One of the great things about Club Book is the fact that they bring in such a wide variety of writers. Well, there are other great things--the fact that it's free, for instance, and the fact that its whole reason for being is to bring authors to far-flung places where people actually live (Apple Valley! Stillwater! Brooklyn Center!) instead of making everybody drive to downtown Minneapolis of St. Paul.
But the variety of authors is also admirable. In the past there years they've brought in novelist Gish Jen and storyteller Kevin Kling; memoirist Elizabeth Gilbert and novelist Stuart O'Nan; uber-librarian Nancy Pearl and author (and uber-Twitterer) Colson Whitehead.
Next month, Colin Meloy and Carson Ellis will present their new book at the Roseville Public Library as part of Club Book. Not exactly household names? They should be. They will be. They are going to be on the Simpsons in December! But you get to see them first. (Their Club Book appearance is at 7 p.m. Oct. 2 at Roseville Library, 2180 N. Hamline Av. That's the cool refurbished library with the Dunn Brothers Coffee Shop attached.) Meloy is the lead singer of the indie folk band The Decemberists, a Portland, Ore., band that has been around since 2001. His new book, "Under Wildwood," pubs later this month from Harper Collins and is the second in the Wildwood Chronicles, a fantasy series for young adults which takes place in the mythical and dangerous Impassible Wilderness outside of Portland.
