I am going to write something here that applies to Sloane Crosley and only Sloane Crosley, and God help us all — please don’t let anyone else take this bit of advice and apply it: Sloane, you need to write more about your personal life. Dates and dudes. Relationships that lean horizontal. Getting dumped and squeezing the living shit out [...]

After reading Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang, I can’t decide if Chelsea Handler is going to save printed entertainment or drive the final nail into the format’s coffin. The arguments for her as print’s savior: this is her third New York Times bestseller, so she’s apparently converting viewers of her late-night cable show into Barnes & Noble customers. Also, she can [...]

At some point we all sat around and wondered what the hell personal blogging would mean, ultimately, for the good old-fashioned world of the printed word. The kind that comes on paper, bound, with a flattering author portrait and blurbs from friends. As an anecdote to that, I present Emily Gould’s book of personal essays And the Heart Says Whatever. [...]

David Sedaris still holds the title of Best Comedy Writer in my mind, but after reading My Horizontal Life, I’ve decided Chelsea Handler is making a pretty strong bid to be the heir to that throne. In My Horizontal Life, the unapologetically (almost proudly) promiscuous Handler recalls her many one-night stands with a tart, dry sense of humor. Her lack [...]

I saw Kevin Kling perform at the University of Minnesota Duluth less than a year ago. It was a spare set up, with just the storyteller with a microphone and an adorable accordion player accompanist who punctuated Kling’s stories on the squeeze box, all whimsy and raised eyebrows. Kling, a native Minnesotan, tells his tales with the breathlessness of a [...]

Cassette mix tapes are a generational thing. My parents didn’t make them, probably because they had those crappy 8-tracks. At least they had vinyl. I made tons of mix tapes for practically anyone I met. I started when I was 14. This book features all kinds of mix tapes, but it will be best enjoyed by the generation of kids [...]

Here’s a confession: I did not read Chuck Klosterman’s entire book Eating the Dinosaur. This slighting came with his permission, nay, his insistence. Klosterman busts through the fourth wall in his essay about football to suggest that if you aren’t into football, you can jump this chapter: ” … I will understand if you skip to the next essay, which [...]

David Cross likes the word “poo.” David Cross does not like Fox News. David Cross loves to hate reality TV. Take those three premises, try to make them funny and you’ve basically got I Drink For A Reason, a collection of comical essays by the dude best known for playing Tobias Fünke on “Arrested Development.” I Drink for A Reason [...]

As the only person in my family born and bred in Wisconsin, I have had life experiences that were not available to my Minnesota kin. For example, I have been to and enjoyed many cheese houses in my time. Family traditions of babies and toddlers sampling the local brew are commonplace in America’s Dairyland. Growing up in the land of [...]

I’ve grown leery of the essay anthology after the horrible experience I had reading Things I Would Have Learned in English 101 if I Hadn’t Skipped Class to Have Sex, I mean, Things I Learned from the Women Who Dumped Me. The book was so awful and cliched that I feared I had be scarred for life. Then I kept [...]