In this masterful debut novel, Hannah Tinti beguiles without the slightest trace of the maudlin. Readers will fall in love with Ren, a one-handed orphan boy who works for grave-robbers and longs for a family, and with North Umbrage–a 19th-century New England town where widows press their ears to the earth to listen for their husbands, trapped long ago in a mine collapse.
Kudos to Timothy Egan, who articulates perfectly why publishers–especially in this climate!–should shun Joe the Plumber in favor of real writers.
Quite early on in The Art of Subtext, Charles Baxter gives a tongue-in-cheek suggestion for a compelling story: “give the character exactly what s/he wants, and see what happens.” In Eisenberg’s stories, having what one wants is an unexpectedly fraught condition.
Preeta Samarasan‘s Evening is the Whole Day is getting some well-deserved list love. For the Guardian‘s best books of 2008, Ann Tyler names the novel as one of her top three (along with two other books reviewed on FWR, Miriam Towes’s The Flying Troutmans and Richard Price’s Lush Life), and Ali Smith also chooses it (along with Toni Morrision’s A Mercy and the reprint of Stefan Zweig’s Beware of Pity) for the Times Literary Supplement‘s Books of the Year List. Congratulations, Preeta! And thanks to fabulous lit-blogger Bibliobibuli for the news and links.
Check out the 21st annual Indie and Small Press Book Fair this Saturday and Sunday (December 6 and 7) at the New York Center for Independent Publishing and the General Society, 20 W. 44th St. Here is a list of book fair exhibitors and a complete schedule of sessions, readings, read-a-thons, and other events, including a panel discussion on the future of independent publishing, a live interview with Kelly Link, and a debate between David Rees and Matt Taibbi. Donations are encouraged. Stop by and show your support for independent publishing! Also check out New York magazine’s “The Curated Bookshelf,” […]
The title of Krasikov’s stunning debut collection, One More Year, suggests both despondency and hope, both reluctance and anticipation—wonderfully fitting for a book about immigrants from the former Soviet Union.
Warm congratulations to Hannah Tinti! Check out the story here. Bonus: Hannah is guest-teaching my fiction workshop tomorrow. As a longtime fan of her work (and a One Story subscriber) I am thrilled to formally meet her and introduce her to my students. And a review of the dazzling The Good Thief is forthcoming (this weekend or next week) on FWR.
Vote at the Book Design Review for 2008’s best cover. I hope this one wins:
It’s December, officially List Season. Those long, all-encompassing ones are fun to bitch about and debate, but my favorite lists are short and specific. A short list demands more careful consideration on the part of the list-maker, and readers have a prayer of actually checking out most or all of its best-of books/films/what-have-you. Today Jessa Crispin (aka Bookslut, here for NPR) offers a concise and enticing list of best foreign (or non-American) fiction of 2008, with links to full reviews and excerpts. I, for one, am adding Metropole to my reading pile; Roberto Bolano’s books are already there, waiting for […]
