The Rake: Cracking Spines

A Rakish Interview with Darin Strauss -- Part II

Max Ross — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 20:02:30 -0500

Part II (To see the first part of this interview, click here)

An Insatiable Lover

Max Ross — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 11:59:44 -0500

We've been having some pretty ridiculously great weather lately. If I had a real job (sorry, Mom), I probably would have played hooky last week to go and hang out by one of the lakes. Instead I just read a bit by Calhoun, but without the sense of freedom (or guilt) of having emancipated myself from a necktie.

A New Lorax Is Needed

Max Ross — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 15:35:36 -0500

In the corner of St. Croix Antiquarian Booksellers, over by the color-coded antique maps, is a framed edict that's actually more of a poem:

"I, Richard Booth
King of Hay
Lord of all booktowns
& their protector in perpetuity
hereby declare that
Stillwater Minnesota
Is the first booktown
In the western hemisphere.
Let no one gainsay
Or dare to dispute
This is my official decree."
read more

Words like Bombs

Max Ross — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:25:33 -0500

The introduction to this week's Poem Worth Reading is taken from Bart Schneider's forthcoming novel, the highly Minneapolized The Man in the Blizzard:

Happy (Belated) Bloomsday!

Max Ross — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:42:45 -0500

Last night, The University Club of St. Paul hosted their annual Bloomsday celebration, honoring James Joyce's Ulysses, a novel whose action takes place on June 16, 1904. A group of eighty or so people, primarily sexagenarian (by one superficial participant's observations), gathered in a well-lit room.

Borges on Bloom

Max Ross — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 16:50:48 -0500

The introduction to this week's Poem Worth Reading is taken from Bart Schneider's forthcoming novel, the highly Minneapolized The Man in the Blizzard:

More June Book Releases

Cristina Cordova — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 11:40:07 -0500

Are All Critics Obsolete?

Max Ross — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 18:03:06 -0500

Steadily as the American dollar, the value of informed opinions is decreasing. As information becomes ever more accessible and democratized, thanks to the likes of Google and Wikipedia and Things White People Like, the necessity for critics — previously our cultural gatekeepers — seems to be vanishing. Whether it's food, music, or movies, the corresponding critics are getting laid of left and right from their respective publications.

Not actually an actual poem, per se

Max Ross — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 11:16:50 -0500

The introduction to this week's Poem Worth Reading is taken from Bart Schneider's forthcoming novel, the highly Minneapolized The Man in the Blizzard:

June Book Releases

Josh Fischer — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:41:33 -0500

Read Your Heart Out

Max Ross — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 17:13:13 -0500

I still can't say whether the act of reading is more exit or entrance. Even as books and criticism concern about half of my professional life - and my professional life concerns about half of my life-life (er, carry the one...) - when I'm reading a novel, assigned or otherwise, I still feel like I'm avoiding something else that's probably more important.

Stephen King's "Inferno"

Max Ross — Thu, 29 May 2008 14:39:27 -0500

In the last decade or so, Stephen King has been winning praise from institutions that, if not reviling him, had at least brushed him off as a not-so-serious author.

Max Ross: Published Poet

Max Ross — Mon, 26 May 2008 10:07:00 -0500

Welcome to a possibly special edition of Poem Worth Reading. The very title of this Cracking Spines segment — that is, Poem Worth Reading — is jeopardized with today's entry. But because this is a blog, and should thereby not be held to any qualitative standards (self-imposed or otherwise), and because I got the go-ahead from my editor, who said I could post "basically anything...," I've decided to go ahead and put up some of my own scribblings.

Barnes & Ignoble

Max Ross — Tue, 20 May 2008 12:31:14 -0500

For summer reading, Barnes & Noble recommends The Diary of Anne Frank. So here's the presumed scenario: The sun is out, you're under your candy striped umbrella at the beach, children in the near distance are making sandcastles on the shore, and you are immersing yourself in the magical world of WWII-era Amsterdam, through the eyes of a 13-year-old Jewish girl whose family was forced into hiding, and who later perishes in a concentration camp.

Beat your ploughshares into pens

Max Ross — Mon, 19 May 2008 10:48:12 -0500

Employing a tactic I'm pretty sure I've picked up from the current presidential administration, I've decided to take a new approach to truth. Namely, I'm going to make it up. And make it up in such a way that justifies every decision I decide(r), and in such a way that makes me feel better about my life, and the enveloping society thereof.

The Defenestrating of Josef K

Max Ross — Tue, 13 May 2008 11:46:15 -0500

It could have been so good.

That was the biggest disappointment - not how bad it was, but the discrepancy between its actual and potential levels of quality. I'm speaking (writing) of The Ballad of Josef K, a puppeted interpretation of Franz Kafka's The Trial, on stage now at the Illusion Theater.

A Precise Poem

Max Ross — Mon, 12 May 2008 16:32:02 -0500

Nabokov's Attempted Murder

Max Ross — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:32:40 -0500

Kill your darlings.

This is the command given young writers when they're learning to edit their stories and poems. (It usually comes directly after the first piece of advice for novice authors: Quit now.)

Yes, This is a Contemporary Blog Post

Max Ross — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:33:02 -0500

May Book Releases

Cristina Cordova — Thu, 01 May 2008 12:38:57 -0500

In Defense of Hipster Literature

Max Ross — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 14:11:28 -0500

I like McSweeney's.

Canoeing With the Cree, too

Max Ross — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 14:11:45 -0500

A half-post:

In this morning's Star Tribune, Nick Coleman writes about two high school students from Chaska who just set off to reenact Eric Sevareid's epic canoe trip from the Minnesota River to Hudson Bay, recounted in Sevareid's book Canoeing With the Cree.

Cold Poem for a Cold Monday

Max Ross — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 16:12:52 -0500

Employing a tactic I'm pretty sure I've picked up from the current presidential administration, I've decided to take a new approach to truth. Namely, I'm going to make it up. And make it up in such a way that justifies every decision I decide(d), and in such a way that makes me feel better about my life, and the enveloping society thereof.

So here goes: Everyone is reading.

Look Who's Coming to Seder

Max Ross — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 13:20:48 -0500

This week is Passover. Christians everywhere are saying, "Great, I love Passover! Matzoh's so fun!" Meanwhile Jews lament eight days of indigestion.

What's kind of interesting, if you're into this sort of thing, is that more than any other (Jewish) holiday, Passover is based on a narrative. If one were to try and place the narrative in a genre - other than "Religious studies" - it would be a pretty difficult task. The story has the literary elements of an epic saga, magical realism, an immigrant tale, and contains the best car chase in (fictive) history.

Pandas in Prose Poems

Max Ross — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 15:14:16 -0500

Employing a tactic I’m pretty sure I’ve picked up from the current presidential administration, I’ve decided to take a new approach to truth. Namely, I’m going to make it up. And make it up in such a way that justifies every decision I decide(r), and in such a way that makes me feel better about my life, and the enveloping society thereof.

More April (and March) Book Releases

Cristina Cordova — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:28:31 -0500

Identity Crises... Literary Edition

Max Ross — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 15:25:48 -0500

When she was in second grade, my girlfriend was informed by her teacher that E.B. White was a woman.

No One Is Reading, and Our Libraries Are Closing

Max Ross — Fri, 11 Apr 2008 15:46:03 -0500

^{Creative Commons photo by Zachary Korb}

April Book Releases

Cristina Cordova — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 12:42:59 -0500

New Books This Year

Cristina Cordova — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:53:10 -0500