November 24, 2009 - Minnesota Twins catcher Joe Mauer has been named the 2009 American League's Most Valuable Player, by a near unanimous vote. The award caps a season for Mauer in which he led the league in most major hitting categories, and posted career-high totals for home runs and runs batted in. However, Mauer's long-list of achievements has sparked more talk about his future with the team.
November 27, 2009 - Playwright and humorist Kevin Kling talks about his new book, "Holiday Inn," which he calls "a romp through a year of holidays." Kling spoke at the Minneapolis Central Library as part of the library's Talk of the Stacks program. Kevin Kling is a Minnesota playwright, humorist and occasional public radio commentator. His new book is called "Holiday Inn."
December 9, 2009 - Garrison Keillor speaks at the Virginia Street Swedenborgian Church in St. Paul about life, literature, and his new book, "A Christmas Blizzard." Keillor is the host of the public radio program "A Prairie Home Companion" and the author of more than a dozen books.
January 1, 2010 - Playwright and humorist Kevin Kling talks about his new book, "Holiday Inn," which he calls "a romp through a year of holidays." Kling spoke at the Minneapolis Central Library as part of the library's Talk of the Stacks program.
April 3, 2010 - The Minnesota Twins christened Target Field with an 8-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. The exhibition game gave Twins players and staff a chance to get used to their new digs.
April 26, 2010 - Brian McLaren, featured speaker at the Westminster Town Hall Forum in downtown Minneapolis, discusses how to be a person of faith in today's world. McLaren is the founding pastor of a nondenominational church in the Baltimore area and the author of several books, including his latest, "A New Kind of Christianity."
April 27, 2010 - Best-selling comic book and science fiction writer Neil Gaiman speaks at Stillwater High School as part of a new Twin Cities-wide program to celebrate reading. He's the first guest of the new Club Book program, bringing authors to metro communities. Gaiman is the award-winning author of "Coraline," "The Graveyard Book," and the acclaimed DC Comics series "Sandman."
May 31, 2010 - On a special Memorial Day edition of Midday, Vietnam Veteran and author Tim O'Brien reflects on "The Things They Carried." This month is the 20th anniversary of the celebrated war novel, and O'Brien marked the occasion with an audience at the Club Book series. Tim O'Brien spoke recently at the Schwann Event Center in Blaine, as part of the "Club Book" series organized by the Metropolitan Library Service Agency and the Library Foundation of Hennepin County.
June 2, 2010 - Former Republican Governor Arne Carlson says he's embarking on a Paul Revere Tour to raise alarm about Minnesota's financial condition. Former Republican Governor Arne Carlson came up with the idea for a nonpartisan summit last fall of former and current lawmakers as a way for Minnesota to better understand what he describes as a pending "economic tsunami."
June 22, 2010 - Midday presents Garrison Keillor speaking on poems, prose, and growing up in the northern suburbs at a Club Book program event in Blaine.