Hennepin County Library is delighted to participate in the third year of the One Minneapolis One Read program. Along with other community partners in Minneapolis, the library promotes reading, discussion and ongoing programming each year devoted to a book of local interest. This year's pick, A Choice of Weapons, tells the autobiographical story of Gordon Parks, a renowned photographer who grew up in the Twin Cities. His inspirational story promises to spark meaningful conversation as the program gets underway.

Get involved with One Minneapolis One Read this fall and, for other nonfiction recommendations of related interests, check out some of these great lists from Bookspace:
Black Voices
Biographies and Memoirs
Minnesota Experience

On March 1, Coffee House Press, a local publisher with a national reputation, announced it will publish essays and other creative nonfiction on a regular basis. As detailed in the full press release, the press "has published nonfiction titles in the past, including Kao Kalia Yang’s renowned memoir The Latehomecomer, Judith Kitchen’s recent essay collection, Half in Shade, and U Sam Oeur’s memoir, Crossing Three Wildernesses, the decision to include essays on a regular basis is a deliberate one in service of their mission."

If past titles are any indication, we have much to look forward to!

Read, Learn, Explore and Enjoy!

Like you do every year, you took a long hard look at yourself after the holidays and decided you needed to get fit, manage your debt, get more organized, etc. About now you're realizing just how hard it is to break bad habits. You might find yourself heading to the library to look for The 4-Hour Workweek, The Power of Habit, or Daring Greatly to help you figure out how to get back on track.

Did you resolve to read more in 2013? Check out last week's issue of New York Magazine, which took some interesting, thought-provoking, and sometimes humorous looks at self-help as a category. In The Power of Positive Publishing, Boris Kachka looks at the history and changing nature of self-help publishing. In The Self in Self-Help, Kathryn Schulz wonders how we can help our self if we don't even know what a self is. In How to Read 31 Books in Four Minutes, staff writers read and summarize 31 currently popular self-help books so you don't have to! And for a little comic relief, SNL's Bill Hader, provides 7 Steps to Becoming a Highly Effective Bill Hader.

The end of the year is list-making time! I'm always paying particular attention to the nonfiction titles that make the lists, and this year several titles have been appearing on multiple lists. Call them the "Best of the Best of": Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956 by Anne Applebaum, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo, The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Vol. Four by Robert A. Caro, The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane, Far from the Tree: Parents, Children and the Search for Identity, Andrew Solomon, and Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. Get on those reserve lists before they grow any longer!

On the waiting list for Wild: from lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail ? While you wait try A Walk in the woods: rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson or Lost in the wild: danger and survival in the North woods by Cary J. Griffith or maybe a title from HCL's Outdoor Survival and Adventure list

One Minneapolis One Read, a community-wide book club now in its second year, is off and running with this year's selection, Spirit Car by Diane Wilson. The Minneapolis Parks & Recs, Minneapolis Public Schools and many other businesses and community organizations have encouraged a wide reading of the book, and have supported corresponding programming to foster an ongoing dialogue.

Here at HCL we are pleased to welcome author Diane Wilson to Minneapolis Central Library on Monday, October 15 at 7 p.m. Come hear the author do a reading from her book, answer questions from the audience, and sign personal copies and those for sale at the event by Magers & Quinn. It promises to be a wonderful evening.

The National Book Foundation announced its 2012 finalists this morning. The non-fiction honorees, all available through the library, are:

Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1945-1956 by Anne Applebaum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo

The Passage of Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson, Volume 4 by Robert A. Caro

The Boy Kings of Texas by Domingo Martinez

House of Stone: A Memoir of Home, Family, and a Lost Middle East by Anthony Shadid

Get on the request lists now and/or check out free samples of the most of the titles via the GalleyCat blog! Winners will be announced on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012.

The Minnesota Craft Brewer's Guild's annual Autumn Brew Review took place this past weekend on the grounds of the old Grain Belt Brewery, and it reminded me once again of the sheer explosion of growth the U.S. and Minnesota craft brew industry is currently experiencing. Consult this list for beer history, lore, cookery, and more!

The Minnesota State Fair is happening August 23 through September 3, 2012. Here are some books to help you enjoy the fair even more.

As part of their multiyear Celebration of the Book, The Library of Congress has created an exhibition of 88 Books that Shaped America. You've probably heard of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Thomas Paine's Common Sense, but how about Amelia Simmons' American Cookery or Jacob Riis's How the Other Half Lives? The exhibition runs through September 29, but If you can't make it out to Washington D.C. check out the list and add your own input!

It's Summer and local Farmers' Markets have opened. Cook and enjoy what you buy.

I just got a hold of the beautiful new Taschen book Alex Steinweiss: The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover.  It was strange to think there was a time when there wasn’t album cover artwork, be it beautiful, clever, or just provocative. (Though I suppose I should get used to that time again with music as physical object quickly disappearing!)  It reminded me of other books about album covers I have enjoyed.   Check them out.  The list includes retropectives of album cover artists like Steinweiss, Flora, and Warhol; collections of genre-specific album covers (jazz, disco, hip-hop anyone?); and odd little gems about sleevefacing and Mingering Mike, a soul artist whose entire career is the invention of a teenage boy living in a D.C. ghetto.  

What do Babe Ruth, Josh Gibson, Mickey Mantle, Hack Wilson, Toni Stone, and Roberto Clemente have in common? Their careers are all a part of the rich history of baseball.
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Barnes & Noble announced the 2011 winners of their Discover Great New Writers award.  Winning the nonfiction award is Kosher Chinese, the memoir of an American Jewish Peace Corps volunteer serving in Guiyang, China.  Check it out!

What do the Wanderer, the all Black Tank Battalion, and the Homestead Grays have in common? They are all small parts of the rich history of African Americans. The pages of these titles bring Black History to life!

According to the Federal Government, some of the most popular New Year's resolutions are:
•Drink Less Alcohol
•Eat Healthy Food
•Get a Better Education
•Get a Better Job
•Get Fit
•Lose Weight
•Manage Debt
•Manage Stress
•Quit Smoking
•Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle
•Save Money
•Take a Trip
•Volunteer to Help Others 

Maybe your top resolution this year is to keep your resolutions!   Whatever your goals might be, use the library to help you achieve them.  Our Health and Wellness Subject Guide is full of resources, and we have books for almost any resolution can think of. Here's a book list with a few titles to get you started:
Making (and Keeping!) Your New Year's Resolutions