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  PROPAGANDA
Ask Khaled Hosseini, Author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, Questions in His Book Group Discussion A Thousand Splendid Suns and The Kite Runner have brought the lives of the Afghan people to millions of readers around the world and inspired passionate dialogue among fans of the books. Now you have the chance to continue the discussion by asking Khaled Hosseini questions on his website. Junot Díaz Wins the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Moshin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist have won this year's Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards, which recognizes recent books that have made important contributions to our understanding of racism and our appreciation of the rich diversity of human culture. Junot Díaz humbly commented: "It's a privilege to share it with a book I admire tremendously—one I recommend in public and in private. I couldn't share the literary ride with a better writer." Junot Díaz Wins the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Riverhead author Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The 92nd annual Pulitzer Prize awards were officially announced on Monday, April 7th, at Columbia University. Riverhead Authors at the PEN World Voices Festival Riverhead authors Nuruddin Farah, Aleksandar Hemon, and Dinaw Mengestu will be participating in the fourth annual PEN World Voices New York Festival of International Literature. The festival begins April 29th and runs through May 4th and this year's theme is Public Lives/Private Lives. Read more about the events and the participants here. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao wins National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction At a ceremony on March 6th the National Book Critics Circle announced the winners of the 2007 awards. Riverhead author Junot Díaz took home the fiction award for his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Check out the other nominees and winners here. Two Riverhead authors nominated for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prizes Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears was nominated for the Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was nominated in the fiction category for the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes. The Book Prizes will be awarded Friday evening, April 25, 2008, at UCLA's Royce Hall. See the complete list of nominees here. Riverhead Audio Books Nominated for 2008 Audies Don't Make A Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings by Tyler Perry, narrated by Tyler Perry, and Slam by Nick Hornby, narrated by Nicholas Hoult were nominated for 2008 Audies. The winners will be announced at a gala event in Los Angeles on May 30th. The Audies gala is the only awards program in the United States devoted entirely to honoring spoken word entertainment, and brings together performers, authors, producers, publishers, and media. Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction On January 12th the National Book Critics Circle announced their awards finalists, which included widely-acclaimed Riverhead author Junot Díaz for his first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974, is a "non-profit organization consisting of nearly 700 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns." The 2007 winners will be announced on March 6, 2008, at the annual NBCC Awards Ceremony in New York City. See the other nominees here. Three Riverhead authors nominated for the 39th NAACP Image Awards for Outstanding Literary Work Three Riverhead authors have been nominated for the 39th NAACP Image Awards. Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Nuruddin Farah's Knots are among the nominees for the Outstanding Literary Work in Fiction category. Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears is up for the Outstanding Literary Work—Debut Author award. The NAACP Image Awards "honors projects and individuals that promote diversity in the arts in television, recording, literature, and motion pictures." The awards will air live on Thursday, February 14 (8:00 - 10:00 PM ET/PT Tape-Delayed) on FOX. Learn more about the awards and see the other nominees here. Díaz, Saunders on Entertainment Weekly's Best Books of 2007 list Entertainment Weekly featured two Riverhead books on their Best Books of 2007 list—George Saunders' The Braindead Megaphone in nonfiction and Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao in fiction. Riverhead authors among finalists for the Essence Literary Awards Knots by Nuruddin Farah and The Bond by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt are among the finalists for the inaugural Essence Literary Awards. The nominees were recommended by Essence readers and Book Club members selected by the editors of Essence for how they "illuminate the African-American