I can’t tell you how many times I picked up Anna Karenina throughout the years, and after reading a few chapters, put it down. Even if I overcame the tome-like volume, I could never overcome the dry and disconnected translation. As if the long Russian names weren’t deterrent enough, as if the confusion of who [...]

Because we are philosophically opposed to working on Labor Day, we’ll be closed this Monday, Sept. 1.

Michael Perry is a writer from Wisconsin who returned to settle in his native small town, instead of fleeing permanently to the coasts, Chicago, or Madison. What this decision has given him is an ability to write about the rural upper Midwest from an insider’s perspective. He’s an intellectual but certainly no snob; he’s a [...]

Despite the surely inadvertent oversight of the writer’s not mentioning anywhere in the article that Tim is having a Gallery Show AND Book Signing here in September, there is a great piece on him and his work in the pull-out section of the RFT.  And serendipitously, John Hendrix has some quotes in said article.  It is a very Subterranean [...]

Afsaneh: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. If you are tired of eating tomatoes that taste as good as their cellophane wrapper, or strawberries that taste like cardboard, or meat from animals that have been fed growth hormones and antibiotics (I’ll spare you other disgusting details —I’ll let you find out by reading the book), [...]

A couple of nights ago my book club met at my house to discuss Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. Aside from the new addition of the 5-month-old baby Harlan, the best thing that’s happened to our book club this year, we had the most interesting discussion and food that we’ve had in a long time.   [...]

We just got in the Moleskine Weekly Planner Twin Set for July 2008-December 2009.  It’s a hardcover RED planner with a softcover notebook.  Also includes a tabbed pages insert. $19.95 for the set. *UPDATE* Guess what Kaveh and I just discovered.  The red one has all these cool stickers you can use to label the [...]