10182 results were found.

Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in May 2024

James: A Novel by Percival Everett (Doubleday). Reviewed by Nick Havey. “The book is, in a word, electrifying. Everett has become one of my favorite authors in no small part due to the eviscerating pace at which his novels move. Erasure (which became the recent movie ‘American Fiction’) demands you…

Our 5 Most Popular Posts: May 2024

James A. Percoco’s review of Patton’s Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II by Alex Kershaw (Dutton). “Eisenhower turned to his capable but mercurial war horse, Patton, to pivot his Third Army at a 90-degree angle south of the bulge, punch a hole in…

Mark Hyman in Conversation with Cory Booker

Dr. Mark Hyman’s #1 New York Times bestselling book, Young Forever, revealed how to reverse the biological hallmarks of aging through dietary, lifestyle, and longevity strategies. In his new companion cookbook, The Young Forever Cookbook: More than 100 Delicious Recipes for Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life, Dr. Hyman shares recipes…

In Soma Veritas

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, published in 1932, is a prescient novel about civilization in the year 2540. In the book, he frames his satirical ideas about human happiness via Shakespeare’s comment in The Tempest: “How beauteous mankind is! Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.” Huxley’s…

Meet John Balaban

John Balaban is an extraordinary writer and storyteller whose prize-winning poetry and prose are informed by a love of languages, deep scholarship, hard travel, and a willingness to confront the violence and sufferings of the world. In Passing Through a Gate, the best of his prize-winning poems since 1970 are…

Authors on Audio: Natalie Dykstra

An emerita professor of English at Hope College and recipient of a Public Scholars Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Natalie Dykstra is also the author of Clover Adams: A Gilded and Heartbreaking Life and, more recently, Chasing Beauty: The Life of Isabella Stewart Gardner. The Wall Street…

An Interview with Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn

In her exquisite new memoir, Loose of Earth, Kathleen Dorothy Blackburn, the eldest of five children, tells the story of her evangelical upbringing in Lubbock, Texas. To say it was unconventional is an understatement. Under the rule of a brilliant mother, the siblings are homeschooled with the Bible as their…

Acquiring Expertise

It’s strange how certain words in our fast-moving English language get co-opted. “Apprentice” is one of them. Since this is a column about small-press publishing, I will not nosedive into the history of reality television here. I will not focus on how a word signifying skill-building and practical training got…

Wait, Now I Have to Read Them?

I received my MFA in January 2020. The first week after New Year’s, 75 of us convened in Black Mountain, North Carolina, at a sprawling 19th-century YMCA perched at the summit of a twisty narrow sheet of ice called a “road.” We were housed in creaky flea-market-furnished rooms, WiFi was…

R.O. Kwon in Conversation with Lupita Aquino

Join Loyalty Bookstores, DC Public Library, and the Writer's Center for an in-person event with R.O. Kwon and Lupita Aquino for Exhibit! This event will take place at DCPL's MLK Library location, in the first-floor auditorium. **This event is free to attend, but registration is required — please register on…

Sneak Preview: Summer 2024

Tens of thousands of books are published each month. And as much as we might like to, we can’t read (let alone review) them all. But what we can do is point out a few we think you might enjoy. In that spirit, here’s a rundown of forthcoming titles that…

Read All About It

This will be an unusual column, and not because I submitted it early. It’s unusual because I’ll be discussing reading rather than writing. Mostly. As many of you know from my previous scribblings, I don’t think a writer can be good at his/her craft without also being a reader. Notice…

“A Persuasive Illusion”

I finally got around to reading 2006’s Water for Elephants, a New York Times bestseller now available in 45 languages. At the time of its publication, I was caring for my 97-year-old mother while running a bed-and-breakfast on Cape Cod. Now, in Sweden, my husband’s country, I have more leisure…

A Whirlwind Event

We started in one ballroom and moved to another. We went up and down the escalator, attending sessions and pitching agents. We perused one sponsor’s table and then the next, discovering their resources. We browsed the bookstore and participated in the 1001 Artivists Project. The 11th annual Washington Writers Conference…

An Interview with Rebecca Wellington

This is an exciting time for critical adoption studies, with several important books published within the last six months. Add to the list Who Is a Worthy Mother? by Rebecca Wellington, notable because the author is an adoptee. Framing the scholarly investigation with her own story, Wellington provides an accessible…

Busboys and Poets Books Presents T. Anthony Roulette

The Souls of Queer Black Folk anthology began as a three-panel discussion during Black History Month on the City College of New York campus from 2014-2017. The book also traces its roots to the first black LGBTQIA course offered in 2013 in the Black Studies program. The title of the…