experience throughout the Diaspora while provoking discussion about the human condition" and "demonstrate excellence and originality in concept, content and execution." The winners will be announced at a ceremony in New York City on February 7. See the other finalists here. Kirkus Reviews names three Riverhead books in their Best of 2007 According to Kirkus Reviews, three Riverhead books are "notable titles that deserve your attention." Among their picks for the Best of 2007 are (in nonfiction) The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam: An Illustrated Memoir by Ann Marie Fleming, The Braindead Megaphone by George Saunders and (in fiction) The Office of Desire by Martha Moody. See the complete list here. The Kite Runner opens to rave reviews The Kite Runner film is in select theaters, and opened to terrific reviews. The Washington Post calls it "a film of exhilarating, redemptive humanity" while Roger Ebert gives it 4 stars and in his review, writes, "Magnificent... The film works so deeply on us because we have been so absorbed by its story, by its destinies, by the way these individuals become so important." New York Magazine names Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Best Novel of the Year The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao claimed the title of best novel of 2007 in New York Magazine. It has also appeared on numerous other Best Books of the Year lists nationwide including Time (#1 fiction book), The New York Times Notables, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Village Voice, Amazon.com (#2 overall), and the National Book Critic Circle Best Recommended List (#1 fiction book). See New York Magazine's list here. Riverhead Books lands #1 and #3 spots on Time magazine's 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was chosen as the #1 fiction book of the year, with Khaled Hossieni's A Thousand Splendid Suns right behind at #3. See the list here. The Kite Runner hits Theatres The Kite Runner movie premieres on 12/14 in select cities and rave reviews and accolades are already arriving. The National Board of Review has listed it as one of the top 10 movies of the year and Vanity Fair has hailed the film as "transcendant," "haunting," "beautiful and horrific," "brave." Shalom Auslander named "New Radical" by Radar Shalom Auslander was listed as one of Radar Magazine's New Radicals, this year's most notable rogues, renegades, and rule-breakers. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears wins The Guardian First Book Award Dinaw Mengestu's debut novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (called Children of the Revolution in the UK) was announced as the winner at a ceremony in central London on December 5th. Unique among literary prizes, The Guardian First Book Award is open to all debut works, regardless of genre. Read more about Dinaw's win here. Riverhead Books in the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2007 Four Riverhead books made their way onto the New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2007. Those featured were Shalom Auslander's memoir, Foreskin's Lament, Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Nuruddin Farah's Knots, and Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears. See the full list here. Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao voted #1 by the National Book Critics Circle in their new monthly Best Recommended List The National Book Critics Circle recently created a new literary blog, "Critical Mass," and on November 28th they introduced the NBCC's Best Recommended List. Nearly 500 voters, including John Updike, Robert Hass, and Cynthia Ozick gave their recommendations, and in their inaugural list, Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao received the most votes for fiction. See the other winners and read more about "Critical Mass" here. Dinaw Mengestu Wins Lannan Fellowship Dinaw Mengestu has been awarded a 2007 Lannan Literary Writing Fellowship. The Lannan Literary Awards and Fellowships were established in 1989 to honor both established and emerging writers whose work is of exceptional quality. The Fellowships recognize writers of distinctive literary merit who demonstrate potential for continued outstanding work. You can read more about the Lannan Foundation and the Literary Awards and Fellowships here. Riverhead authors at the 2007 Miami Book Fair International, 11/4-11/11 If you're in the Miami area, stop by to see Riverhead authors Shalom Auslander, Daina Chaviano, and Ellis Avery at the Miami Book Fair. Riverhead Books has #1 and #2 titles on Amazon.com's Top 100 Books of the Year Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns grabbed the #1 spot on the list with Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao at #2. Riverhead also had numerous other titles highlighted by Amazon for their Top 100, including Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears (#14 overall, and #7 in Literature & Fiction), George Saunders' The Braindead Megaphone (#89 overall, and #2 in Pop Culture), and in the Food Lit category, Jenni Ferrari-Adler's Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant. Read more here. Junot Diaz wins the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize
