Before we get started here I want to tell you that Dobby Gibson is reading at 7 p.m. Friday (Jan. 9) at The Loft (Open Book, 1011 Washington Ave) to celebrate the launch of his latest poetry collection Skirmish which comes out today! Gibson, who lives in Minneapolis, has an MFA from Indiana University, been [...]

I read Andrew Porter’s Flannery O’Connor award-winning collection The Theory of Light & Matter over a month ago and I thought I didn’t like it. I was wrong. Today, I fished the book out from the pile that surrounds my bed because I was determined to write about it.
As I flipped through the pages [...]

Over the past few weeks we’ve been featuring contributors to Fiction on a Stick, an anthology of stories by Minnesota writers. Today we’ve got Marcie Rendon, a member of the White Earth Anishinaabe Nation. She has received The Loft’s Inroads Writers of Color Award for Native Americans and the Saint Paul Company’s Leadership in Neighborhoods [...]

All About Lulu is so good that I am willing to forgive its author, Jonathan Evison, for being a little coy with the reader. This is saying a lot. Next to adverbs and Chuck Klosterman, coyness is my biggest literary pet peeve. But what Lulu lacks in upfrontness she sure makes up for in humor, [...]

MN Reads is going to take a break for the holidays. I’ll be celebrating with my family and coping with Christmas Eve dinner hosting anxiety. Also I hope to spend a lot of time reading Jonathan Evison’s All About Lulu. We’ll be back on Monday Saturday with more reviews, interviews and all sorts of book [...]

Over the past few weeks we’ve been having contributors to Fiction on a Stick, an anthology of stories by Minnesota writers, answer the 6 questions we always ask. Today we’re featuring Pallavi Dixit who earned a B.A. and an M.A in History from the University of Pennsylvania and an M.F.A. from the University of Massachusetts, [...]

1. An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination by Elizabeth McCracken:This was the best book I read all year. No hemming, no hawing, no second guessing — the best. McCracken’s memoir about giving birth to a stillborn child and all that follows is heartbreaking, darkly funny, and something everyone on the planet should [...]

Rain Taxi, the Minnesota-based Book Review journal, is raising funds by auctioning off very cool signed books and other bibliophile type things. You can bid on signed copies of Sherman Alexie’s Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian or a 1st edition of Neil Gaiman’s Coraline (and his The Graveyard Book is there too).
Oh and [...]

Chris Mars was once best known as the drummer for The Replacements, but now he’s showing that there is life after rock and roll. Mars recently released the beautiful, dark, and disturbing book Tolerance. I would tell you more about the book, but I just wrote about it yesterday. Today Mars is answering the [...]

Disclaimer: I’m a crazy, nutso fan of The Replacements. This will not comes as a surprise to MN Readers who know me. I run a Paul Westerberg fan site. I also named my personal blog after a ‘Mats song.
However, I’ve always been a little afraid of Chris Mars’ art. Which is why I was [...]