Sea Salt Eatery: Recipes to Enjoy Year-Round

August 6, Cooking demonstration at Cooks of Crocus Hill

August 8, 2pm, Brookies Meet and Greet

@seasalteatery and @gail.rosenblum on Facebook

@seasalt and @gail.rosenblum on Instagram

gailrosenblum.com

Recommendations

Read Deborah’s Racket review: Sea Salt Eatery’s Cookbook Dishes Out Recipes With a Side of History

Listen to RacketCast, Ep. 56: BookCast Vol. 2 Feat. Writer/Podcaster Deborah Copperud

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New Scenic Cafe Cookbook

The Ultimate Minnesota Cookie Book

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Novels

The Lake Club by Lina Patton

Lina Patton based her buzzy new novel The Lake Club, in part, on her experience working a service job on Lake Minnetonka, so I know it’s going to contain an enjoyable amount of upstairs-downstairs intrigue and Midwestern passive aggressive dialogue. As someone who doesn’t own lake property, who has publicly declared my disdain for cabin culture, and will never pay for a membership to a place more exclusive than Costco, I am so excited for this book. I’m saving my copy to read on a Lake Superior beach on an upcoming (anti-elitist) long weekend camping trip.

Ada by Mark Haber

Out next week from Coffee House Press, Ada by Mark Haber promises absurd hilarity in this first-person narrative about a petty tyrant in a fictional European country, written in Haber’s signature style.

Short Fiction

Again, Harder by Alice Stoehr

This recommendation is from , who I interviewed about All Us Saints back in May. Again, Harder is a collection of Alice Stoehr’s short fiction about a community of trans women living in a Midwestern town, published by Feminist Press this spring. If you enjoyed Stag Dance by Torey Peters, Again, Harder should be the next book you read.

July Sun by Aamina Ahmad

In this new collection by University of Minnesota creative writing professor, playwright, and award-winning author Aamina Ahmad, the short stories take place in Pakistan. Described as “searing” and “atmospheric,” some of the stories in this collection were previously published in prestigious literary journals like The Missouri Review, One Story, and Ecotone.

The Extra and The Other by Annie Neugebauer

Here’s the creepy premise of The Extra, Book One in horror author Annie Neugebauer’s The Outsiders Sequence series:

Ten people head out on a backpacking trip, but the first night eleven set up camp. Everyone remembers everyone else. Who is the extra?

And Book Two, The Other, is ready when you’ve recovered from The Extra!

These are books I have to read in broad daylight! But if you’re braver than me, they’d be perfect for spooking yourself on a dark, stormy night, or for reading aloud around a campfire.

And if you want even more scary stuff, read Neugebauer’s debut short story collection You Have to Let Them Bleed published by Bad Hand Books earlier this year.

Local History

Minnesota’s Phoenix: From the Ashes of Braniff to Sun Country Airlines by Karyn Fernandes, Jennifer Kimball Gasperini, and Maggie Hill

With the recent Allegiant Air purchase of Sun Country and with summer travel at its peak, now is a great time to read up on local aviation history and the scrappy, homegrown origins of MSP’s biggest budget airline.

STRIKE! Twenty Days in 1970 When Minneapolis Teachers Broke the Law by William D. Green

An illegal teacher’s strike! I first read about this fascinating episode in Minnesota labor history when Racket published an excerpt from Green’s latest, recently published by University of Minnesota Press. Of interest to anyone who follows the neverending story of Minneapolis Public School’s budget crisis. (And for extra credit, listen to my episode with Shannon Gibney, Minneapolis author and School Board candidate.)

Pop culture

What Would Ken Do? by Kara Nesvig

I’ve been enjoying writer ’s newsletter Oh I Love That so I was delighted to come across her fun romp into Barbie culture, What Would Ken Do?, on a shelf promoting local authors at Acorn Bookshop in St. Paul. Read this if you’re nostalgic for simpler times, like the summer of 2023.

Minute 12 of this episode contains a frank description of stillbirth. Please take care while listening.

Where Is My Sister?

