Bookworm

Flanagan’s Booker-nominated novel, titled after a travelogue written by 17th century Japanese poet Basho, follows the building of the Burma-Siam Railway during WWII.

Our discussion of this anthology, written by incarcerated men and women, divides between the shocking realism of the stories and Oates’ experience as editor of the collection.

Antrim’s collection of stories stems from his own experience with psychosis; we all have our turn in the barrel, he notes, and sometimes you're really turned upside down.

What exactly made Ulysses so dangerous? Like an eye into the future, this difficult, all-consuming book still seems radical almost a century after its publication.

Kevin Birmingham delves into the history of censorship surrounding the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses for its seemingly seditious, immoral content.

William T. Vollmann has authored a wide array of works of nonfiction as well as fiction. Who is this literary chameleon, and where is his life’s work going?

Vollmann leads us to the “wall of ill” that separates life from death. We dissect Vollmann’s opening remarks to the reader, brimful of images both dark and sweet.

Tillman says a writer shouldn’t be ahead of one’s time but ‘of’ one’s time. She wishes to open doors, break down barriers, and make us aware of how thoughts are formed.

St. Aubyn’s novel parodies the upsurge of interest in literary prizes: what do these prizes have to do with literature, and are the books that win ones we should read?

Prose’s protagonist, Lou Villars, is based on the athlete and Gestapo interrogator Violette Morris, who was photographed with her lover in a Parisian nightclub in 1932.