Be Awesome! Be a Book Nut!

Newsletter, March 3rd, 2023

Hello Book Nuts!

I didn't say that Dr. Seuss did - please don't blame the messenger :) It was Dr. Seuss's birthday yesterday - another reason to celebrate and promote reading, for kids, sure, but also for Adults!

Introducing- The Reading Circle Book Club - I know, I know, I said no more book clubs, but this is different, hear me out. Every Saturday morning from 9-10am, before I open for the day, I plan to get a cup of coffee, find a cozy spot at The Spot and read quietly. And I invite all of you to join the Reading Circle. You can bring your own book, pick up your favorite beverage (or use our free options), find a cozy corner at The Spot, and join me in reading for an hour (or whatever time you can spare). No discussion, no questions, just reading - whatever you are currently reading. Build in time to exercise your brain, get the weekend started right, then off you go, doing things that you have to do, but with the satisfaction of having taken time for yourself. What do you say? Will you join me? I will be here tomorrow at 9:00am.

Subscription Box update: Had a few questions come up about the boxes that I'd like to address.

1. I was going to start with boxes for age group 4-8, however, I understand there can be a big difference in reading/comprehension levels between those ages. So, I'm opening it up to all ages 0-12. When you sign up, please indicate the age and/or reading level, and the box will be customized for you.

2. When signing up online, you will have the option to choose “store pickup” or “local delivery” - both of which are free. In addition, you can choose to have these delivered anywhere in the country with additional shipping.

A reminder that we are able to answer any Spot-related questions via WhatsApp at 952-217-5682.

UPCOMING AUTHOR EVENTS

All Author events are FREE but registration is required. Register early to reserve your spot!

• Landscaping for Bees - Saturday, March 11th, 2:00 pm - Heather Holm - Minnetonka's very own celebrity pollinator expert will speak about “Creating and Managing Landscapes for Native Bees”. Her books on Bees and Wasps are also now on our regional shelf! She is a prolific researcher and writer and speaker about all things pollination.

• Ecology for Kids - Saturday, March 18th, 10:00 am - Liz Heinecke - Our favorite local scientist is back with another book. Her latest - Ecology for Kids - releases on March 7th and this will be our “book launch” party for her. As usual, she will have experiments from her book for the kids (and adults) to watch and perform!

• How High We Go in the Dark - Sunday, April 16th, 1:00 pm - Sequoia Nagamatsu - Book-signing, reading, and discussion about the national best-selling novel "How high we go in the dark" with Author Sequoia Nagamatsu. For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague—a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice. Our Fiction book club will be reading this book next, in preparation for the event!

OTHER EVENTS

• Reading with Getty - Tuesday March 14th 4-6pm - It's been a lot of fun having Getty in-store. We will continue to bring her back as long as there is interest. Find a slot that works for you and come visit her. 10 mins is all it takes and builds a reading habit over time!

• Generative AI Workshop - Saturday March 26th Noon-1:30pm. These sessions are “generating” a lot of interest and some very insightful discussions! March session is also being live-streamed so please make sure you pick the appropriate ticket when signing up.

KIDS WORKSHOPS

CHESS Workshops with Dr. Fun - Registration is open! Sessions are for all ages! Parents if you're intimidated by your kids' skills, you may want to take these too!

• America’s Fun Science presents four classes of fun learning chess basics from a championship chess coach; each class focuses on a different piece. Each 2-session series culminates with a mini-tournament and prizes! And, you can learn to play Four-Way Chess!

• Beginner Chess - 2 sessions. 2 hrs each. March 11th and 25th 10:30a-12:30p.

• Intermediate Chess - 2 sessions. 2 hrs each. April 1st and 8th 10:30a-12:30p.

BOOK CLUBS

I have a page created on the site with all the information for the various Book Clubs. That will be kept up-to-date going forward. Register online, call or WhatsApp to join!

SCIENCE NEWS

• From the accidental discovery department - New antibiotic cures superbugs without bacterial resistance

• From the did we really need this department - A new (and paid) way to cure hiccups

• X-Ray vision is here!

READING

This week's book list is all the new book picks for our book clubs. New releases for the week have been added to our site.

Happy reading and see you at the Spot soon!

