Okay, so did you think I was kidding about starting that Paul Westerberg Bookclub? Well, I’m not.

How many of you have gotten your copy of The Sabotage Cafe by Joshua Furst? I got mine and in fact I’m about 160 pages in. The book kind of kicks ass, and I can’t wait to see what the rest of y’all think.

Anyway, I am not sure how we’re gonna do this bookclub thing. But I promise to think of something brilliant soon. Also, because he kicks ass, Joshua Furst has offered to participate in whatever kind of discussion we have. I might see if we can get him to post a bit about the book and that kickass Book Notes essay.

In the mean time, pick up the book and you Minnesotans? You should try to catch one of Furst’s upcoming local readings.

He’ll be at the UofM Bookstore on September 19th and on September 20th he’ll be reading at (my much beloved) The Loft (I’ll be at this one).

So did you get that book yet? How about now?

During my online catchup, I stumbled upon Joshua Furst’s Book Notes essay about his novel The Sabotage Cafe.

Can I just say, based on the playlist Furst created for the novel, I think we should all read it? Of course I can say it. That was one of the dumbest sentences I’ve ever read. Anyway, the playlist includes five or so songs by The Replacements, Husker Du, Tom Waits, The Clash, and well shouldn’t we as Westernerds support any author with such good taste in music?

Hell yes we should. But more than that, Furst writes over at Largehearted Boy

The first thing you should know about The Sabotage Café is that it takes place in Minneapolis. Every scene in the book is affected by the mixture of stoic endurance and landlocked despair that makes the upper Midwest such a complicated, moody place.

So come on, let’s read it! Or I should say, I’m gonna read it, you should too so I can have someone to talk to about it.

I don’t know about youse guys, but I’ve already ordered the book (it doesn’t actually come out until Tuesday, August 28).

I think we should all read it and then we can come back here and discuss it. How much fun will that be? (I am being sincere here). We can consider it practice for The Replacements: All Over But the Shouting: An Oral History, which comes out in November.