Secrets of the City

As it turns out, everybody wants to go home and watch Project Runway instead of going to a seedy bar and talking about schlocky fiction. So tonight’s mnread is off… But how would people like to read The Graveyard Book (which is now in paperback) for Halloween? I think that could be good scary local literary fun. Maybe I can even talk Neil into coming. I just have to, you know, actually meet him first.

Read whatever you like by the local best-selling author of the “Prey” books (and more) in which the Twin Cities are so seamy and crime-ridden, Chandler’s Los Angeles looks like freaking Anaheim, and join us one week from tonight to discuss. We’ll meet at the 331 Club at the corner of 13th and University in NE Minneapolis. Sixish.

At 8:30 AM on a Thursday in early July, I am unable to think of what books were recommended at the last MnRead meeting and in the last MnRead post for future MnRead discussion. So make your recommendations here. Books with local angles (Fitzgerald counts, but just barely) and I think we’re ready for a novel (which somehow we haven’t done yet) and even some light summer reading. John Sandford, maybe? Are there any established Minnesota humorists who might be worth talking about, even if they’ve had previous legal skirmishes with previous incarnations of this discussion forum?

Just a reminder that MnRead next meets on Sunday June 14, at Como Park, around 4 PM. The picnic area is by Horton and Hamline in St Paul. The book we’re MnReading is Sigurd F. Olson’s The Singing Wilderness. I’m halfway through and can summarize it as a haiku: I’m out on the lake, listening to loons and stuff. Modern life is broke.

The next MnRead project is herby officially announced as taking place on June 14, at Como Park, around 4 PM. The picnic area is by Horton and Hamline in St Paul. The book we’re MnReading is Sigurd F. Olson’s The Singing Wilderness, about which I know practically nothing, but I’ll read it when I’m up north in a couple weeks, with the laps of the lake against the rocks and the distant mournful cry of the loons as the fitting soundtrack.

MnRead is a reading group comprised of MnSpeakers. We read a book with some kind of local connection and then get together somewhere to talk about it. Here are some suggestions for the book we’ll read next. Please vote if you think you might be interested in joining. Feel free to recommend other books here for future MnRead events. Our next meeting is likely to be in June, perhaps somewhere with a deck or patio. http://doodle.com/5nibugpigxebfzsc

I propose a MnRead gathering to discuss Helene Cooper’s House at Sugar Beach, an impressive memoir of a Cooper’s Liberian childhood and repatriation to the United States (which included a stint in Minneapolis, working for the now defunct Skyway News).

I suggest that this gathering be on April 13 at Vicky’s Place in BP, so we can match discussion of the book with appropriate cuisine. (It’s almost appropriate as a date, too, since April 12 is the seismic date of the coup that changed Helene’s life, but it seems Vicky’s is closed on Sundays.)

- Your MnRead Organizer  

Does your Thanksgiving dinner include popcorn, toast, and breakfast cereal? If so, you won’t have any problem remembering the next MnRead event, two weeks from today on Monday, Dec. 8, in which we honor St. Paul’s legend of the funny pages, Charles M. Schulz. Bring any Peanuts book and be prepared to share one or two of your favorite cartoons, either because they are deceptively simple while concealing immeasurable depths of existential misery, or because they make you laugh. We meet sixish at Stub & Herbs in Stadium Village. We are an open book club and everyone is welcome.

Recommendations for our February MnRead may be submitted here. Books must have a local connection, be in print, and available in paperback. All nominations will be considered and put to the vote if they meet the criteria (local, available, and inexpensive).