![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Hungry-Mind-MNopedia_091525_MNopedia-3-508x500.jpg\")
David Unowsky inside his bookstore, the Hungry Mind, 1994. Credit: Steve Woit via MNopedia<\/p>\n
The writers who appeared at Hungry Mind events (there would be more than 1,500) ranged from Minnesota baseball stars Dave Winfield and Kirby Puckett to Nobel Prize winners Orhan Pamuk and Kazuo Ishiguro. Others included Jimmy Carter, Kurt Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson, Isabel Allende, Studs Turkel, Molly Ivins, Norman Mailer, John Updike, Gloria Steinem, David Sedaris, Hilary Clinton, and hundreds more recognizable names. Hungry Mind readings were always free, but due to high demand many had to be held at much bigger venues, often at Macalester College or Central Presbyterian Church in downtown St. Paul. By the mid-1990s the bookstore routinely offered over 200 events per year. More than 1,700 authors made Hungry Mind appearances between 1978 and 2004.<\/p>\n
In 1985 Unowsky, with Bart Schneider as editor, launched the\u00a0Hungry Mind Review, in time a quarterly journal of book reviews, author interviews and original artwork. Like the author appearances, the\u00a0Review\u00a0employed local, regional and nationally prominent writers; it also made a point of supporting local presses, such as Milkweed Editions, based in Minneapolis. In its first decade or so it was distributed solely through independent bookstores; it eventually achieved a circulation estimated at 50,000. In 1994 Unowsky and a small team of investors and collaborators created the Hungry Mind Press, which specialized in publishing out-of-print titles they believed had been overlooked by the big publishing houses. Though Unowsky denied ever having a business plan, the effect was to create a Twin Cities literary ecosystem with the Hungry Mind at its center.<\/p>\n
All of these ventures took place in the context of turmoil in the bookselling trade, most notably the rise of enormous chains such as B. Dalton (based in Minneapolis), Barnes & Noble, Waldenbooks and Borders, and large independent stores in the Twin Cities, such as Gringolet, Baxter\u2019s (both Minneapolis) and Odegard\u2019s (Minneapolis and St. Paul). The Hungry Mind outlasted almost all the independents, but the competition was intense, and made worse by the appearance of the online bookseller Amazon in 1995.<\/p>\n
By the late 1990s the Hungry Mind was selling more books than ever, holding more events, employing more people \u2014 up to 50, with health insurance \u2014 and losing money. It secured a temporary lifeline when a California publisher bought the Hungry Mind name; Unowsky then renamed his enterprises Ruminator. Despite the losses, in 2001 he opened a second store at Open Book, a book arts hub in downtown Minneapolis. This proved to be a fateful error.<\/p>\n
The Minneapolis store lost money from the first and closed in 2003, at which time Unowsky owed Macalester College, which had financed his ventures since 1972, over $600,000. He tried frantically to erase the debt in late 2003 and early 2004, to no avail. The bookstore closed in July of that year, and Unowsky went into bankruptcy. The Ruminator Press had already ceased to publish;\u00a0Ruminator Review\u00a0lasted a few months longer.<\/p>\n
Bibliography<\/p>\n
[Editor\u2019s note: A more complete list of sources is provided in the author\u2019s\u00a0Minnesota History\u00a0article on Hungry Mind, cited below. Major sources of information used in its writing are reproduced here.]<\/p>\n
Beren, George. \u201cAn Independent Mind.\u201d\u00a0St. Paul Pioneer Press, January 21, 1996.<\/p>\n
Bielenberg, Tom. Interview with the author, October 7, 2024.<\/p>\n
Chanen, David. \u201cHungry Mind Fills Owner\u2019s Needs, Readers\u2019 Shelves.\u201d\u00a0Minneapolis Star Tribune, January 4, 1990.<\/p>\n
Hellman, Dan. \u201cDeclaration of Independents.\u201d\u00a0City Pages, August 22, 1990.<\/p>\n