty of the human spirit to survive and even thrive, regardless of the depths to which we may tumble. At the event, Jennifer Salima will also perform spiritual chants inspired by her work with the prisoners (available on her CD, Ecstatic Groove: Sacred World Chant Infusions). Jennifer Salima Holt holds Masters and Doctoral degrees in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota. She has volunteered within the U.S. prison system extensively, and also served for many years as a death and dying midwife. She was the founder and leader of feminist folk-punk band Tetes Noires in the 1980s. Learn more about her at www.jennifersalimaholt.com.

February 23 — The Big Bang Book Club discusses the book Eating the Sun: How Plants Power the Planet at 7 p.m. at Grumpy’s Downtown, 1111 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis. Eating the Sun is the story of photosynthesis — a celebration of how the smallest things, enzymes and pigments, influence the largest things, the oceans, the rain forests, and the fossil fuel economy. Oliver Morton offers a fascinating, lively, profound look at nature’s greatest miracle and sounds a much-needed call to arms– illuminating a potential crisis of climatic chaos and explaining how we can change our situation, for better or for worse. The Big Bang Book Club is a monthly book club for non-scientists that relishes in folding arts and science into a heady brew.

MAGERS & QUINN BOOKSELLERS is at 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis • 612.822.4611 • www.magersandquinn.com

• January 7 — Alex Lemon discusses his new book Happy: A Memoir at 7:30 p.m.
  His freshman year at Macalester College, Alex Lemon was supposed to be the star catcher on the baseball team. He was the boy getting every girl, the hard-partying kid who everyone called Happy, often without even knowing his real name. In the spring of 1997, he had his first stroke. For two years Lemon coped with his deteriorating health by sinking deeper into alcohol and drug abuse. His charming and carefree exterior masked his self-destructive and sometimes cruel behavior as he endured two more brain bleeds and a crippling depression. After undergoing brain surgery, he is nursed back to health by his free-spirited artist mother, who once again teaches him to stand on his own.Happy is a hypnotic self-portrait of a young man confronting the wreckage of his own body; it is also the deeply moving story of a mother’s redemptive and healing powers. Alex Lemon is a poet and author of the collections Mosquito, Halleluiah Blackout, and Fancy Beasts (forthcoming from Milkweed Editions, March 2010).
• January 9 — Emergent Poets III: featuring Julie Carr, Christine Hume and Andrew Zawacki read their work at 7 p.m., sponsored by Rain Taxi magazine. Three award-winning poets will visit the Twin Cities. Andrew Zawacki is the author of three poetry books — most recently Petals of Zero Petals of One (Talisman House) — and of several chapbooks. His poems have appeared in The New Yorker, The Nation, and numerous other journals and anthologies. He is co-editor of the literary magazine Verse. He teaches at the University of Georgia. Christine Hume is the author of three books of poetry — most recently Shot (Counterpath Press) — and a chapbook, Lullaby: Speculations on the First Active Sense (Ugly Duckling Presse). Her work has been included in The Best American Poetry (Scribner), and she writes reviews and critical essays for a number of journals, including Rain Taxi. She currently coordinates the interdisciplinary Creative Writing Program at Eastern Michigan University. Julie Carr is the author of three books of poetry — most recently 100 Notes on Violence (Ahsahta Press) — and her National Poetry Series selection Sarah–of Fragments and Lines will be published later next year by Coffee House Press. Her work has been included in The Best American Poetry (Scribner), and numerous other journals and anthologies. She is co-publisher of the small press Counterpath and teaches at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
• January 19 — Ellen Sandbeck reads from Green Barbarians: Live Bravely on Your Home Planet at 7:30 p.m. These days, we worry about everything: pandemic flu, global warming, contaminated toys, the purity of our foods and other products. The abundance of contradictory information out there can make you crazy. In Green Barbarians (available now), Ellen Sandbeck delivers necessary knowledge and sounds a clarion call to arms, urging us to step forward and make informed decisions in order to live happier, safer, and more environmentally responsible lives. The author has said, “I decided that it would be really fun to research ancient and modern ways to do things in order to avoid buying into the propaganda of Big Business/pharmo/industrial/agrochemical complex. It was really fun, but it was also infuriating, scary and exhausting.” Ellen Sandbeck is an organic landscaper, worm wrangler, writer, and graphic artist who lives with (and experiments on) her husband and an assortment of younger creatures — which includes two mostly grown children, a couple of dogs, a small flock of laying hens, and many thousands of composting worms — in Duluth, MN. She is the author of Green Housekeeping, Slug Bread & Beheaded Thistles and Eat More Dirt. You can learn more about her and her work at www.lavermesworms.com. This event is co-sponsored by Twin Cities Green (2405 Hennepin Ave S, Minneapolis, 612.374.4581) where you’ll find a diverse collection of items — recycled, reclaimed, natural, organic, sustainable — for your home and life, all deeply researched to provide you with the best guilt-free green products at the most affordable prices. Visit www.twincitiesgreen.com.

CLASSIC RE-RELEASE

Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives, by Dan Millman (New World Library), 240 pages, $24.95
One of the most beloved spiritual sagas of our time has just turned 30. For the first time since the book’s initial publication in 1980, Way of the Peaceful Warrior is available in a hardcover classic edition to celebrate this milestone. Shared among friends and family, this multimillion-copy word-of-mouth bestseller has been translated into more than 20 languages and has inspired men and women of all ages worldwide. Despite his success, college student and world-champion athlete Dan Millman is haunted by a feeling that something is missing from his life. Awakened one night by dark dreams, he wanders into an all-night gas station. There he meets an old man named Socrates, and his world is changed forever. This classic tale, told with heart and humor, speaks to the peaceful warrior in each of us.

Eyes Wide Open: Cultivating Discernment on the Spiritual Path, by Mariana Caplan, Ph.D. (Sounds True), 328 pages, $18.95
The spiritual path is like any other road – it’s going to have its share of potholes and detours. Safe travel requires a quality rarely taught, yet critically important in today’s world: discernment. In Eyes Wide Open, Mariana Caplan supports us in cultivating the acute judgment and discrimination that will help us to live a spiritual life with intelligence, clarity and authenticity. Is enlightenment less about fireworks and bliss and more about dismantling illusions? How do we fully integrate our practice into daily living? What’s the best way to work with the ego and the shadow? Eyes Wide Open explores these questions and more, offering practitioners from any tradition – or those just getting started – a traveler’s guide through “the labyrinth of increasing subtlety” that defines a genuine spiritual life.

