We’ve got a lot of new titles to be excited about this year, from the oft-buzzed-about The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen to the beautiful early-1900s photographic northwoods journey of Border Country. These books join our already robust collection of beautiful books about Minnesota and the Upper Midwest, and we’d like to take a moment to highlight one particular classic whose presence made one reader very happy. Here’s an anecdote from our outreach and development manager, Molly Fuller, on the sidelines of the recent American Institute of Architects’ Minnesota chapter meeting in Minneapolis.
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A woman picked up a copy of Churches of Minnesota and instantly brought it over to me to share her story. She’d purchased the book years ago to research where to have her wedding, hoping to find a historic church as her “something old” to complement her reception at the Walker Arts Center (her “something new”). When she was still considering her options, she happened upon page 119 IRL: St. Martin’s By-the-Lake, a church in Minnetonka Beach built in 1888 by legendary architect Cass Gilbert. She was with her young niece at the time, and the woman pointed out the building and said she might be married there. “I like it,” her niece said, “it looks like mint chocolate chip ice cream.” That quirky blessing solidified her decision, and she and her husband were married there later that year.
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This book is among the 200 titles featured in our Read Minnesota holiday catalog (page 4 on the web; page 36 in the print edition), and can be ordered at a 30% discount using code MN82100.