Ruminator Review
Encyclopedia
The Ruminator Review, originally the Hungry Mind Review, was a quarterly book review
magazine founded by David Unowsky and published in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1986 to 2005. It included reviews of of all genres, as well as literary interviews, focusing on work published by smaller presses. It was distributed freely through independent bookstores in the United States.
The review was part of a "creative partnership" centered around the Ruminator Books bookstore at Macalester College
, including the bookstore and its independent press, Ruminator Press.
In 1972 it moved onto Macalester College campus to become the university bookstore.
By the 1980s, the bookstore had become well known in the region, and was becoming a hub for literary activity. Unowsky helped start a regional booksellers' association. In 1986 he launched the Hungry Mind Review as a critical literary journal, with founding editor Bart Schneider. The review attracted some high-profile writers and reviewers, such as Robert Bly
, Andrei Codrescu
, Jane Hamilton
and Arundhati Roy
.
In 2001 Margaret Maitland became editor of the Review. In 2004, behind on its rent to the university, the bookstore went out of business. The Ruminator Review continued for another year, but published its last issue in Fall 2005.
Book review
A book review is a form of literary criticism in which a book is analyzed based on content, style, and merit. A book review could be a primary source opinion piece, summary review or scholarly review. It is often carried out in periodicals, as school work, or on the internet. Reviews are also often...
magazine founded by David Unowsky and published in St. Paul, Minnesota from 1986 to 2005. It included reviews of of all genres, as well as literary interviews, focusing on work published by smaller presses. It was distributed freely through independent bookstores in the United States.
The review was part of a "creative partnership" centered around the Ruminator Books bookstore at Macalester College
Macalester College
Macalester College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Saint Paul, Minnesota. It was founded in 1874 as a Presbyterian-affiliated but nonsectarian college. Its first class entered September 15, 1885. The college is located on a campus in a historic residential neighborhood...
, including the bookstore and its independent press, Ruminator Press.
Hungry Mind Bookstore and Review
The Hungry Mind Bookstore was opened in 1970 in St. Paul by Unowsky.In 1972 it moved onto Macalester College campus to become the university bookstore.
By the 1980s, the bookstore had become well known in the region, and was becoming a hub for literary activity. Unowsky helped start a regional booksellers' association. In 1986 he launched the Hungry Mind Review as a critical literary journal, with founding editor Bart Schneider. The review attracted some high-profile writers and reviewers, such as Robert Bly
Robert Bly
Robert Bly is an American poet, author, activist and leader of the Mythopoetic Men's Movement.-Life:Bly was born in Lac qui Parle County, Minnesota, to Jacob and Alice Bly, who were of Norwegian ancestry. Following graduation from high school in 1944, he enlisted in the United States Navy, serving...
, Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu
Andrei Codrescu is a Romanian-born American poet, novelist, essayist, screenwriter, and commentator for National Public Radio. He was Mac Curdy Distinguished Professor of English at Louisiana State University from 1984 until his retirement in 2009....
, Jane Hamilton
Jane Hamilton
Jane Hamilton is an American novelist.Hamilton lives in Rochester, Wisconsin. She grew up in Oak Park, Illinois, the youngest of five children. She graduated from Carleton College in 1979 as an English major. Her first published works were short stories, "My Own Earth" and "Aunt Marj's Happy...
and Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy
Arundhati Roy is an Indian novelist. She won the Booker Prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things, and has also written two screenplays and several collections of essays...
.
Hungry Minds Press
In 1995, in response to the disappearance of backlists from the catalogs of traditional publishers' catalogs, Unowsky and his wife started their own independent press, with three partners. Over the next nine years they published 50 titles, calling them "Hungry Mind Finds" or "Ruminator Finds". These included:- Black Tents of Arabia, Carl R. Raswan
- A Book of Own’s Own: People and Their Diaries, Thomas MallonThomas MallonThomas Mallon is a novelist and critic. He was born in Glen Cove, New York. He attended Brown University as an undergraduate and earned a Master of Arts and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He received the Ingram Merrill Foundation Award in 1994 and won a Rockefeller Fellowship in 1987...
- Days and Nights in CalcuttaDays and Nights in CalcuttaDays and Nights in Calcutta is a work of non-fiction by Bharati Mukherjee and her husband Clark Blaise. It was first published by Doubleday in 1977....
, Clark BlaiseClark BlaiseClark Blaise, OC is a Canadian author.Born in Fargo, North Dakota, he currently lives in San Francisco, California. He has been married since 1963 to writer Bharati Mukherjee. They have two sons. A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa, Blaise was also the director of...
and Bharati MukherjeeBharati MukherjeeBharati Mukherjee is an award-winning Indian-born American writer. She is currently a professor in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley.-Background:... - A False Spring, Pat JordanPat JordanPat Jordan was a British Trotskyist who was central to founding the International Marxist Group. He had been a full time organiser of the Communist Party of Great Britain in Nottingham who had left the party with Ken Coates after the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary...
- The Soul of the Night: An Astronomical Pilgrimage, Chet RaymoChet RaymoChet Raymo is a noted writer, educator and naturalist. He is Professor Emeritus of Physics at Stonehill College, in Easton, Massachusetts. His weekly newspaper column Science Musings appeared in the Boston Globe for twenty years. This is now a daily blog by him...
- Laughing in the Hills, Bill BarichBill BarichBill Barich is an American writer. He grew up on Long Island before graduating from Colgate University. Subsequently, he served in the U.S. Peace Corps in eastern Nigeria , then settled in northern California where many of his books are set. He published Laughing in the Hills, his first book, a...
- Moonshine: A Life in Pursuit of White Liquor, Alec WilkinsonAlec WilkinsonAlec Wilkinson is a writer who has been on the staff of The New Yorker since 1980. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer he is among the "first rank of" contemporary American "literary journalists... of Naipaul, Norman Mailer and Agee." He is the author of nine books: "Midnights," , "Moonshine,"...
- Our Like Will Not Be There Again: Notes from the West of Ireland, Lawrence MillmanLawrence MillmanLawrence Millman in is an adventure travel writer and mycologist from Cambridge, Massachusetts....
- A Passage to Ararat, Michael J. ArlenMichael J. ArlenMichael J. Arlen is an Armenian-American writer and former television critic of The New Yorker. The son of the prominent Armenian-American writer, Michael Arlen, he is the author of Living Room War, a book on the Vietnam War's portrayal and the social culture of America in the media in the USA...
- The Tree Farm: Replanting a Life, Robert Treuer
Ruminator name change
In 2000, the Hungry Mind sold its name to Hungry Minds, Inc., publisher of the For Dummies books. After soliciting ideas from its patrons, it became Ruminator Books, Review, and Press.In 2001 Margaret Maitland became editor of the Review. In 2004, behind on its rent to the university, the bookstore went out of business. The Ruminator Review continued for another year, but published its last issue in Fall 2005.