Mr. Moosewood, AKA Moose, a popular stoner-hippie teacher — ponytail and all — assigns the students in his AP elective a semester-long project of self-discovery that asks “Who are you and who are you becoming?” Fifteen-year-old Tina M. decides to keep a diary during the semester, letters to John-Paul Sartre, in Tina’s Mouth: An Existential [...]

Janie takes her role as eldest daughter seriously in Forgotten Country, Catherine Chung’s debut novel about a family that comes to the United States out-running potential political persecution in their home country, Korea. Hannah, her younger sister, has a bit more moxie. When the family’s traditions start to weigh her down, she runs away to [...]

Sunday as I finished Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail I kind of sighed sadly and wished this book had been around when I was a young twentysomething woman. While the story is uniquely Strayed’s the meaning, the lesson, the whathaveyou feels universal. Mostly it’s this: you are [...]

I read memoirs because it is more polite than staring at people, which doesn’t mean I do the latter any less. I like the what-has-it-been-like-for-you-ness of seeing someone’s bullet points and knowing it must all turn out reasonably okay, because they were able to pop a squat and push out these thousands of words afterward. [...]

I’m going go right ahead and put Jane Beckles right up on a pedestal next to Ramona Flowers & Zero Hopeless-Savage. These pedestals are reserved for kickass, young, female characters from graphic novels. After I complained last week about how difficult it is to find graphic novels written by women, LeAnn called on her posse [...]

It’s 1622. It’s 1902. It’s 2000 in Danielle Sosin’s debut novel The Long-Shining Waters the story of three women living on Lake Superior. Grey Rabbit lives with her two sons, husband, and mother-in-law in the winter of 1622 on the shore of Lake Superior and it’s been rough hunting and everyone is starving. Meanwhile, she’s [...]

If you want to see a Hunger Games-head combust, tell the fan that you read book one, dug it enough, but haven’t read any others in the series. Then back away slowly. There are going to be octaves involved. According to Emily Post, one is supposed to read the first book and then light the [...]

I was robbed by a British author. Not cool, Ali Smith. The masses were bleating favorably about the novel There But For The and frankly the premise seemed so intriguing: A man at a dinner party with a collection of strangers gets up, goes upstairs, and locks himself in a spare room — luckily one [...]

It starts with a young James Wolcott riding a ref from Norman Mailer to the grunts of the Village Voice offices. One of those “I like how you write, if you’re ever in NYC, stop by X and ask for Y and he’ll hook you up” scenarios Wolcott took seriously enough to drop out of [...]

Democracy, spiral staircases, roasted-meat-filled pita bread with tzatziki sauce, and Homer. The Greeks are certainly not short on gifts provided to the world at large. But let’s focus our attention on last of the list, the “Blind Bard,” or “Father of Western Literature,” Homer. Bro wrote two books (The Iliad and The Odyssey) and is [...]

I’ve fallen off the graphic novel bandwagon. Hard. It kind of hurts. I miss graphic novels, but I’m sick of all the dudeness in the graphical realm. That’s putting it mildly. It’s the kind of sick that makes my stomach fill with acid and my cheeks flush red with anger. Why is it so damn [...]

Come stay with us at the Deutsche Strasse Bed and Breakfast on April 20 & 21, in New Ulm, Minnesota, and enjoy a limo ride to destinations to enjoy tasting wines and beers produced in South Central Minnesota.  Our first stop will be in Redwood Falls, MN, at the Fieldstone Winery, for tastings and history [...]

Brian Selznick is so talented, it’s sickening. Seriously, could he make the rest of us feel even more inadequate? He can weave a great tale, but he can also draw beautifully. Thanks, Selznick, for making me feel like crap. But, yes, thank you for also making me love the stories you tell. I only read [...]

I remember the moment Jeanette Winterson entered my life. It was the summer of 1995, upstairs in a dusty used-bookstore called The Book Peddler in downtown Eau Claire, Wisconsin. I was lost somewhere in the philosophy stacks when my friend Anderla came over holding a paperback reverently in her hands. “You have to read this,” [...]

There were times in the midst of reading Arcadia by Lauren Groff where I thought to myself, “I would totally love to live in a commune.” But then I would close the cover of the book and remember that I’m an angry hermit. It’s not that Groff paints the commune as a halcyon of hippiedom, [...]

Joe R. Lansdale wrote my favorite short story in the Stories: All-New Tales collection, so when I saw a library display featuring a young adult novel by him, I didn’t even read the book jacket before I checked it out. When I was only ten pages into All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky, I [...]

Eric Packer has a 48-room spread complete with a lap pool, shark tank, and screening room. His is one in the line of nondescript white limousines parked out in front of the building. The floor of his ride is made of imported marble. It has a bathroom and enough space for his daily rectal exam. [...]

We all know the story of Hansel and Gretel: sweet, innocent brother and sister are almost eaten by an old hag living in an amazing house made of candy and cakes. Or at least this is the story we were told, but our parents lied to us. Adam Gidwitz sets us straight in A Tale [...]

You know who Anne Lamott is, she’s that great great aunt who had a tiny but bright blip in your life and she opened some windows, taught you a few things, and made you look at dreadlocks differently. But here it is, almost Christmas, and you know it’s time to make that annual drive to [...]

If Lord of the Flies merged with The Hunger Games, and you threw in a dash of The City of Ember, it would look something like James Dashner’s The Maze Runner. The Maze Runner begins with Thomas waking up in an elevator-like contraption, boys taunting him from above. He only remembers his name, but that’s [...]

At some point you must have had an uncle, probably not related by blood, whose conversational ticks you struggled to understand until finally you cocked your head and realized “Oh, wait. You’re funny! You are a funny person who tells jokes without smiling” and it all forever changed — for the better — the way [...]

These days you can barely swing anal beads without hitting a conversation about the S&M e-sensation, the novel Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James. What started as Twilight fan fiction got name changes and a shopping spree through the hardware store. It has become a frequent download for e-readers and has made its way [...]

There’s something disconcerting about disliking a book where a child suffers horribly. It makes you feel like a heartless monster. But here I am, not liking Girlchild by Tupelo Hassman. In this case, I don’t blame callousness for the dislike, but rather the clever way the story is told. Hassman has chosen to tell Rory [...]

Hello MN Readers, I’m happy to introduce you to Susie Rey a new MN Reads Reviewer. Also, because I’m evil I made her write a short tip introducing herself to you. Really, it’s evil because after press releases, short bios are the worst things on earth to write. Here’s what Susie had to say: I [...]

If you’re like me, your 20s are packed in a triple taped box and hiding in the dingiest attic corner of your brain beneath garbage bags filled with clothes for Goodwill and that easel you bought the day you decided (in your 20s!) that maybe you were a painter. This was not my shining-est decade. [...]