Rima.

Book Club Picks

How High We Go in the Dark

By Sequoia Nagamatsu

Next pick for the Fiction Book club. Local Author Event coming up in April.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“Moving and thought-provoking . . . offering psychological insights in lyrical prose while seriously exploring speculative conceits.” — New York Times Book Review

For fans of Cloud Atlas and Station Eleven, a spellbinding and profoundly prescient debut that follows a cast of intricately linked characters over hundreds of years as humanity struggles to rebuild itself in the aftermath of a climate plague—a daring and deeply heartfelt work of mind-bending imagination from a singular new voice.

In 2030, a grieving archeologist arrives in the Arctic Circle to continue the work of his recently deceased daughter at the Batagaika Crater, where researchers are studying long-buried secrets now revealed in melting permafrost, including the perfectly preserved remains of a girl who appears to have died of an ancient virus.

Once unleashed, the Arctic plague will reshape life on Earth for generations to come, quickly traversing the globe, forcing humanity to devise a myriad of moving and inventive ways to embrace possibility in the face of tragedy. In a theme park designed for terminally ill children, a cynical employee falls in love with a mother desperate to hold on to her infected son. A heartbroken scientist searching for a cure finds a second chance at fatherhood when one of his test subjects—a pig—develops the capacity for human speech. A widowed painter and her teenaged granddaughter embark on a cosmic quest to locate a new home planet.

From funerary skyscrapers to hotels for the dead to interstellar starships, Sequoia Nagamatsu takes readers on a wildly original and compassionate journey, spanning continents, centuries, and even celestial bodies to tell a story about the resilience of the human spirit, our infinite capacity to dream, and the connective threads that tie us all together in the universe.

Sequoia Nagamatsu is a Japanese American writer and managing editor of Psychopomp Magazine. Originally from Hawaii and the San Francisco Bay Area, he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Southern Illinois University. He is the author of the award-winning short-story collection Where We Go When All We Were Is Gone, and his work has appeared in such publications as Conjunctions, The Southern Review, Fairy Tale Review, and Tin House, among others. He currently lives in Minnesota with his wife, cat, and a robot dog named Calvino.

Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid

By Thor Hanson

Next pick for The Science Book Club.

*A New York Times Editor's Choice pick *Shortlisted for the 2022 Pacific Northwest Book Awards A beloved natural historian explores how climate change is driving evolution In Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid, biologist Thor Hanson tells the remarkable story of how plants and animals are responding to climate change: adjusting, evolving, and sometimes dying out. Anole lizards have grown larger toe pads, to grip more tightly in frequent hurricanes. Warm waters cause the development of Humboldt squid to alter so dramatically that fishermen mistake them for different species. Brown pelicans move north, and long-spined sea urchins south, to find cooler homes. And when coral reefs sicken, they leave no territory worth fighting for, so aggressive butterfly fish transform instantly into pacifists. A story of hope, resilience, and risk, Hurricane Lizards and Plastic Squid is natural history for readers of Bernd Heinrich, Robin Wall Kimmerer, and David Haskell. It is also a reminder of how unpredictable climate change is as it interacts with the messy lattice of life.

Thor Hanson is a conservation biologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and author of award winning books including Buzz, Feathers, The Impenetrable Forest, and The Triumph of Seeds. He lives with his wife and son on an island in Washington State.

Beaverland

By Leila Philip

Naturalist Book Club pick for April.

An intimate and revelatory dive into the world of the beaver—the wonderfully weird rodent that has surprisingly shaped American history and may save its ecological future. From award-winning writer Leila Philip, BEAVERLAND is a masterful work of narrative science writing, a book that highlights, though history and contemporary storytelling, how this weird rodent plays an oversized role in American history and its future. She follows fur trappers who lead her through waist high water, fur traders and fur auctioneers, as well as wildlife managers, PETA activists, Native American environmental vigilantes, scientists, engineers, and the colorful group of activists known as beaver believers. Beginning with the early trans-Atlantic trade in North America, Leila Philip traces the beaver’s profound influence on our nation’s early economy and feverish western expansion, its first corporations and multi-millionaires. In her pursuit of this weird and wonderful animal, she introduces us to people whose lives are devoted to the beaver, including a Harvard scientist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, who uses drones to create 3-dimensional images of beaver dams; and an environmental restoration consultant in the Chesapeake whose nickname is the “beaver whisperer”. What emerges is a poignant personal narrative, a startling portrait of the secretive world of the contemporary fur trade, and an engrossing ecological and historical investigation of these heroic animals who, once trapped to the point of extinction, have returned to the landscape as one of the greatest conservation stories of the 20th century. Beautifully written and impeccably researched, BEAVERLAND reveals the profound ways in which one odd creature and the trade surrounding it has shaped history, culture, and our environment.

