Friday Nights Are For Jazz!

Looking for something different to kick off your weekend? McNally Robinson Booksellers has partnered with the Winnipeg Jazz Orchestra (WJO) to offer three classes between January and April on different aspects and artists of jazz— all three of which will be taught by professor, musician and composer Sean Irvine. 

Each class is a unique opportunity to gain a greater appreciation of jazz music. Click on the titles below to learn more about and/or register for each session.

• Tools for Temporal Organization ... It's a Clave (January 24)—This presentation will dive deep into one of the largest musical umbrella terms, "Latin Rhythm."
• Lady Soul: The Story of Aretha Franklin (March 13)—There's a story behind each of this great singer, songwriter and activist's monumental achievements.
• The Lick (April 3 & 26)—A composition and arranging workshop where participants help build the framework to a new composition, AND the cost includes a ticket to the WJO's Carpathian Blues concert on April 26. 

View all upcoming music classes here! 

What To Read: January & February 2020

A collection of recent books particularly recommended by Chris Hall. Look for our in-store What To Read display tables.

Unquiet by Linn Ullmann. Softcover. $21.95. RRC Price $19.76. He is a Swedish filmmaker and she is his daughter. Now that she's grown up and he's in his late eighties, he envisions a book about old age. Growing old is hard work, he says. They will write it together. She will ask the questions. He will answer them. Unquiet follows the narrator as she unearths these taped conversations seven years later. Swept into memory, she reimagines the story of a father, a mother, and a girl — a child who can't wait to grow up and parents who would rather be children. (January)

Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss. Softcover. $22.00. RRC Price $19.80. In England Silvie and her family are living as ancient Britons, surviving by the knowledge of the Iron Age. For her father’s two-week vacation, they join an anthropology course reenacting life in simpler times. They are surrounded by forests, making stew from roots and hunted rabbit. Silvie's father has raised her on stories of early man, recounting their rituals and beliefs — particularly their sacrifices to the bog. But Silvie begins to imagine another kind of life. Ghost Wall urges us to wonder how far we have come from the "primitive minds" of our ancestors. (January)

See more What To Read picks after the jump...

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Discover More Manitoba History

May 2020 will mark 150 years since what is now Manitoba became Canada's fifth province, and we think this anniversary is a great opportunity to look back at different aspects of our province's history. To that end, the Community Classroom is pleased to present our Local History Series—ten classes between January and May that give you the opportunity to learn more about some of the diverse groups of people, stories and developments that made Manitoba what it is today. 

Click on any of the classes below to learn more and to register!

• Manitoba Treaties, Past and Present (January 13)
• Residential Schools and Settler Colonialism (February 5)
• The Haunted History of Manitoba (February 7)
• How Railways Built Manitoba (Starts February 19)
• Not Talking Union: North American Mennonites and Labour (March 10)
• An Explorer's Guide to Abandoned Manitoba (Starts April 1)
• Introduction to Indigenous/Aboriginal Rights (April 7)
• Assiniboine Park: A History of Winnipeg's Iconic Playground (May 5)
• Indigenous Cultural Sensitivity Blanket Exercise - A Historical Tool (May 7)
• The Icelanders in Manitoba (May 14)

Your 2019 Bestsellers

Another year is in the books, and we would like to take this opportunity to look back and celebrate some of the finest books to come out of the Prairies in 2019.

After the jump you will find our annual bestsellers lists for 2019 featuring books by Manitoban and Saskatchewan authors, separated into categories for Fiction, Nonfiction, and Kids & Teen.

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