Minnesota Reads

Heed these words of advice, DO NOT ever Google MN Speak editor Max Sparber. If you do, you will fall down a bunny hole of stories and cocktail recipes and fascinating about pages only to emerge an hour or so later more lost than when you began and now intimidated to boot. Holy Hannah! Sparber’s [...]

In a Pop Matters interview Chuck Klosterman says, “It was harder to write fiction, but maybe that was only because I’d never done it before. I can’t remember if writing Fargo Rock City was hard or easy.” The fact that he’s never written fiction before is painfully, achingly, stupefyingly, annoyingly obvious. First, there is the [...]

Back in July I began Leif Enger’s Peace Like a River, a book I thought might take me a week to read, tops. Though I should have been wary of such a time frame when I read the words of Jeremiah Land, “We, and the world, my children, will always be at war. Retreat is [...]

Downtown Owl by Chuck Klosterman follows a few months in the lives of 17-year-old level-headed, slightly depressed, Mitch — a mediocre athlete who’s ideal bedroom would be as sterile as a hotel room. Julia, the 23-year-old recently-hired history teacher who’s resale value skyrockets because she’s new in town and she’s in a town of men [...]

GalleyCat has an interview with Jeffrey Friedman director of “Howl” a movie about the life and times of poet Allen Ginsberg. When I was in college I memorized large chunks of the poem. So enamored with the poem that I named my fictional magazine for a magazine writing class Howl. Also, the Wikipedia entry for [...]

Bella Swan, the new girl in school, is brave — albeit clumsy — a misfit who smells like freesia and has the high school boys in a drooling tizzy. Especially Edward Cullen, who sits at a back table in the cafeteria with an impenetrable gang of equally attractive and socially inept friends and siblings. Bella [...]

Astute and smart Minnesota Readers will notice that I’ve been totally slacktastic with the 6 questions we always ask. You will be happy to know that I’ve finally gotten it under control (I think) and lined up some kick ass subjects. Also, the feature is going to move to Tuesday. Wednesdays are just too damn [...]

Jezebel has posted a list of 75 books every woman should read. It’s a list compiled by Jezebel editors and readers. It’s response to Esquire’s 75 books every man should read. I think Jezebel did a good job with the list, though I wish they would have explained some of the selections like Esquire did. [...]

… And with that, my top five books of all time has to be reconfigured to make room for Haruki Murakami’s The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. This novel starts with the disappearance of a cat that belongs to the unemployed, wandering, passive and nondescript main character Toru Okada and his premenstral wife Kumiko. Eventually Kumiko follows [...]

Paper Cuts has Neal Stephenson make playlist. Stephenson (the author of Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon and others) will read from his new novel Anathem at Barnes & Noble in the Galleria on Friday, September 26th. Check the MN Reads calendar for more information. To celebrate the electoral season Amazon’s Omnivoracious is building a readers map of [...]