Daniel Corrigan, photographer

Iwo Jima: Portrait of a Battle: United States Marines at War by Eric M. Hammel. My friend Dennis Pernu, who knows I'm into this sort of thing, turned me on to this book. It's a very detailed account of the battle with a ton of
great pictures. A very beautiful book. It's coffee-table sized, so it's a little tough to read in bed, but I'm enjoying the heck out of it.

Desdamona - Photo by Jessica Pursley

Desdamona, musician

One Thousand White Women - The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus. I found it accidentally and I have a tendency to like historical fiction. It takes place in the late 1800's and it's the journal entries of a woman who was put into an asylum by her family because she had children out of wedlock and then gets recruited into a program through the government where they are placing white women with a Cheyenne tribe to basically "help" them assimilate into white society. It's crazy and interesting.

Chris Osgood, musician

The Perfectionist by Rudolph Chelminski, a book about the rise and fall of Bernard Loiseau, the charismatic and energetic chef of the Cote D'or restaurant in Salieu, France.

You might remember his story—he was a whiz kid chef that chased after the ultimate prize—three Michelin stars—and got them, then killed himself when he heard he was going to lose one, which turned out to be a false rumor.

It is a cautionary tale in which the perfect is the enemy of the good and the story is loaded with delicious descriptions of great French and Burgundian food and wine! Perfect for us "fishin' musicians" to wile away the sub-zero nights!

Laura F. Bennett, artist/musician

A People’s History Of The American Revolution; that Howard Zinn stuff. So educational, it’s reversing the mush feeling in my head that winter brings. I am also reading my rocks and minerals book because I miss outside so bad and I love to collect rocks so I’m thinking of looking up a place to go collect rocks this spring other than Lake Of The Isles. My fave picture book right now is this giant book of Basquiat paintings. I wish I could’ve met him, I have a lot to say.

George McKelvey, musician, Hookers and Blow, Soul Asylum, Rhythm Jones, many others

I’ve been on an Elmore Leonard – Cormac McCarthy kick lately. Something about a sparsely-written crime novel set in a warm climate gives me proper escape from the tundra when I need it. Miles Davis in the background and a glass of red don’t hurt either. Another guilty afternoon pleasure is any Michael Connelly book with Harry Bosch in it.

Brianna Lane, singer/songwriter

I was talking with my house mates a few months back and said, "Oh no, I don't read anymore, I just knit." My girlfriend Heidi wrote the quote down and posted it in our kitchen. It's kind of true: I'm a knitting fool and would rather be knitting two and purling one than reading another novel these days. (I posted pics of my latest knits on MySpace).

Anyway, this week I have been digging into another Paulo Coelho book, The Witch of Portobello. Paulo Coelho and Jeanette Winterson are my two fall-back authors. I just love their styles. I'm happy to be reading again since a good book always inspires me to write. Knitting inspires me to...well...just knit more!

Tim Easton, singer/songwriter

Tim Easton - Publicity Photo

Liz Tormes, singer/songwriter

I am in the middle of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris and also The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge by Rilke. David Sedaris just has such a wicked sense of humor. And Rilke—where to start? I have been reading that book for years now (still have not completely finished it, but I will pick it up a few times a year and start from the beginning). He says so much with so few words and there's such a lovely strangeness to this novel...

Bill Tuomala, writer/editor, Exiled On Main Street

I'm reading The Coldest Winter by David Halberstam. It's a history of the Korean War. No specific reason for reading it, just that it's a war I didn't know much about and my uncle served in it (he had the white-knuckled job of driving an ammo truck.) Plus Halberstam is one of my favorite authors - you can always tell that he has put in a lot of work via interviews and research.

Last night I was blown away reading an account of a Japanese-American officer in the onslaught of tens of thousands of Chinese soldiers entering the war in late 1950. He had done time in an internment camp during World War II and then was captured by the Chinese in Korea. He was fortunate enough to escape that same night, but already in his youth he had been a prisoner of two of the most powerful countries in the world.

