books

Jon Oleson, a Bloomington City Council member, will read portions of his book, "What Legacy Are We Giving Our Kids?" and facilitate a conversation about the issues raised in his book when he visits Hastings Thursday, Feb. 23. The presentation will begin at 7 p.m. at BreakAway Café,...

Hastings Reads is about to get started for 2017. Hastings Reads is a community-wide reading program that seeks to encourage reading and discussion of books and the ways in which they can help us understand the lives and experiences of ourselves and others. This year's theme is "The...

Minnesota Author Sheyna Galyan will meet with readers at the Bierstube in Hastings at 7 p.m. on Nov. 17 as part of the monthly “Bookstube at the Bierstube” author event. This event is free and open to the public. Galyan will share stories about her life as an author and more and...

This witty wonder may be for you My literary almanac tells me that on this day in 1854, Oscar O’Flahertie Fingal Wills Wilde was born in Dublin, Ireland. Wilde, once the toast of venues as varied as London, England and Deadwood, S.D.

England’s Edwardian Era is a fascinating one, indeed. It succeed the staid Victorian era and with the death of Victoria around the turn of the century, her aged son Edward VII ascended the throne and a whole new way of life for the English opened up. Well, not for everybody,...

Kevin Alderson is a retired high school history teacher over in LaFarge.

Just about the time you think you’ll scream if you’re confronted with another monumental biography, another epic movie, an enigmatic play about T.E. Lawrence, along comes journalist Scott Anderson with a monumental tome, titled “Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly...

Twenty years ago, when I was made book review editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, I wrote a column in which I described to my readers what kind of books and authors I liked and didn’t care for, so they would know my prejudices from the get-go. In one paragraph, I mentioned...