"Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses," by Brian Leahy Doyle and Mark Fay
You've been inside The Pabst Theater and you know just what a treasure it is. But it's just one of many lovely, historic opera houses that survive in Wisconsin. If you don't have time to get in the car and seek out the rest, check out "Encore! The Renaissance of Wisconsin Opera Houses," a lavishly illustrated hardcover by Brian Leahy Doyle and Eau Claire photographer Mark Fay.
Published by Wisconsin Historical Society Press in its Places Along the Way series, the book focuses on 10 Badger State gems, including The Pabst, the Al. Ringling Theater in Baraboo, Mineral Point Opera House, Oshkosh's Grand Opera House and six others, tracing their histories, discussing their architecture and explaining how they each underwent their own "renaissance."
Doyle, a Wisconsin native, is a theater director and historian and has taught at Lehman College, City University of New York (he lives in Hastings-on-Hudson in New York) and St. Cloud State University and has worked with many theater companies, including Riverside Shakespeare, George Street Playhouse and Irish Arts Center.
"The Flavor of Wisconsin: An Informal History of Food and Eating in the Badger State," by Harva Hachten and Terese Allen
In 1981, Harva Hachten published "The Flavor of Wisconsin: An Informal History of Food and Eating in the Badger State," charting the culinary history and landmarks of Wisconsin.
What made the book so fascinating, popular and important was that it was more than simply a cookbook. Hachten explored the history of food in Wisconsin from the Ojibwe through more recent immigrant groups. She looked at food producers, and episodes like the birth of "The Settlement Cook Book" in Milwaukee.
More than 20 years later, Wisconsin Historical Society Press asked for an update and paired respected food expert Terese Allen with Hachten to create the new version.
During their work, however, Hachten passed away, and it fell to Allen to complete the updated work on her own.
Now that the finished book is here, it's tastier than ever. With great illustrations, tempting recipes and expanded sections on Wisconsin food history, tradition and products, "The Flavor of Wisconsin" is -- more than ever -- a bible for Badger State foodies.
"Mary Nohl Inside & Outside: Biography of the Artist," by Barbara Manger
Ask someone about Mary Nohl and you'll likely be met with a blank stare. As someone in Milwaukee about the Witch's House on the North Shore and nearly everyone will have at least heard of it and many will say they've driven up to check it out. Rock and roll fans may know her work only from the cover of the Violent Femmes' second LP, "Hallowed Ground."
But Nohl -- who died in 2001 -- was no witch. In fact, she was a talented and always active artist, whose lifetime of creations is part of the patrimony of Sheboygan's John Michael Kohler Arts Center (JMKAC), which shows a large collection of Nohl's work. That oeuvre was bequeathed to the Kohler Foundation, which also preserves Nohl's Fox Point home, adorned -- inside and out -- with her unique creations. The home is not open to the public.
Now, artist Barbara Manger -- who knew Nohl -- and book designer Janine Smith have collaborated to create "Mary Nohl Inside & Outside: Biography of the Artist," a large-format paperback book that is the first comprehensive biography of Nohl and appreciation of her oeuvre.
Loaded, naturally, with illustrations, the volume is especially notable for introducing us to the woman behind the quirky, playful and seemingly endless art. The book is distributed by University of Wisconsin Press.
"Old Farm: A History," by Jerry Apps
I know, I know, it was published in autumn 2008, but I'm including it anyway because most people likely read it this year. Boosted by his son Steve's gorgeous photography, the"dean" of the literature of the land of Wisconsin, Jerry Apps, delves deep into the history of his Waushara farm, starting with the glaciers and continuing through the Menomonee people who lived there for centuries and, later, the first settlers and those who struggled to make a living on this "poor farm" that has, since the mid-1960s, been the Apps family respite from city life.
Like the wisest nature writers before him, Apps understands -- and writes (I paraphrase here) -- that a place is more than what the eye can see. When he opens with a story of visiting his grandfather's abandoned farm down the road with his father, he reminds us that two people can look at the same ruin and while one sees only a ramshackle house, the other sees the ghosts of the past and relives the memories of another time.
Apps' meditation on place, on the settling of Wisconsin, on our relationship with the land -- published in hardcover by Wisconsin Historical Society Press -- ought to be essential reading in our schools.
"The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin," by James Norton and Becca Dilley
More than ever it seems that Wisconsin foodies are embracing the culinary treasures and traditions of America's Dairyland.
While books have been written before about Wisconsin cheese, James Norton and Becca Dilley's "The Master Cheesemakers of Wisconsin" -- published in large-format paperback by The University of Wisconsin Press ($24.95) -- focuses specifically on the men and women who create the delicious and award-winning cheeses on Wisconsin.
In nearly three dozen illustrated profiles of 43 active master cheesemakers Norton and Dilley get to the heart of the passion that makes the Badger State America's cheesiest state.
"My Kind of County: Door County, Wisconsin," John Fraser Hart
Some might say nobody knows a place like a native, but in a location like Door County, "local" might be harder to define.Certainly, someone like Virginia native and Minnesota resident John Fraser Hart fits the bill. After all, he's spent countless days in Door County over the past 50 years.
Now, the respected geographer -- a professor at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis -- has translated his love for Door County into words in "My Kind of County: Door County, Wisconsin," published this month in hardcover by The University of Chicago Press in its series produced in collaboration with The Center for American Places at Columbia College Chicago.
"Milwaukee's Italian Heritage: Mediterranean Roots in Midwestern Soil," by Anthony Zignego
Zignego's thesis has been published as a book by Massachusetts-based The History Press and although other books on the subject have appeared in recent years, Zignego's is the first to really draw on all the sources currently available to tell the story of the Italians in Milwaukee -- those mostly from Sicily who settled the Third Ward and the ones predominantly from The Marches, Piedmont and Tuscany who built a community in Bay View (there were others, of course, from other regions in the city, too).
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Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He has be heard on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories, in that station's most popular podcast.