Sally Mars, artist/writer

I am reading Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson. At 614 pages, I literally breezed through the first half but now, around 300 pages in, the ugliest darkness of the Vietnam War has come on with full nightmare force. Seriously, a book of fiction has given me nightmares, so my pace has slowed some. Denis Johnson can be great or awful. I think we’re getting great in this case, my take so far that this is a timely critique of the role of covert intelligence and its transmigration from information to political tool. From the book here, an excerpt from an essay written by one of the characters:

“Tree of Smoke...a sincere goal for the function of intelligence—restoring intelligence gathering as the main function of intelligence operations, rather than to provide rationalizations for policy. Because if we don’t, the next step is for career-minded power-mad cynical jaded bureaucrats to use intelligence to influence policy. The final step is to create fictions and serve them to our policy-makers in order to control the direction of government.”

Nate Simar, musician, Murzik

Morning Poems by Robert Bly. A couple days ago I felt it calling to me. I dug through my books until I found it and settled under some blankets and read it cover to cover. It's wonderful.

John Swardson, singer/songwriter

I decided a little while ago that I didn't know enough about how and why this country was started. Things are shifting pretty dramatically in front of our eyes. I needed to go back to our roots. I'm reading The Story of America by Allen Wenistein and David Rubel; Images of America by R.L. Bruck-Berger, and The Almanac of American History by Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.

Alexa Jones, writer/photographer

Spit Baths by Greg Downs, a wonderful collection of short stories by a music friend of mine from the East Coast. American history has rarely been so interesting to me as Greg writes in a way that makes these tales of war or slavery or country living real and these people relatable. It reminds me a little of riding around in my dad's Chevy truck as a child with the giant sheep pen erected in the back and stopping by Casey's General Store for a Garfield sucker. Plus, reading it makes me feel connected to a really important community of people I rarely get to see. I'm just so proud to stand next to Greg at these shows and rock out together!

I just got my grubby little paws on Kitchen Confidential which will inevitably feed my current Anthony Bourdain obsession. (Sidenote: EVERYONE needs to see the New Orleans episode of No Reservations. I was both heartbroken and inspired by the tales of how tiny hole-in-the-wall restaurants and the employees endured after the flood. Even when everything around them had been destroyed, these people found their coworkers, their families, went back into their restaurants, rebuilt them, and cooked for their city. I've never wanted a billion-calorie REAL shrimp po'boy so much in my entire life.)

And, of course, my new issue of Backstreets should be arriving by Spring thaw, hopefully right around March 16th! BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!

Ben Connelly, singer/songwriter

I'm studying Dogen's Genjo Koan, Dogen was one of the early guys who brought Zen from China to Japan and was a huge influence on a lot of American Zen thought and practice. I love it! Dogen's emphasis is on radical acceptance and total attention to each moment (as opposed to working towards an objectified goal of enlightenment). I value writers whose work has depth and also a beautiful line-by-line surface and he has these in spades. Zen has a beautiful literary tradition whose princicpal expressions are poetry and very short stories, and here Dogen bridges poetry and philosophy. Dogen's playfulness with language and amazing ability to confound any fixed conceptual viewpoint you or he has created gives me a feeling of deep, playful enjoyment.

I'm also reading Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer, the last of the books I got for Christmas. It's fun. Half of it is in one narrative voice that I like and is very funny, and the other half is a little more writerly and is so-so. This is a fun book but not one I feel very moved to talk about.

Mark Mallman, singer/songwriter/musician

I'm currently in the midst of two books: At the Mountains of Madness, by H.P. Lovecraft and The Other Hollywood: An Oral History of the Adult Porn Industry by Leggs McNeil (author of one of my favorite books, Please Kill Me). I also recently purchased The Lobotomist, a biography of Walter Freeman, rogue pioneer of the frontal lobotomy mishap—but it was too scary, so I'm giving it to my friend.