Ira Glass and The New Kings of Nonfiction Live On-stage Ira Glass is joined by Malcom Gladwell, Susan Orlean, and Chuck Klosterman at Town Hall in NYC in a conversation to celebrate the publication of The New Kings of Nonfiction. The anthology, edited by Glass, benefits 826CHI, a reading and tutoring center in Chicago. Read more here. The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Wins the Prix du Premier Roman Etranger The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears by Dinaw Mengestu has won France's prestigious Prix du Premier Roman Etranger—he award for the best first foreign (to the French) novel published this year in France (where the book is known as Les belles choses que porte le ciel, translated by Anne Wicke and published by Albin Michel). There is more information on the prize here. Two Riverhead Books Chosen Among Best Books of 2007 by Hudson Booksellers, Including Book of the Year A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini was chosen as Book of the Year by Hudson Booksellers, and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz was named one of the Top 10 Fiction Books of 2007. The books were chosen for their "innovation, readability, thematic impact, popular appeal and cultural relevance" by a panel made up of the Hudson's bookselling professionals and Airport General Managers (Hudson sells books in both full-service bookstores and Hudson News newsstands in airports and transportation terminals across North America.) Read more, including the rest of the Best Books of 2007, here. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao Shortlisted for the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize Junot Diaz's bestselling Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is on the 2007 shortlist for the John Sargent Sr. First Novel Prize. The prize was established by The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction in 2006 to help "to promote the art of the fiction in the United States;" last year's winner was Marisa Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics. The winner of this year's prize will be announced at an Awards Dinner on October 29, 2007. Read more, and see the complete shortlist of seven titles, here. Dinaw Mengestu named one of the 5 under 35 by National Book Foundation Dinaw Mengestu, author of The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, has been named one of the National Book Foundation's 5 Under 35 for 2007. The award honors writers who have been selected by a previous National Book Award Finalist or Winner as someone whose work is particularly promising and exciting and is among the best of a new generation of writers. Read more about Dinaw and the 5 Under 35 Award here. Riverhead authors take on the New Yorker Festival
Riverhead authors Junot Díaz, George Saunders, and Khaled Hosseini will be featured at this year's New Yorker Festival:
The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears Longlisted for The Guardian First Book Award. Dinaw Mengestu's debut novel The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears (titled CHILDREN OF THE REVOLUTION in its UK edition from Jonathan Cape) is one of ten debut books of 2007 across all categories selected for The Guardian First Book Award's 2007 longlist. Earlier in the year, The Guardian hailed the novel as "a quietly accomplished debut" and "astonishingly tender." Look for the shortlist results the first week in November here. Nick Hornby at ALA
More than 20,000 school, public, and academic librarians attended the American Library Association convention in Washington, D.C. Nick Hornby was in attendance to announce the publication of his first Young Adult title, Slam (G. P. Putnam's Sons, October 16). Over 200 people attended his reading, 500 people attended his author panel program, and another 300 librarians waited in line for an autographed galley of Slam. #1 Bestseller! Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns debuted at #1 on the June 10, 2007 New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List and continues to hold on the top spot. On the paperback side, Kite Runner rose to claim #2 on the June 17 Paperback Fiction Bestseller List. See Khaled Hosseini on Tour Khaled Hosseini kicks off a seven week tour, starting on May 22nd. For more information on where you can see Hosseini reading from his new book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. more... May 22 Kicks Off "The Year of Hosseini" On May 22, 2007, Riverhead releases Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, which has already earned rapturous acclaim from advance reviewers and booksellers. That, along with the fall release of the film version of Hosseini's first novel – the runaway #1 bestseller, The Kite Runner – caused Amazon.com fiction editor, Brad Parsons, to dub 2007 the "year of Hosseini" in Publishers Weekly. more... Nick Hornby to Publish His First Young Adult Novel Nick Hornby, New York Times-bestselling author of such internationally acclaimed books as High Fidelity, About a Boy, How To Be Good and A Long Way Down, will publish his first novel for young adults with Penguin Young Readers Group, it was announced today by Geoffrey Kloske, Publisher of Riverhead Books, and Doug Whiteman, President of Penguin Young Readers Group. more... Suze Orman lands at #1 on New York Times Bestseller List The paperback edition of Suze Orman's Young, Fabulous, and Broke debuted at #1 on the April 15, 2007 New York Times Bestseller List. Also, on the April 15 List, in its second week, Anne Lamott's Grace, Eventually held the #2 spot on the Hardcover Nonfiction List. And in its eighth week, Tyler Perry's Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings, was #14. John Hodgman Nominated for an Audie John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise, narrated by John Hodgman with musical accompaniment my Jonathan Coulton, has been nominated for an 2007 Audie Award in the humor category. The Audies are annual awards honoring excellence in audio publishing sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association. City of Tiny Lights a Double-Finalist Patrick Neate's City of Tiny Lights has been named a finalist in both the Los Angeles Times Book Awards, in the mystery/thriller category, and in the Edgar Awards, sponsored by the Mystery Writers of America, in the paperback original category . Patrick Neate's previous book, Where You're At: notes from the Frontline of a Hip-Hop Planet, won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2004. A Year of Awards for George Saunders George Saunders's short story collection In Persuasion Nation is a finalist for the 2006 Story Prize, along with Mary Gordon's Collected Stories of Mary Gordon and Rick Bass's The Lives of Rocks. The Story Prize is an annual book award honoring the author of an outstanding collection of short fiction with a $20,000 cash award. Each of two runners-up will receive $5,000. |
  A/V CLUB
The Lazarus Project by Aleksandar Hemon with Velibor Bozovic
Me of Little Faith by Lewis Black—Coming June 2008
I Was Told There'd Be Cake by Sloane Crosley
The Island of Eternal Love by Daína Chaviano
Sloane Crosley and Julie Klam on Titlepage.tv
The Kept Man by Jami Attenberg
Gorillaz Rise of the Ogre Book Trailer
PBSesque "Hobo Matters" Documentary from John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise
George Saunders on The Colbert Report
The Ghost Map: An Animated Introduction
The Foreskin's Lament by Shalom Auslander
George Saunders and his new book, The Braindead Megaphone, on Letterman
Braindead Megaphone: The Movie.
The Kite Runner will be a movie in November 2007. View the trailer for the film here.
Join The Kite Runner movie club here Khaled Hosseini on A Thousand Splendid Suns
Ann Brashares' Official MySpace page
Khaled Hosseini's Official Website
Tony Danza reads George Saunders John Hodgman on The Areas of My Expertise
Steven Johnson on The Ghost Map
Nick Hornby's Official Website
|
  PIXELS & PRINT
The Washington Post on Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project "The Lazarus Project, the masterful new novel from the Bosnian-American writer Aleksandar Hemon, opens with a passage that recalls the invocations of epic poetry: 'The time and place,' Hemon tells us, 'are the only things I am certain of: March 2, 1908, Chicago'...The structure of The Lazarus Project is ingenious. Alternating chapters give us the story of Lazarus's killing (the story Brik is writing) and the story of Brik's own journey in search of Lazarus. Then, as the novel progresses, these narratives begin, eerily, to merge." more... The New York Times on Meg Wolitzer's The Ten-Year Nap "With 'The Ten-Year Nap,' [Meg] Wolitzer decided that women who weren't necessarily leading lives of bold action could still be the subject of muscular fiction. 'What if you wrote what you'd seen, the way people write about war?' she said. 'What if you wrote about what you were seeing about women and children, even though maybe it was hopelessly uncool and wasn't the big male world?'" more... Associated Press on David Goldblatt's The Ball is Round "The comprehensive effort of English sports writer David Goldblatt is a masterful reminder of what makes the game so gripping for those who partake, and what a grip the game has taken on the world...Some of Goldblatts finest moments come when the author luxuriates in the bright glow of soccer's simple, radiant beauty. Scattered throughout The Ball Is Round are precious vignettes from key moments in the games history. These are a showcase of what the game is all about and a showcase for Goldblatts formidable crispness...Its most passionate supporters would tell you that there are many moments in soccer that lend themselves to such artful and suspenseful prose. It is to their benefit—if not yet the American masses—that Goldblatt has taken up the task." more... The New York Times on James McBride's Song Yet Sung "McBride is excellent on the unusual social nuances of the backwater that was the antebellum Eastern Shore...