Bookmark: Two essay collections by Minnesota writers

If you know anything about me, you know that my goal is to pack as much book news into the Star Tribune as is humanly possible. No editor can stop me. I am relentless. It's not enough, I say, to run two full pages of reviews and columns on Sundays; no, we must also run mini reviews on Mondays and a review from another newspaper most Tuesdays.

But even then, it's not possible to mention every book that deserves it. There are so many, and so many good ones.

So here are two more, both by writers you might know — they might even be your neighbors.

Robert Lacy, a Texas native, has lived in Minneapolis since the 1970s, teaching at the University of Minnesota and at the Loft Literary Center (and doing many other things).

His latest book (his fourth), "The House on Brown Street," was published earlier this year by Stephen F. Austin State University Press and is a collection of graceful memoiristic essays about growing up in Texas, serving in the Marine Corps and living in Minneapolis.

He worked for a while on the copy desk of the Minneapolis Star (the afternoon paper that eventually merged with the Tribune) and in "The Rim Man" he writes movingly about another copy editor who influenced his life.

The title essay is about a house in Iowa City where he lived while studying at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and it's peppered with memories of Kurt Vonnegut, Andre Dubus, Richard Yates and many other writers. (He used to watch Dubus do situps — 200 in the amount of time it took Lacy to smoke a cigarette.)

Perhaps of most interest here are the essays set in Minnesota, including "On the Dangers of Hero Worship," which looks at the very flawed life of Charles Lindbergh ("Seven children? With three different women? And nobody knew?") and "Home: An Essay," about how Minnesota has changed since he moved here in 1972. ("I take no credit," he notes.)

Some of the essays veer from memoir to reportage — "Cruel and Barbarous Treatment" is about writer Mary McCarthy's brutal childhood on Blaisdell Avenue in Minneapolis, and two other essays explore the life and work of Raymond Carver.

John Toren is an editor and writer, and his new book, "Cabin in the City," is a collection of essays about living in a Golden Valley house that is on the edge of wilderness (lucky man).

Published by the intrepid Nodin Press (legendary publisher Norton Stillman is approaching 90), "Cabin" isn't just about the flora and fauna in Toren's neighborhood (though it is also about that), but ranges further afield to include a bicycle race around Lake Pepin, shopping at Kowalski's on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, a trip up the North Shore.

Grouped by season, these pleasant essays ramble and muse, sprinkled with familiar place names as well as names of writers, musicians and books — oh, so many books.

But it is the easy local references that will resonate for readers — his musings on the first snowfall ("it deflates the heart"), getting lost in St. Paul (as only someone who lives on the other side of the river can), camping and canoeing in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, watching the perfect slant of light of a February thaw.

We know these feelings. We live them, too.

Toren will launch the book at 7 p.m. Aug. 12 on Crowdcast, hosted by SubText Books in downtown St. Paul. Register at subtextbooks.com.

Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's senior editor for books. On Facebook: facebook.com/startribunebooks.