Events

Jacqueline Regis, author of The Daughter of L'Arsenal, will be reading and signing at The Bookcase on Thursday, January 7 beginning at 7:00 p.m.

The Daughter of L'Arsenal is the story of a young woman who escapes a web of dysfunctional family values and social and political repression in rural Haiti to become a successful corporate lawyer in the United States.

This memoir chronicles Jacqueline's childhood experiences leading to her ultimate flight from the claws of poverty, servitude, violence and death. Her escape, however, came at a cost. In order to survive, she was forced to permanently leave her family, and much of her cultural heritage, behind.

Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl will be at The Bookcase on Monday, January 11 at 7:00 p.m. to discuss and sign copies of her book, Drink This: Wine Made Simple.

In the book, Dara offers a fresh new approach to understanding wine. She provides a plan, a method, and the context to enable readers to overcome their wine anxieties.

Dara has been the food and wine critic for City Pages since 1997, and has contributed to numerous other publications including Gourmet, USA Today and Wine & Spirits. Nominated seven times for James Beard awards, she has won twice.

The Bookcase Book Club, led by Addie Ingebrand, will be meeting to discuss Jamie Ford's novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet at 1:00 and 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 12.

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s -- Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

The Bookcase Book Club, led by Addie Ingebrand, will be meeting to discuss Jamie Ford's novel Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet at 1:00 and 7:00 p.m. on Tuesday, January 12.

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s -- Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

The Chapter & Verse Book Club will be meeting on Thursday, January 21 at 7:00 p.m. to discuss The Last Newspaper Boy in America by Sue Corbett and Yellowstone Moran by Lita Judge.

Led by Steve & Vicki Palmquiest of the Children's Literature Network, Chapter & Verse is a book club made up of parents, teachers, librarians, and other adults who all share a love for children's literature.

If you would like to attend Chapter & Verse, please email Nancy Caffoe, Children's Book Buyer for The Bookcase.

Kate Braestrup will be at Wayzata Community Church at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, January 22 to read from, discuss, and sign copies of her new memoir, Marriage and Other Acts of Charity.

This event is part of the Literary Minds author series -- a collaboration between The Bookcase and Wayzata Community Church.

In her award-winning memoir Here If You Need Me, Braestrip won the hearts of readers across the country with her deeply moving and deftly humorous stories of faith, hope, and family. Now, with her inimitable voice and generous spirit, she turns her attention to the subjects of love and commitment in Marriage and Other Acts of Charity.

As a minister, Braestrip regularly performs weddings. She has also, at forty-four, been married twice and widowed once and accordingly has much to say about life after the cemermony. From helping a newlywed couple make amends after their first fight to preparing herself for her second marriage, Braestrup offers her experiences and insights into what it truly means to share your life with someone, from the first kiss to the last straw, for better or for worse.

The Mystery Book Club will meet on Thursday, January 28 at 7:00 p.m. to discuss Stieg Larsson's book The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.

The Bookcase is pleased to welcome Todd Kalis, former player for the Minnesota Vikings, to our store on Saturday, January 30 at 7:00 p.m. to read from, discuss, and sign copies of his book Pigskin Dreams: The People, Places, and Events that Forged the Character of the NFL's Greatest Players.

The city of Plymouth will be kicking off their first ever city-wide book read with an event on Monday, February 1 at the Plymouth Historical Society.

The Plymouth Fine Arts Council has selected Michael Perry's book Population 485 as this year's selection for the event.

Population 485 is a humorous and thoughtful memoir of the author's experience as a volunteer firefighter, learning more about his home town while meeting his neighbors one siren at a time.  The Wisconsin State Journal called it "the best book about small-town life ever written."

The event on February 1 will feature Plymouth major Kelly Slavic. Attendees will be invited to tour the museum, sample old-time treats, and learn more about Plymouth's past.

This is the first of three events surrounding the city-wide book read. The other events are on Saturday, March 13 and Monday, April 19. More information about those two programs will be available soon.

The Bookcase is pleased to welcome author Elissa Elliott to our store on Tuesday, February 2 at 7:00 p.m.

Ms. Elliott will be on hand to read from, discuss, and sign copies of her novel Eve.

In this mesmerizing debut novel, Elliott blends biblical tradition with recorded history to put a powerful new twist on the story of creation's first family. Here is Eve brought to life in a way religion and myth have never allowed -- as a wife, a mother, and a woman. With stunning intimacy, Elliott boldly reimagines Eve's journey before and after the banishment from Eden, her complex marriage to Adam, her troubled relationship with her daughters, and the tragedy that would overcome her sons, Cain and Abel. From a woman's first awakening to a mother's innermost hopes and fears, from moments of exquisite tenderness to a climax of shocking violence, Eve explores the very essence of love, womanhood, faith, and humanity.