[A] well-designed, gripping plot. One often risks turning the pages so fast as to miss some of the richness and subtlety of the writing. McBride has a good ear for period black dialect and a deft touch with all sorts of dialogue...In Song Yet Sung, McBride has captured a version of [Edward P.] Jones's dispassionate tone, which can deliver the cauterizing power of anger without the corrosive power of bitterness. That's a radically new way of telling this old story, and it just might turn out to be balm for a wound that has so far stubbornly refused to heal." more... Blogcritics.org on Steven Johnson's The Ghost Map "Johnson, author of Everything Bad is Good For You and writer for Wired and Discover, skillfully treats the accounts of these 'very different men'—Dr. John Snow and Reverend Henry Whitehead—first as they respond independently to the cholera outbreak to seek the source, and then as their paths are increasingly interwoven and single-stranded to a single purpose in walking the streets and mapping the disease to determine who was dying, who was surviving—and where—to solve the mystery of how the cholera spread." more... USA Today on James McBride's Song Yet Song "Set in 1850, it deals with slavery—not just its brutality, but its moral complexities as a business, which is how McBride came to see it. His novel calls slavery 'the Trade,' as in 'the trading of souls.'" more... The New York Times on Brooklyn Was Mine "The jealous ownership implied by the word 'mine' suggests that (à la Walt Whitman) to live in Brooklyn is both to claim possession of a milieu and to be possessed by it. The contributors make the place more sought after and, by a handy symbiosis, the place makes them cool." more... San Francisco Chronicle on Sylvia Sellers-García's When the Ground Turns in Its Sleep "The lesson When the Ground Turns in Its Sleep gleans from these Guatemalan folk narratives is, interestingly, what makes it work as a distinctly American novel." more... Nylon on Brooklyn Was Mine "The bridge, Coney Island, Prospect Park, the pizza, oh my God, the pizza...the attributes run on, not to mention that Brooklyn is currently, and arguably, New York's most literary borough...a nostalgic, elegant, funny, and wonderfully diverse collection to read—especially while riding the F and L trains." more... Slate on Shalom Auslander's Foreskin's Lament Shalom Auslander's losing-his-religion memoir, Foreskin's Lament, is unorthodox in every sense of the word... The Los Angeles Times on Amir Aczel's The Jesuit and the Skull Aczel, who has written on key figures in mathematics and science, is gifted at explaining complex concepts and introducing the men and women who first articulated them in fast-paced, story-driven accounts. For example, he makes good use of the mysterious disappearance of the Peking Man during the chaotic first days of World War II, an episode reminiscent of "The Da Vinci Code." more... The New York Times on Shalom Auslander's Foreskin's Lament "Mr. Auslander is no longer observant, but he is still a believer, and he believes in a wrathful, vengeful God who takes things personally and is not at all pleased when someone leaves the fold and writes an angry and very funny book about it." more... Entertainment Weekly on George Saunders' The Braindead Megaphone "Some novelists seem to make great reporters. Two of the best journalists of the last 50 years are Norman Mailer and David Foster Wallace; their literary nonfiction is jaw-droppingly good, the equal of their fiction. Maybe it's time to add noted short-story writer George Saunders to this short list." more... The New York Times on Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao "Funny, street-smart and keenly observed...An extraordinarily vibrant book that's fueled by adrenaline-powered prose...A book that decisively establishes [Diaz] as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices." more... Time Magazine on Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao "In 1996 a young Dominican-American writer named Junot Díaz published a slender book of short stories called Drown. It was tender and tough and heartbreaking and all a first book of short stories is supposed to be, and he was hailed as the next great hope of American literature. Then Díaz more or less disappeared for 11 years, long enough for most readers to assume that, like most next great hopes of American literature, he wasn't coming back.