Soul Currency: Investing Your Inner Wealth for Fulfillment & Abundance, by Ernest D. Chu (New World Library), 272 pages, $14.95
So what exactly is the secret for working at a job that offers both personal fulfillment and financial fulfillment? It’s not as elusive as one might think, according to Ernest D. (Ernie) Chu, author of Soul Currency. Chu, a leading corporate finance expert, visionary and strategic advisor to some of America’s best-run companies, believes that our spiritual assets – our inner wealth – can be the most powerful resource for fulfillment and success. Important values like generosity, integrity and intuition are what make it possible to find prosperity, no matter what happens in the world around us. These inner traits help us reach our outer goals. Soul Currency examines the power of manifestation through spiritual “adventureprise.” Spirit working through enlightened entrepreneurs can guide the creation of an actual business or a service. Readers will learn how to add their own unique value to this enterprise, or choose to be fulfilled in playing a supportive role as a member of a team.

At Eye of Horus, 2717 Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis, 612.872.1292, www.EyeofHorus.biz:

• November 11 - Bestselling author Suza Scalora will present a “Share Your Angel Story” event at 7 p.m. She is co-author of Evidence of Angels (HarperCollins), an adventure of the heart based on Suza’s own personal experience of losing a loved one. She chronicles her journey from grief to hope and love though the support and guidance from angels – and includes more than twenty color photographs of angels including: Angel Of Grief, Angel Of Winter, Angel Of Peace, Angels Of Compassion, Angel Of Clarity, Angel Of Wisdom and the Angel Of Love; each conveying special messages for the reader. “Are we alone? Do angels exist? What happens after we die and leave this earth?”  These are questions that New York photographer Suza wrestled with until she began a project, hanging her photographs of angels throughout New York City, on walls and lampposts and fences, along with her email address. Three days later her first letter arrived. In this book, Suza applied her years of experience photographing otherworldly presences and created this unforgettable collection of angels representing an array of emotions, seasons and dreams.

At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis, 612.822.4611, magersandquinn.com:

• November 6 – Micaela Person, author of Practically Green, will be presenting at 7:30 p.m. If “being green” has ever intimated you, then discover Practically Green and learn how to take a practical approach to mindful living. Take the guess work out of reading labels, Practically Green will show you how to make smart, healthy purchases for your family without spending tedious hours researching all of the products available on the market today.
• November 8 – Two Minnesota poets – Carol Connolly (All This and More) and Beverly Rollwagen (Flying) – read from their new work at 4 p.m.
• November 15 – Two Minnesota poets – Jill Breckenridge (The Gravity of Flesh) and Morgan Grayce Willow (Between) – read from their new work at 5 p.m.
• November 19 – Ray Gonzalez, poetry editor for The Bloomsbury Review, and founding editor of the poetry journal Luna, creates his own brand of magical realism with the book Cool Auditor. He will read at 7:30 p.m. A full professor in the MFA Creative Writing Program at The University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Gonzalez fuses the real with the surreal and the natural world with human relationships.
• November 22 – In her new book of interviews – Who Am I?… Now That I’m Not Who I Was? – Connie Goldman explores the many and varied choices women make in their middle years and beyond, during a presentation at 5 p.m. In the course of eighteen interviews, women from all walks of life describe how their sense of self has changed as they choose new paths, face the challenges of illness and divorce, care for elderly parents, pursue new career goals, or simply learn how to slow down and appreciate the passing days. The stories are full of wisdom and inspiration, poetry and common sense, and they give us insights not only into how women grow old, but how they grow whole.

At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis – www.magersandquinn.com – 612.822.4611:

Bill Voedisch reads from his new book about his cat, Citizen Mitten – 7:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 2 - Millions of people have cats, dogs and other pets. Once in a lifetime, there is one so special you will never forget it. That’s the case with Bill Voedisch and his cat Mitten. Enjoy their antics, and those of their other two-legged and four-legged pals, in Citizen Mitten. But beware, Bill says anyone who brings home a pet accepts the responsibility for their death, be it a few years away, or 20, as in the case of Mitten. Why? Bill tells us in his sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant, always memorable, stories. Voedisch, now retired from West Publishing, plays competitive bridge, raises sweet corn in the summer and plows snow in the winter and has been fishing with the same guys for over 50 years. Bill and his wife, Laurie, are active in a therapy horseback riding program. Along with their horses and volunteers, they teach therapeutic riding for kids and adults with disabilities at their farm, East Wind, located 25 miles from St. Paul in the beautiful St. Croix River valley on the Minnesota-Wisconsin border. They provide therapy riding for kids and adults with disabilities, via their affiliation with We Can Ride (WCR), a non-profit based in Minnetonka, Minn. Bill and Laurie also support Hearing and Service Dogs of Minnesota (HSDM), and they sometimes get to care for one of HSDM’s service dogs when the need arises. For more information on these two non-profits, visit www.wecanride.org and www.HSDM.org

Mary Hayes Grieco presents her book Be a Light – 7:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 8 – Be a Light: Illumined Essays for Times Like These is a collection of essays offered as a perennial inspirational “companion” book for those who are on a journey of hope, self-healing, personal illumination, and purposeful world service. There are three types of essays in this book: philosophy, how-to, and storytelling. In the perennial tradition of Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea and Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet, this book is meant to be a life-long friend that will be read over and over. Be a Light is a book that sits on the nightstand or near your favorite chair, and never ends up in a garage sale. Each essay stands on its own as a piece to be dipped into when one wants a short, complete, and nourishing read at the beginning or the end of a day, but there is also a message that implicitly runs through the book as a whole. The unifying message of Be a Light, in essence, is: “Heal the wounds of your past, break out of your fears, discover your life purpose, and serve the world with all your heart.” Mary Hayes Grieco, of Minneapolis, is a respected spiritual teacher, healer, philosopher and storyteller. She is the director of The Midwest Institute for Forgiveness Training and has been writing and teaching about spirituality, healing, forgiveness and purposeful living for 25 years. She was the creator and host of her own radio program in the Twin Cities, and led retreats at Hazelden Renewal Center from 1992-2008. She works in private practice as a counselor at The Well Healing Arts Center in Minneapolis.

Rachel Coyne reads from her novel Whiskey Heart – 7 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 24 - Alcohol is the villain in this novel, and Coyne tells her story of grief and redemption in a heightened language that will captivate readers. It’s a literary soap opera that forces its narrator to deal with one predicament after another in a world of anger, denial, and moments of fierce joy. When Rachel Coyne was 15, her estranged father entered alcohol rehab after drinking himself into a coma that lasted so long he claims he heard the dead whispering to him. The novel’s themes – alcoholism is a long, slow suicide; numbness and disassociation accompany grief; and the repudiation of the curative power of romantic love – are universal. Finally, the novel is about place. Coyne says, “I wanted to portray the hidden, exotic nature of rural Minnesota life – the tall, red-rooted varieties of corn, the crows, the fishing camps and frozen lakes.” The novel is like an old bluegrass song that stays in your head.

At Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave., Minneapolis – www.magersandquinn.com – 612.822.4611

Over the years, Jodi has helped clients, friends, family, and even those in spirit find healing and learn life lessons. These true and incredibly touching stories illuminate spirit communication and offer instruction on developing your own intuitive skills. Jodi reveals how she receives and interprets psychic impressions, offering a compelling firsthand account of how the psychic process works.

Packed with tips on trusting your senses, maintaining emotional balance, staying grounded, and interpreting signs from the Universe, along with fun exercises to develop your psychic abilities, The Happy Medium can help you learn to tune in to your own intuition for higher awareness and guidance in making life’s decisions.

For more than 25 years, Jodi Livon has used her psychic skills professionally. An intuitive coach for the business sector, she also offers readings for individuals and leads workshops on developing psychic intuition. Visit her website – www.theintuitivecoach.com – for more information.

In 2004, Wendy released her poetry CD Longing for Home and since then, has performed poetry nationally, and in Mexico, in unique venues such as cafes, galleries, schools, women’s retreats, and cultural centers, solo and in collaborations. She began her performance style while collaborating with Word Dancers, a Santa Fe women’s poetry group. She has published poetry and creative non-fiction in numerous literary journals, including Mizna, Minnetonka Review, The Awakenings Review, The Chrysalis Reader and Wising Up Press. Wendy was the recipient of 2008 and 2009 McKnight grants through COMPAS to teach writing workshops with at risk youth. She considers her homes to be in Santa Fe, Puerto Vallarta, and Minneapolis with family and friends. For more information, visit her website – www.wendybrownbaez.com.

Tim J. Brennan is the author of Fifty White Stones (Pudding House Press, 2006), a collection of droll musings, ordinary thoughts about family life, and profound personal contemplation as the author approaches, reaches, and passes the half-century mark of living. Joel Van Valin of Whistling Shade literary journal says, “Brennan has a wonderful ability to free fall away from the subjects of his poems.”

Brennan writes from southeastern Minnesota. As well as being a published poet, he is well-known as a playwright. His poetry has appeared in literary journals such as Whispering Shade, Main Channel Voices, Green Blade, and RiverWalk Journal. His poem “Hewn” took first place in the 2009 edition of The Talking Stick and he won a 2005 Whatlight monthly poetry contests on mnartists.org. His short plays which have been produced in six states, most recently Chicago and NYC. He’s been a teacher for 27 years.

The Western approach to nature has always operated under both spiritual and scientific views. While Christianity decrees that human beings have dominion over nature, evolutionary biology teaches us that we are but highly adapted animals among a biological network of millions of other species. What is our proper relationship to wild animals–and what is our responsibility to them?

Reflecting on the birds she peers at through binoculars and the Lutheran church that anchors Pioneer Lake’s southern shore, Leaf contemplates how her relationship to nature has been colored by the Christian theology of her childhood. Acknowledging the influence of the church on her view of the natural world, she follows the liturgical calendar as a thread, chronicling the change of seasons over the year.

Leaf considers the results of the assumption that nature is ours to use: we continue to fish, trap, and hunt animals whose populations are ghosts of their former selves and produce mounting environmental pressures on their habitats. Observing the ways in which the heavy hand of human beings has changed the landscape of Pioneer Lake, and many others like it, she also rejoices in the ways in which the lakes remain wild and exuberant, influencing the lives of all who encounter them.

Sue Leaf is a freelance writer and the author of Potato City: History, Nature, and Community in the Age of Sprawl. Her essays have appeared in Minnesota Monthly, Utne Reader, Minnesota Conservation Volunteer, and Architecture Minnesota. A former college instructor in biology and environmental science, she holds a doctorate in zoology from the University of Minnesota. She is president of Wild River Audubon and lives in Center City, MN, on the shore of Pioneer Lake.

The following are new books that will make inspiring summer reading.

365 PRESCRIPTIONS FOR THE SOUL: Daily Messages of Inspiration, Hope, and Love (New World Library, $14.95), by Dr. Bernie S. Siegel, 384 pages
Dr. Bernie Siegel writes with humorous, down-to-earth wisdom that has improved the lives of countless readers. In 365 Prescriptions for the Soul, he treats us to his most user-friendly work of all: daily doses of inspiration and humor that gently and joyfully help us live more peaceful, loving and fulfilling lives. This is a practical, hands-on guide full of practical ideas for strengthening the body, mind and spirit. A topic is presented for each day of the year, accompanied by an inspirational quote and a “SOULution of the Day.” Dr. Siegel reminds us that in order for his prescriptions to help us, we must go beyond simply reading them by directly applying their wisdom to our lives. “My prescription for you,” he says, “is to use this book as part of your daily ritual. Take the time to read a selection and reflect on its meaning for you. Allow it to make a difference in your day, and help heal your life and the lives of those you touch. May this book guide you to a place where your heart will find true peace.”

FREQUENCY: The Power of Personal Vibration (Beyond Words, $24), by Penney Peirce, 304 pages
Because science has long taught us to rely on what we can see and touch, we often don’t notice that our spirit, thoughts, emotions and body are all made of energy. Everything is vibrating. In fact, each of us has a personal vibration that communicates who we are to the world and helps shape our reality. In Frequency, Penney Peirce shows you how to feel your personal vibration and work intentionally with energy to transform your life. By learning to find your “home frequency” – the highest, most natural personal vibration you can attain – you can maximize clarity, minimize struggle and discover new talents and capacities. Awakening to the new reality that a higher frequency reveals can help you dramatically improve relationships, find upscale solutions to problems and materialize a life that contains everything you need. Frequency shows you how to manage your energy “state” so you can stay on track with your destiny – and reap the benefits of the life you’re truly built for. Weaving together fundamental ideas from quantum physics with proven intuition techniques, Frequency takes readers into new knowledge and skills only hinted at in recent popular books and DVDs like The Secret.

SUM: Forty Tales from the Afterlives (Pantheon, $20), by David Eagleman, 128 pages
Sum is a dazzling exploration of funny and unexpected afterlives that have never been considered – each presented as a vignette that offers us a stunning lens through which to see ourselves here and now. In one afterlife, you may find that God is the size of a microbe and is unaware of your existence. In another, your creators are a species of dim-witted creatures who built us to figure out what they could not. In a different version of the afterlife you work as a background character in other people’s dreams. Or you may find that God is a married couple struggling with discontent, or that the afterlife contains only those people whom you remember, or that the hereafter includes the thousands of previous gods who no longer attract followers. These wonderfully imagined tales – at once funny, wistful and unsettling – are rooted in science and romance and awe at our mysterious existence: a mixture of death, hope, computers, immortality, love, biology, and desire that exposes radiant new facets of our humanity.

