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Alan Cheuse picks savory new books — and spices his list with a few classic titles.
Bestselling author Paulo Coelho tackles the concept of goddess-based religion.
June 8, 2007 · In his new novel, Falling Man, Don DeLillo, one of the most admired American writers, squarely faces the awful events of Sept. 11, 2001, with eyes wide open. DeLillo narrates the viewpoints of a number of people — including one of the hijackers — in prose both exquisite and exhausting.
June 5, 2007 · Kiran Desai's tragicomic novel The Inheritance of Loss spans two continents and three generations. The story cuts between New York and India, contrasting the meager conditions of immigrant life in the city with the political unrest engulfing a Himalayan hill town.
June 2, 2007 · The celebrated author of The English Patient weaves a tale of intersecting lives that takes readers from 1970s California to pre-World War I France in his fifth novel, Divisadero. Web Extra: Read an Excerpt
May 28, 2007 · The Lizard Cage is a harrowing piece of fiction — with a lyrical streak — about inmates and jailers in a Burmese prison. Karen Connelly's novel first appeared in Canada and was named as a finalist for last year's Kiriyama Prize for fiction, which goes to outstanding works about the Pacific Rim and South Asia.
May 24, 2007 · A boy becomes a man by heading out into the middle of a war in search of his lost father. Sound familiar? There's a new version of the tale: Coal Black Horse, by Robert Olmstead. It is a sparely written quest story that can provide hours of rewarding reading.
May 22, 2007 · Calvin Baker's latest book, Dominion, is a tale of slavery told using the rhythms and styles of magic realism. He talks to Farai Chideya about his new novel and the sometimes predictable ways we write and think about slavery.
May 12, 2007 · In her new novel, author Dani Shapiro explores the delicate balance between art and exploitation. Black & White tells the story of Clara, the daughter of a New York art photographer who becomes famous for taking artful, evocative photos of Clara in the nude. Web Extra: Read an Excerpt
May 2, 2007 · Elise Blackwell takes a gamble with her fine new novel, The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish. Blackwell's writing is lovely, but flashbacks in the plot and an incomplete inclusion of Hurricane Katrina get in her way.
April 28, 2007 · The New York publishing world is buzzing about The Savage Detectives, a novel by the late Chilean author Roberto Bolano that was published almost a decade ago. Web Extra: Read an Excerpt
April 21, 2007 · Novelist Dinaw Mengestu's debut work, The Beautiful Things That Heaven Bears, explores the intense loneliness felt by African exiles, many of whom have fled bloodshed and turmoil in their homelands.
April 15, 2007 · This week marked the 20th anniversary of the death of Primo Levi, an Italian writer whose accounts of the death camp at Auschwitz are among the most admired examples of Holocaust literature. A new collection of his short stories — published for the first time in English translation — has just come out under the title A Tranquil Star.
April 12, 2007 · Kurt Vonnegut Jr., the acclaimed author of more than a dozen novels, short stories, essays and plays, died in Manhattan Wednesday. He was 84. His most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, was an iconic novel born out of his memories of war and its absurdities. Web Extra: Hear Social Commentary from Vonnegut
"The Road by Cormac McCarthy moved me deeply. Could be his best book."
From Jorey, who listens to KUAR in Little Rock, Ark.
A mother's quest to find her daughter is just one of the stories being told in this novel.
Norman Mailer's first novel in 10 years tells the story of Hitler's childhood.