SF Gate on Martha Moody's The Office of Desire "Families are not always the people whose bloodline you share. Sometimes they are the random strangers you meet in life." more... The Los Angeles Times on Jenni Ferrari-Adler's Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant "What makes this book so arresting is... the clever way it arrives at the issue of how people deal with being alone." more... The Boston Globe on Fiona Neill's Slummy Mummy "[A] deftly executed domestic comedy. [Neill's] writing burbles along effortlessly. Her comic timing is excellent." more... The New York Times on Maxine Swann's Flower Children "Writing in lucid, crystalline prose that shifts back and forth from the first person to the third, [Maxine] Swann has expanded a short story... and turned it into a small gem of a novel, a novel that showcases her eye for detail, her psychological acuity, her ability to conjure up a particular place and time. She captures the incongruities of the 1970s counterculture as seen from the point of view of a young child, the shifting attitudes the narrator and her three siblings take toward the adult world as they slip-slide from childhood into adolescence, and the incalculable ways in which the passage of time colorizes the past." more... USA Today on The Last Summer of You (and Me) by Ann Brashares Ann Brashares, author of the popular Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants series for young adults, matures as a writer and looks toward an older audience with The Last Summer (of You & Me). more... The New Yorker on The Verneys by Adrian Tinniswood The letters of the Verney family survive as the largest and most continuous collection of personal correspondence from seventeenth-century Britain, and Tinniswood draws on them to produce a lively, almost novelistic account of an aristocratic family. more... The Washington Post on Khaled Hosseini For Hosseini, life doesn't go forward so much as backward, as he continues to explore the psyche of the country he left as a little boy, avoiding three decades of war and mayhem by being the "nauseatingly fortunate" son of a diplomat who was already posted to Paris when the turmoil began. He did not escape Afghanistan so much as abandon it, and he returns there again in "A Thousand Splendid Suns" to reconcile his childhood's watercolor memories with reality's bloody tableau. more... Shaken & Stirred on Always by Nicola Griffith So, the official word is out that I nominated Nicola Griffith's Always for the summer round of the LitBlog Co-Op, and I'm going to do my best to try and convince you to read it NOW so you can hop over and participate in the discussion later on. more... San Francisco Chronicle on A Thousand Splendid Suns "With the publication of his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini revisits Afghanistan for a compelling story that gives voice to the agonies and hopes of another group of innocents caught up in a war. The Kite Runner is a father-son story written from a male point of view, but this time around Hosseini tells of the experiences of the thousands of silent burqa-clad women of Afghanistan." more... Roses and Thorns on A Thousand Splendid Suns In his first novel, The Kite Runner, Hosseini created an instant classic, and he has done it again with A Thousand Splendid Suns. In this much-anticipated second novel, Hosseini's sharp, insightful prose has only gotten better. Like The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns is set against the backdrop of a war-torn Afghanistan from the days before the Soviet invasion, through the Taliban's reign of terror, to after September 11th and the reconstruction. Themes of violence, hope, faith, fear, and the power of human endurance resonate throughout the novel. more... Crazy Mountain Deluxe on Little Stalker I finished Jennifer Belle's Little Stalker and I have a toddler – I think that is quite an endorsement in itself. I will be reading High Maintenance soon. When I was in high school I love Banana Yoshimoto's Kitchen this has a similar feel – except put broken mirrors all over it and make it absolutely heartbreakingly hilarious then you will get Little Stalker. more... Los Angeles Times on Flower Children by Maxine Swan Maxine Swann is keen on this youthful perspective, having employed it in her semi-autobiographical stories and her first novel, "Serious Girls." Her new novel, "Flower Children," relies mostly on a young girl to chronicle a deliriously hippie-like upbringing. The book is full of the visceral pleasures and anxieties of childhood – the tree-climbing, treasure-collecting, knee-scabbing of it all. more... Otto's Random Thoughts on Dinaw Mengestu What follows is a review of Dinaw Mengestu's The Beautiful Things that Heaven Bears published earlier this year by Riverhead Books. This is the first work of fiction I have reviewed here. Most fiction I read is genre rather than literary and merely entertaining. But, this book was exceptional. more... Popmatters Interviews Steven Johnson This idea of the "long zoom," a perspective that shifts back and forth from the macro- to the microcosm, organizes each of Steven Johnson's five books of cultural criticism and science journalism. As he explains below, Johnson deploys concepts borrowed from contemporary science and from literary theory, using these in particular to understand the way information – biological, cultural, or other – self-organizes as it moves along networks. more... Seattle Post-Intelligencer on Anne Lamott Anne Lamott
has turned her quirky California life into a touchstone for readers
all across the country. The 52-year-old writer from Marin County
has chronicled her life and its twists and turns (turning up pregnant,
getting sober, becoming a single mother, returning to the Christian
