Bookworm

The Given and the Made, The Breaking of Style, Soul Says (Harvard) How does a poet change styles? What turns an autobiographical incident into a poem? Helen Vendler on some of the basic issues of modern poetry.

Maureen Howard, author of A Lover's Almanac (Viking). The latest from Maureen Howard's over-loaded &quotdata; base" is a new novel about love--and biology, art, destiny, astrology, process, history.

David Malouf, author of Conversations at Curlow Creek (Vintage). The award-winning Australian writer searches for a lost child--a search that has mysteriously occupied Malouf for his entire writing life.

Amos Oz, author of Panther in the Basement (Harcourt Brace), reminisces about Israel on the eve of its independence: a portrait of the author as book-loving adolescent.

Robert Olen Butler The Deep Green Sea (Holt) In this obsessional erotic fantasy about cross-cultural incest, Butler displays the full range of his fictional themes--but does his mythomania bear any relation to truth?

Jonathan Coe, a young English writer, has the temperament of a dark, experimental, comic novelist, but he chooses to stay within certain acceptable conventions. A conversation about safety and risk.

Arthur Golden Memoirs of a Geisha (Knopf) A Harvard-educated man writes the fictional life of a famous courtesan. A Westerner reveals the secrets of Asia. How does a writer assume the authority to transcend gender and culture?

George Plimpton Truman Capote (Doubleday) Plimpton, the founding father of the modern literary interview and for years the editor of The Paris Review, talks about the nature of the literary interview and the art of biography.

Miroslav Holub Shedding Life (Milkweed) The renowned Czech poet and immunologist explores the border between art and science, questions the beloved tenets of humanists--and reveals his own latent tenderness.

Tess Gallagher At the Owl Woman Saloon (Scribner) Tess Gallagher reveals her &quotwitching;" techniques that transform talk into literary language. She also speaks candidly about her relationship with Raymond Carver and explains how each influenced the other's work.