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Cover art for The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

The Forgotten Waltz

The Forgotten Waltz Anne Enright W.W. Norton and Company, October 2011 259 pages $15.95 This post was written by Caitlin O’Neil Amaral. For a second-generation Irish American like me, whose family has turned the old sod into a mythical land of sorrow and song, Anne Enright is a bracing antidote. Contrary to popular belief, Ireland…

Cover art for Lightning Gods by Helen DeWitt

Lightning Rods

Lightning Rods Helen DeWitt New Directions, Oct. 2011 $24.95 I tried describing Lightning Rods to my brother like this: “The book is about Joe, a salesman who sells glory holes and makes them a standard fixture in the bathroom stalls of corporate offices across America.” He grimaced. “This was written by a woman, right?” Maybe…

Cover art for Tolstoy A Russian Life by Rosamund Bartlett

Tolstoy: A Russian Life

Tolstoy: A Russian Life Rosamund Bartlett Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, November 2010 560 pages $35 Tolstoy biographers almost have too much material to work with. Unlike Dickens, Tolstoy didn’t burn any of his 8,500 letters; unlike Hardy, he didn’t destroy large portions of his diaries. Instead, he carefully preserved all his papers, especially the ones recording…

Cover art for Aftermath by Scott Nadelson

Aftermath

Aftermath Scott Nadelson Hawthorne Books, September 2011 $15.95 288 pages This post was written by Karen Sikola. There are days when everything seems unnervingly connected—when every song your iPod shuffles up seems determined to make sense of your current tribulations, when the top story on the evening news mirrors the short story you were reading…

Photograph of abstract art made by dozens of lines of neon light

Innovators in Literature: Instant Replay, Part 1

  Since my days as a Ploughshares guest blogger are numbered (sniff!), I wanted to devote a little time to recapping some highlights from past Innovators in Literature interviews. We’ve got Adam Robinson on YA, Alice Sebold on difficult characters, Zach Dodson on what featherproof books really wants, Matt Bell on literature that matters—and more!…

Cover art for Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry by Christine Sneed

An Interview with Zacharis Award Winner Christine Sneed

We are happy to announce that Christine Sneed has won the twenty-first John C. Zacharis First Book Award for her short story collection, Portraits of a Few of the People I’ve Made Cry (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010). The $1,500 award, named after Emerson College’s former president, honors the best debut book by a Ploughshares…