rakemag

DeLillo’s last book, Underworld, was one of those seasonal doorstops that the cognoscenti gets in a lather about—you know, the 800-page tome that everyone talks about and no one reads, the one that ends up atop a growing column of hardcovers in the basement, the last addition to which was Pynchon’s Mason & Dixon, or … Read more

Staggering Genius golden boy Dave Eggers’ journal swells from magazine to full-fledged 478-page paperback book for its tenth issue. The breathlessly pulpy title is only a little tongue-in-cheek. Mammoth Treasury, guest-edited by Michael Chabon, sets loose its writers on the plot-driven adventure story, the idea being that maybe they can help recapture the ripping yarn’s … Read more

For Joseph Heller, there was only one catch, and that was Catch-22. Although his blockbuster first novel catapulted him to lifelong prominence as one of the century’s most important novelists, its very success would haunt him for the rest of his career. Because he was only important for the one novel. Everybody loved the crazy … Read more

Just as the trees are beginning to bud again, spring brings a flowering from Minnesota’s local authors and independent presses, including several notable debuts. From Coffee House Press comes The Grasshopper King, Slate columnist Jordan Ellenberg’s wryly funny Boyle-cum-Borges satire about a crabby, untalented, yet mysteriously important Kafka-like poet and the two academics who wreck … Read more

It’s nearly perfect that the mischief-minded David Sedaris first gained fame for being an elf. If you’ve heard of Sedaris at all, you know about his hilarious, sardonic memoir “The SantaLand Diaries,” detailing his petty humiliations as one of Kris Kringle’s helpers at Macy’s department store. Insightful, bitter and genuinely sidesplitting, it struck a nerve … Read more

What a treasure the Minnesota Zoo continues to be. Hard to believe it turns 25 years old this year; it seems like only yesterday when they were talking about a state-of-the-art zoological garden out in the cornfields of Apple Valley, just about the time we were all feeling kinda creeped out by Como. Here’s a … Read more

Just think, if this document had never been written, King George would still be pushing us around. He’d make us all drive on the wrong side of the road and wear powdered wigs, and demand that we call soccer “football” and freedom fries “chips.” That’s just the kind of tyrant he was. Luckily, the Declaration … Read more

As recent events have made painfully obvious, the peoples of the world still can’t get along. It would be nice to think that this, the biggest local film event of the year, might help bridge the gap in some way. With more than 120 films from 50 countries screening at theaters all over town, there … Read more

This is the fourth showbiz-schmucks mockumentary from Christopher Guest and his Spinal Tap/Guffman/Best in Show troupe, and if we’re lucky they’ll be able to go all the way to eleven. This time around the target is folk music—lampooning the malcontents, losers, and loonies reunited decades past their prime for a Carnegie Hall memorial concert. The … Read more