Three women who star in one of this season's most-hyped books will talk about their 40-year friendship at Barnes & Noble in Edina this week.

Marilyn McCormack Johnson, Kelly Zwagerman and Sally Hamilton are among 11 women whose shared lives are tenderly examined by bestselling author Jeffrey Zaslow in his new book, "The Girls from Ames."

"We are just very normal people living our lives like most of America does," Johnson said in a phone conversation from her Stillwater home last month, just as "The Girls from Ames" was starting to get a lot of industry buzz....