Minnesota Reads

One time someone told me in a really convincing and authoritative voice that as an English major, it is really bad form that I claimed no interest in history. “All literature is history,” or maybe “All history is literature,” this person said and I shrugged and imagined maps and capitols and dates that wars ended [...]

My feelings about Sarah Vowell are well documented on Minnesota Reads. Admittedly, I am a fanboy and love how she weaves history, pop culture, and humor together into books that both educate and entertain. It's been a few years since The Wordy Shipmates, and I was eager to read Unfamiliar Fishes, her new book about [...]

This year I read twenty books that earned my coveted 5-star rating. Here, in no particular order, are�the ten I feel were the best of those twenty. 1. In the Land of Invented Languages: Esperanto Rock Stars, Klingon Poets, Loglan Lovers, and The Mad Dreamers Who Tried to Build A Perfect Language: Arika Okrent [review] [...]

It is difficult to write objectively about a book when the author both makes you laugh and seems to always write about things that interest you. For me, this author is Sarah Vowell and the challenge is not becoming so much of a fanboy that I cannot maintain any sort of impartiality. However, the contents [...]

2008 was a pivotal year in my life because of significant advancements I made in several areas of my life, especially in intellectual and spiritual matters. I attribute these advancements to the words and ideas found in these ten books. Of the fifty books I completed this year, these ten had the most influence. Open [...]

In the year 2006, I road tripped to Boise, Idaho, to aid in relocating my sister-in-law. To aid me in making this journey, I borrowed two books on compact disc: Nicholas Sparks’ The Wedding and Sarah Vowell’s Assassination Vacation. I practically cut off my ears during The Wedding (it was one of several book club [...]

Before I get started, I just wanted to remind you all that Amy Bloom’s gonna be reading from her latest novel Away at Magers & Quinn on Tuesday, November 11th. You should check it out of if you can. In other local readings, The Loft’s got a full slate on Saturday, November 8th (that’d be [...]

Only that shit was bananas. Seriously, she’s too a big a name to try and shove her reading between the art books and the escalators at the Barnes & Noble in Edina. I’m trying not to be too pouty, because Amy Bloom is coming to Magers & Quinn in November and I’m pretty sure her [...]

I often like to call Sarah Vowell the Gen X Doris Kearns Goodwin or Stephen Ambrose. She’s a historian for our time, and unlike the Goodwin and Ambrose books I had to study in college, Vowell generally writes really witty and engaging books about our country. Vowell is insightful and skeptical and above all else, [...]

Yowza! Largehearted Boy found a site that’s made a Flannery O’Connor lecture and reading available. Now, you can listen to O’Connor read A Good Man is Hard to Find. I am downloading it now, and my heart is going pitter pat with anticipation of listening to her reading. Sweet! Rolling Stone has posted an excerpt [...]