DIET MYTHS THAT KEEP US FAT and the 101 Truths that will save your waistline  – and maybe even your life (Crown Publishing, $25), by Nancy L. Snyderman, M.D., 304 pages
Dr. Nancy L. Snyderman’s instant New York Times bestseller, Medical Myths That Can Kill You, separated fact from fiction in an effort to challenge common medical myths in our culture. In her new book, Dr. Snyderman takes on diet myths both big and small. Ever wonder if muscle really weighs more than fat? If you can eat after 8 p.m. and not gain weight? Do you feel confused over the true meanings of low carb, low cal, reduced fat and low fat? Do you wonder, as so many of us do, if carbs really are the enemy? Throughout the book, Dr. Snyderman explains the history and underlining meaning of these myths – and the truths behind them.

THE BIG LEAP: Conquer your hidden fear and take life to the next level (Harper One, $25.99), by Gay Hendricks, 216 pages
Why is it that good fortune is often followed by negative emotions that overtake us and result in destructive behaviors? “I don’t deserve this,” “this is too good to be true,” or other harmful thought patterns prevent us from experiencing the joy and satisfaction that we have earned. This is what New York Times bestselling author Gay Hendricks calls the Upper Limit Problem, a negative emotional reaction that occurs when anything positive enters our lives. In The Big Leap, Dr. Hendricks presents a simple yet comprehensive program for overcoming this barrier to happiness and fulfillment, and the book delivers a proven method for breaking through to achieve what Hendricks refers to as our Zone of Genius.

SINGLE WOMAN OF A CERTAIN AGE: Romantic Escapades, Shifting Shapes, and Serene Independence (New World Library, $14.95), edited by Jane Ganahl, 256 pages
Does being a single woman mean something different today than it did a few decades ago? Are more women choosing to remain single than in years past? What kinds of challenges, if any, do they still face and what does this mean for the rest of society? These questions and much more are revealed by Jane Ganahl, who wrote the popular “Single Minded” column in the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly five years, by assembling a chorus of sophisticated, edgy and humorous voices who tackle the topic of being female, unmarried and in one’s prime. “Many, many women are single by default,” Ms. Ganahl says. “And these women are forced to reinvent their lives from scratch, sometimes very unhappily. In my experience, what gives these women comfort is the very act of reinvention – doing some personal exploration, discovering what is meaningful to them, and pursuing those things with a passion.

CARTWHEELS IN A SARI: A memoir of growing up cult (Harmony Books, $22.95), by Jayanti Tamm, 304 pages
Cartwheels in a Sari opens as Jayanti’s devout parents swaddled her in a sari and plopped her before the throne of the man who declared himself God – known as Sri Chinmoy. Shuttling between the Guru’s ashram in Queens, New York, and her family’s outpost as his Connecticut missionaries, Jayanti was the ultimate insider in a community of radical outsiders. As she grows up in the cult, Jayanti unmasks a leader who convinced tens of thousands of disciples to follow him, scores of nations to dedicate monuments to him – the Statue of Liberty, Niagara Falls, and the Sydney Opera House – and throngs of celebrities to extol him – Princess Diana, Mother Teresa, Desmond Tutu, and Sting. Carlos Santana and his wife were members of the cult for nine years, before leaving to have a child (sex and marriage – as well as TV, dancing, radio, and eating red meat, were forbidden). After repeated attempts to leave, Jayanti was permanently banned from the cult when she was 25 years old. Sri Chinmoy died in October 2007, though his movement continues to flourish. Cartwheels in a Sari is a book about a young woman’s struggle to break free from her family’s unconventional life. It shines a fascinating light on a world most of us could never imagine.

THE JOURNEY TO GREATNESS: And how to get there! (Corwin Press, $22.95), by Noah benShea, 160 pages
In his new book, beloved poet-philosopher and international best-selling author Noah benShea reveals, “Greatness isn’t ahead of you; it’s within you.” With these wise words, Noah defines what greatness really means and guides you on a personal journey toward happiness, fulfillment, and a life of meaning and purpose. Now a national public television special, The Journey to Greatness book shares Noah benShea’s deeply profound insights with warmth, wit and wisdom. His inspirational messages and life-changing stories offer a practical and commonsense approach to life, leading towards the realization that true greatness is not so much about what you have, but who you are. “If you are hoping this book will change your life, the answer is, it won’t. Only you can transform your life. What this book can do is help. This is less of a book and more of an operating manual for living a great life on planet earth and stopping the pain of being less than you always promised yourself would be or could be,” says Noah.

DO ONE NICE THING: Little things you can do to make the world a lot nicer (Crown Publishing, $20), by Debbie Tenzer, 256 pages
The founder of the phenomenally successful web site DoOneNiceThing.com, Debbie Tenzer has written a book that promotes the idea of doing a nice thing once a week. “In spite of everything that’s going on in the world now, we can make it better, and we don’t need a lot of time or money to do it,” Ms. Tenzer says. She believes that in today’s world full of pink slips and bad news, helping others once a week is empowering. “Maybe we can’t solve the big problems, but by working together we can solve a lot of smaller ones. And we’ll help ourselves, too. I call it strength training for the soul. By making kindness a regular habit, we can exercise our compassion muscles and keep them strong.

Send books, music and other holistic products for mention in The Edge to us at: The Edge, P.O. Box 25543, Woodbury, MN 55125.

The following are personal perspectives on the creation of new books and music in the Twin Cities:

Matt Karayan
The Way Home – Stories from the Master” – available at www.karayanpublishing.com
“The single greatest lesson for awakening is that I had to go through all kinds of so-called tasks, battles, trials, and conflicts, until I saw each and every one of them as opportunities for peace of mind when I was ready to see them that way. When I was ready, the lesson / opportunity appeared as a question that asked from within, ‘Are you ready?’ My response without thinking was, ‘Yes.’ This overwhelming experience of peace has been a one-minded focus that has inspired me to journal, write books, be involved in facilitating individual, couples, group counseling and speaking engagements.”

Michelle Glaser

Troy Parkinson

Cyndi Dale

The following events will feature book discussions and authors who will speak on their work in the Twin Cities:

Monday, April 20, 7:30 p.m. – Katrina Uhly, Darlyne Bailey, and Kelly Mcnall Koney discuss their book, Sustaining Our Spirits: Women Leaders Thriving for Today or Tomorrow, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis.
“Women who lead are not unlike the many animals and plants around the world that face real peril when they lack a consistent, nurturing habitat to ensure their sustainability,” asserts Dr. Darlyne Bailey, co-author of Sustaining our Spirits: Women Leaders Thriving for Today and Tomorrow. Because of this stark reality, this book was created by and for women leaders, to provide the blueprint for indentifying, developing and sustaining the most effective leadership. Dr. Bailey and her co-authors, Kelly McNally Koney, Mary Ellen McNish, Dr. Ruthmary Powers, and Katrina Uhly, embarked on a remarkable five-year process of discovery with over forty other women from institutions, organizations, and communities. They gathered women who are leaders to create an opportunity for interaction, reflection, and mutual support. From these conversations was born Sustaining our Spirits, a project where women leaders would learn from and with one another how to sustain their life energies and commitment and, in turn, be able to share those lessons with others.

