Bookworm

Junot Diaz says Jaime Hernandez's illustrations for the deluxe new edition of his acclaimed collection of stories make their collaboration "rise to the level of jazz."

Blum on publishing his first book, and the riddle of a moral contained in its inscrutable 13-year-old antihero, a Bartlebian computer whiz with a vengeful streak.

Shteyngart wrote his memoir when he realized that his life story mirrored that of the 20th century, the saga of one failed superpower giving way to another failing one.

Ben Estes, Alan Felsenthal and Amanda Nadelberg read poems from Alfred Starr Hamlton's "Dreambox" and reflect on their experience editing this unsung enchanter.

Esteemed German literary critic Denis Scheck joins us for a special international "meeting of the minds" to appraise the state of book criticism today.

James McCourt's novelistic memoir collages together vignettes of personal and queer community history in the New York City of mid-century.

Our master of seductive street-slang on seduction and its relation to fiction. Can a writer seduce you?  Junot Díaz describes what he calls "the shock of representation."

A trenchant "comic journalist" depicting the horrors of human conflicts, Joe Sacco's latest work is an astonishing panorama of the Battle of the Somme...

On its 40th-anniversary, Jong clarifies "Fear of Flying's" earnest philosophical motives, and identifies her literary influences, from Shakespeare to Pauline Réage.

Self’s striking novel about loss, language, and perception after the First World War -- and a bold departure from the satirical mode he is best known for.

After the deaths of husband and daughter, Joan Didion wrote the most personal and poetic book of her impressive career...

James Franco says literature was his emotional and intellectual escape valve from the alternate reality of filmmaking, performance, and celebrity.

Allan Gurganus says the three novellas that comprise his new book, "Local Souls," were written as modern fables or fairy tales.

Alice McDermott once felt a fear that her new novel would be seen as just another of her perfect Irish American novels. Instead it leaps from the page.

Four linked novellas explore the poignant interior lives of small-town characters who are usually unseen and unknown.

Nicholson Baker, poet of small accuracies, shows us how if you assemble enough of these small accuracies, you've got a novel.

Jonathan Lethem’s latest chronicles a lost generation of Jewish socialists who lived in Queens in the mid-twentieth century.

An aristocratic Liberian woman is left bereft and exiled on a remote Aegean island during her country's second civil war…

Part memoir, part literary criticism, part self-analysis, Rebecca Solnit's latest is an inter-genre meditation on the ways our lives are orchestrated by stories.

Van Dyke Parks on his multifaceted career as a lyricist, composer, arranger, producer and instrumentalist, on the heels of his first studio album in nearly twenty years.

This garden of literary and visual delights, edited by Russ Kick, wondrously illustrates the arc of 20th century literature by over 80 graphic artists.

Mark Slouka explores passion as an alternative to irony in the creation of dramatic, lyrical prose.

Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam completes the dystopian trilogy that began with "Oryx and Crake" and "The Year of the Flood."

Cathleen Schine says that she – and her writing – survive by seeing the humor in her life.

Peter Orner says his poignantly distilled, often tiny short stories are attempts to "create silence on the page."