Children’s Book Roundup: May 2024

Rising by Sidura Ludwig (author) and Sophia Vincent Guy (illustrator) (Candlewick). “I rise with Ima in the early morning,” explains the young narrator. “She places her special bowl on the kitchen counter. Yeast bubbles in the warm water. My hot chocolate and her tea sit beside it, steam from both…

Drag Story Hour with Charlemagne Chateau

Loyalty is so excited to host Drag Story Hour with Charlemagne Chateau! Drag Story Hour usually takes place on the second Sunday of the month but will happen the third Sunday this time due to Mother’s Day. This event is FREE to attend, but please RSVP below to let us…

On Poetry: May 2024

The Independent receives so many wonderful poetry titles every month that it’s just not possible to write at length about them all. So, I thought I’d draw up a quick and dirty list of a few collections I recently enjoyed, but which neither Steven Leyva nor I has reviewed. If…

Authors on Audio: Avery Cunningham

Tennessee native Avery Cunningham, a longtime writer and 2016 graduate of DePaul University’s Master of Arts in Writing and Publishing program, is also author of the debut novel The Mayor of Maxwell Street. In it, says Publishers Weekly, “Cunningham perfectly captures the contours of Jazz Age Chicago and the varying…

The Gaithersburg Book Festival Is Saturday

The fabulous, free Gaithersburg Book Festival celebrates its 15th year this weekend, and the offerings are better than ever! From a must-see lineup of authors — including Harold Holzer, Alice McDermott, Paul Yoon, A.J. Jacobs, Kekla Magoon, 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner Jayne Anne Phillips, and dozens of others — to…

An Interview with Alice Henderson

Alice Henderson’s love of wild places inspired her popular Alex Carter thriller series, which begins with A Solitude of Wolverines, as well as the dystopian sci-fi Skyfire Saga trilogy that warns of the devastating consequences of ignoring climate change. A dedicated researcher, Henderson designs wildlife corridors and builds habitat-suitability and…

De Dos Mundos

Bless Me, Ultima, the 1972 classic by Chicano writer Rudolfo Anaya, is a literary shapeshifter. As a bildungsroman, it follows Antonio Juan Márez y Luna (Tony) through the most menacing and rewarding period of his young life. As a work of magical realism, it blends Anaya’s mythmaking with the already…

George Stephanopoulos in Conversation with Jonathan Martin

No room better defines American power and its role in the world than the White House Situation Room. And yet, none is more shrouded in secrecy and mystery. Created under President Kennedy, the Situation Room has been the epicenter of crisis management for presidents for more than six decades. In…

Romance Roundup: May 2024

April shower bring May flowers — and plenty of new books! May also happens to be my birthday month, which gives me a good reason to take myself to the bookstore so I can stock up for summer. (As if I need a reason to go to a bookstore, amirite?)…

Reading on the Road

The train trip was long to begin with — more than 18 hours from Athens to Belgrade — and delays were making it even longer. But I had good company as we chugged through Serbia: Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. It’s a doorstop of a book, but I…

Thinkin’ in the Bardo

George Saunders did not want his tombstone to read, “Here lies a guy who never did what he wanted to do.” So, in 2017, at the age of 59, having mastered the art of the dystopian short story, Saunders secretly began writing his first novel. Four years later, he burst…

An Evening with Whoopi Goldberg

Multi-award winner Whoopi Goldberg talks about her forthcoming book, Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me, a new and unique memoir of her family and their influence on her early life. Visitors are invited to attend a conversation and Q&A with Goldberg led by Librarian of Congress Carla…

An Interview with Patricia Meisol

Five-time Pulitzer Prize nominee Patricia Meisol has “always looked for stories of women who work in creative ways to free themselves and others, parallel stories to the ones we know well of men who bring about institutional and cultural change.” To her amazement, she found such a heroine in her…

Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others

We had attended a hog roast in Peasmarsh, Sussex, at some neighbors of our friends Walter and Anthony, and the following morning, still full of pork and cracklings and applesauce, we — Walter and Anthony’s houseguests — took a walk to see another hog who lived in a nearby field.…

Vera Brosgol in Conversation with Melinda Beatty

Join us at the Thurmont Regional Library as we welcome graphic novelist Vera Brosgol to Frederick! Vera will discuss her new middle-grade graphic novel, Plain Jane and the Mermaid, with Melinda Beatty, answer questions, and sign books! Books will be available for purchase at the event. This event is free…

Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in April 2024

The Blues Brothers: An Epic Friendship, the Rise of Improv, and the Making of an American Film Classic by Daniel de Visé (Atlantic Monthly Press). Reviewed by Michael Causey. “The chemistry fueling human relationships and connections can be magical and (despite the best efforts of songwriters and poets to capture…

Our 5 Most Popular Posts: April 2024

The 2024 Washington Writers Conference. “Agents. As always, the centerpiece of our annual conference is one-on-one pitch sessions with literary agents from across the country, and this year is no exception! Expert sessions with publishing pros on the craft of writing and paths to publishing. Filled with authors, agents, editors,…

It’s Go Time!

We know: We’ve been going on and on (and on) about the literary awesomeness that is the 2024 Washington Writers Conference for months. Mercifully, the big event is finally here! The conference is this Friday and Saturday, May 3-4, and if you’re not there, you’ll miss the chance to meet…

Authors on Audio: Talmage Boston

In this week’s podcast, frequent contributor Talmage Boston, an author and attorney, turns the tables on himself. Instead of doing the interviewing, he answers questions about his latest book, How the Best Did It: Leadership Lessons from Our Top Presidents, in a wide-ranging discussion with Dale Petroskey, president and CEO…

Black Books Matter Book Club

Cancel your Friday-night plans and join us for a good old-fashioned evening of information-sharing, discussing, perhaps debating, but ultimately exchanging viewpoints on this month’s book. Whether you’ve read the entire thing or barely cracked the spine, all are welcome. Oftentimes, being in the room is powerful enough. See you on…

Bedtime Stories: April 2024

Tim Wendel: As I hit the road to promote my new historical novel, Rebel Falls, I’ve loaded several titles on my iPad. These include James by Percival Everett. I’m about a hundred pages in, and the shifts in voice — depending on who Jim is speaking with — are a…

Fighting Fallacies

It’s easy enough to fall into conversational logical fallacy. Who hasn’t set up a strawman or tossed out a red herring when they’re about to lose an argument on some fully formed opinion they haven’t thought all the way through? We may have just been under-read on a topic. We…

this is what happens…

this is what happens when light grows in the dark, boxes don’t fit, pain transforms + dreams have conversations with imagination. full disclosure, i tried; for years, to fit within the confines of societal standards, religion, and anything else you can think of. it has never worked for me. even…

Meet Leah Moser

Crash! Boom! Bash! Sometimes big feelings spill over and it’s hard to hold in anger. In I Am a Thundercloud, the narrator relates their feelings to a loud thunderstorm; it builds and builds and then slowly calms as life goes back to normal. With vibrant pastel illustrations and evocative language,…

Get Ready for Independent Bookstore Day!

Show the DMV’s many awesome indies some love — and feed your own bookish addiction — by taking part in Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday, April 27th! Shop at some of our regional favorites below, or stay home and peruse the anti-Amazon, Bookshop.org! Bards Alley Bold Fork Books Bridge Street…

On Poetry: April 2024

Karen Rigby’s Fabulosa (JackLeg Press) traces its lyrical contours through couture, cinema, figure skating, and visual art. The adulation and objectification that a rhetoric of glamour invites toward women and femininity is a consistent tension in these deft poems. While I admit that I am always partial to a kind…

The German Enigma

What do you say about an author who got her undergraduate degree from Harvard and honed her writing skills with an MFA from Columbia? Jessica Shattuck is not prolific. Her debut novel, The Hazards of Good Breeding, was a New York Times Notable Book in 2003. Her third, 2017’s The…

Meet Our BIPOC Scholarship Recipients

We’re thrilled to announce our 2024 Washington Writers Conference BIPOC Scholarship recipients! The honorees were selected by scholarship coordinator Sydnye White (herself a winner last year), along with authors Tara Campbell, Melanie S. Hatter, and Alice Stephens. They’ll each receive free entry to this year’s conference, which features multiple panels…

Meet Chris Bohjalian

New York Times bestselling author Chris Bohjalian adds another gripping thriller to his library of novels with The Princess of Las Vegas. Murder comes to the Vegas Strip in the story of a Princess Diana impersonator, her estranged sister, and high-tech mobsters. Publishers Weekly calls it “[A] well-calibrated satire of…

The Ghosts of Slavery

In writing her 1987 masterpiece, Beloved, Toni Morrison wished to unsettle readers. She wanted them “to be kidnapped, thrown ruthlessly into an alien environment as the first step into a shared experience with the book’s population.” Beloved was never intended to entertain, reassure, or offer comfort. Which must be why,…

