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In more than thirty books, Fisher, christened by John Updike as the “poet of the appetites,” changed the way Americans understood the art of eating. A self-made career woman and trail-blazing writer, Fisher served it up with style, whether the topic was her husbands, her lovers, or the fried-egg sandwiches she toted in her pockets … Read more

Don’t try to play the “my family are freaks card” with Burroughs. You ain’t gonna win, unless of course you too had monthlong family sleepovers on the front lawn or a physician-assisted faked suicide attempt to get excused from school forever. In his New York Times best-seller, Running with Scissors, Burroughs recounted a bizarre childhood … Read more

Writers familiar with the slow burn caused by repeated rejection will be delighted with this new novel, centering on just that. Evan Ulmer, one of many writers whose creative efforts go unappreciated, reaches his breaking point and takes matters into his own hands. After kidnapping an accomplished book editor and setting him up in a … Read more

Williams takes her time turning out masterful fiction—these twelve short stories comprise her first collection in more than ten years. The title story concerns a teenage girl who is coming to terms with the imminent death of her mother, and who is reluctantly suicidal herself (but “suicide was so corny and you had to be … Read more

Various Locations, October 14–16Emphasis in the title should be on “stories,” not “travel.” Orlean has indeed been everywhere—some will recall a fictional version of her played by Meryl Streep in Adapation, in which she trails an orchid hunter through Florida swamps—but My Kind of Place is no ordinary travel writing. For one thing, these tales … Read more

David O. Russell has a knack for sending the characters in his films to hellish, but often somehow hilarious places. In the shamefully overlooked Three Kings, a group of soldiers journey into an Iraqi village on a dangerous mission to pillage gold. Flirting With Disaster sends Ben Stiller to find his birth parents, who turn … Read more

South Park geniuses Trey Parker and Matt Stone offer up a timely political satire that takes aim at sanctimonious right-wing bloo-blobs and smug Hollywood liberals alike. (In other words, the duo hates the war in Iraq, but they also hate George Bush, Michael Moore, and John Kerry.) The fact that their film takes the form … Read more

Joanne Woodward made a fine career out of split-personality material (see Sybil), and this historic, Academy Award-winning performance started it all. Woodward’s Eve White was based on the true story of a dreary Southern housewife suffering from “spells” of memory loss (we dare you to call in sick on Monday with a “spell”). Unable to … Read more

Now it its fifth year, the Sound Unseen film festival hasn’t wavered from its original mission to bring rare films about music to the Twin Cities. Hello?! End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones? ABBA: The Movie? Yes, please! In addition to a stellar lineup of new films, the year sees the return … Read more