Thursday, April 28, 7 p.m. – The Big Bang Book Club (Magers & Quinn’s science book club) discusses Michio Kaku’s Physics of the Impossible at Grumpy’s Bar Downtown, 1111 Washington Ave. S., Minneapolis.
Teleportation, time machines, force fields and interstellar space ships – the stuff of science fiction or potentially attainable future technologies? Inspired by the fantastic worlds of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Back to the Future, renowned theoretical physicist and bestselling author Michio Kaku takes an informed, serious, and often surprising look at what our current understanding of the universe’s physical laws may permit in the near and distant future in his book Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel.

Sunday, May 3, 5 p.m. – Steve Vander Ark discusses the highly litigated The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials at Magers & Quinn Booksellers.
The Lexicon: An Unauthorized Guide to Harry Potter Fiction and Related Materials, an unauthorized guide to the popular series by author J.K. Rowling, is a 400-page companion work perfect for the curious reader who wants to know more about these remarkable books. “Steve Vander Ark’s Harry Potter Lexicon website is visited by more than 25 million visitors annually,” said RDR Books publisher Roger Rapoport. “For years fans who have seen the author keynote major academic conferences on the Harry Potter novels, including Sectus in London, Patronus in Copenhagen, Lumos in Las Vegas and Prophecy in Toronto, have been asking him to write an original companion work on this wonderful series. This book offers fascinating analysis, new insights and a deep appreciation of Rowling’s work.” Steve Vander Ark has been interviewed by the BBC, “The Today Show,” the New York Times, Time magazine, the Associated Press, The New Yorker, The Times of London, The Guardian. His interview for an A& E television special on the series appears as part of the extra section on the DVD edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

TWIN CITIES – Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, a rising star among the new generation of Tibetan Buddhist teachers, will visit the Twin Cities in mid-April to share his extensive meditation expertise and interest in Western neuroscience, quantum physics and psychology. He is the author of the 2007 New York Times bestseller The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness.

WIRED: Researchers test Yongey Mingyour Rinpoche's state of happiness during meditation.

“Mingyur Rinpoche’s visit to the Twin Cities is significant,” said Cortland Dahl, executive director of the Rimé Foundation, one of co-sponsors of the visit. “Having worked with some of the world’s leading scientists, psychologists and philosophers, he is able to discuss meditation in terms that we understand and to which we can relate. He has expressed interest in visiting the Twin Cities regularly in the future to provide ongoing guidance to those interested in learning more about meditation.”

Other co-sponsors of the visit are the University of Minnesota’s Center for Spirituality & Healing, Allina Hospitals & Clinics, and the Shambhala Meditation Center.

While the practice of meditation stretches back thousands of years to ancient spiritual traditions, it has gained both secular and scientific attention in recent decades. A December 2008 U.S. News & World Report article, for example, touts meditation’s benefits in managing stress and dealing with anxiety, while a 2009 Emory University study reports the positive effects of meditation on human physiology, especially on the body’s ability to react less negatively to psychological and social stress.

While in the Twin Cities, Mingyur Rinpoche will provide practical advice on how ancient Tibetan contemplative practices can be used to deal with the challenges of modern life. The techniques he will teach are designed to enhance tranquility, happiness, and compassion and to allow the meditator to work constructively with powerful emotions and deeply ingrained habits.

“In three distinct events for health care professionals as well as consumers, Rinpoche will share his exceptional expertise of meditation practice, weaving together the principles of Tibetan Buddhism and neuroscience,” said Center for Spirituality & Healing Director Mary Jo Kreitzer. “These events represent something for everyone, so we encourage seasoned practitioners and those interested in meditation to come and share in Rinpoche’s wisdom.”

Schedule of Events
The first of these events will be a meditation workshop for health care professionals – “Understanding Meditation in Healthcare Begins with You” – from 7:30-9:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, at the Campus Club, Coffman Memorial Union, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus. The cost is $65 and includes a continental breakfast and a copy of the speaker’s book.

Mingyur Rinpoche will hold a public discussion entitled “The Joy of Living: Meditation as a Path to Happiness” on from 4-5:30 p.m. Thursday, April 16, at the Mayo Memorial Auditorium, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities Campus. The cost is $35 and includes a copy of the speaker’s book.

Mingyur Rinpoche will also lead a three-day public seminar entitled “The Heart of Meditation,” during which he will instruct participants in the practice of tranquility meditation and mindfulness. This retreat will be fromm 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday-Sunday, April 17-19, at Bayview Event Center in Excelsior, MN. The cost is $175 for the seminar ($36 for lunch all three days).

To register for any of these events go to www.tickets.umn.edu and click on the Center for Spirituality & Healing logo. For more information, visit www.csh.umn.edu or call 612.624.9459.

Sunday, March 8 – 5 p.m. – Three bright talents on the national small press scene -  C.A. Conrad, Aaron Kunin, and Magdalena Zurawski – will read at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis [612.822.4611 - www.magersandquinn.com], co-sponsored by Rain Taxi Review of Books

Aaron Kunin is a poet, critic and novelist. He is the author of a collection of small poems about shame, Folding Ruler Star (Fence, 2005); a chapbook, Secret Architecture (Braincase, 2006); and a novel, The Mandarin (Fence, 2008), which is set in places that no longer exist in Minneapolis. He is assistant professor of negative anthropology at Pomona College and lives in Los Angeles.

C.A. Conrad’s childhood included selling cut flowers along the highway for his mother and helping her shoplift. He escaped to Philadelphia where he lives and writes with the PhillySound poets. His latest book, The Book of Frank (Chax Press, 2009), received The Gil Ott Book Award.

Magdalena Zurawski was born and raised in New Jersey, but Providence, RI, feels like home – that’s where she started writing and meeting writers and thinking of herself as a writer. Currently, she lives in Durham, NC, where she is studying 19th-century American literature at Duke University. The Bruise (FC2, 2008), her first book, is the winner of the Ronald Sukenick Prize for Innovative Fiction and has just been published by FC2.

Tuesday, March 12 – 7:30 p.m. – Writer and comedian Tom Davis discusses his memoir – Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss: The Early Days of SNL from Someone Who Was There – at Lyndale United Church of Christ, 31st and Aldrich Avenue South, Minneapolis, sponsored by Magers & Quinn Booksellers.

A memoir by Tom Davis, an original writer on Saturday Night Live and comedy partner with Al Franken, Thirty-nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is a hilarious book about the early days of SNL that chronicles Davis’s friendship with Jerry Garcia, Timothy Leary and his friends at SNL.

