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At last, summer is starting to creep its warm-temperature tendrils around us, thawing our cold Minnesotan winter hearts. This weekend, if the weather cooperates, many of us will be taking a trip to the lake, biking along the river, or maybe even sitting poolside.

Let's get you in the mindset of waves, shall we? Here are five books that are set nearby or written on the topic of water to pack in your beach bag.

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photo of Temple Grandin by Rosalie Winard, scan of her brain by Dr. Marlene Behrmann, Brain Imaging Research Center, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh

Temple Grandin's new book, The Autistic Brain, uses scientific breakthroughs like brain scans to better understand autism.

Temple Grandin has penned best-selling books that, together, have sold over a million copies. A professor of animal science, she has worked with big agriculture to design humane slaughterhouses. For some idea of the scale of her accomplishments: HBO made a movie of her life (starring Claire Danes) that won seven Emmy awards.

Grandin is famous, though, for doing it all with autism. When she was born, in 1947, autism was still a new diagnosis. Today, one in 88 children is "on the spectrum." In the years between, Grandin has become an advocate for autism and an icon for those seeking to better understand it.

Her new book, The Autistic Brain: Thinking Across the Spectrum (with Richard Panek), continues that work. In it, Grandin looks at the latest science to explore new ways to treat autism, and discusses the unique strengths that those with autistic brains can offer. In advance of her talk on Thursday night at the Fitzgerald Theater, Grandin spoke with Dressing Room about the future of the autism diagnosis, and why Minnesota should require coverage for early intervention therapy.

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- COVER: Intensive Early Intervention Behavioral Therapy could cure autism, but HealthPartners and other insurance companies won't pay for it
- Debate over autism coverage continues as mom sues providers for discrimination
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photo by Brigitte Lacombe

Activist and author Eve Ensler will be in town on Wednesday, May 8.

"How to describe Rochester, Minnesota?" Eve Ensler asks in one chapter of her new memoir, In the Body of the World. "It is essentially cancer town."

Cancer is what brought Ensler, founder of V-Day and One Billion Rising and author of The Vagina Monologues, to Rochester. Hers struck in an ironic place for an internationally renowned feminist activist: her uterus.

Ensler says that prior to her diagnosis her body was a nuisance, something that required upkeep so that she could do her work. But as she fought cancer and infection, endured nine-hour surgery, lost weight, and shaved her head, Ensler reconnected with the physical. "By the end of chemo," she writes in In the Body of the World, "I felt like the darkness I had carried around most of my life had lifted."

Ensler will speak about her book and her work at Macalester College on Wednesday in an event co-sponsored by Common Good Books and the Minnesota Women's Press. We talked with Ensler the day that In the Body of the World hit shelves.

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L-R: Common Good Books (shot by popturfdotcom), Once Upon a Crime, Boneshaker Books, Wild Rumpus

Some say bookstores are dead. The age of e-books and online shipping has hit shops like Barnes & Noble, Little Professor, and the now-defunct Borders hard. However, there's something special about a small, independent book store that can't be replicated on a website. The ability to browse, to find a corner to read a chapter or two, to pick the brain of literature-loving staff members, and to see authors discuss their writing are part of what makes locally owned bookshops essential.

The following are some of our favorites in the Twin Cities.

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B FRESH Photography for City Pages

This Thursday night, the Minneapolis chapter of Naked Girls Reading will host its third event. Beginning at 7 p.m., the first of an expected 50 attendees will start trickling into a studio in the Northrup King Building. They might be nervous about what they're about to see, and sip some wine. By 8, three women will take their seats in front of the crowd. They will be wearing only shoes, jewelry, and makeup, and they will begin to read out loud.

Naked Girls Reading is part just what it sounds like, and part hard to describe. Founded by burlesque performer Michelle L'amour and her husband Franky Vivid in Chicago in 2009, the literary salon has since spread to 19 cities internationally. After briefly flaring in the Twin Cities in 2011, it returned in December 2012 in the hands of producer AJ Peterson.

Readings at the kick-off event in December were holiday themed; at the second salon, in January, the texts were about movies. On Thursday, three of the chapter's six readers ("Or the Girls," Peterson says, "with a capital G."), will focus their minds and their voices on banned and censored books.

See Also: Slideshow: Naked Girls Reading: Behind the scenes of "Banned Books" [NSFW]

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Shutterhacks

When it comes to literary merit, Minnesotans have a lot to be proud of. We're home to three of the largest nonprofit literary publishers (Graywolf Press, Coffee House Press, and Milkweed Editions) and the largest nonprofit literary center in the United States (the Loft Literary Center). Also, Minneapolis and St. Paul are frequently ranked among the most literate cities.

So it should come as no surprise that there are shelves upon shelves of books that take place in Minnesota. While the list could go on and on, here are our top 15 picks for books set in our great Land of the 10,000 Lakes (in no particular order).

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Illustration by Michael Whelan

Part of the cover to A Memory of Light, the 14th and final book in The Wheel of Time series.

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Photo by Antonio Rodriguez

Punches were thrown at Revolver's launch party

True or false: Minnesota are writers are antisocial. Answer: Thanks to the Twin Cities literary scene, that statement is completely false. Let's get caught up on the best lit moments of 2012 with this list highlighting the written word.

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Cheryl Strayed on the rigors of the book tour trail, writing, and reconnecting with characters from "Wild"
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Occupy Homes MN activists release children's book about the foreclosure crisis
Twin Cities Book Festival turns 12, attracts book lovers of all sorts


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courtesy Becky Z. Dernbach

Bumbling villains Freddie and Fannie loom over the residents of Homesville.

When the country's two major mortgage institutions are nicknamed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it was probably inevitable that at some point someone would personify them.

Local Occupy Homes activist Becky Z. Dernbach saw the opportunity. On Friday, Boneshaker Books is throwing Dernbach a release party for her new picture book, Fannie and Freddie, in which those mortgage giants are the two main characters -- specifically, the cartoonish villains.

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courtesy Simon & Schuster

Three covers of Hatchet that are in bookstores today: From left, a cover from 2006, one from 2000, and another 2006 version.

Twenty-five years ago, right around this time of year, Gary Paulsen published Hatchet, a slim novel about 13-year-old Brian, who gets stranded alone in the Canadian wilderness after a plane crash. Chances are, that description sounds familiar: Over the past quarter-century, Paulsen's adventure story has sold more than five-million copies, won plenty of awards (including a Newbery Honor), and worked its way onto reading lists and into young readers' hearts.

In the same period, Paulsen, now 73, hasn't slowed down. His name is on the cover of more than 200 titles, and he's still living out the adventures he writes about: sailing around the Pacific, racing dogs in the Iditarod, riding his horse on his ranch. We caught up with Paulsen, who grew up in Thief River Falls, Minnesota, via email (he's living on a boat, and doesn't get good phone reception) to talk about maintaining his writing pace, surviving in the north Minnesota woods, and why writing for adults is "artistically fruitless."

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