faith) in a string of best-sellers that have included "Operating
Instructions," "Traveling Mercies" and "Plan
B." |
 YOU'RE BUYING
A Thousand Splendid Suns
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Johnny Bunko
The Ten-Year Nap
Song Yet Sung The Kite Runner Please Excuse My Daughter A Whole New Mind
The Teahouse Fire The New Kings of Nonfiction The Areas of My Expertise |
LINKS LINKS LINKS
In the wake of his Pulitzer victory, coverage of Junot Díaz is everywhere—even on your television. Click here to catch up with him on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. In his musings on taxonomies for creativity, Roy Christopher "find[s] that The Wu-Tang Manual is a perfect case study of how to build a modern mythology." People, including Omnivoracious (Amazon.com's blog), are talking about Nathaniel Rich's website and its library of cover art for the mysterious writer, Constance Eakins. A bit odd, perhaps, but then again so is the book—so delightfully odd that according to Los Angeles' well-loved independent bookstore, Book Soup, "Just when we thought this was going to be a bleak year for books The Mayor's Tongue arrived." In the Louisville Courier-Journal, Erik Reece, author of Lost Mountain: Radical Strip Mining and the Devastation of Appalachia, ponders the ramifications of the recently-published Kentucky Coal Facts, a document put out by the coal industry, and what the industry's own "facts and statistics" reveal about the state of energy, politics, and democracy—and the challenges that lie ahead. His Holiness the Dalai Lama is visiting the United States this week. Check out his classic titles from Riverhead, including The Art of Happiness. The National Book Critics Circle admires Riverhead's creative book publicity for Sloane Crosley's I Was Told There'd Be Cake. See what the NBCC has to say about the website. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao wins the Tournament of Books! Junot Díaz's response to his victory? "I'm beyond humbled ...So do I get a T-shirt with that supercool rooster on it? He's bad-ass." Meg Wolitzer, author of The Ten-Year Nap, shares her distinctive take on modern motherhood, ambition, marriage, and explains how she came to write her novel with Fresh Air's Terry Gross. Sloane Crosley cannot manage to have a one-night stand—but not for lack of effort. Read an excerpt from I Was Told There'd Be Cake on Salon.com: "By now, time was running out. Another decade and my invitation to the reckless sex-and-drug-abuse club would get revoked. Then people would be compelled to spit words like 'floozy' into my face and they would have every right. It was suggested that perhaps I was not trying hard enough. But I wasn't about to walk into a crowded sports bar and scream, 'I've got twenty minutes and one expired condom. Who's in?' Adventure within reason was key. Still, it seemed that it shouldn't be this hard. Who do you have to sleep with to get laid in this town?" In the week's New Yorker, George Saunders discusses washboarding: "I believe it is essential, in a free society that finds itself threatened by a ruthless enemy, to distinguish between torture and something pretty irritating. Otherwise, what's next? Are we going to ask the President to ban the act of singing to oneself in a high, tuneless quaver from the next cubicle over? (Hi, Maureen!)" Business Week ponders the future of manga in the United States and how it might change business books by looking at Daniel H. Pink's trendsetting career guide The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need. Julie Klam, author of the forthcoming Please Excuse My Daughter, narrates a brush with poverty, philanthropy, and Ann Curry in the Lives column of the New York Times Magazine: "We were two months behind on our rent, and almost everything was going to our high-priced health insurance and the occasional lead-laced Dora toy for our daughter...We weren't where we were supposed to be in life, and with lots of self-pity, I wondered if we ever would be. One thing I wasn't thinking about was philanthropy, unless it was a fund-raiser for me." Read more here. Sloane Crosley, author of the forthcoming collection of essays, I Was Told There'd Be Cake, recounts a disastrous day when she was forced to take the bus instead of the subway in The New York Times: "A subway girl at heart, I'm not used to the bus. I worry that I will insert my MetroCard the wrong way and slow everyone down, that the bus puts too much pressure on passengers to be aware of their surroundings, and that the etiquette observed above ground must somehow be more civilized than the etiquette below ground. I find myself giving up my seat not just for the pregnant and the elderly, but for anyone with legs." In an interview with Radar, Sloane Crosley, author of forthcoming I Was Told There'd Be Cake (excerpted in their April issue), informs us that writers know how to have fun, and "assuming writers are antisocial just plays into some cliché that if you're a writer you should either be J.D. Salinger or J.D. Salinger in a dress." Read the full interview here. The Christian Science Monitor catches up with Junot Díaz (The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao), who reveals the "ridiculously awesome" books he's reading, what he's watching, and what he's listening to. Sloane Crosley, author of the forthcoming I Was Told There'd Be Cake, is featured on NPR's "You Must Read This," revealing that the novel, The Secret Garden has its own dark secret. You must listen to this. David Lida, author of the forthcoming definitive book on Mexico City (on sale May 15th), First Stop in the New World, gives us a taste of what Mexico City has to offer in "Where Everybody Knows Your Nombre."
Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and Stephen Marche's Shining at the Bottom of the Sea are official contestants in the Tournament of Books, a "Battle Royale of Literary Excellence"—the winner of which will receive a live chicken, um, someday. The tournament begins on March 7th. Read more about this unconventional contest and check out the other contestants.
Check out George Saunders, author of The Braindead Megaphone, in conversation with Israeli writer Etgar Keret in Pen America's March issue. Here is an excerpt of this entertaining exchange. The National Book Critics Circle reviews Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (a NBCC award finalist in fiction) in preparation for the award ceremony which takes place on March 6th at the New School in New York City. Steven Johnson, author of The Ghost Map and Everything Bad is Good for You, challenges a study done by the National Endowment for the Arts that found reading is on the decline in adults and children. Johnson questions the NEA's exclusion of reading done on the computer: "Are you not exercising the same cognitive muscles because these words are made out of pixels and not little splotches of ink?" Nathaniel Rich, author of the forthcoming novel The Mayor's Tongue, muses on the ever-changing New York City from a native's perspective in The New York Times: "Only later that night, when I looked up at Times Square, did I stop to admire the museum that Manhattan has become. The hysterical wattage of the billboards had turned the night sky over Broadway a pale blue—a kind of artificial, perpetual dusk into which the New York I once knew has floated, never to return. I watch that New York float farther away all the time, marveling at the sparkle, but relieved to live in a different city." Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, talks to The Wall Street Journal about how new voices can get heard. Junot Díaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (cover design by Rodrigo Corral, art directed by Lisa Amoroso) was selected as one of the "Seven of Oh Seven"—the seven best book covers of 2007. Evictions, first book tours, and more...Jami Attenberg, author of The Kept Man, writes about it all for one week on MySpace.com. Amazon.com's blog, Omnivoracious, has introduced a new "best of the month" feature that showcases editors' favorite books. January's list includes David Goldblatt's The Ball is Round, "a gigantic and fascinating history of a subject that deserves (but has never gotten) such a thing." Update: Amazon.com interviews David Goldblatt. Listen to David Goldblatt, author of The Ball is Round, on Champion Soccer Radio Network, discussing the politics of soccer with Peter Brown. Junot Díaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, talks about what it means to be a ghetto nerd in this interview with CW11 Morning News. Watch it here. Fantasy Book Critic, a website dedicated to providing in-depth coverage on the many different facets of speculative fiction including fantasy, science fiction, and horror, included Heaven's Net Is Wide by Lian Hearn as a Favorite Book of 2007.
David Goldblatt's The Ball is Round is the one essential book for any soccer fan. And ESPN Soccernet is giving it away right now! Enter to win soccer's "definitive book" here. Erik Reece, author of Lost Mountain: A Year in the Vanishing Wilderness, wrote an op-ed piece for Louisville, KY's Courier-Journal, called "2007: A Year of Recognition." It's one of those rar |
Junot Díaz and his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao won The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction's
2007 John Sargent, Sr. First Novel Prize. It was the second year the now annual prize has been awarded. It includes a $10,000 cash award.
You can read more about the prize 
In The Areas of my Expertise, John Hodgman shares some useful "hobo signs"—illustrations that you can look for in your town or city that indicate a hobo presence. And there's even a website where you can report a