Elizabeth Spencer
Writers are not like wine; most do not improve with age. For many, their first book is their best; others hit their height mid-career. The number who reach their peak – or rediscover it – in old age is vanishingly small.
Wally Lamb
Wally Lamb is back with an “ultra-contemporary novel” that deploys his gift for empathy to explore love, sadness, sexuality, ethnicity and art across two decades among a group of upper-middle class resident of Connecticut.
Paul Auster
Top Ten contributor Paul Auster earns a rave from Sarah Manguso in tomorrow’s New York Times Book Review.
Roxana Robinson
Literature allows us to enter another person’s mind. Often, it is the same one – the writer’s, refracted and bent through characters who, nevertheless, often have too much in common.
Andrea Barrett
Top Ten contributor Andrea Barrett is receiving strong reviews for her ninth book, an “elegant new story collection” titled Archangel.
Thomas Keneally
Thomas Keneally – the Booker Prize-winning author best known for his novel Schindler’s List - is receiving warm reviews for his “bludgeoningly powerful new novel” set during World War I, The Daughters of Mars.
The Physics of Communication
(This is the slightly revised text of the speech I gave at North Carolina State University to kick off its annual Communication Week).
When I was invited to speak at N.C State’s Communication Week I wondered – what do they do the other 51 weeks of the year? Is State, in fact, a monastery where everyone takes an oath of silence? Or maybe it’s just preparing students for marriage.
Cathleen Schine
Top Ten contributor Cathleen Schine has received a warm review for her latest novel, Fin & Lady, in the New York Times Book Review.