“Frankly, I’m surprised Tom was able to remember this much of the ’60s, ’70s and ’80s. But I’m not surprised that my old partner was able to capture the times with such humor and such wisdom.” – Al Franken

Thirty-Nine Years of Short-Term Memory Loss is a seriously funny and irreverent memoir that gives an insider’s view of the birth and rise of Saturday Night Live, and features laugh-out-loud stories about some of its greatest personalities – Al Franken, Lorne Michaels, Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Bill Murray, Michael O’Donoghue, and Chris Farley. Al Franken and Tom Davis were a stand-up comedy team that got their start in high school in 1968, performing their first material at Dudley Riggs Brave New Workshop in Minneapolis. They worked in comedy clubs and colleges from New York to Los Angeles, sharing stages with contemporaries including Jay Leno, Don Novello, Gabe Kaplan and Andy Kaufman. When they were rejected by “The Tonight Show” and blacklisted by The Comedy Store, Franken and Davis embraced their countercultural bent all the more, pushing the envelope of their unique sense of humor. Davis is a four-time Emmy winner from twelve seasons at Saturday Night Live, including the first five years. He was half the comedy team of Franken and Davis from high school in 1968 until he and Al broke up in 1990. The first-time author now lives alone in the woods in upstate New York.

Thursday, March 19 – 7:30 p.m. – Jill Jepson discusses her new book – Writing as a Sacred Path: A Practical Guide to Writing with Passion and Purpose – at Magers & Quinn Booksellers, 3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis

In this inspiring, supportive guide to approaching writing as a sacred art and to discovering spirituality through the process of writing, teacher and anthropologist Jill Jepson draws on her worldwide travels and studies of spiritual traditions to present a refreshing approach to the art of writing. Through rituals, exercises, dream analysis and more, writers will find fresh techniques for honing their skills, overcoming creative blocks and finding their authentic voices, while writing bravely, honestly and with true vision. Jill Jepson is assistant professor of English at the College of St. Catherine in St. Paul. She has taught writing for 15 years and is an award-winning research anthropologist. She also offers online writing workshops. For more information, visit www.writingthewhirlwind.com.

Keep Your Resolutions and Reduce Stress’ workshop | February 7

St. Louis Park – Golden Sun Chiropractic Wellness Center, PLLC, will host a workshop, “Keep Your Resolutions & Reduce Stress!” from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 7, at the center located at 7035 Wayzata Blvd., Suite 100, in St. Louis Park.

Start the New Year right with information by: Matthew Wood on “Herbs for Stress”; Gabriele Kushi on “20 Life Suggestions for Stress Reduction”; Una Forde, D.C.. an interactive class “Reducing Stress Through Holistic Healing”; Nancy Freaner, PT. on “Detoxification”; and Ann Cathcart on “6 Steps to Maintaining Constancy On Your Healing Journey and Qi Gong Energy Weight Loss Exercises.”

Additional information and booths on Rhythmic Movement will be presented to help improve learning, and behavior including ADD, as well as free infra-red thermography screenings, free spinal screenings, body fat screenings, blood pressure checks, and $1/ minute massage.

Early registration before Feb. 1 is $5, and $10 at the door. Call 952.922.1478 to register.

Minneapolis – Celebrate Valentine’s Day early with author/publisher Vicky Lansky as she signs copies of two books about love – 101 Ways To Tell Your Sweetheart “I Love You” and 101 Ways To Tell Your Child “I Love You” – at 2 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 8, at Magers & Quinn Booksellers. 101 Ways To Tell Your Child “I Love You” is an endearing collection that offers a wealth of ideas to remind children they are loved. There is an illustrated idea per page. It is easy to use and can be implemented with little prep or expense. And there are blank “love coupons” included. 101 Ways To Tell Your Sweetheart “I Love You” presents ideas that will make a difference in your life. Be it a simple walk in the moonlight or leaving a love note under a pillow, it offers suggestions that will charm and delight, such as:

• Write a check to your love for a million dollars (or some obviously un-cashable amount) as a token of your affection.

• Add a dimmer to your bedroom light switch.

• Hold hands. Hold hands when walking or talking. Over the dinner table or under it. In a movie. Even at a sporting event. Holding hands is good.

• Whisper loving words in your love’s ear even if no one is around. It makes for a very intimate moment.

Vicki Lansky’s practical, common sense approach to parenting and household management is familiar to thousands throughout the world. Her books, audiotapes, newsletter, media appearances, magazine and newspaper articles and reviews, make her one of America’s most popular and visible parenting figures.

James Twyman: 12 Prayer and The Moses Code | February 27-March 1

Minneapolis – James Twyman, who has written 12 books, recorded seven CDs and produced or directed four films, will present a concert from his new recording 12 Prayers and a workshop on his recent book The Moses Code on February 27-28 at Lake Harriet Spiritual Community, 4401 Upton Ave. S.

“In this workshop people will have a tangible experience of their Divine creative power,” Twyman says. “This will be an experiential process, and I believe everyone who attends will be able to take major steps in creating miracles in their own lives, just as Moses did. I really do believe that this is essential information. It’s time for us to be spiritually mature enough to set aside our own needs and desires and assist in the birth of a new world. If we do, then I believe the future will be very bright indeed.”

The concert will be at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 27. The cost is $20. The workshop is from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 28. The cost is $90. Twyman also will be the guest speaker at the 10:30 a.m. service on Sunday, March 1, at Lake Harriet. For more information, call 612.922.4272 or visit www.lakeharrietspiritualcommunity.org.

Twyman, known as “The Peace Troubadour” after traveling to war-torn countries like Iraq, Bosnia and South Africa to perform his peace concert, said he wrote the bestselling book, The Moses Code, after watching the international blockbuster film The Secret.

“I saw The Secret and on one hand was very excited, but on the other hand, I was very disturbed,” he says. “I was excited that so many people who were new to spirituality were going to see it and realize that they really do have the power to create their own world. I was disturbed because the entire focus was using that power to get more stuff…more cars, more money or a better relationship. This is what seems to be passing as spiritual these days, and it’s remarkably short sighted.”

“I believe we stand on the precipice of a new world, and there are many decisions we need to make if we’re going to survive and realize our spiritual destiny. And yet most people have no real concept of what that means and they’re completely focused on their own ego desires for comfort and riches.

“I don’t believe there’s anything wrong with being comfortable, but there are two ways we can go about it – through our ego or through our soul. The Moses Code is what I would call ‘Soul Manifestation,’ which begins from the question ‘What can I give?’ rather than ‘What can I get?’ Every spiritual tradition has stressed the importance of selfless service as primary to the spiritual path. As the Prayer of Saint Francis says: ‘It is in giving that we receive, and in loving that we are loved.’ If we can begin realizing that the more we are in service to others the more we attract goodness into our lives, then we’ll set aside the spiritual toys that have grabbed our attention of late and get down to the real business of transformation.”

