BNA_Daily | March 11, 2010
As the title suggests, Chang-rae Lee’s latest novel, The Surrendered, is not exactly uplifting, but critics are calling it moving and impossible to forget. The Surrendered tells the stories of June, Hector, and Sylvie–three characters who come together after experiencing horrifying violence in the Korean War. June is a young girl when the war (and [...]
BNA_Daily | March 8, 2010
You know those novels about families where everything–I mean, everything–goes wrong, yet you can’t stop reading? And laughing out loud amid the heartbreak? That’s the kind of book Eric Puchner (award-winning author of the story collection Music Through the Floor) has created with his debut novel, Model Home. The novel tells the story of [...]
BNA_Daily | March 1, 2010
As the cover and title suggest, Jerome Charyn’s The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson is a foray into the reclusive poet’s private life. Charyn uses his talent as a fiction writer (he’s written 30+ novels) to assume the voice and persona of Emily Dickinson. He tells the story in the first person, including snippets of [...]
BNA_Daily | February 19, 2010
If you haven’t read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks yet (it’s only been out for 2 weeks), you probably will soon. In this nonfiction merger between history, science, race relations, and bioethics, Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, an African-American mother of 5 who died of cervical cancer in 1951. The thing [...]
BNA_Daily | February 11, 2010
Just in time for Valentine’s Day comes Louise Erdrich’s Shadow Tag–a novel that the Washington Post calls “a tense little masterpiece of marital strife.” Shadow Tag is a departure from the sweeping work Erdrich is known for, as it focuses on one family and the dynamics of a failing marriage. The story begins when Irene [...]
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 28, 2010
In addition to sparking the English Reformation, Henry VIII provided some of the 16th century’s hottest gossip, with Anne Boleyn at its center. Experts have long disagreed about the real reasons behind Anne Boleyn’s execution, and historian Alison Weir attempts to uncover the truth in her new book The Lady in the Tower: The Fall [...]
BNA_Daily | January 21, 2010
There are few writers who can successfully incorporate a talking, severed head into a story collection, but Sam Shepard is one of them. An award-winning playwright and short story writer, Shepard explores the American West in his latest story collection, Day Out of Days. Note that the term “story collection” is used loosely, since only [...]
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_Daily | January 8, 2010
The time has come, Eat Pray Love worshippers — Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Committed: a Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage, hit stores Tuesday. Committed is a study of marriage through Gilbert’s inquisitive, funny, slightly panicked eyes as she realizes she has to marry her Brazilian boyfriend, Felipe, due to customs issues. If you recall, Gilbert [...]