Leila Philip is the author of award-winning books of nonfiction that have received national glowing reviews. A Guggenheim Fellow, she has also been awarded fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Philip was a contributing columnist at the Boston Globe and teaches in the Environmental Studies Program at the College of the Holy Cross, where she is a professor in the English Department.

Redesigning AI

By Daron Acemoglu

Next pick for The Business/Tech club

A look at how new technologies can be put to use in the creation of a more just society. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is not likely to make humans redundant. Nor will it create superintelligence anytime soon. But it will make huge advances in the next two decades, revolutionize medicine, entertainment, and transport, transform jobs and markets, and vastly increase the amount of information that governments and companies have about individuals. AI for Good leads off with economist and best-selling author Daron Acemoglu, who argues that there are reasons to be concerned about these developments. AI research today pays too much attention to the technological hurtles ahead without enough attention to its disruptive effects on the fabric of society: displacing workers while failing to create new opportunities for them and threatening to undermine democratic governance itself. But the direction of AI development is not preordained. Acemoglu argues for its potential to create shared prosperity and bolster democratic freedoms. But directing it to that task will take great effort: It will require new funding and regulation, new norms and priorities for developers themselves, and regulations over new technologies and their applications. At the intersection of technology and economic justice, this book will bring together experts--economists, legal scholars, policy makers, and developers--to debate these challenges and consider what steps tech companies can do take to ensure the advancement of AI does not further diminish economic prospects of the most vulnerable groups of population.

Daron Acemoglu is Institute Professor in the Department of Economics at MIT and a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is coauthor of Why Nations Fail and The Narrow Corridor.

Da Vinci's Cat

By Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Next pick for the Middle grades (8-12) Book club.

Newbery Honor author Catherine Gilbert Murdock’s Da Vinci’s Cat is a thrilling time-slip fantasy about rewriting history to save the present. Two unlikely friends—Federico, in sixteenth-century Rome, and Bee, in present-day New Jersey—are linked through an amiable cat, Leonardo da Vinci’s mysterious wardrobe, and an eerily perfect sketch of Bee.

In a starred review, Kirkus Reviews calls Da Vinci’s Cat “thoroughly charming.” This Indie Next Pick will engross fans of When You Reach Me and A Wrinkle in Time.

Federico doesn’t mind being a political hostage of the Pope, especially now that he has a cat as a friend. But he must admit that a kitten walking into a wardrobe and returning fully grown a moment later is quite odd. Even stranger is the man named Herbert, apparently an art collector from the future, who emerges from the wardrobe the next night. Herbert barters with Federico to get a sketch signed by the famous painter Raphael, but his plans take a dangerous turn when he hurries back to his era, desperate to save a dying girl.

Bee never wanted to move to New Jersey. When an elderly neighbor shows Bee a sketch that perfectly resembles her, Bee, freaked out, solidifies her resolve to keep to herself. But then she meets a cat and discovers a mysterious cabinet in her neighbor’s attic—a cabinet that leads her to Renaissance Rome. Bee, who has learned about Raphael and Michelangelo as historical characters, never expected she’d get to meet them and see them paint their masterpieces.

This original and compelling time-slip adventure by Newbery Honor author Catherine Gilbert Murdock is full of action, mystery, history, art, and friendship—and features one unforgettable cat.

Includes black-and-white spot art throughout of Leonardo da Vinci’s cat by Caldecott Medalist Paul O. Zelinsky, plus an author’s note.

Catherine Gilbert Murdock is the acclaimed author of the Newbery Honor Book The Book of Boy, as well as six other novels. She grew up in Connecticut and now lives in Philadelphia with her husband and two children.