SAN DIEGO — As one of the most prominent music critics of the 1970s, Cameron Crowe often accompanied legendary rock bands on tour to conduct interviews and chronicle their work and lives. Now, the Oscar-winning screenwriter and veteran film director is set to hit the road on his own to discuss his upcoming memoir, “The Uncool,” in what is ...Read more

Once she turned 13, author Pamela Jones’ marriage clock began ticking, as the Twin Cities resident writes in “The Dirt Beneath Our Door”: “I was expected to become a wife in the next few years and fulfill my mission to produce as many children as possible for my husband’s posterity.”

Jones was born into the Church of the First Born ...Read more

The narrator of Alejandro Varela’s novel-slash-diatribe about polyamory in contemporary gay life is a self-professed overthinker/oversharer who mounts a full-throated defense of open relationships. Polyamorists must await another champion, however, since the one here fails to “make the case.”

The title itself is misleading. A “Middle ...Read more

You know what’s scary this fall?

How many new books are coming.

So many that no less than Thomas Pynchon, publishing’s favorite recluse, is back. Not to be outdone, even Harper Lee returns with a posthumous collection. But you know what’s scarier? How many new scary books are coming between now and November, and beyond. Horror, hotter ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- ln a comic she drew before bedtime one night, K. Woodman-Maynard manifested a project that would occupy her for the next couple of years.

The author and cartoonist, who lives in south Minneapolis with husband Mike Schowalter and a one-eyed Vizsla named Leif, writes a “diary comic” each night. Creator of a graphic novel ...Read more

The Mercurios are probably not what you think of when you hear the phrase “crime family.” The words evoke traditional images of gruff, dangerous men in suits — Tony Soprano or Michael Corleone, spewing threats and radiating violence.

But in Lou Berney’s latest novel “Crooks,” the Mercurios are an actual family. A mom and dad, five ...Read more

In a series of tax reforms designed to ease the burden on consumers’ wallets, Denmark has made several household essentials cheaper: Electricity, coffee, chocolate, cream puffs and books.

OK, so the cream puffs, or Vandbakkelser, may not be strictly necessary. In fact, the removal of the country’s oldest tax on chocolate and confectionery ...Read more

A year and a half ago, a reader posed a newsletter question to the food editor at Bloomberg Pursuits (me): Do restaurant servers hate diners?

To answer that thought-provoking query, I turned to Adam Reiner, a Bloomberg Pursuits contributor and James Beard-winning writer. He spent more than 20 years waiting tables in New York City, everywhere ...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Sept. 6, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "The ...Read more

Robin Schwartzman is a woman of 10,000 faces.

That’s at least how many faces she’s drawn over the past 23 years as a professional caricature artist.

The Minneapolis resident wears other artistic hats: She’s a lecturer who teaches 3D modeling and digital fabrication at the University of Minnesota Department of Art, where she got her MFA ...Read more

ANAHEIM, Calif. — As a teen growing up at the end of the ’60s, Nikki Nash had a celebrity crush like young people do, but hers was something different, Nash writes in her new memoir.

Where her girlfriends got dreamy-eyed over Paul McCartney, the cute Beatle, or Davy Jones, the cute Monkee, the 14-year-old Nash fell for film star Warren ...Read more

Arundhati Roy’s coruscating new memoir centers her tumultuous relationship with her mother Mary Roy, a brilliant but volatile pathbreaker the acclaimed novelist calls “my mother, my gangster...my shelter and my storm.”

In “Mother Mary Comes to Me,” the Booker Prize winner (for “The God of Small Things”) unpacks memories of her ...Read more

Any time Michael Osterholm needs inspiration to continue fighting for public health, he glances at a gift on his desk, a Christmas present from his two adult children.

“It’s an electronic picture frame and they keep putting in pictures of my five grandkids,” said Osterholm, an internationally renowned epidemiologist who leads the “...Read more

How pervasive is the “Thursday Murder Club” universe? Consider this: The fifth book in the bestselling series, “The Impossible Fortune” (out Sept. 30), includes a joke about an actor who stars in the movie version of the first book, which zipped to the top of Netflix playlists last month.

That Pierce Brosnan inside joke in “Impossible...Read more

Stacey Abrams is known as a gifted debater, a voting rights advocate credited with helping turn Georgia blue(ish), a nimble politician and a fluid writer. But if you want to hear about her screw-ups, talk to her five siblings.

Abrams, who will kick off the Minnesota Star Tribune and MPR News’ Talking Volumes series Sept. 10 with a discussion ...Read more

I loved “Buckeye,” by Patrick Ryan. In fact, if I were talking to you about this book instead of writing about it, I would add a few more “loveds,” accompanied by gestures emphasizing how much.

Saying I loved it is the easy part, of course. Telling you why I loved it won’t be difficult, either. The hard part might be shutting up about...Read more

It’s understandable if you know Bill Kurtis only as an anchorman.

That was his profession for decades, polished with that sonorous voice and often in the company of Walter Jacobson on WBBM-Ch. 2, or nationally alongside Diane Sawyer on the CBS Morning News or, on the less serious side of things, narrating the Will Ferrell romps “Anchorman�...Read more

Here are the bestsellers for the week that ended Saturday, Aug. 30, compiled from data from independent and chain bookstores, book wholesalers and independent distributors nationwide, powered by Circana BookScan © 2025 Circana.

(Reprinted from Publishers Weekly, published by PWxyz LLC. © 2025, PWxyz LLC.)

HARDCOVER FICTION

1. "Katabasis (...Read more