Lies To Live By brings together two selections of stories by Ojibwe storyteller Lois Beardslee. ';Lies to Live By,' a series of interdependent tales, reflects the storyteller's role in interpreting traditional stories for contemporary audiences, while preserving traditions based not in mysticism but in pragmatism. In ';Calm Days,' three generationsthe narrator, her grandfather, and her sonspend a week together on a remote island during the course of which they demonstrate the continuity of Ojibwe life. Together these stories weave the contemporary and the traditional to show how cultural diversity can be preserved even as cultural boundaries are transcended.