Local & Regional

Abundance to Share With the Birds

$10.00
ISBN/SKU: 
886410
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An Indelible Journey

$18.00
Tells the story of Ankie Foell, born of Dutch parents in a small Sumatran village in the former Dutch East Indies. She takes us through a childhood in the tropics, interrupted by three and a half years in a Japanese concentration camp, followed by a challenging transition and adolescence in the Netherlands, with another painful separation from her parents. Never feeling completely at home in the Netherlands, she emigrated to the United States, where she found her niche and career as a concert pianist and pedagogue and the opportunity to live and perform throughout the world, even in her birth country, now known as Indonesia. Woven through this story is Ankie's reflection and introspective analysis of how her life and identity have been influenced by her many journeys through Europe, Asia and North America, and particularly her childhood in the tropics.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780578894362
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Birdman of Koshkonong: The Life of Naturalist Thure Kumlien

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$20.00
Thure Kumlien was one of Wisconsin's earliest Swedish settlers and an accomplished ornithologist, botanist, and naturalist in the mid-1800s, though his name is not well known today. He settled on the shore of Lake Koshkonong in 1843 and soon began sending bird specimens to museums and collectors in Europe and the eastern United States, including the Smithsonian. Later, he prepared natural history exhibits for the newly established University of Wisconsin and became the first curator and third employee of the new Milwaukee Public Museum.

For all of his achievements, Kumlien never gained the widespread notoriety of Wisconsin naturalists John Muir, Increase Lapham, or Aldo Leopold. Kumlien did his work behind the scenes, content to spend his days in the marshes and swamps rather than in the public eye. He once wrote that he was not "cut out for pretensions and show in the world." Yet, his detailed observations of Wisconsin's natural world--including the impact of early agriculture on the environment--were hugely important to the fields of ornithology and botany. As this carefully researched and lovingly rendered biography proves, Thure Kumlien deserves to be remembered as one of Wisconsin's most influential naturalists.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780870209529
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Death at Gills Rock: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

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$16.95
Dave Cubiak is back!

After tracking a clever killer in Death Stalks Door County, park ranger and former Chicago homicide detective Dave Cubiak is elected Door County sheriff. His newest challenge arrives as spring brings not new life but tragic death to the isolated fishing village of Gills Rock. Three prominent World War II veterans, about to be honored for their military heroics, die from carbon monoxide poisoning during a weekly card game.

Blame falls to a faulty heater but Cubiak puzzles over details. When one of the widows receives a message claiming the men "got what they deserved," he realizes that there may be more to the deaths than a simple accident.

Investigating, Cubiak discovers that the men's veneer of success and respectability hides an intricate web of lies, betrayal, and treachery.

In a dark, moody tale that spans more than half a century and hopscotches across the peninsula, Cubiak encounters a host of suspects with motives for murder. Amid broken dreams, corruption, and loss, he sorts out the truth.

Death at Gills Rock is the second book in the Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery series.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780299304546
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Death in Cold Water (#3)

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$16.95
On a bracing autumn day in Door County, a prominent philanthropist disappears. Is the elderly Gerald Sneider-known as "Mr. Packer" for his legendary support of Green Bay football-suffering from dementia or just avoiding his greedy son? Is there a connection to threats against the National Football League? As tourists flood the peninsula for the fall colors, Sheriff Dave Cubiak's search for Sneider is stymied by the FBI. When human bones wash up on the Lake Michigan shore, the sheriff has more to worry about than a missing man.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780299309244
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Death Stalks Door County (#1)

$16.95
Six deaths mar the holiday mood as summer vacationers enjoy Wisconsin's beautiful Door County peninsula. Murders, or bizarre accidents? Newly hired park ranger Dave Cubiak, a former Chicago homicide detective, assumes the worst but refuses to get involved. Grief-stricken and guilt-ridden over the loss of his wife and daughter, he's had enough of death.
Forced to confront the past, the morose Cubiak moves beyond his own heartache and starts investigating, even as a popular festival draws more people into possible danger. In a desperate search for clues, Cubiak uncovers a tangled web of greed, betrayal, bitter rivalries, and lost love beneath the peninsula's travel-brochure veneer. Befriended by several locals but unsure whom to trust or to suspect of murder, the one-time cop tracks a clever killer.
In a setting of stunning natural beauty and picturesque waterfront villages, Death Stalks Door County introduces a new detective series, "The Dave Cubiak Door County Mysteries."

Finalist, Traditional Fiction 2014 Book of the Year Award, Chicago Writers Association

ISBN/SKU: 
9780299299446
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Deep Dark Secrets

$16.95

You're invited to visit Deep Lakes, Wisconsin and meet a new friend, Francine "Frankie" Champagne. The 40-something owner of Bubble and Bake-bakery by day, wine lounge by night-Frankie is a spitfire pastry maker, vintner, and budding journalist.

Frankie finds herself on the perimeter of a suspicious death that upends the peaceful winter slumber in Deep Lakes when the local pastor is found dead inside his fishing shanty on Lake Loki. Frankie sticks her curious nose into the investigation, despite warnings from the local sheriff to leave it alone. But she has something to prove, maybe to the newspaper editor who wouldn't hire her as a reporter, maybe to herself as she searches for fulfillment. Regardless, her fierce independence won't allow her to back down. Follow Frankie as she stumbles upon one discovery after another, trails potential suspects, and solves the case!