It Takes a Village

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I, a person in my late 30s, have recently started to ruminate on mortality. Between family health scares and some recurring physical concerns of my own, I’ve lately been facing down the tough questions: What does it all mean? Are we in…

A Reading with Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni gained initial fame in the late 1960s as one of the foremost authors of the Black Arts Movement. Influenced by the Civil Rights Movement and Black Power Movement of the period, her early work provides a strong, militant African-American perspective, which led her to be dubbed the “Poet…

My Brilliant Friend

There’s a series about a time-traveling librarian I haven’t watched, but I knew one: my friend Karen Newton. Marian the Librarian, the Music Man’s reluctant sweetheart, was the famous librarian when we were kids. That’s not the kind Karen grew up to be — though she was a sweetheart. Always…

Panel in the Spotlight: “Debut Authors Share Their Publishing Stories.”

Learn how three DC-area writers came to publish their first books of fiction. Len Kruger’s coming-of-age novel, Bad Questions, won the 2023 Washington Writers’ Publishing House Fiction Award. Eman Quotah’s Bride of the Sea, a tale of family secrets and colliding cultures, received the 2022 Arab American Book Award for…

The Ones We Love to Hate

Unlikable. That’s how an early Goodreads reviewer described Shane Collins, the protagonist in my debut novel, The Peacock and the Sparrow: a cynical, alcoholic spy who tries to salvage fragments of his life amid the tumult of the Arab Spring. One reader noted, “I haven’t bonded with the main character…

Allen Bratton in Conversation with Rabih Alameddine

Loyalty is very excited to welcome Allen Bratton and Rabih Alameddine to celebrate Henry Henry! **This event is free to attend, but registration is required** You can purchase the book from Loyalty below or in-person during the event! Email [email protected] with questions. ABOUT THE BOOK: LAUGH NOW. CRY LATER. “Two…

Longing for Leisure

I’ve been fascinated by British novels and plays set in the prewar era, not least because the wealthy characters in these works of fiction — whether serious or comic — have what seem like endless stretches of free time at their disposal. If you throw a stone at any Jane…

Children’s Book Roundup: April 2024

Next Level: A Hymn in Gratitude for Neurodiversity by Samara Cole Doyon (author) and Kaylani Juanita (illustrator) (Tilbury House). “You may not speak with their words or look into their eyes. May never sit still, may not sing in soft sighs. So they think you can’t see what they’re not…

Amanda Montell in Conversation with Alexandra Petri

From the bestselling author of Cultish and host of the podcast Sounds Like a Cult comes The Age of Magical Overthinking, a delicious blend of cultural criticism and personal narrative that explores our cognitive biases and the power, disadvantages, and highlights of magical thinking. Utilizing the linguistic insights of her…

The Private Dick

Just when the reader thinks she’s seen it all in the sexist, racist, homophobic, violent, and murderous figures who populate James Ellroy’s fiction, along comes this biography of the self-described “demon dog” of crime novels. Ellroy’s back-from-the-brink life story rivals that of his characters. Steven Powell’s Love Me Fierce in…

Authors on Audio: Jennifer Bort Yacovissi

As a novelist and president of the Independent’s board of directors, Jennifer Bort Yacovissi is quite familiar with the DMV’s vibrant literary scene. One important part of that scene, the Independent’s annual Washington Writers Conference, happens May 3-4 in Rockville, MD. (Haven’t signed up yet? REGISTER NOW!) Yacovissi recently spoke…

An Interview with Vincent Czyz

Set in the 1980s, Vincent Czyz’s newest novel, Sun Eye Moon Eye, takes us on an epic quest of self-discovery with Logan Blackfeather, a young musician of Hopi descent. Scarred by loss and prone to visionary flights of imagination — as well as violence — he wanders America while wrestling…

An American Tale

I am a third-generation American. My grandparents hail from Italy, Poland, and Ukraine. On my mother’s side, the Sicilian one, I grew up with loads of cousins in the New York City area. I had grandparents who often switched quickly from English so they could hide their secrets from us.…

Pamela Petro in Conversation with Sally Shivnan

The Long Field burrows deep into the Welsh countryside to tell how this small country became a big part of Pam's life as an American writer. The book’s format twines her story around that of Wales by viewing both through the lens of hiraeth, a Welsh word that’s famously hard…

Romance Roundup: April 2024

It’s April, and spring is well and truly finally here! The trees are greening, the flowers are blooming, my car is covered in pollen, and my allergy meds are working overtime. Yep, it’s definitely spring! The change in seasons means putting away the winter coats and heavy sweaters and busting…

Books ‘n Brews

Join us at Caboose Tavern on Sunday, April 7th, for a boozy book fair! You’ve been asking, and we’re delivering — we will be on-site at Caboose selling books and other goodies between 4-6 p.m. This is our debut book fair with Caboose, so we hope you’re as enthusiastic about…

How’s Never? Is Never Good?