Personal Power Field classes | April 13-19

International speaker and author Jim Self is offering free tele-classes and is returning to the Twin Cites April 13-19 for free evening classes and the weekend seminar: “Creating the Personal Power Field.” Jim has been leading seminars and teaching the Tools of Mastering Alchemy for more than 27 years. The free tele-classes run through March 12 and the public can join at any time. Learn about the shifts that are occurring on the planet, tools to ease ascension symptoms and transition more easily through this most important time. Learn tools to quiet life’s drama and noise. Begin to think with the Heart.

“Alchemy is accomplished by changing the frequency of thought, altering the harmonics of matter and applying the elements of Love to create the desired result.”

Since childhood, Jim has had ability to recall his experiences within the sleep state. Over the last ten years, this awareness has expanded into relationships with the archangels, ascended masters and teachers of light. The tools and information presented in Mastering Alchemy is a co-creation of these relationships.

To register, visit www.MasteringAlchemy.com or call Carol at 763.843.0043.

CONFERENCES & FESTIVALS

NOVEMBER 8-9
Yoga & Wellness Festival www.midtownyogafestival.com
The second annual Yoga & Wellness Festival will take place November 8-9 at the Midtown Global Market, 920 E. Lake St., Minneapolis, featuring demonstrations, lectures, authentic cultural entertainment, meditation, massage and bodywork, tai chi, acupuncture, holistic health, wellness educators, exhibitors and much more. This event is free and open to the public. The festival is intended for those who want to learn how to achieve wellness and peace; those who are seeking ways to maintain or enhance their yoga and other wellness practices. Hours are 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8, and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9. "Ahimsa is the practice of non-violence to oneself and one’s community. The practice of yoga and the modalities of wellness available today engender ‘ahmisa’ within and without, mentally and emotionally, and individually and globally. The time is now, to put our practice into practice!" says Gaia Richards, community Yoga advocate. Midtown Global Market is an international collection of nearly 50 independent and local vendors offering the finest selection of produce, delicacies, prepared foods, grocery items and unique gifts from around the world, seven days a week. Please visit www.midtownglobalmarket.com or call 612.872.4041. Festival sponsors are SoyJoy, The Sheraton Midtown and Nokomis Chiropractic.

NOVEMBER 15-16
Northland Bioneers Conference
www.nbconference.org
The Northland Bioneers Conference, intended to help people understand how they can shape a healthy, sustainable future for themselves and society, returns for the third time to Minnesota November 15-16 at the University of Minnesota’s Willey Hall on the west bank. The event gives people across political, cultural, economic and faith perspectives a place to learn and work together. Vonda Vaden, conference director, says, "We’re sure real solutions show up when there’s an effort to fully understand each other and the common concerns we face." The event will be guided by emcee Nina Rothschild Utne, artistic director Marcela Lorca and conversation guide Yogiraj Achala. Featured will be screenings of the national Bioneers plenary sessions, which took place October 16-19 in San Rafael, Calif., as well as locally produced programs on regional issues, with a focus on creating community dialogue, a space for networking, entertainment and an exhibit hall. A full list of national sessions shown via DVD and local workshop speakers and presenters can be found on the website, www.nbconference.org. Twenty-seven percent of capacity is reserved for scholarship registrants. Weekend rates for the conference are under $60 for early-registrants. Advertising inquiries should contact the Northland Bioneers Conference Director at 612.247.0781 or nbconference@visi.com Conference sponsors include 10th Dot, Eureka Recycling, Air America and Sunday’s Energy.

SPECIAL EVENTS

NOVEMBER 15
One Yoga: A Celebration Event
www.one-yoga.org

One Yoga, which has been part of the yoga community in the Twin Cities since 2002, is hosting A Celebration Event from 3:30-8:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 15, to launch its new outreach to individuals who traditionally lack access to the benefits of yoga through new and innovative partnerships with organizations, institutions and communities. A non-profit organization, One Yoga provides a setting dedicated to meeting people where they are. It encourages the exploration of yoga to support a lifelong personal practice to promote health and well-being. The public is invited to One Yoga for yoga practice, refreshments, conversation with like-minded yogis, and a special evening of music and chanting. The event is free to the public. The following is the schedule of event:
• 3:30-4:30 p.m. – Free Introductory Yoga Class
• 5:00-6:00 p.m. – Social Hour
• 6:00-6:30 p.m. – Presentation
• 7:00-8:30 p.m. – Chanting with Shakti Chant Band

One Yoga is located at 2100 B Lyndale Ave. S., Minneapolis. For more information, call 612.872.6347.

BOOK & POETRY READINGS

Magers & Quinn Booksellers
3038 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis, 612.822.4611
www.magersandquinn.com

• Saturday, Nov. 8, 7 p.m. – Seven poets published by the independent Red Dragonfly Press will read from their work. Lyle Daggett is the author of five books of poems, including the forthcoming The First Light Touches Me. His literary blog A Burning Patience is at http://aburningpatience.blogspot.com. Larry Gavin is a writer, editor and poet whose first collection of poems Necessities (2005) was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His second book of poems titled Least Resistance was published in 2008 and nominated for a Minnesota Book Award. Vicki Graham teaches literature and creative writing at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Her book, The Tenderness of Bees, is just out from Red Dragonfly Press. Athena Kildegaard’s poems have appeared widely in such journals as Faultline, Willow Springs, Tar River Poetry, Puerto del Sol, Cream City Review, The Seattle Review, Malahat Review, Valparaiso Review and Poetry East. Joe Paddock is a poet, oral historian and environmental writer who tends toward narrative in his poetry. His forthcoming book from Red Dragonfly is titled Dark Dreaming, Global Dimming: poems written in apprehension of the big story – the fact that humanity is pushing beyond global limits – that now underlies almost everything we do. Nancy Paddock’s book of poems, Trust the Wild Heart, published by Red Dragonfly Press, was selected as a 2006 Minnesota Book Awards finalist. Her poems have appeared in To Sing Along the Way: Minnesota Women Poets From Pre-Territorial Days to the Present, The Writer Dreaming in the Artist’s House, Common Ground: a Gathering of Poets from the 1986 Marshall Festival, As Far as I can See: Contemporary Writing of the Middle Plains, Warm Journal, Sing Heavenly Muse! Milkweed Chronicle, Grain, Feminist Studies, and many other publications. John Calvin Rezmerski is a co-editor of County Lines, an anthology of 130 Minnesota poets published in honor of Minnesota’s Sesquicentennial. He serves as Poet Laureate of the League of Minnesota Poets, and is a member of the poetry performance group Lady Poetesses from Hell.

