A revised edition of the hilarious Minnesotan culture guide from a former writer for A Prairie Home Companion Fans of the Minnesota-set movie Fargo will love this uproarious culture guide to all-things Minnesotan. With his dry wit and distinctive voice, Howard Mohr won millions of fans across the country on Garrison Keillor’s radio show A Prairie Home Companion. His popular commercials and ad spots, including one for “Minnesota Language Systems,” became the best of the best of Minnesota humor. Now, Mohr has updated his classic guide, How to Talk Minnesotan, to advise visitors on the use of Twitter and Facebook, cell phone etiquette, and more while in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. “Ranging in flavor from satiric pungency to lunatic lusciousness, this is glorious, uproarious humor. Or as they say in Minnesota, ‘a heckuva deal, you bet.’”—Booklist

A chronological compendium of remarkable and curious events in the history of the North Star State

Winner of a Spur Award, presented by the Western Writers of America (WWA), for the Best Western Nonfiction Historical Book. Renowned historian Annette Atkins presents a fresh understanding of how a complex and modern Minnesota came into being in Creating Minnesota. Each chapter of this innovative state history focuses on a telling detail, a revealing incident, or a meaningful issue that illuminates a larger event, social trends, or politics during a period in our past. A three-act play about Minnesota's statehood vividly depicts the competing interests of Natives, traders, and politicians who lived in the same territory but moved in different worlds. Oranges are the focal point of a chapter about railroads and transportation: how did a St. Paul family manage to celebrate their 1898 Christmas with fruit that grew no closer than 1,500 miles from their home? A photo essay brings to life three communities of the 1920s, seen through the lenses of local and itinerant photographers. The much-sought state fish helps to explain the new Minnesota, where pan-fried walleye and walleye quesadillas coexist on the same north woods menu. In Creating Minnesota Atkins invites readers to experience the texture of people's lives through the decades, offering a fascinating and unparalleled approach to the history of our state.

A revised edition of the hilarious Minnesotan culture guide from a former writer for A Prairie Home Companion Fans of the Minnesota-set movie Fargo will love this uproarious culture guide to all-things Minnesotan. With his dry wit and distinctive voice, Howard Mohr won millions of fans across the country on Garrison Keillor’s radio show A Prairie Home Companion. His popular commercials and ad spots, including one for “Minnesota Language Systems,” became the best of the best of Minnesota humor. Now, Mohr has updated his classic guide, How to Talk Minnesotan, to advise visitors on the use of Twitter and Facebook, cell phone etiquette, and more while in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. “Ranging in flavor from satiric pungency to lunatic lusciousness, this is glorious, uproarious humor. Or as they say in Minnesota, ‘a heckuva deal, you bet.’”—Booklist

With the warmth and humor we've come to know, the creator and host of A Prairie Home Companion shares his own remarkable story. In That Time of Year, Garrison Keillor looks back on his life and recounts how a Brethren boy with writerly ambitions grew up in a small town on the Mississippi in the 1950s and, seeing three good friends die young, turned to comedy and radio. Through a series of unreasonable lucky breaks, he founded A Prairie Home Companion and put himself in line for a good life, including mistakes, regrets, and a few medical adventures. PHC lasted forty-two years, 1,557 shows, and enjoyed the freedom to do as it pleased for three or four million listeners every Saturday at 5 p.m. Central. He got to sing with Emmylou Harris and Renée Fleming and once sang two songs to the U.S. Supreme Court. He played a private eye and a cowboy, gave the news from his hometown, Lake Wobegon, and met Somali cabdrivers who’d learned English from listening to the show. He wrote bestselling novels, won a Grammy and a National Humanities Medal, and made a movie with Robert Altman with an alarming amount of improvisation. He says, “I was unemployable and managed to invent work for myself that I loved all my life, and on top of that I married well. That’s the secret, work and love. And I chose the right ancestors, impoverished Scots and Yorkshire farmers, good workers. I’m heading for eighty, and I still get up to write before dawn every day.”

In this provocative book, sixteen of Minnesota’s best writers provide a range of perspectives on what it is like to live as a person of color in one of the whitest states in the nation. They give readers a splendid gift: the gift of touching another human being’s inner reality, behind masks and veils and politeness. They bring us generously into experiences that we must understand if we are to come together in real relationships. Minnesota communities struggle with some of the nation’s worst racial disparities. As its authors confront and consider the realities that lie beneath the numbers, this book provides an important tool to those who want to be part of closing those gaps. With contributions by: Taiyon J. Coleman, Heid E. Erdrich, Venessa Fuentes, Shannon Gibney, David Grant, Carolyn Holbrook, IBé, Andrea Jenkins, Robert Karimi, JaeRan Kim, Sherry Quan Lee, David Mura, Bao Phi, Rodrigo Sanchez-Chavarria, Diane Wilson, Kao Kalia Yang

This book features the fascinating, funny and strange side of Minnesota, in small blocks of text, with accompanying photographs.

You have probably heard about it and most likely experienced it in action. And if you've spoken to transplants for more than five minutes, it's bound to have come up in conversation. Minnesota Nice. It can make what might seem like the most benign interaction absolutely perplexing to an outsider. And it's no secret that Minnesota Nice can create real challenges for transplants attempting to work and live successfully in Minnesota. If you could use some help, you've come to the right place. Minnesota Nice? A Transplant's Guide to Surviving and Thriving in Minnesota Nice is a decoder book for Minnesota culture. In it you'll learn why Minnesotans are the way they are, including the characteristics and origins of this culture. But, more importantly, you'll learn numerous ways to work and live harmoniously with Minnesotans- even if they're being passive-aggressive, conflict avoidant, and hard to get to know!

From Native Americans, the fur trade, and French exploration to British rule and Independence, and the largest mass execution in U.S. history to profiles of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Garrison Keillor, HHH, SPAM, and Betty Crocker, no book is more comprehensive. No book is more fun. Well-known Minnesotans weigh in on one of the nation's most livable states. Crime historian Paul Maccabee spills the beans on gangsters in Minnesota, Howard Mohr tells us five ways even you can talk like a Minnesotan, Annette Atkins gives up the five things that make Minnesota Minnesota, and celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern dishes on hotdish and other favorites. From great parks, Minnesota shorthand, and outstanding theater to Nobel Prize winners, astronauts, and Minnesota"nice," it's all here. Whether you're a lifelong resident or a first-time visitor to the Gopher State, there is no more complete book about Minnesota. If you love Minnesota, you'll love Minnesota 101.