Flying Uncle's Junk

Hundred Miles to Nowhere

Hundred Miles to Nowhere: An Unlikely Love Story explores what happens when a singer-songwriter moves from New York City to rural Minnesota for love, and finds there’s more to life than music. When Elisa Korenne took a month’s break from New York City to be the resident singer-songwriter in middle-of-nowhere Minnesota, she didn't intend to stay...

Wisconsin's Lost Towns

Wisconsin has over 200 lost, long ago, and nearly gone places. Why they began, why they faded or died encompasses many issues, many reasons. For Rhonda, her love of lost towns and long ago places began in northern Wisconsin, and in this book, she explores the stories and tales of Wisconsin’s places of the past.

Minnesota's Lost Towns Central Edition

The long-awaited second book in the Minnesota’s Lost Towns series is now available. Travel along as we visit and learn about more than 125 central Minnesota locations. The book covers twenty-seven of Minnesota’s central corridor counties, from east to west. Read how the towns were created, how they developed and lived, and why they died. Discover the people and places of Minnesota’s past...

Minnesota's Lost Towns Southern Edition

Pack your bags and come along as we journey to over 125 lost towns in Southern Minnesota. Read how the Civil War, changes in transportation, county seat disputes and other historical happenings changed Minnesota’s landscape. Learn how and why lost towns and communities were created, how they thrived and why they eventually faded into history...

Flying Uncle's Junk

Flying Uncle’s Junk is the much-anticipated follow-up memoir to A Shadow at the Gate. Author Don Bloch spent more than twenty years with the Federal Drug Enforcement Administration. He made undercover buys of heroin, cocaine, and other drugs on the streets of Minneapolis. As a DEA pilot, he flew undercover and surveillance missions in many cities across the United States...

High on Table Mountain

As the phases of moon describe a lunar cycle, so High on Table Mountain spans the arc of a life and includes themes of family, loss, joy, humor, and immigration to the USA.

Northern Lights, Southern Nights

“You can’t go back home to your family, back home to your childhood . . . back home to a young man’s dreams of glory and of fame . . . back home to places in the country, back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time—back home to the escapes of Time and Memory.” -Thomas Wolfe, You Can't Go Home Again

Minnesota's Lost Towns Northern Edition

The long-awaited second book in the Minnesota’s Lost Towns series is now available. Travel along as we visit and learn about more than 125 central Minnesota locations. The book covers twenty-six of Minnesota’s central corridor counties, from east to west. Read how the towns were created, how they developed and lived, and why they died. Discover the people and places of Minnesota’s past...

Growing Up on the Mississippi

“Kent Stever takes you by the hand for a stroll back in time to a simpler place, one sprinkled with nostalgia and fond remembrance. His writing conjures up images so exact you’ll swear you’re sitting at a soda fountain sipping on a cherry Coke while he tells his tales.” —Mike Nistler, Publisher, Minnesota Moments Magazine

Driving with Cats

"Anyone who has loved, lived with, or grieved the loss of a cat will appreciate Driving with Cats...

From Moosehead to Misery Bay or . . . The Moose in the VW Bug

After writing seven books of short fiction, a novel, and a book of poetry, all with Finnish themes and characters, Lauri Anderson has finally written his memoir. In it, he tells stories of growing up in rural Maine, life in the Peace Corps in Nigeria, Truk Lagoon, and Turkey, and teaching at Finlandia University in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...

Heart Scars

Divorced when her children were two and four years old, Jeanette did everything she could to keep her children safe. She took seriously the roles of both mother and father. Everything seemed to be fine until her daughter entered puberty. Everything seemed to be fine until it wasn’t. Then came the nightmare...

Tomatoes Free for the Asking

"Tomatoes free for the asking" is a quaint term remembered from the 1800s, yet heard in the 1950s of Stever's youth. It was a simple expression written on a piece of cardboard set alongside a pile of tomatoes near someone's garden or on the front porch. It was an invitation to take as you wish, with an expectation of acknowledgement—a simple courtesy to honor the offer...

The Whole Forest for a Backyard

Crafted with an honest sensitivity, this charming book reflects the perspective of a small, free-range boy with a large imagination reared in one of our nations most cherished wilderness areas. It is mostly about the author’s growing up years in the 1950s and 1960s at the resort his parents owned thirty-two miles into the boreal forest from the town of Grand Marais, Minnesota...