• Wednesday, Nov. 12, 7:30 p.m. – Chris Dorsi will discusses his new book Homeowners Handbook To Energy Efficiency, which is written with you in mind…whether you never lift a hammer, or you’re highly experienced in home repair…whether you’re tightening up your old house or building a new home…whether you’re ready for a small project on a tight budget or about to tackle a major renovation. It explains how to plan, where to start, and how to proceed with easy-to-understand instructions. Learn how you can improve your home and increase its value. This book will show you the path to a more efficient, more enjoyable and less-costly home. Dorsi is a managing partner with Saturn Resource Management. He has 35 years of experience in construction management, 20 years in the energy conservation business, and thousands of days of technical training.

• Friday, Nov. 14, 7:30 p.m. – Tom Pilarzyk will discuss his book Yoga Beyond Fitness. An estimated 17 million people currently practice yoga and spend roughly three billion dollars annually on classes, products, and services in the United States. Yoga has become an unusual blend of ancient spiritual path from India and American commercialism, begging the question, "Is yoga merely a fitness industry masquerading as spirituality?" This issue is hotly debated right now in yoga magazines and at studios and centers across the country. Yoga’s widespread popularity means that more people are being exposed to the potential benefits yoga has to offer. And yet, yoga has expanded over the decades to become a full-fledged industry of the contemporary marketplace, filled with so many producers, sellers and consumers that they seem to outnumber the spiritual teachers, healers, devoted adepts and practitioners. Yoga Beyond Fitness captures the story of American yoga practice today, with special attention given to those who treat it with reverence and wish to explore it as a receptacle of transformative power, for which it was originally intended. Yoga instructor Tom Pilarzyk helps us restore the transformative center at the heart of yoga by showing how to bring greater intention, open-heartedness and peace into our practice both on and off the mat. Pilarzyk is a college administrator and registered yoga instructor who has practiced yoga for twenty years. With a doctorate in the social sciences, he has published articles in numerous scholarly journals as well as popular magazines including Yogi Times, Synchronicity Magazine, Sacred Pathways Magazine, and M Magazine.

BUSINESS RELOCATION

Inner Strength Studio Moving to Uptown

Inner Strength Studio, a family owned, locally run boutique fitness studio that strives to provide an alternative to the big-box, chain gyms, is moving to Uptown Minneapolis at 28th Street and Lyndale Avenue in January 2009. The year-and-a-half-old business fosters a holistic approach to health and fitness. Although it is an authorized Spin Studio, its classes meld fitness approaches and styles to fit the needs of its clientele – Yoga & Spin, Spin & Core, Spin & Strength. Inner Strength Fitness opened in Spring 2007 at 5200 Minnehaha Ave. S., Minneapolis. For more information, call 612.644.1953 or visit www.innerstrengthstudio.com.

ONLINE COMMUNITIES

Gaiam Yoga Club
www.gaiamyogaclub.com

Renowned yoga experts, Rodney Yee and Colleen Saidman, a couple noted for their 25 years of individual practice and yogic expertise, have developed the Gaiam Yoga Club, a new innovative, online home-based yoga program created in collaboration with Gaiam, Inc., the leading distributor of fitness and yoga programming. The online club is designed to introduce beginners to yoga and inspire long-time practitioners to fall in love with yoga all over again for only $5 a week. It features: a comprehensive 12-week, self-paced online course enabling you to create your own yoga program; nine 60-minute online yoga videos that guide all skill levels step-by-step; more than 60 downloadable yoga and meditation practices on audio; and a supportive online community of fellow yoga students to share your experiences through online chats, blogs and community message boards. "We developed Gaiam Yoga Club as the perfect bridge between the class and home practice," Yee says. "It offers tools to segue between being instructed in class and finding a way to instruct yourself. The club is also a bigger community in which you can reach out to the other members and say, ‘This is what I am experiencing, are you experiencing the same thing?’ " Each week, Rodney and Colleen introduce participants to a category of yoga poses (forward bends, backbends, twists and more) with modifications for different levels, and sequencing principles for personalizing your own yoga program. Podcasts focus on refining the poses and principles, and include downloadable pose guides. The hosts also lead members through guided relaxation, breath work and meditation for enhanced well-being. Because of the self-paced nature of the program, members decide individually when they are ready to move onto the next yoga lesson. Rodney Yee has made guest appearances on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, PBS and is one of the most sought-after yogis in the world, selling millions of yoga videos worldwide. For more information, call 1.800.869.3603.

ORGANIC NEWS
• Feds slaughter of wild bison beats 20th century records – More than 1,000 wild buffalo have been slaughtered in the Yellowstone National Park area since November 2007, representing the largest kill since the 1800s. "It would seem as though history was not learned the first time, for here we are today, watching these same government entities enacting the same policy," said Nez Perce tribal member James Holt. According to those monitoring the situation, namely the Buffalo Field Campaign, the total kill-off number will likely exceed 2,000 for the year. While the government’s official reason for the slaughter is to prevent the spread of brucellosis from wild bison to cattle, no such transmission has ever been documented, and the bison being sent to slaughter are not being tested for the disease.

• Wal-Mart goes rBGH-free – Wal-Mart recently announced its so-called "Great Value" store brand of milk will no longer come from cows injected with Monsanto’s controversial genetically engineered hormone, rBGH/rBST. Ronnie Cummins, director of the Organic Consumers Association (OCA), stated in an interview with the Toronto Globe and Mail that Wal-Mart’s announcement will likely serve as a tipping point for driving Monsanto’s controversial bovine drug off the market. Since its inception, the OCA has campaigned aggressively against rBGH, which is banned in Europe, Canada and most of the industrialized world. Wal-Mart’s move, according to industry experts, will likely dramatically expand market demand for rBGH-free and organic dairy products. According to Cummins, "After 14 years of of bullying consumers and buying off FDA and USDA bureaucrats, this is the beginning of the end for this cruel and dangerous drug."

• White House lies to the world about biofuels – A recent report from the International Monetary Fund estimates that biofuels are responsible for as much as 30 percent of the global food shortage. Despite this fact, at the United Nation’s emergency food summit in Rome, USDA Secretary of Agriculture Edward Schafer defended the U.S. government’s decision to spend billions of dollars subsidizing corn and soybean-based ethanol and biofuel, falsely claiming that biofuels contributed only 2-3 percent of the overall increase in global food prices over the past year. According to USDA spokesman Jim Brownlee, Mr. Schafer was unaware that his statistics were off by nearly 90 percent.

The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) is an online and grassroots non-profit public interest organization campaigning for health, justice and sustainability. For complete articles on all of these topics and more, and to subscribe, please visit www.organicconsumers.org.

Copyright © 2008 Organic Consumers Association. All rights reserved.