What God Is Honored Here? Writings on Miscarriage and Infant Loss by and for Native Women and Women of Color, Edited by Shannon Gibney and Kao Kalia Yang

@shannongibney on Bluesky

shannongibney.com

Shannon Gibney for District 3 Minneapolis School Board

2024 Racket interview about Gibney’s picture book We Miss You George Floyd

Recommendation

Make a plan to vote!

Subscribe to Read Minnesota Books and look forward to Season 2 in the fall!

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The Shrew Detective

Margipreus.com

@margipreus on Instagram

@margipreus on Facebook

Margi Preus’s The Devil Wears Prada 2 connection

Recommendations

Adolf Born

Glassful of Prayer by Anthony Ceballos (Trio House Press)

@thatcasualgayvampire on Instagram

Anthony Ceballos on Facebook

Recommendation

Wild Things by Lynette Reini-Grandell

Authors! You NEED to follow Jill on Substack and learn from her approach to book promotion - she is a masterclass in indie book publicity.

The Land of Everlasting Sky (She Writes Press)

Book tour

Jill D. Swenson on Substack

Jill D. Swenson on Facebook

Recommendation

It’s summer! Go to your public library!

Patient, Female (Milkweed Editions)

Julie Schumacher on Facebook

Recommendations

Refuse to be Done by Matt Bell

Matt Bell’s weasel word exercise

All Us Saints (Bloombury)

@katpburke on Twitter

Ghost Image, Katherine’s Substack newsletter

Recommendation

Help the show! Leave a review if you use Apple Podcasts or an app like Spotify or Castbox. The show has nine ***** ratings on Apple Podcasts and I would love ten or more!

Forward this email or share this post with a friend who loves to read, in Minnesota or elsewhere.

The Gyre (Alternating Current Press)

stacycarlson.com

Stacy Carlson on Facebook

@magnificentsparrow on Instagram

Recommendations

Girl Gone Wild Book Tour at Acorn Bookshop

Rain Taxi Twin Cities Literary Calendar

My favorite part of the book (and this interview) was learning about how compulsory music education in Minneapolis from 1911 to the mid-1950s create a community with incredible levels of music literacy, creating just the right conditions to cultivate a musical genius like Prince.

Do you have a Prince fan in your life? Please share this episode with them. They’ll love it!

Recommendation

Our discussion ran long, so you won’t hear a recommendation at the end of the episode. But if you want more Prince and more geography of music, I recommend listening to this Minnesota Public Radio story about the writer Frank Bures’s walking Prince tour.

[Fun fact: Frank Bures, Minnesota rapper Yung Gravy, and I are all staff alum of YMCA Camp Olson.]

Links

Prince’s Minneapolis: A Biography of Sound and Place (University of North Carolina Press)

Paisley Park

“ICE Can’t Silence Prince’s Minneapolis” by Rashad Shabazz, Zocalo Public Square

@drshabazzz.bsky.social

@drshabazz on Instagram

Adore

Mark has a book release event at Moon Palace Books, Tuesday, May 12, at 7:00pm.

Thanks for listening to Read Minnesota Books!

Thanks for listening to Read Minnesota Books!

Northwoods Lullaby from University of Minnesota Press

marycasanova.com

Northwoods Young Writers: A Teen Writing Retreat

2026 Author + Illustrator events for Northwoods Lullaby

Duluth: May 2, 11am Zenith Bookstore and 3pm at Fitgers Bookstore

Minneapolis: May 9th, 10:00am at Strib Unbound, Theodore Wirth Park

St. Paul: May 23, 10:30am, Red Balloon bookstore

Roseville: June 9, 6:30pm, Roseville Nature Center / Picture Book Salon

Ely: July 3, 10:30am, Piragis Bookstore

Recommendation

Make your northwoods camping reservations now!

Thanks for listening to Read Minnesota Books

Catch Gaelynn’s Book Launch & Concert on Thursday, April 30, at Open Eye Theater in Minneapolis!