The Days of Song and Lilacs

In a childhood filled with sparkle and dances and stages, the one thing Mary Beth could count on was Mabel, her piano-playing accompanist. So when Mabel suffered a paralyzing stroke, Mary Beth would turn to Mabel’s student of old, Meredith Willson, the Music Man himself, to see if the music really truly ever dies...

Gumption

Russ, an eighty-two-year old widower, is awakened one blustery winter night by a phone alert from an emergency monitoring center—his best friend Rich has pressed the Help button. The situation that night is more than just some quick action for Russ. It’s a wake-up call to the dark reality of Rich’s failing health...

Joliet Girl

“Elegant, aching, and irresistible, Joliet Girl is a heartfelt and honest proof that while every family is different, every family is the same.  A beautifully-written account of a remarkable family.” — Pete Hautman

Just Call Me John

“Practices are a little like a classroom—you’re teaching,” says John Gagliardi.  Since 1953, John, as head football coach at Saint John’s University, has been “teaching” young men how to play ­winning  football.  His “classroom” has been the ­beautiful natural bowl of Clemens Stadium. His college teams have won 471 games, 63 more than those of his closest rival.

Wellstone, Conscience of the Senate

"Whenever I tell someone around the Senate that I'm from Minnesota, they always remember Paul. Not just the senators, but the secretaries, police officers, and tram drivers, too. Paul was there for everyone. This collection of his Senate floor speeches will educate and inspire, reconnecting us with the unique spirit that Paul brought to his work in the U.S. Senate." – U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar

Inside Out

Soft

Soft, Sherrie Fernandez-William’s first book, is a relentlessly textured memoir exposing the author’s life as she goes back and forth in time, examining who she is today, and why. Soft is a story for those who understand moving from one geographical, spiritual, or identity-oriented place to another, hoping to escape, only to discover there are always other places that need escaping...

Storm Prayers

Storm Prayers is an intriguing and highly readable memoir of Patricia Hoolihan’s journey to retrieve the profound in her life.

Tarnished Dreams

Thrilled to have her daughter back after she ran away from home in 2009, Jeanette catered to her every whim. She heard the accusations all over her small Minnesota community about how much she lied, but a mother's blinding love made Jeanette believe every word she uttered. Discovering her high school daughter was sending topless photos of herself electronically made her stomach lurch...

Kinder, Gentler Ways

Harsh as the times of post-World War II days were in appearance, the 1950s comprised an era of proven practice—with common denominators of honesty and truth binding together the “kinder, gentler ways.”

A Penny A Kiss

A young southern family moves from the hills of small-town West Virginia to Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1939 and enters a new social stratum. After struggling to fit into a private girl’s high school, the daughter attends a western college, where she suffers staggering defeat and enters a relationship that sets her on a singular path...

His Name Was David Sam

In this exciting second installment of short stories, David shares more stories from the Mille Lacs Ojibwe Reservation...

Recalling Yesterdays

Plunged into poverty by the Great Depression, Mary Joy tells how—after losing their home in Minneapolis—she and her family lived off an acre of land in then-rural Eden Prairie township. Volunteer work during a political campaign in 1968 led to a job offer that launched her back into the work world...

Un Moving Four Ward

Having suffered an accident in the dorms while a student at St. John’s University, Bob became a quadriplegic. This fact, however, doesn’t keep Bob from living his life fully. This book describes some of his adventures—and challenges—along the way. This book is for anyone who has faced, is facing, or will face a difficult time in their life. Meaning: it’s for everyone...

Ma Doula

Ma Doula is a book of stories about births, from Amish home births by lamplight to big-city births in high-tech hospitals. These stories are about families, medical personnel, midwives and doulas and, of course, moms, dads, and babies (who already have their own opinions)...

A Shadow at the Gate

This is a book of adventure and travel. It is also a memoir, reflecting the author’s love for the people and the land, but do not expect a sentimental reflection of years gone by. These stories connect us all as human beings.Blcoh expresses his deep wonder as a child, frustration with his studies at the seminary, and his deep longing for freedom...

Nature, Culture, and Two Friends Talking

This book is in part the story of a friendship over thirty years centering on love of nature and two men's quests to understand how to save what they love. At turns literary and scholarly, these essays, poems and public presentations also document not only the evolution of their ideas and expressions of this love, but reflect American culture's own dialogue about nature and conservation...