Category Archives: Uncategorized

I picked up this book at a local arts and crafts fair here in Duluth. I’ve met and chatted with the author, a professor at a local college, on a number of occasions and, having enjoyed his poetry (insert the … Continue reading →

I rarely read genre fiction but when assigned this book after my very recent acceptance into a local men’s bookclub, I plunged in eyes wide open. I was hoping, given that Ms. Coel chooses to write Arapaho-inspired crime fiction due … Continue reading →

Here’s the thing. I’m not going to quibble too much about the author, a trained trial lawyer like me, setting up a death penalty case in Mississippi circa mid-1970s without an alternate (or two) on the jury. Maybe he inserted … Continue reading →

From this month’s Finnish American Reporter: writer Mark Munger interviews Finnish-Canadian filmmaker Kelly Saxberg. MM: I’m assuming, given all the work you’ve done to preserve Finnish Canadian history in your documentaries, that you’re of Finnish descent. KS: My Finnish heritage … Continue reading →

The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles (2021. Viking. ISBN 978-0-7352-2235-9) Love it or sort of like it. No one I’ve talked to who’s read this very long, winding epistle from the road, actually hates it. Readers appear to fall into two … Continue reading →

Having traveled to Venice with friends (at the end of a 12 day Mediterranean cruise) and spent three days taking it all in, I wish I’d read this book before making the trip. While Crowley’s primary emphasis is chronicling-sometimes in agonizingly … Continue reading →

                                                            INTERVIEW WITH JOHN SALMINEN MARK MUNGER: Hello, John. Kiitos for doing this interview. I first encountered you as an art teacher at Duluth Denfeld High School. JS: .   My interest in teaching dates back to the 1960’s. When … Continue reading →

This ginormous book was, like the experimental novels written by its subject, a bit of a slog. But I made it through Ellmann’s revised biography of the great Irish novelist and man of letters. Eventually. A scholarly tome, the book’s … Continue reading →

My novel, Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh was researched and written between 2002 and 2004 as an attempt to highlight, explain, and fictionalize the mystery of Finnish immigrant Olli Kinkkonen’s disappearance.  The question I’m often asked, as a non-Finn writing about Finnish … Continue reading →

The Torqued Man by Peter Mann (2022. Harper. ISBN 978-0063072107) Here we go. I was privileged to be asked to join one of Minnesota’s longest running male only book clubs, the Greater Mesabi Men’s Book Club (GMMBC), for their annual summer … Continue reading →