If you’re enjoying Read Minnesota Books, please give us a 5-star rating and quick review on your podcast app.

The book launch for The Evolution of Fire takes place next week, Thursday, April 16, at The Hive Collaborative in St. Paul and it looks super fun, with music, a film, poetry, reading, and a book discussion.

Thanks for listening to Read Minnesota Books!

Some local updates

I wrote an essay for The Loft Literary Center’s blog about how rejection motivated me to start Read Minnesota Books. I’m teaching a class called Podcasting for Writers at the Loft on Saturday, April 18, from 10:00am - 2:00pm. If you’re interested in starting a podcast or expanding your writer platform through podcasts, this is a great, one-time workshop! Register soon because spots are filling up fast.

I also wrote a review for Minnesota Monthly of Laurie Hertzel’s new memoir Ghosts of Fourth Street: My Family, A Death, and the Hills of Duluth. She has an event at Magers & Quinn with Read Minnesota Books guest Kao Kalia Yang, tonight, Monday, April 6, at 7:00pm.

Read Minnesota Books guest Misty Heggeness will present her book Swiftynomics at Magers & Quinn this Thursday, April 9, at 7:00pm.

Read Minnesota Books is sponsoring Rain Taxi’s 2026 Twin Cities Independent Bookstore Passport, which takes place April 22 - 26.

My Bookstore Tour of NYC Starts at MSP

Every time I fly (which is not often) I get to the Minneapolis - Saint Paul International Airport early so I can browse at Open Book, which is an amazing little bookstore in Terminal 1’s main shopping area.

Open Book specializes in fun merch, like this Read Local shirt, and great recommended reading displays, like a shelf full of books by immigrant writers.

On my family’s first full day in Manhattan, we happened upon a McNally Jackson branch near the South Street Seaport Museum. I enjoyed browsing the store’s selection of literary magazines and this display of books by immigrant women authors. I didn’t buy anything for myself because I spent the day’s book budget on the novels my kids picked out (don’t feel sorry for me; I have a huge and well-stocked to-read list).

In Brooklyn, we visited the Central Library and took in the Printing Black America: Du Bois’s Data Portraits in the 21st Century exhibit. Here’s one of the prints. As a Minnesota bookstacker and podcaster, I must point out the sparse landscape of Black bookstores in the Upper Midwest, with that lone open faced book near the top of the Mississippi River representing Black Garnet Books in St. Paul.

At the end of the day we visited one of ’s Books Are Magic bookstores, the location on Smith Street. Here I bought a paperback copy of Stag Dance by Torrey Peters for myself, more books for my kids, and some Books Are Magic merch. Brilliant store name.

On another day of the trip, back in Manhattan, I stumbled on a bookstore located in the Chelsea Market building, but it was so crowded and full of gimmicky gifts, I didn’t stay long and left empty-handed.

The Strand! My family visited New York City on a trip a few years ago, and this was a very memorable stop for one of my kids, so we made a repeat trip. Here, I bought more books for my kids, a t-shirt, a sticker, and a special little item from the rare books room.

I definitely recommend planning a trip around a city’s best book stores. Last year I was quoted in a Minnesota Star Tribune article about how to make reading a bigger part of your life, and my advice was to “buy books when you travel; they make great souvenirs.” Just be sure to leave enough room in your carry-on.

I devoured my advanced copy of the book. As a southwestern Minnesota prairie-raised person with a starry-eyed creative side myself, I completely related to Kocak’s desire to leave the plains for a sparkling show business career. I loved and appreciated her vulnerable and inspirational stories about hustling to make it in Hollywood, witnessing skeeve on the Joe Francis party bus, and carving her own uncompromising artistic path.

Enjoy our conversation, then pre-order Courtney’s book! Thanks for listening to Read Minnesota Books.

Thanks for listening to Read Minnesota Books!

Swiftynomics

Misty Heggeness at Magers & Quinn Booksellers on April 9, 2026

A Minnesota Legacy book series from Bethany House

@traciepetersonauthor on Facebook

traciepetersonbooks.com

Nobles County Historical Society