thomas_b | March 24, 2010
Stories of financial collapse can be illuminating at any time, but especially during times of financial collapse. Sometimes a writer of fiction seems to predict the present with such clarity that it leads one to suspect he has a crystal ball; other books reflect on the current times by looking at previous disasters. Three recent [...]
BNA_Daily | February 4, 2010
T.C. Boyle has published over 100 short stories and won six O.Henry awards, so it’s fair to expect a lot from his latest collection, Wild Child. Wild Child (released January 21st) contains thirteen short stories in addition to the title novella, a 66-page fictionalized account of the historic “wild boy of Aveyron.” In his New [...]
BNA_Daily | January 13, 2010
Believe it or not, Unfinished Desires is not a romance novel turned murder mystery–it’s a story about a nun. Mother Ravenel, to be exact, an aging woman writing the history of the Catholic school she attended and eventually ran. Author Gail Godwin uses Mother Ravenel’s history to portray the complicated dynamics of packs of teenaged [...]
BNA_Editor | January 13, 2010
1. More Reading, Fewer Books Sold:
In January of this year, the National Endowment for the Arts published a report titled “Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy” that pronounced this seemingly contradictory message: Americans are reading more (more than half of adults surveyed said they had read one work of literary [...]
BNA_Daily | September 15, 2009
After 6 years and 2 mediocre films to tide us over, the follow up to Dan Brown’s Angels and Demons and The DaVinci Code hits stores tomorrow. The Lost Symbol follows protagonist Robert Langdon on another epic, mysterious adventure, this time in our nation’s capital. After discovering his friend’s severed hand in the Capitol building, [...]
BNA_Daily | June 5, 2009
From romance to science-fiction, publishers are bringing out the big guns just in time for summer. The latest from Laurell K. Hamilton, Clive Cussler, and Alice Hoffman hit stores this week, and not all the reviews have been positive. While die-hard fans of each author will probably be pleased, you may want to take a [...]
BNA_Daily | May 18, 2009
David Ignatius, Body of Lies author and journalist for the Washington Post, has once again combined his foreign affairs expertise with his talent for fiction in The Increment. Out today from W.W. Norton, The Increment is the story of CIA chief Harry Pappas, who takes matters into his own hands after learning of Iran’s continued [...]
BNA_Daily | May 11, 2009
By Chuck Palahniuk’s count, 73 people have fainted during his readings, mostly from the disturbing details of his story “Guts.” Needless to say, his writing invites a variety of reactions, from his devoted fan following (a self-proclaimed cult), to critics who dismiss him as nothing more than a “shock jock.”
BNA_Editor | April 28, 2009
Back in February, an article on certified “genius” (at least, according to whomever hands out the MacArthur grants) author Colson Whitehead appeared in The Daily Beast with the eye-catching title - “The Great Summer Read Is Almost Here.” The reporter was referring to Whitehead’s newest novel titled Sag Harbor (out today), an autobiographical bildungsroman about [...]
N_Danford | January 19, 2009
The coming-of-age story is one of the most common for a novel, especially a first novel. Almost all writers of fiction draw on their own autobiographies to some extent, and everyone who is an adult has experienced coming of age in at least some capacity. It’s what makes so many of these books–J.D. Salinger’s The [...]
