The remarkable Mary-Ann Kirkby

Saskatchewan's Mary-Ann Kirkby accomplished a number of remarkable feats with her 2007 memoir I Am Hutterite. It was her first book, she published it herself, sold nearly 100,000 copies to make it a national bestseller, and it won the 2007 Saskatchewan Book Award for Non-Fiction.

Since then, Kirkby has spent two years travelling to nearly fifty Hutterite colonies across North America. The result, Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen, takes readers into the midst of this mysterious community, exploring a way of life that is born out of spiritual conviction and uncommon rites of passage. Revealing intimate details of community life, Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen unravels the inner works of Hutterite manners and morals, and illuminates the spirit of a workforce responsible for feeding a family of 125 every day of the year. Kirkby presents a candid snapshot of Hutterite life, illuminating the social customs, marriage ceremonies, romantic entanglements, birthing practices, and death rituals as viewed through the Hutterite community kitchen and the fascinating Hutterite women. Beautifully packaged, Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen features a selection of favourite Hutterite recipes and never-before-seen photographs.

Secrets of a Hutterite Kitchen will be released mid-April. Contact your nearest McNally Robinson bookstore to pre-order.

Join us on Monday, April 28th, at 7:00 pm for an Evening with Mary-Ann Kirkby in our Winnipeg store! Or if you're in Saskatoon, Ms. Kirkby will be visiting our Saskatoon store just a few days later on Wednesday, April 30th, at 7:00 pm.

Miriam Toews returns

Whoever said you can't go home again? Miriam Toews is not only back with a new novel, she's back home at McNally Robinson on April 16.

Toews is one of Canada's brightest literary lights. Her wry, sardonic voice is engagingly funny despite the very unfunny themes which she writes about: young women struggling as single parents, grandmothers with secret drinking problems, people young and old knocked flat by depression, wasting away.

She is a winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, the Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, and the Writers' Trust Marian Engel/Timothy Findley Award. Her 2004 novel A Complicated Kindness won the 2006 Canada Reads debate and was declared the Canada Reads Canadian Bestseller of the Decade in 2010.

Both tender and unquiet, her new novel All My Puny Sorrows offers a profound reflection on the limits of love, and the sometimes unimaginable challenges we experience when childhood becomes a new country of adult commitments and responsibilities. In this beautifully rendered story, Toews gives us a startling demonstration of how to carry on with hope and love and the business of living, even when grief loads the heart.

You won't forget Elf and Yoli, two smart and loving sisters. Elfrieda, a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, happily married: she wants to die. Yolandi, divorced, broke, sleeping with the wrong men as she tries to find true love: she desperately wants to keep her older sister alive. Yoli is a beguiling mess. Wickedly funny, even as she stumbles through life struggling to keep her teenage kids and mother happy, Yoli strives to keep her exes from hating her, her sister from killing herself, and her own heart from breaking.

All My Puny Sorrows is set to be released on April 15th. Contact us today to set up a pre-order.

Join us in our Winnipeg store on Wednesday April 16, at 7:00 pm for the launch of All My Puny Sorrows! As with all of our in-store events, the launch is free and all are welcome to attend. We're expecting it to be a popular night, so come early.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle (and I bet you do, too)

Spring is right around the corner, and I'm guessing those of you with bicycles are itching to get out and ride in the warm weather and sunshine, without several layers and without ice. Before you mount up and ride out, though, you might want to read up with some of these new bike books to prepare and inspire yourself.

Riding a bicycle from coast-to-coast is one of those bucket-list goals that many dream but few fulfill. During the summer and fall of 2011, at the age of fifty-seven, Bruce Weber, an obituary writer for The New York Times, cycled across the United States alone. Life Is a Wheel is an inspiring and reflective diary of a journey in which the challenges and rewards of self-reliance and strenuous physical effort yield wry and incisive observations about cycling and America, not to mention the pleasures of a three-thousand-calorie breakfast.

When Rwandan Adrien Niyonshuti crossed the line in the men's mountain bike race at the London Olympics last year, he did so bearing both the hopes of a nation and the scars of the 1994 genocide. The fact that he was thankful just to finish -- in 39th place -- is just one reason why Tim Lewis's fascinating story of Rwandan cycling Land of Second Chances isn't a typical rags to riches, triumph against adversity tale. It is the story of the Rwandan cycling team, the people behind the team, and a metaphor for a struggling nation. Lewis follows Niyonshuti, who was only seven years old during the genocides, to his successful finish; his coach Jonathan Boyer (first American to race in the Tour de France); all around cyclist Tom Ritchey; and Rwandan President Paul Kagame. Their struggle to create a national cycling team and its benefits to the community is told in this true story about "finding redemption in the eyes of the world."
(Please note that this book will be released in mid to late April. Contact us today to pre-order a copy.)

You will never fear the unknown landscape of bicycle repair on the road with the Essential Road Bike Maintenance Handbook by Brian Fiske tucked in your pannier. This portable handbook distills the core fundamentals and serves as a guide to repairing and maintaining your bike. It focuses specifically on instructions with step-by-step photos, troubleshooting tips, links to videos and helpful sidebar material. The book is clearly organized from front of bike to back with colour-coded page tabs serving as a visual table of contents to key bike areas so that readers can quickly and efficiently find the information they need.

Classical Recording of the Week: ARANJUEZ by Milos

In partnership with Winnipeg's Classic 107, we're proud to present our Classical CD of the Week...

Milos' Aranjuez

For his third album, international chart-topping classical guitarist Milos Karadaglic takes the world-famous Concierto de Aranjuez as the starting point for a journey across the Spanish landscape, paying tribute to the great composers and musicians who placed the modern classical guitar firmly on the international stage.

For the recording of the new album Aranjuez, Milos was joined by the London Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Yannick Nezet-Seguin at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios in London. Aranjuez is a celebration of the most popular Spanish works for guitar and orchestra, which includes Rodrigo's Fantasía para un gentilhombre, and it explores the birth and recognition of the modern guitar in the 20th century.

You can read more about Milos and his music on his website.

Look for our Classical CD of the Week display in the Music section of our Grant Park store to pick up a copy!