dave wood

My grandmother used to amuse me telling stories about her father who left the farm in Sweden to become a merchant seaman, and eventually learned seven languages. Life was not easy for a farm boy at sea, my grandmother said.

My father wasn't much for poetry. He was more of a Zane Grey man. But he truly enjoyed Chaucer's "Miller's Tale," when I typed out a copy for him, when he wrote and wondered how I was wasting my time in graduate school. And I know he'd like a new book just out, "Low Down and Coming...

Lerner Publications of Minneapolis continues to expand into different areas. Its newer imprint, christened Lab, is devoted to adolescent literature like "What Can(t) Wait," by Ashley Hope Perez ($17.95 cloth). It's all about Marisa, a Mexican migrant, living with her parents in...

Time flies. It has been 30 years since Kurt Vonnegut's son Mark wrote "Eden Express," an account of his descent into insanity.

Thousands of years ago, the Roman historian Suetonius wrote "The Twelve Caesars" in which he gave brief but penetrating essays on the first 12 caesars of Rome at the height of its power: Julius Caesar, Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespasian,...

Journalist Peg Meier hails from Wisconsin, but for years she has been a gift to Minnesota. Meier who toiled for years as one of the most talented writers at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, got into the book biz with the publication of her best-selling doorstopper, "Bring Warm Clothes,"...

Two books by Wisconsin authors this week. "The Last Empty Places," by Peter Stark (Ballantine Books, $26), is a fascinating look at "the blank spots on the American map." Stark, who grew up in the wilds of Wisconsin, was inspired to research other wildernesses that still exist on...

I'm always fascinated by Harry Turtledove, whose publisher bills him as "The Master of Alternate History." What's that you may ask? Alternate history has been around for a long time and it comes in many forms. Minnesota's wonderfully inventive Larry Millett does a fictional version...

A few weeks ago, I received a copy of a non-fiction book about a great golfer who got mixed up with women other than his wife and got himself into a whole mess of trouble. No, no. Not Tiger Woods. The great golfer I'm talking about is J. Douglas Edgar. Never heard of him? Nor had...