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Open Books 2024: Minnesota Authors
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Updated December 27, 2023
RPL Staff
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The Book Haters' Book Club
Anthony, Gretchen
Paper Book
"This sparkling novel starts with high energy and unique characters that move from one surprise to another." --Ann Garvin, USA TODAY bestselling author All it takes is the right book to turn a Book Hater into a Book Lover... That was what Elliot--the beloved...
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The Annie year : a novel
Ash, Stephanie
Paper Book
Tall, trusted Tandy Caide, CPA, is a long-time patron of the arts in her town, which is why you will find her sitting in the front row of the high school's annual musical production. This year is an Annie year--and it would be no different than other years were it not for the high school's...
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Worm loves Worm
Austrian, J. J.
Paper Book
One of Time Out's "LGBTQ+ books for kids to read during Pride Month," this irresistible picture book is a celebration of love in all its splendid forms from debut author J. J. Austrian and the acclaimed author-illustrator of Little Elliot, Big City, Mike Curato. ...
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The sun collective
Baxter, Charles
Paper Book
*A NEW YORK TIMES 2021 NOTABLE BOOK* A timely and unsettling novel about the people drawn to and unmoored by a local activist group more dangerous than it appears--from the winner of the PEN/Malamud Award and "one of our most gifted writers" (Chicago Tribune).
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The girl in Duluth
Brown, Sigrid
Paper Book
When 18-year-old June Bergeron's mother goes missing, June fears the disappearance could be connected to the unsolved murders of several women found in the woods near Duluth, Minnesota. As she investigates, she is pulled into an ugly and dangerous world of exploitation and abuse, and she discovers...
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Bears behaving badly
Davidson, MaryJanice
Paper Book
We're not dating, we've never been dating, we're not going to hook up, no way, absolutely not...oh. Oops. My primary focus has always been taking care of were-babies in the interspecies foster care system. I am unapologetically a fierce mama bear shifter and I am completely united with my...
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The Beatryce prophecy
DiCamillo, Kate
Paper Book
A #1 New York Times bestseller From two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo and two-time Caldecott Medalist Sophie Blackall comes a fantastical meditation on fate, love, and the power of words to spell the world. We shall all, in the end, be led to...
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Beneath
Doerrfeld, Cori
Paper Book
In this stunning story from New York Times bestselling creator Cori Doerrfeld, a child and their grandfather take a walk in the woods and discover more about themselves. Finn is in a horrible mood and doesn't want to talk about it. After some persuading, though, they...
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Seven aunts
Drouillard, Staci Lola
Paper Book
Part memoir, part cultural history, these memories of seven aunts holding home and family together tell a crucial, often overlooked story of women of the twentieth century They were German and English, Anishinaabe and French, born in the north woods and Midwestern farm...
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The Cartographer of No Man's Land: a Novel
Duffy, P. S.
Paper Book
From a village in Nova Scotia to the trenches of France, P. S. Duffy's astonishing debut showcases a rare talent emerging in midlife. When his beloved brother-in-law goes missing at the front in 1916, Angus defies his pacifist upbringing to join the war and find him. Assured a position as a...
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Doing harm : the truth about how bad medicine and lazy science leave women dismissed, misdiagnosed, and sick
Dusenbery, Maya
Paper Book
Editor of the award-winning site Feministing.com, Maya Dusenbery brings together scientific and sociological research, interviews with doctors and researchers, and personal stories from women across the country to provide the first comprehensive, accessible look at how sexism in medicine harms...
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The Bohemian flats : a novel
Ellis, Mary Relindes
Paper Book
In The Bohemian Flats, Mary Relindes Ellis's rich, imaginative gift carries us from the bourgeois world of fin de siècle Germany to a vibrant immigrant enclave in the heart of the Midwest and to the killing fields of World War I. Shell shock, as it was called, lands Raimund...
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Peace like a river
Enger, Leif.
Paper Book
A "reminder of why we read fiction to begin with" (San Francisco Chronicle), Peace Like a River is Leif Enger's extraordinary debut novel--a heroic quest, a tragedy, a love story, and a haunting meditation on the possibility of magic in the everyday world--with over one million...
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The life we bury : a novel
Eskens, Allen
Paper Book
A USA Today bestseller and book club favorite! College student Joe Talbert has the modest goal of completing a writing assignment for an English class. His task is to interview a stranger and write a brief biography of the person. With deadlines looming, Joe heads to a nearby nursing home to find a...
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The secret of Dreadwillow Carse
Farrey, Brian
Paper Book
A princess and a peasant girl embark on a dangerous quest to outwit a warning foretelling the fall of the Monarchy. In the center of the verdant Monarchy lies Dreadwillow Carse, a desolate bog the people of the land do their best to ignore. Little is known about it except an...
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Sam and the incredible African and American food fight
Gibney, Shannon
Paper Book
Six-year-old Sam, with his Liberian dad and African American mom, finds a way to bring everyone in his cross-cultural family together at the dinner table Rice and okra soup: Sam's auntie from Liberia made it, and it's Dad's favorite. Mom, homegrown in Minnesota, made spaghetti and...