Brad Zellar, writer, critic, editor, The Rake magazine

Here are some of the books near the top of the stacks next to my bed, all of which I am digging (I've reached the point where I no longer stick with anything if I get an early sense that I'm wasting my time, and last year for the first time in my life I started and tossed aside more book than I finished):

The Fables of La Fontaine. The last couple years I've read more than a dozen collections of classic fables, folk tales, and parables. Also in the current reading pile: The Annotated Brothers Grimm and The Parables of Kafka.

The Tenants of Moonbloom, Edward Lewis Wallant. A terrific lost book from the sixties, recently reissued by New York Review of Book Classics. The sad and funny story of a rent collector for a New York slumlord and the people he comes in contact with every day.

By Night in Chile, Roberto Bollano. I loved Bolano's The Savage Detectives and Last Evenings on Earth, both of which I read last year. He was a Chilean writer who died too young, and is recently experiencing a posthumous resurgence. The stuff's all great, and the obvious comparisons would be Garcia Marquez and Borges, if they'd come of age in the counterculture.

Love and Hydrogen: New and Selected Stories, Jim Shepard. Another follow-up, this after I read and loved Shepard's most recently collection, Like You'd Understand Anyway. Smart, funny, frequently profound.

The Pushcart Book of Poetry. An anthology pulled together from the annual Pushcart Prize anthologies (which are always worth seeking out), dating back to 1976.

The Waste Books, George Christoph Lichtenberg. Another New York Review of Books Classics reissue (check out their catalog; it's full of wonders). The notebooks of an 18th century German polymath, jam packed with aphorisms you'll want to jot down in your own notebooks.

The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard. Yet another reissue from the NYRB series, with an introduction by Auden.

Whiz Mob: A Correlation of the Technical Argot of Pickpockets With Their Behavioral Patterns, David W. Mauer. Mauer also wrote amazing books on confidence men (The Big Con) and moonshiners (Kentucky Moonshine).

Joel Bremer - Photo by Steve Cohen

Joel Bremer, musician living in Sweden

I'm just now finishing up reading After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Pat” by Jack Kornfield.

About a year ago I had a spiritual awakening. After many years of struggle I found myself one day sitting on my bed and just laughing out loud at life. I found out that the only thing I need to know about myself is that "I am." That's the only thing that really matters. Everything you add to that—in my case it can be "I am a fiddler," "I am a Springsteen head" or "I love Mpls but I'm sooo far away from it," is part of what you're experiencing. All of a sudden (or so it seemed) I could see very clearly that I can't find myself in any of that. Emotions, experiences, beautiful or terrible is ultimately not who I am. Realising that, life became very easy.

However, my old habits and mind patterns didn't go away in an instant. Life goes on. Even though I hadn't actively sought a spiritual awakening before it came to me, after it did my mind had a clear picture of how it should be. Life of course never sticks to anything like that. This book is helping me shine a light on all this. In the introduction there is a quote from Suzuki Roshi that says, "Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity." Jack Kornfield is really helping me to get more of that enlightened activity in the world.

The other book I'm reading is 4th of July, Asbury Park, A History of the Promised Land by Daniel Wolff. This one I just begun. I visited Asbury Park in New Jersey last October and was deeply fascinated by the place. Asbury Park was founded by James Bradley who was a self-made man with very strong Methodist beliefs. It was named after a Methodist bishop. Bradley founded the city to be a moral role model community, and at the same time its whole economy was depending on what happened on and around the boardwalk. As Wolff describes it, "For years, Asbury Park condemned `fun’ as just another drug to corrupt the masses, meanwhile pushing that drug with every Ferris wheel and band concert."

After race riots and years of corruption, today Asbury Park is more or less a ghost town, even though they're now trying to change that. To see big empty ruins of what used to be luxury hotels was a very strange and special experience, especially as a Swede. We don't have anything like it in Sweden. Asbury Park was the city that shaped so much of Bruce Springsteen's music. Listen to the beautiful song “My City of Ruins” that Springsteen wrote about the current state of Asbury Park. Then read this fascinating book. It sorts under history but reads like a great novel.

Marc Perlman, musician, the Jayhawks, Golden Smog, Janey and Marc

Marc Perlman - Photo by Tony Nelson