Need a little extra space? A place to call your own? A spot other than the dining room table to work on that novel? A raft house for overnights on the lake? The perfect place for weekend guests? Or a little cottage in the woods up north? How about a well-lit workshop or a mobile tool shed? A playhouse for the grandkids? Architect Lester Walker’s Tiny Houses: Designs for 43 Houses for Getting Away from It All traces the history and inspiration for diminutive dwellings—from Thomas Jefferson’s honeymoon cottage at Monticello to Henry David Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond. With hundreds of photographs and detailed scale drawings, this delightful volume will give you some big ideas about small spaces. –Ann Woodbeck
EXCELSIOR BAY BOOKS
36 Water St.Excelsior
952.401.0932
excelsiorbaybooks.net
Ann Woodbeck has been a “bookseller extraordinaire” for Excelsior Bay Books for the past nine years. When not recommending the next great novel, she reads, writes and spends time with her husband and poodle in Excelsior.
---
Spain has some the highest-quality, most reasonably priced wines of any region that I work with. One of my favorite sparkling wines to use during blind tastings is the Hoya De Cadenas Cava from Vicente Gandia. This bubbly offering is a blend of macabeo and chardonnay grapes, which are bottle-conditioned and aged for 12 months on premise. This cava shows a generous nose of orange blossom and citrus fruit; the bubbles are tiny and there is a rich yeasty mouth feel that is balanced by wonderfully bright acids. You could spend three times this much on sparkling wine and it would not deliver like the Hoya De Cadenas does at $10.99. –Tyler Melton
THE WINE SHOP
17521 Minnetonka Blvd.Minnetonka
952.988.9463
wineshopminnetonka.com
Tyler Melton is the manager of the Wine Shop. Sign up for their weekly recommendations by emailing wineshopmtka@gmail.com and read their best seasonal drink pick on this page each month.
---
It’s telling that Four Tet (Kieran Hebden) begins “Hands,” the first track on Rounds, with a heartbeat. Off-kilter drums follow with some synths trying to find a groove. When it finally locks, it’s clear that Rounds isn’t electronic, jazz, or post-rock, but something unique. Hebden composed the album from a few hundred samples, but there's a beautiful coherence in his collage. “My Angel Rocks Back and Forth” lays a gorgeous harp line over what sounds like rocks sliding down a half-pipe. “Unspoken” starts on a hard drum loop before a mournful piano evokes a cityscape on a rainy night. Hebden has put out a wealth of records, but nothing resonates as strongly as this masterpiece. –Jack Kentala
FIND THE ALBUM AT:
Barnes & Noble13131 Ridgedale DriveMinnetonka
952.546.2006
bn.com
Jack Kentala is a local filmmaker and writer. He has directed two feature films, Transmissions (2009) and Archetype (2012). He also wrote his first novel, Meridien K, in 2011.