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Red : a crayon's story
Hall, Michael
Paper Book
A blue crayon mistakenly labeled as "red" suffers an identity crisis in this picture book by the New York Times-bestselling creator of My Heart Is Like a Zoo. This funny, heartwarming, colorful picture book about finding the courage to be true to your inner self can be read on...
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Tell me true : memoir, history, and writing a life
Hampl, Patricia
Paper Book
"The memoir has been, on the one hand, a startling success story in American publishing in the past quarter century. But it has also been literature's changeling, the bad apple, ever suspect, slightly illegitimate, a brassy parvenu talking too much about itself." - Patricia Hampl, "You're...
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Haunted ground
Hart, Erin
Paper Book
The dazzling, award-winning debut in a series that delivers mystery, romance, suspense, and fascinating forensic detail. When farmers cutting turf in an Irish peat bog make a grisly discovery--the perfectly preserved head of a young woman with long red hair--Irish archaeologist...
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The rat queen
Hautman, Pete
Paper Book
From National Book Award winner Pete Hautman comes a mysterious modern-day fairy tale about developing a moral compass--and the slippery nature of conscience. For Annie's tenth birthday, her papa gives her a pad of paper, some colored pencils, and the Klimas family secret. It's...
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Stillwater
Helget, Nicole Lea
Paper Book
Clement and Angel are fraternal twinsnbsp;separated at birth; they grow up in the same small, frontier loggingnbsp;town of Stillwater, Minnesota. Clement was left at the orphanage. Angel was adopted by the town's richest couple, but is marked and threatened by her mother's mental illness. They...
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Tell me your names and I will testify
Holbrook, Carolyn
Paper Book
The compassionate and redemptive story of a prominent Black woman in the Twin Cities literary community Carolyn Holbrook's life is peopled with ghosts--of the girl she was, the selves she shed and those who have caught up to her, the wounded and kind and...
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0101815657024
M HOU MCKEN V.16
Paper Book
Louise Wykoff is arguably the most recognizable woman living in Minnesota, known for her presence in over one hundred paintings by the late and brilliant Randolph McInnis. Louise, known better as "That Wykoff Woman," was just a young apprentice when her intimate representation and the fact of the...
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Pretty girl gone
Housewright, David
Paper Book
Mac McKenzie has a lot of old girlfriends. But only one went on to marry the current governor of the state of Minnesota. The First Lady is carrying an email that contains a nasty rumour about her husband and she wants Mac to help. Mac is soon sifting through a complex web of interlocking secrets and...
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The Barrens : a novel of love and death in the Canadian Arctic
Johnson, Kurt
Paper Book
Winner of the Minnesota Book Award and a 2022 Great Group Reads Selection "The Barrens grabbed me from the opening pages and never let go."--Michael Punke, author of The Revenant Two young women attending college decide to have a summer...
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A castaway in Cornwall
Klassen, Julie
Paper Book
Set adrift on the tides of fate by the deaths of her parents and left wanting answers, Laura Callaway now lives with her uncle and his disapproving wife in North Cornwall. There she feels like a castaway, always viewed as an outsider even as she yearns to belong. While wreckers search for...
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Missing Mark
Kramer, Julie.
Paper Book
In this page-turning sequel to Stalking Susan, TV reporter Riley Spartz pursues a curious story of a bride left at the altar and finds herself caught in a dangerous missing-person case. When Riley Spartz sees a want ad reading "Wedding Dress for Sale: Never Worn," her news instincts tell her that...
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Catfishing on CatNet
Kritzer, Naomi
Paper Book
LODESTAR AWARD WINNER FOR BEST YOUNG ADULT BOOK From Hugo and Locus Award-winning author Naomi Kritzer, Catfishing on CatNet is a thought-provoking near future YA thriller that could not be more timely as it explores issues of online privacy, artificial...
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The roof over our heads
Kronzer, Nicole
Paper Book
Nicole Kronzer's The Roof Over Our Heads is a charming YA novel about a family who puts on an immersive, interactive play to save their historical home. Finn lives in a family of theater lovers. His older brothers are both actors, and one of his moms is an...
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This tender land
Krueger, William Kent
Paper Book
A New York Times Bestselling AuthorIn 1932, Minnesota's Lincoln School is a pitiless place where hundreds of Native American children, forcibly separated from their parents, are sent to be educated. It is also home to Odie O'Banion, a lively boy whose exploits upset the superintendent. Forced to...
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The Big Sugar
Logue, Mary
Paper Book
A grisly death near her new homestead draws Brigid Reardon into a complicated mystery soon after her arrival in Cheyenne, Wyoming, in 1881 After the harrowing events that entangled her in Deadwood, Brigid Reardon just wants to move west and get on with her new life in...
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Bim, Bam, Bop...and Oona
Martin, Jacqueline Briggs
Paper Book
An irresistible read-aloud picture book, in which a little odd-duck-out discovers her unique strengths When these ducks go to the pond, it is Bim, Bam, Bop . . . and Oona, always last. They're all ducks, but Bim, Bam, and Bop are runners, and Oona's a waddler....