I’ve been thinking of writing a column about procrastination but keep putting it off. (I know, that’s a really stupid joke.) Most of my ideas for this space just pop into my head, usually while I’m dozing off, in the shower, or driving (and at least five miles from the…

Authors on Audio: Tracy Daugherty

Texas native Tracy Daugherty is the award-winning author of multiple works across several genres, including the novels 148 Charles Street and Tales from the Bayou City and the nonfiction titles The Last Love Song: A Biography of Joan Didion and Just One Catch: A Biography of Joseph Heller. His latest…

Our 5 Most Popular Posts: March 2024

Mike Maggio’s review of The Qur’an: A Verse Translation by M.A.R. Habib and Bruce B. Lawrence (Liveright). “Translation is a tricky business. Not only do translators need to get the words right, they also need to convey the linguistic, cultural, and often historical context of the original text. A single…

An Interview with Judy Gruen

A longtime journalist and freelancer whose work has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, the Boston Globe, and elsewhere, Judy Gruen is also the author of such humor books as Carpool Tunnel Syndrome: Motherhood as Shuttle Diplomacy and Till We Eat Again. In her new memoir, Bylines and Blessings: Overcoming…

Meet Malcolm Harris

Note on format: This hybrid event will have both an in-person component with limited seating as well as a virtual broadcast via Zoom Webinar. Both in-person and virtual attendees will be able to pose questions to the author during the audience Q&A. Covid-19 information: Please note that East City Bookshop…

Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in March 2024

Trondheim: A Novel by Cormac James (Bellevue Literary Press). Reviewed by Marcie Geffner. “Once they reach the hospital, though, the story expands and deepens into a delicate spiral of rising and falling tension as the mothers wait, hope, suffer, falter, cope, and then repeat the pattern. The setting and circumstances…

Active Engagement

There is something almost indescribably satisfying about watching the light go on: to stand at my lectern or saunter around my classroom watching my students get something that they’ve been struggling to understand. Their hands shoot up. Their backs straighten in their chairs (necks stretching upward toward the ceiling). At…

Talmage Boston in Conversation with Evan Thomas

The president of the United States is the most powerful leader in the world. He’s called to make the nation’s most impactful decisions while maintaining the support of the multitudes. Though many have failed at the job, a select few have led America to new heights, and how they did…

When Pigs Cry

There’s an internet rumor that claims Charlotte’s Web is banned from select children’s libraries in Kansas. It goes like this: In 2006, a faith-based group of parents objected to the book’s “blasphemous” talking animals. In response, administrators removed it from the curriculum and/or libraries. To research this column, I read…

Paul Dickson to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award

Paul Dickson has an inexhaustible interest in, apparently, everything. He’s authored more than 70 works of nonfiction, from biographies to books on science, space, food, drinking, and sports. The Wall Street Journal, in fact, named The Dickson Baseball Dictionary one of the top five baseball books of all time. Nonetheless,…

An Interview with Pamela Norsworthy

In her debut novel, War Bonds, Northern Virginia journalist-turned-author Pamela Norsworthy takes readers on a gut-wrenching journey through love and loss in World War II Europe. She tells the sweeping epic through the eyes of British and American POWs, a foster child forced to mature beyond his years, a Nazi…

Meghan & Me

Until Meghan Markle came upon the scene, I had little interest in the British royal family. Now, I am riveted by the Meghan effect on the entrenched Windsor narrative, and how her presence has disturbed and infuriated so many people all over the globe. Though she likely didn’t intend to…

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

When you write a first-person novel called Bad Questions, you get a lot of questions. Is this you? Is that character your father or mother or teacher or friend? Did all this stuff really happen? Enter the autobiographical fallacy, wherein the reader assumes or suspects that the narrator is, in…

Lisa Ko in Conversation with Kat Chow

Join Loyalty Bookstores and DC Public Library for an in-person event with Lisa Ko and Kat Chow for Memory Piece! This event will take place at DCPL's MLK Library location, in the 1st floor auditorium. **This event is free to attend, but registration is required — please register on DCPL's…

