Events

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.

Join us for "Children's Storytime" on Saturday, February 13 at 10:00 a.m.

The Bookcase is delighted to welcome Pamela J. Myers to our store at 7:00 p.m. on Monday, February 8.

Ms. Myers will be on hand to discuss and sign copies of her book, Classroom Voices. The book contains history, photos, voices and reflections of early school days in Western Hennepin County, and is published by the Westonka Historical Society.

Note: This event was originally scheduled for Monday, February 8 -- but did not happen due to snow. 

The Chapter & Verse Book Club will be meeting on Thursday, February 18 at 7:00 p.m. to discuss The Loud Silence of Francine Green by Karen Cushman and Years of Dust by Albert Marrin.

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.

Zoey's Story is a collection of actual events in her life as "told" by her. This book is an invitation to the reader to embrace this once-abandoned Black Lab pup that time and again demonstrates her undisciplined and mischievous exuberance. Follow Zoey's education as she attends dog obedience school and therapy dog training. Join her as she romps and plays with her friends, and share her humorous, warm, tender, and occasional sad moments. Share the joy and unconditional love she gives to her family, as well as the smiles, cheer, and comfort she brings to individuals in nursing homes, assisted living facilities, rehabilitation centers, and an alzheimer's center.

Zoey's Story will remind pet lovers that their own precious animals have stories to tell. Listen very carefully, use your imagination, an d you will also share a treasured dialogue with your special pet.

The Bookcase welcomes Paul Linde to our store on Monday, February 22 at 7:00 p.m.

Mr. Linde will be on hand to read from, discuss, and sign copies of his new book, Danger to Self: On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist.

The psychiatric emergency room, a fast-paced combat zone with pressure to match, thrusts its medical providers into the outland of human experience where they must respond rapidly and decisively in spite of uncertainty and, very often, danger. In this lively first-person narrative, Paul Linde takes readers behind the scenes at an urban psychiatric emergency room, with all its chaos and pathos, where we witness mental health professionals doing their best to alleviate suffering and repair shattered lives. As he and his colleagues encounter patients who are hallucinating, drunk, catatonic, aggressive, suicidal, high on drugs, paranoid, and physicall sick, Linde examines the many ethical, legal, moral, and medical issues that confront today's psychiatric providers. He describes a profession under siege from the outside -- health insurance companies, the pharmaceutical industry, government regulators, and even "patients' rights" advocates -- and from the inside -- biomedical and academic psychiatrists who have forgotten to care for the patient and have instead become checklist-marking pill-peddlers. While lifting the veil on a crucial area of psychiatry that is as real as it gets, Danger to Self also injects a healthy dose of compassion into the practice of medicine and psychiatry.

The Bookcase welcomes author Patsy Keech to our store on Tuesday, February 23 at 7:00 p.m. to read from, discuss, and sign copies of her book Mothering an Angel.

In this book, Keech describes the journey she and her husband, Robb, made during the short life of their son, Derian, through eleven surgeries, including five open heart surgeries. The book covers the 2 1/2 year experience during his lifetime and the ensuing grieving and healing process. 

In honoring the memory of their son, they were determined to assist other families with critically ill children. Patsy writes, "The only way we could do it was to extend ourselves and 'pay it forward' to the families who were still living the life we no longer had to." It was this sentiment that established Spare Key in 1997. 

This book is being done in collaboration with Spare Key. For more information, visit www.sparekey.org.

The Mystery Book Club will meet at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, February 25 to discuss Deborah Crombie's novel A Share in Death.

A week's holiday in a luxurious Yorshire time-share is just what Scotland Yard's Superintendent Duncan Kincaid needs. But the discovery of a body floating in the whirpool bath ends Kincaid's vacation before it's begun. One of his new acquaintances at Followdale House is dead; another is a killer. Despite a distinct lack of cooperation from the local constabulary, Kincaid's keen sense of duty won't allow him to ignore the heinous crime, impelling him to send for his enthusiastic young assistant, Sergeant Gemma James. But the stakes are raised dramatically when a second murder occurs, and Kincaid and James find themselves in a determined hunt for a fiendish felon who enjoys homicide a bit too much. 

Anybody who is interested in attending this book club is welcome to show up!

Thomas Mullen will be at The Bookcase at 7:00 p.m. on Thursdeay, February 25 to read from, discuss, and sign copies of his new novel, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers.

In Mullen's evocative new novel, the highly anticipated follow-up to his acclaimed debut, The Last Town on Earth, we follow the Depression-era adventures of Jason and Whit Fireson -- bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by the press, the authorities, and an adoring public that worships their acts as heroic counterpunches thrown at a broken system.

Now it appears they have at last met their end in a hail of bullets. Jason and Whit's lovers -- Darcy, a wealthy socialite, and Veronica, a hardened survivor -- struggle between grief and an unyielding belief that the Firesons have survived. While they and the Firesons' stunned mother and straight-arrow third son wade through conflicting police reports and press accounts, wild rumors spread that the bandits are still at large. Through it all, the Firefly Brothers remain as charismatic, unflappable, and as mythical as the American Dream itself, racing to find the women they love and make sense of a world in which all has come unmoored.

Complete with kidnappings and gangsters, heiresses and speakeasies, The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers is an imaginative and spirited saga about what happens when you are hopelessly outgunned -- and a masterly tale of hardship, redemption, and love that transcends death.

The Bookcase is pleased to welcome children's author Greg Budig to our store on Saturday, February 27 at 10:00 a.m.

Mr. Budig will be here to read from, discuss, and sign copies of his book Still: A Winter's Journey.

Greg Budig does for winter what he did for fall in I Hear the Wind.In his words and illustrations, he leads the reader through woods,fields and snow-covered streets to the tempo of a world made white.While written for children, this winter walk will captivate people ofall ages.