From The Bookshelf
"There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away..."
--Emily Dickinson |
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AUTHORS
New Authors
Nothing thrills avid readers quite as much as discovering a new author. With that treat in mind, we introduce our New Author Spotlight section. Here we'll feature authors who have recently entered the publishing fray. Genres, styles and publishing methods may vary, but each author will be, in our view, one to watch.
First up:
The Dance, by Joe Matlock
Author Tributes
Neil Gaiman
Creator of the award-winning graphics novel series The Sandman, Neil Gaiman also wrote the fantasy novel Neverwhere. This Gaiman tribute includes reviews of our favorite Gaiman works, a biographical sketch and links to other Gaiman websites.
FEATURED REVIEWS
REVIEWS IN BRIEF
Memoir From Antproof Case (Mark Helprin)
- An old American living in Brazil is writing his memoirs. He sits in a mountain garden in Niteroi, overlooking the ocean, and carries with him a Walther P-88. As he reminisces and writes, placing the pages carefully in his antproof case, we learn that he was a World War II ace who was shot down twice; an investment banker who met with popes and presidents; a multimillionaire; and a man who was never not in love. He was the thief of the century, a murderer, a protector of the innocent. Helprin's prose combines adventure, satire, flights of transcendence, and high comedy with poignant memories of a Hudson Valley and New York City that no longer exist.
I Know This Much Is True (Wally Lamb)
Encompassing the years from the cold war to the Gulf War, with settings ranging from the blue-collar suburbs of Connecticut to Mount Etna in the foothills of Sicily, this riveting novel is Lamb's sprawling follow-up to the sensational She's Come Undone. Forty-year-old housepainter Dominick Birdsey has spent his entire life in the haunted shadow of his paranoid schizophrenic identical twin brother, Thomas. After Thomas commits a horrific act of self-mutilation in a moment of religious mania, Dominick is forced to confront the dark secrets of his childhood. A novel on mental illness that focuses on the family abuse that led to the illness, this is a book I won't soon forget.
Stolen
Moments (Michael Nagler, William Swanson,
editors)
Subtitled Stories of Men, Women and
Desire, this collection of fifteen short stories
wraps the reader in the mysterious music of desire, and
illuminates - in the voices of some of our finest writers
- the consequences and changes that desire brings with
it. Authors include Milan Kundera, Doris Lessing, Woody
Allen, Hilma Wolitzer, Margaret Atwood, Laurie Colwin.
THE LISTS: Award Winners / Top Pick Lists / BookSlave Favorites
Readers love lists, and at BookSlave we're no exception. Here are the winners of most major book awards for 2000-2001, plus a list of our current all-time favorites in Fiction, Non-Fiction/Prose and Poetry categories.