On Poetry: March 2024

Linnea Axelsson describes herself as mixed race: Sámi on one side and Swedish on the other. It’s a concept of race that differs a bit from ours, used by the author to indicate how different Sámi culture is from Swedish. When she spoke recently at Politics and Prose in Washington,…

Panel in the Spotlight: “Nonfiction: From Proposal to Publication”

Writing a proposal is only the first step of your nonfiction project. These award-winning authors will share their journeys from proposal submission to published book. Journalist, editor, and novelist Sara Fitzgerald is author of the forthcoming The Silenced Muse: Emily Hale, T.S. Eliot, and the Role of a Lifetime. A…

An Interview with Judith Lindbergh

I met Judith Lindbergh through our mutual publisher, Regal House. Lindbergh’s sweeping 5th-century BCE epic, Akmaral, set on the Central Asian steppes, centers a woman warrior and spiritual guide. In this immersive novel, readers travel Akmaral’s path to leadership via meticulous cultural details and descriptions of lavish, majestic landscapes. I…

Children’s Book Roundup: March 2024

Is This…Easter? by Helen Yoon (Candlewick Press). There’s an egg in the yard! What should the playful pups do with it? Well, there’s a bit of disagreement in that department. “You don’t EAT the egg. You PAINT it!” insists one wide-eyed faction. “Why on earth would anyone paint an omelet?”…

The Muse & Me

Do you ever wonder what you might’ve been doing had you lived several centuries ago, when most art was folk art or folk music or folktales? I suspect I would’ve been an overworked scullery maid who died young. But maybe, just maybe, I would have hummed a pretty tune or…

Thrillers, Killers, and Wine Chillers

Family secrets, dark money, and gathering storms define the new thrillers from Tara Laskowski and E.A. Aymar. In Laskowski’s atmospheric novel, The Weekend Retreat, the wealthy Van Ness siblings visit a lavish winery where the torrential rain storm outside matches the tempest brewing between them, their spouses, and a mystery…

Keynote: “A Writer’s Dream: DC’s Creativity, Community, and Craft”

When it comes to literary talent, the DC area is an embarrassment of riches, and that’s why, for this year’s lunchtime address, we’ll showcase a panel of noted local authors — Tania James (Loot), Marita Golden (The New Black Woman: Loves Herself, Has Boundaries & Heals Every Day), Louis Bayard…

An Interview with Anne L. Foster

An associate history professor at Indiana State University, Anne L. Foster is also the author of — or contributor to — multiple books, including Projections of Power: The United States and Europe in Colonial Southeast Asia, 1919-1941 and The American Colonial State in the Philippines: Global Perspectives. Although her newest…

Meet Kevin Strait and Kinshasha Holman Conwill

Afrofuturism: A History of Black Futures explores the evolving and exhilarating concept of Afrofuturism, a lens used to imagine a more empowering future for the Black community through music, art, and speculative fiction. Afrofuturism offers a framework of radical potential to envision Black liberation and alternatives to oppressive structures like…

Northwestern Exposure

I didn’t know what to expect when I saw Cascadia Field Guide in a Seattle bookstore, but what I found was a delightful reintroduction to a bioregion that extends from southeast Alaska down to Northern California and as far east as Idaho and Montana. Although I spent most of my…

Meet Michelle Brafman and Mary Kay Zuravleff

Join us at C. Burr Artz Library as we welcome Michelle Brafman and Mary Kay Zuravleff to Frederick. Michelle and Mary Kay will discuss their latest novels, answer questions, and sign books. This event is free and open to the public. Hosted in partnership with Frederick County Public Libraries Featured…

An Alpine Mystery

Richard Armitage is an English actor best known for starring in the Hobbit trilogy and in the recent eight-episode streaming series “Fool Me Once.” But it turns out, he’s also a writer. His debut novel, Geneva, offers a sophisticated mystery set in the Swiss city and involving biotech and a…

The Weight of My Ink

What’s the best way to get rid of 50 boxes of books? My wife and I recently downsized, and I needed to find a home for hundreds of books I’d accumulated over the decades, thinking someday I would read them. But thanks to our moving manager (such a person exists!),…

Panel in the Spotlight: “Writing a Life: Memoir”

In “Writing a Life,” moderator Marita Golden, the award-winning author of 20+ works of fiction and nonfiction, heads up a panel of accomplished writers whose compelling personal stories have led them to memoir. Mary Collins is co-author of At the Broken Places: A Mother and Trans Son Pick Up the…

