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The Poets' Poet
How is it that an accomplished poet and scholar, beloved by generations of students, whose work has enjoyed the praise of no less than Harold Bloom, remains, at 76, something of a poet's poet, a secret hero to a few rather than an enthusiasm widely shared? Allen Grossman's reputation, such as it is, may be owing in part to his difficult-to-classify poems.
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Q&A with John Flanagan
The Ranger’s Apprentice series from Australian writer John Flanagan has sold more than 400,000 copies in the U.S., and has been published in 18 countries. The author is planning a U.S. tour in support of The Battle for Skandia (Philomel), fourth in the series.
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Italian Intrigue
Throughout Joseph Olshan’s literary career, he’s written about everything from restless gay men to Jamaican chambermaids and has enjoyed the success of a Hollywood adaptation of his 1985 debut, Clara’s Heart. His new novel, The Conversion, is an evocative, atmospheric story about a gay man in Tuscany struggling with his identity and his past loves.
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The Power of Music
Steve Lopez, a columnist for the L.A. Times, befriends a homeless musician, Nathaniel Ayers, in The Soloist, which is being produced as a movie with Jamie Foxx playing Ayers and Robert Downey Jr. as Lopez.
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Sins of the Father
Although Augusten Burroughs says he grew up feeling like a complete outcast, at age 42, seated at a fancy Manhattan restaurant where we've agreed to meet for lunch, he fits right in. Well dressed in a “cashz” New York sort of style—jeans, white shirt, blazer, tiny diamond earring—the lanky, handsome Burroughs is confident and at ease.
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Science Fiction's New Prophet: A PW Web-Exclusive Q&A
PW Talks with PaoloBacigalupi, who's not afraid of weighty issues, like the future of humankind.
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Welcome to Sarahland
“I feel like I always have one foot back in high school,” says Sarah Dessen, who at 37 could almost pass for a recent graduate. Chapel Hill, her home since her parents took jobs at the University of North Carolina in 1973, is her town, and she relishes in disguising its landmarks in the fictional Lakeview, where her stories are set.
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Every Teen's Struggle: Why I Wrote a Young Adult Novel
Lost in Cincinnati during the book tour for my young adult novel, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, I argued with the GPS in my rental car. After publishing 19 books for adults, and enjoying what some might call a distinguished career, I was now driving in circles and cursing at a machine.
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Ordinary Problems with Extraordinary Consequences
Harlan Coben explores a host of parent-child issues while a sadistic killer is on the loose in his 15th novel, Hold Tight. Are you and your wife dealing with such matters as privacy vs. right to know with your own children? We have four children and our oldest is 13, so we’re just starting to deal with this.
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About Our Cover Artist
Tad Hills never set out to be a children's book illustrator. “I really wanted to pursue acting,” he tells PW as he drops off the art work that is now our cover. After graduating from Skidmore College in 1986, where he studied art, Hills took on various freelance jobs—working on a screenplay, making marionettes and jewelry, and generally “doing art.
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Richard A Clarke On His New Book, 'Your Government Failed You and Philip Shenon's The Commission: A PW Web-Exclusive Q&A
Richard A. Clarke praises The Commission and pulls no punches on Philip Zelikow, Condoleezza Rice and Karl Rove
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War or Peace?
Looking at the roots of WWII in Human Smoke, Nicholson Baker concludes that the pacifists were right and Churchill was wrong. He explains why.
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Lady Baltimore
You know the one about the writer who “saves it all for the page”? Well, Laura Lippman is not that writer. The 49-year-old creator of the hugely popular Tess Monaghan mystery series and several stand-alone psychological thrillers is as friendly and outgoing and Baltimore-obsessed as her heroine alter ego.
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Strike Hard, Strike Fast
Sallie Bingham, of the Louisville, Ky., media Binghams, published her first novel in 1961.
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When Worlds Collide
In The Second World: Empires and Influence in the New Global Order, Parag Khanna explores emerging world economies.
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'On Both Sides': Elizabeth Strout's 'Olive Kitteridge'
“I have such an ambivalent relationship to Maine,” Elizabeth Strout says, although her novels are all about life in her home state.
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Not a Moment Too Earley
Four years after being prematurely tapped for Granta's Best of the Young American Novelists club, Tony Earley finally released his debut novel, Jim the Boy (2000), a Depression-era pastoral about a 10-year-old and his North Carolina family. Eight years on, Little, Brown is releasing the sequel, The Blue Star (Reviews, Dec.
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Szechuan and the City
In The Fortune Cookie Chronicles (Reviews, Dec. 3, 2007), Jennifer 8. Lee takes readers on a culinary journey into Chinese-American cuisine. How did your search for the fortune cookie’s origins evolve into this broader social and cultural history? Cookies weren’t the main story in the beginning.
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Less Mainstream, More Significant
A major presence in British science fiction since 1987, Iain M. Banks is best known in the U.S. for his novels of the posthuman interstellar civilization called the Culture. The eighth Culture novel is the blood-spattered and intrigue-laden Matter (Reviews, Jan. 21). You've been publishing Culture novels for 20 years now.
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Children's Bookshelf Talks with Lois Lowry
A Q&A with Newbery Medalist Lois Lowry, for her new novel The Willoughbys.
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