Bookworm

Book of My Nights (BOA Editions) Li-Young Lee's poetry has moved beyond the details of his Chinese upbringing to an investigation of what he calls "primal silence..."  

Dan Chaon, Among the Missing (Ballantine); Adrienne Sharp, White Swan, Black Swan (Random House) Marisa Silver, Babe in Paradise (Norton) Three young writers, each publishing a first book with a major press, explore the terrain of contemporary short-story writing, from personal backgrounds to their desires to break with tradition...

Fearless Jones (Little Brown) Walter Mosley is best known for his noir mysteries. With books set in the black communities of Los Angeles, he writes the hidden histories of race, sensuality, crime and cultural aspiration....

Silent Extras (St. Martin's) The young Dutch writer who created a sensation in Europe with his first novel, a sort of Amsterdam-set Catcher in the Rye, talks about the perils of recognition and his continuing need to evade seriousness. Read an excerpt from this book.

Bel Canto (Harper Collins) Ann Patchett knows that a novel is an author's private kingdom-problems the world can't solve can be solved within the pages of a book...

Carry Me Across the Water (Random House) Ethan Canin offers his ideas about fatherhood, memory and the betrayal children inevitably feel at the hands of their parents...

How to Be Good (Riverhead) Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity and About a Boy, has made a shift: the gifted comic novelist has adopted a woman's voice to examine marriage, fidelity, happiness and, finally, moral goodness.

Life after Death (Random House)Carol Muske-Dukes began to write a dark comedy about death. Slowly, she discovered that compassion was reshaping her book, giving it depth and complexity...

Three Apples Fell from Heaven (Riverhead) Micheline Aharonian Marcom's stunning first novel imagines the Armenian genocide...

If in Time, Collected Poems 1975-2000 (Penguin) Ann Lauterbach believes that one of the primary functions of poetry is the demystification of the world's cliches and the creation of new wonders...