Peter Abrahams Laura Geringer ($15.99) by Kris Lawson In Down the Rabbit Hole, 13-year-old heroine Ingrid Levin-Hill demonstrates the genius of an intelligent young girl as well as the glitches. She tends to think faster with her feet than her brain—not a bad trait in a soccer player, but one that has mixed results when she […]

George Pelecanos Little, Brown and Company ($24.95) by Jeff Charis-Carlson After twelve novels that transform the U.S. capital into an urban version of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County, readers have learned what to expect from George Pelecanos: well-crafted, geographically aware tales in which scenes of urban violence reflect the morally compromised choices of even the most stone-cold […]

Soren A. Gauger Twisted Spoon Press ($13.50) by Kathleen Andersen In this debut collection, Soren A. Gauger uses the language of an earlier century to create eleven entertaining stories that—in their presentation of a world in which cause and effect have been unlinked, in which narratives loop or spool forth continuously—could only be contemporary. Taking […]

Edited by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, William Justice, and James Quay Heyday Books ($15.95) by Ryder W. Miller In California Uncovered, an array of authors explore one of the most mythic areas of our country. Created by the California Council for the Humanities, which hopes to share the "reality beneath the headlines, statistics, and stereotypes about the […]

Roberto Bolaño Translated by Chris Andrews New Directions ($14.95) by Daniel Borzutzky Roberto Bolaño died at the age of 50 in 2003, the year his first book appeared in English translation. Thirty years earlier, just as the Socialist government of Salvador Allende was overthrown, Bolaño was imprisoned. On being released he moved to Mexico, traveled […]

by Vincent Francone Achieving recognition early as a writer of wild invention—Gore Vidal once called her "the most interesting young writer I've read in twenty years"—Jeanette Winterson earned the respect of many with her novels Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, The Passion, and Sexing the Cherry. Later books divided readers, but her fanatics have become fiercely loyal, […]

by Scott Esposito In an age where more poetry, novels, and short stories are being published than at any time in history, it is a bitter irony that a good bookish conversation can be hard to come by. “Reading at Risk,” a study performed by The National Endowment for the Arts, reported that the overall […]