Authors on Audio: H.W. Brands

Historian and two-time Pulitzer finalist H.W. Brands is the author of multiple bestselling books, including The General vs. the President: MacArthur and Truman at the Brink of Nuclear War and The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the Struggle for American Freedom. His latest work is Founding…

An Interview with Brad Taylor

Bestselling author Brad Taylor, who served as a U.S. Army Special Forces officer for more than 20 years, including eight as a commander in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment — Delta (commonly known as Delta Force), is back with his 18th thriller, Dead Man’s Hand. We spoke earlier this winter.…

Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in February 2024

A Noble Ruin: Mark Antony, Civil War, and the Collapse of the Roman Republic by W. Jeffrey Tatum (Oxford University Press). Reviewed by Bob Duffy. “W. Jeffrey Tatum’s A Noble Ruin sets out to strip away all the antique propaganda, both defamatory and boosterish, and aims at the same time…

Meet Amitav Ghosh

When Amitav Ghosh began the research for his monumental cycle of novels the Ibis trilogy ten years ago, he was startled to learn how the lives of the nineteenth-century sailors and soldiers he wrote about were dictated not only by the currents of the Indian Ocean but also by the…

Our 5 Most Popular Posts: February 2024

David A. Taylor’s review of The Garretts of Columbia: A Black South Carolina Family from Slavery to the Dawn of Integration by David Nicholson (University of South Carolina Press). “Thanks to the family’s rise in education and newspaper publishing, there existed enough documents for Nicholson to unearth to piece together…

Seasons of the Witch

My mother studied Slavic languages in college, so I grew up on stories of Baba Yaga. The one in which a girl flees the witch and her chicken-foot house, throwing down a comb that grows into a forest and a mirror that becomes a lake, is still lodged in my…

Gretchen Sisson in Conversation with Nicole Chung

Adoption has always been viewed as a beloved institution for building families, as well as a mutually agreeable common ground in the abortion debate, but little attention has been paid to the lives of mothers who relinquish infants for private adoption. Relinquished reveals adoption to be a path of constrained…

Romance Roundup: March 2024

It’s March, and I’m more than ready for spring. But I’d be lying if I said I’m not already thinking about a summer vacation. Alas, my next trip is months away, but my favorite romance novels have come through in the meantime — taking me on adventures in England, the…

The Art of Losing

A scrap of paper, a poem I’d taped to the inside of the cabinet door, fluttered to the floor as I put the dishes away. It was an ordinary Sunday night, but fish stew calls for broad soup bowls, so I’d used my mother’s rosebud Haviland china. Kneeling, I read…

Our Early Bird Rate Ends Tonight!

Don’t miss your chance to attend the 2024 Washington Writers Conference at the Early Bird Rate of $369! You’ll get: A Friday-evening reception and “How to Pitch an Agent” tutorial. Face-to-face pitch sessions with three literary agents. Saturday panels featuring some of your favorite publishing pros. An opportunity to connect…

An Interview with Jillian Danback-McGhan

Jillian Danback-McGhan was always scribbling. During her tours as a U.S. naval officer, she filled notebook after notebook with stories, anecdotes, and plot outlines. “My subject more or less found me through lived experience,” she says. Midwatch, her debut story collection, looks at the lives of female service members in…

Lost City Books’ “First” Birthday Party!

Lost City Books humbly requests the pleasure of your company in celebration of our “First” Birthday! Time isn't real, let's have a party! (Malört shots anyone? heehee) We opened our doors after renovations on February 29th, 2020. We're a Leap Day baby! It's been one* whole year since then, so…

Meet Stirred Stories

How I wish my daughter was still asking to curl up in my lap and ordering me to read her “this book.” These days, while still demanding and book-loving, this daughter is in her first year of college. I have kept, however, all her children’s books. They are on shelves…

Meet John Patrick Green and Pat Lewis

InvestiGators fans, rejoice! Get ready to dive into the second volume of Agents of S.U.I.T., featuring the weird and wacky coworkers of everyone’s favorite sewer-sleuthing super-agents Mango and Brash! This event is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase and signing at the event. John…

The Voices of Reason

In response to a recent state law, the schools of Escambia County, Florida, have issued a list of 1,600 books that will not be available to students until the school board has determined the content is appropriate for the grade level and age group. Titles removed include The Adventures of…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents James Grady

