Bookworm

The Demon and The Angel: Searching for the Source of Artistic Inspiration (Harcourt) Duende is like -soul,- an inner essence that aligns the artist with demonic or angelic inspiration. Edward Hirsch traces the manifestations of duende from Spanish poetry to Action Painting, from Rilke to Jackson Pollack.

The Haunting of L. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) At a certain point in this conversation, the author is referred to as "my ghost, Howard Norman..."

Iceland (Dalky Archive) Jim Krusoe pits his dear-but-doltish narrator against a surreal, disaster-prone universe, creating a unique comedy of the little man versus authorial imagination.

While writing Palladio (Doubleday) another of his complex novels of ideas, Jonathan Dee discovered his gift for creating complex human characters-and altered the course of his writing career.

In the Forest (Houghton Mifflin) Edna O'Brien's predilection for darkness, Greek tragedy and the terrifying fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm achieves its riskiest manifestation in her new novel, In the Forest...

All Souls Day (Harcourt) Although afternoon television talk shows have made us all too familiar with the stages of grief, Cees Nooteboom's philosophical novel offers a different perspective...

True History of the Kelly Gang (Vintage)Peter Carey captures the fated life of the Australian outlaw-hero Ned Kelly in thrilling run-on sentences: the world looms up, sudden and alive in phrase after breathless phrase. Here, he talks about the evolution of this springing, spirited voice.

Claire Marvel (Doubleday) John Burnham Schwartz has written a contemporary romance, complete with obsession, nightmare and a life-altering vacation in a deserted French barn-but with a catch...

Number 9 Dream (Random House) David Mitchell, a radiant and gifted young writer, places his work at the center of a barrage of influences...

A Multitude of Sins (Knopf) Richard Ford, finds in adultery, his most recent subject, traces of old Emersonian independence. But he still considers his newest heroes to be "hurtling to their doom."