In Bryan Christy’s thriller In the Company of Killers: A Novel, Tom Klay is an investigative reporter leading a double life as a CIA spy. But when his closest friend is murdered, his carefully constructed double life unravels – and the deeper he digs the more he realizes that everything he thought he knew about […]
In A Line to Kill: A Novel, former Detective Inspector Daniel Hawthorne and his sidekick, author Anthony Horowitz, are invited to an exclusive literary festival. They never expected to find themselves in the middle of a murder investigation there – or to be trapped with a cold-blooded killer. Moderated by author and editor Otto Penzler.
The changing lives of the teenage girls at the center of We Run the Tides: A Novel are a mirror to the story of pre-tech boom San Francisco. Vendela Vida’s book is a portrait of a place on the brink of radical transformation. Moderated by essayist and critic Maris Kreizman, host of The Maris Review […]
In telling the story of the Echota family, Brandon Hobson's The Removed: A Novel also offers a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level. Moderated by author Kelli Jo Ford.
The Butterfly Lampshade: A Novel is Aimee Bender’s poignant tale of a mother, a daughter, mental illness, and the continuously shifting barrier between the mind and the world. Moderated by Mitzi Rapkin, host of the podcast First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing.
In Ha Jin's A Song Everlasting: A Novel, famous Chinese singer Yao Tian, in the U.S. on a state-supported tour, takes a private gig in New York to pick up extra cash for his daughter’s tuition fund. There’s nothing to it – until the government finds that supporters of Taiwan’s secession sponsored the event, placing […]
Paras, short for “Perestroika,” is a racehorse at a track west of Paris. When she finds the door of her stall open, she wanders off all the way to the great city, finding adventure and an unlikely cast of characters with which to share it. From Jane Smiley, Perestroika in Paris: A Novel celebrates curiosity, […]
In O Beautiful: A Novel, Jung Yun tells the story of Elinor Hanson, a fortysomething former model struggling to reinvent herself as a freelance writer, returns on assignment to the town in North Dakota where she spent her unhappy childhood. It's decades later, yet Elinor finds her past intertwining with the story she’s trying to […]
In The Sweetness of Water: A Novel, Nathan Harris shares the story of brothers Prentiss and Landry, freed by the Emancipation Proclamation in the waning days of the Civil War and seeking refuge – and the means to make their way north to reunite with the mother who was sold away when they were boys. […]
Claire Vaye Watkins’ I Love You but I've Chosen Darkness: A Novel chronicles one woman’s furious revisiting of family, marriage, work, sex, and motherhood, set against a darkly funny confrontation with a past that’s suddenly demanding her attention. Moderated by writer Molly Tolsky, founder of HeyAlma.com.
The life of the title character in Joshua Ferris’ A Calling for Charlie Barnes is not going well. He wants out and into the American dream. As his hopes dwindle, something goes right, and he’s granted a second act. But it calls for a sacrifice that redounds with selflessness and love. Moderated by writers Whitney […]
Ruth Ozeki’s The Book of Form and Emptiness: A Novel follows 13-year-old Benny Oh, who, a year after his father’s death, begins to hear voices. They belong to random objects scattered within his home – a sneaker, a broken Christmas ornament, a piece of wilted lettuce – but in time, also a book, one that […]