ISBN/SKU: 
9781645380344
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Gatekeeper: Poems

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$16.00

Winner of a Wisconsin Library Association Outstanding Achievement Award

What is the deep web? A locked door. A tool for oppression and for revolution. "An emptying drain, driven by gravity." And in Patrick Johnson's Gatekeeper--selected by Khaled Mattawa as the winner of the 2019 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry--it is the place where connection is darkly transfigured by distance and power.

So we learn as Johnson's speaker descends into his inferno, his Virgil a hacker for whom "nothing to stop him is reason enough to keep going," his Beatrice the elusive Anon, another faceless user of the deep web. Here is unnameable horror--human trafficking, hitmen, terrorism recruitment. And here, too, is the lure of the beloved. But gone are the orderly circles of hell. Instead, Johnson's map of the deep web is recursive and interrogatory, drawing inspiration and forms from the natural world and from science, as his speaker attempts to find a stable grasp on the complexities of this exhilarating and frightening digital world.

Spooky and spare, Gatekeeper is a striking debut collection and a suspenseful odyssey for these troubled times.

ISBN/SKU: 
9781571315267
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Here on Lake Hallie: In Praise of Barflies, Fix-It Guys, and Other Folks in Our Hometown

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$20.00
In these humorous and heartfelt essays, Patti See celebrates small-town life in Wisconsin's Chippewa Valley. Featuring childhood memories of supper clubs, thrift sales, and cribbage games, as well as the midlife concerns that accompany having a son in the military, a parent with Alzheimer's, and a private onsite septic system, See's writing praises the quirky charm of her hometown and its people.

Growing up in the 1970s and 1980s as the youngest of eight children, Patti never imagined she'd stay in Chippewa Falls as an adult. Now, living on rural Lake Hallie just five miles from her childhood home, she has a new appreciation for all that comes with country living, from ice fishing and eagle sightings to pontoon rides and tavern dice. These brief essays--many of which were originally published in the Sawdust Stories column of the Eau Claire Leader-Telegram--establish that, above all else, it's friends, family, and other folks in our hometown who provide us with a sense of belonging.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780870209918
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Imaginery Baritone

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$10.00
In these poems drawn from a lifetime of experience, Richard Merelman writes of the aspirations and disappointments of his youth--women, ambition, and escape from a difficult childhood; a middle age coming to terms with the horrors of war, Jewish identity in America, and the vicissitudes of love; and the difficulties and accomplishments of old age. He writes in a variety of forms--sonnets, sestinas, rondeaux, free verse, and syllabics--with humor, music, clarity, and irony about his lifelong struggle with himself and an unforgiving God.
ISBN/SKU: 
9781878660275
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Madison: The Illustrated History, Vol 1

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$18.01
This engaging illustrated history, full of photographs, maps, and bird's-eye views, captures Madison's early history from its first days as a city to the Great Depression. Biographical vignettes tell the stories of early movers and shakers in the city. The volume includes many archival images of Madison that have never been published or have not been seen since for a century or more.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780299216740
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Somos Latinas: Voices of Wisconsin Latina Activists

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$24.95
Twenty-five Latina agents of change share their inspirational stories.

Celebrated Latina civil rights activist Dolores Huerta once said, "Every moment is an organizing opportunity, every person a potential activist, every minute a chance to change the world." These are the stories of some of the Latina activists from Wisconsin who have lived Huerta's words. Somos Latinas shares the powerful narratives of 25 activists--from outspoken demonstrators to collaborative community-builders to determined individuals working for change behind the scenes--providing proof of the long-standing legacy of Latina activism throughout Wisconsin.

Somos Latinas draws on activist interviews conducted as part of the Somos Latinas Digital History Project, housed at the Wisconsin Historical Society, and looks deep into the life and passion of each woman. Though Latinas have a rich history of community activism in the state and throughout the country, their stories often go uncelebrated. Somos Latinas is essential reading for scholars, historians, activists, and anyone curious about how everyday citizens can effect change in their communities.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780870208591
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Walter the Wily Walleye

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$16.95
Walter the Wily Walleye is a story of a fish that invites and challenges a child to try and catch him. Walter provides a whimsical look at a fun sport. He encourages the reader and child to seek adventure with family and friends.
ISBN/SKU: 
9780692102923
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We Will Always Be Here: A Guide to Exploring and Understanding the History of LGBTQ+ Activism in Wisconsin

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$15.00
This inspiring and educational book presents examples of LGBTQ+ activism throughout Wisconsin's history for young people to explore and discuss. Drawing from a rich collection of primary sources--including diary entries, love letters, zines, advertisements, oral histories, and more--the book provides a jumping-off point for readers who are interested in learning more about LGBTQ+ history and activism, as well as for readers who want to build on the work of earlier activists.

We Will Always Be Here shines a light on powerful and often untold stories from Wisconsin's history, featuring individuals across a wide spectrum of identities and from all corners of the state. The LGBTQ+ people, allies, and activists in this guide changed the world by taking steps that young people can take today--by educating themselves, telling their own stories, being true to themselves, building communities, and getting active. The aim of this celebratory book is not only to engage young people in Wisconsin's LGBTQ+ history, but also to empower them to make positive change in the world.

ISBN/SKU: 
9780870209611
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