Minnesota Reads

I remember breathlessly telling my twelve-year-old niece, Jaycie, that if Amy Bloom’s name were on the cover of a phone book I’d read it and enjoy every line. I’m a bit of a Bloom fan, and still remember buying her first novel Love Invents Us in hardcover at the B. Dalton in the Eden Prairie [...]

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 [...]

The first time I saw Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep in a bookstore, I was a little, “Whatever.” The bright, shiny hardcover featured a cute-ish pink and green belt, and I read enough of the description to know its main character was a female student in a snooty boarding school. I believe I uttered a phrase along [...]

Andrew Davidson’s debut novel The Gargoyle, is the kind of book that gives me nextbookaphobia. This is a condition marked by great fear of starting a new book because there is no way that it can possibly live up to the last book you read, because that last book was really fucking good. I’ve experienced [...]

It’s hard to write about Ethan Canin’s new novel America America without staring into space and sighing dreamily. I’m going to put it out there. If this doesn’t turn out to be my favorite novel of 2008 I am going to shocked. Shocked and amazed. This book is so good that I have trouble finding [...]