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South of Somewhere
Miller, Kalena
Paper Book
STARRED REVIEW! "Precise, subtle details and complete emotional honesty bring these characters to life from the first page."--Kirkus Reviews starred review "A charming entry in the crowded middle grade contemporary field."--School Library...
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Murder has a public face : crime and punishment in the speed graphic era
Millett, Larry
Paper Book
In his popular Strange Days, Dangerous Nights, Larry Millett delivered Weegee-style images of midwestern noir from the photo files of the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He returns with a focus on the "dangerous"-murder cases from the forties and fifties, memorialized in telling...
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Trauma sponges : dispatches from the scarred heart of emergency response
Norton, Jeremy
Paper Book
Beyond an adrenaline ride or a chronicle of bravura heroics, this unflinching view of a Minneapolis firefighter reveals the significant toll of emergency response In this remarkable memoir, Jeremy Norton marshals twenty-two years of professional experience to offer, with...
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Packinghouse daughter : a memoir
Register, Cheri, 1945-
Paper Book
The violence that erupted when the company "replaced" its union workers with strikebreakers tested family loyalty and community stability, and attracted national attention when the governor of Minnesota called in the National Guard, declared martial law, and closed the plant.
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Murder on the red river
Rendon, Marcie R.
Paper Book
A murdered man in a field. The sheriff needs Cash--a twenty-something tough, smart Indian woman with special seeing powers. Cash and Sheriff Wheaton make for a strange partnership. He pulled her from her mother's wrecked car when she was three. He's kept an eye out for her ever since. It's...
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Saturn run
Sandford, John
Paper Book
A New York Times BestsellerFor fans of The Martian, an extraordinary new thriller of the future from #1 New York Times-bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author John Sandford, and internationally known photo-artist and science fiction aficionado Ctein.
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The key to every thing
Schmatz, Pat
Paper Book
For eleven-year-old Tash, Cap'n Jackie isn't just the elderly next-door neighbor -- she's family. When she disappears, only Tash holds the key that might bring her back. Tash didn't want to go to camp, didn't want to spend the summer with a bunch of strangers, didn't want to be...
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We are branches
Sidman, Joyce
Paper Book
Caldecott winner Beth Krommes and Newbery Honor-winning poet Joyce Sidman team up in this singular celebration of a beautiful, fascinating shape in nature. A nonfiction picture book companion to their acclaimed Swirl by Swirl. Branches are all around us: in butterfly wings,...
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Romantic comedy : a novel
Sittenfeld, Curtis
Paper Book
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK * A comedy writer thinks she's sworn off love, until a dreamy pop star flips the script on all her assumptions--a "smart, sophisticated, and fun" (Oprah Daily) novel from the author of Eligible, Rodham, and Prep....
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The glass magician
Stevermer, Caroline
Paper Book
Reminiscent of The Golem and the Jinni, The Glass Magician by Caroline Stevermer is a magical and romantic tale set in New York's Gilded Age. New York 1905--The Vanderbilts. The Astors. The Morgans. They are the cream of society--and they own the nation on the...
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Saturday night at the Lakeside Supper club : a novel
Stradal, J. Ryan
Paper Book
"Stradal serves up another saga of food and family, hurt and healing, pitched between cliff-hanger moments. . . that make the pages fly." --People From the New York Times bestselling author J. Ryan Stradal, a story of a couple from two very different restaurant families...
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Ruby & Roland : a novel
Sullivan, Faith
Paper Book
From the author of Good Night, Mr. Wodehouse and The Cape Ann comes a new tale of resilient womanhood in Harvester, Minnesota. Growing up in early twentieth-century Illinois, Ruby Drake is a happy child. But one winter's night, her beloved parents perish in an accident--and suddenly Ruby...
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The heartbeat of Wounded Knee : life in Native America
Treuer, David
Paper Book
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a story of Native American resilience and reinvention, adapted for young adults from the adult nonfiction book of the same name. Since the late 1800s, it has been believed that Native American civilization has been wiped from the...
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Long lost
West, Jacqueline
Paper Book
Winner of the Minnesota Book Award * A Texas Bluebonnet Book "Perfect to be read late into the night."--Stefan Bachmann, internationally bestselling author of The Peculiar "A spooky sisterhood mystery that is sure to be a hit with readers."--School Library Journal (starred...
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Snow White and Rose Red
Wrede, Patricia C.
Paper Book
Snow White and Rose Red live on the edge of the forest that conceals the elusive border of Faerie. They know enough about Faerie lands and mortal magic to be concerned when they find two human sorcerers setting spells near the border. And when the kindly, intelligent black bear wanders into their...
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Where rivers part : a story of my mother's life
Yang, Kao Kalia
Paper Book
This powerful memoir about a Hmong family's epic journey to safety is a profound "testament to the miraculous strength of women and the indomitable resolve of the human spirit" (Cristina Henríquez, author of The Book of Unknown Americans). Born in 1961 in war-torn Laos,...
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