Acclaimed author James Grady’s new novel is The Smoke in Our Eyes, but he’s best known for his seminal thriller, Six Days of the Condor, which became the movie “Three Days of the Condor,” starring Robert Redford and Faye Dunaway. Hear Grady’s advice for crafting the book you’ll someday be…

Authors on Audio: George Getschow

A Pulitzer Prize finalist and former longtime reporter at the Wall Street Journal, George Getschow is an instructor at the University of North Texas’ Mayborn School of Journalism and writer-in-residence at the Mayborn Literary Nonfiction Conference. His new book is Pastures of the Empty Page: Fellow Writers on the Life…

An Interview with Victoria Kelly

In her sparkling and thoughtful new collection of short stories, Homefront, author Victoria Kelly imagines the inner worlds of women whose lives have been impacted by war and military service. As the former wife of a fighter pilot, Kelly knows whereof she writes. And even though these stories are pure…

Mark My Words

They’re plain and fancy, silly and sweet. I seldom buy them but treasure them just the same. I’m talking about bookmarks, the unsung heroes of my reading life. They keep me on task; they keep me honest. Did I finally finish that chapter? Seems like I’ve been reading it forever.…

“Breaking the Mold with Marlon James”

Marlon James has won high praise for his Dark Star Trilogy, which Entertainment Weekly describes as “drenched in African myth and folklore.” The first book, Black Leopard, Red Wolf was a finalist for the National Book Award, and was named one of TIME’s 100 Best Fantasy Books of All Time.…

Victoria Kelly in Conversation with Karin Tanabe

Join us at Kramers to hear Victoria Kelly discuss her collection of stories, Homefront, in conversation with Karin Tanabe. In “Prayers of an American Wife,” a Navy wife grapples with loneliness when she discovers that her neighbor, also a Navy wife, is having an affair while their husbands are deployed…

Call Me ‘Gram-pa

In December, I wrote my first-annual end-of-the-year column. Well, here’s my first-annual start-of-the-year one. Before my train of thought leaves the station (I’m 79 and thinking of running for president), I want to share some insights on social-media book promotion. Many of you know that I write thrillers and mysteries,…

On Poetry: February 2024

Linda Susan Jackson’s Truth Be Told (Four Way Books) opens with a strong, evocative poem, “From Here to There,” which acts both as an invocation — chanting assiduously the words “here” and “there’’ — and as a cumulative ledger of images to frame the concerns of the collection. The book…

20 Not-Technically-a-Love-Story Love Stories

Your V-Day literary leanings might run to straight-up romances, but we know Cupid can be found across the bookstore. Here are several titles that, while not explicitly about love, nonetheless have an undeniably compassionate or affectionate vibe. Barney’s Version: A Novel by Mordechai Richler. “I’ve always thought this was something…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu may be best known for her horror-infused works of historical fiction The Hunger, The Deep, and The Fervor, but she’s recently drawn on her former longtime career in intelligence to pen two acclaimed spy novels, Red Widow and Red London. Hear what Katsu has to say about penning…

An Interview with Gideon Rappaport

Gideon Rappaport has immersed himself in William Shakespeare for more than 45 years, teaching the Bard’s works at multiple institutions and serving as dramaturge for Shakespearean productions at North Coast Rep, San Diego Rep, California Shakes, the Old Globe, and numerous other theaters. He brings his vast knowledge of the…

April Asher in Conversation with Mia Sosa

In April Asher’s next Supernatural Singles novel, Not Your Crush's Cauldron, a buttoned-up witch takes a stroll on the wildish side, sparking an alert that lands her a familiar Guardian Angel. Olive Maxwell much prefers teaching about the Supernatural world to taking part in it and leaves the magical shenanigans…

Children’s Book Roundup: February 2024

Escargot and the Search for Spring by Dashka Slater (author) and Sydney Hanson (illustrator) (Farrar, Straus and Giroux Books for Young Readers). “I have made a decision. I will dig through the enormous snowbank and go out into the world to look for signs of spring. You should come! While…

Ruha Benjamin in Conversation with Panama Jackson

A world without prisons? Ridiculous. Schools that foster the genius of every child? Impossible. Work that doesn't strangle the life out of people? Naive. A society where everyone has food, shelter, love? In your dreams. Exactly. Ruha Benjamin, a Princeton University professor, insists that imagination isn't a luxury. It is…

A Writer by Any Other Name

“Are you a writer?” my granddaughter asked one night at dinner. I hemmed and hawed, unsure how to respond. “Well, yes, I write,” I finally said. “I’ve even published several dozen articles and stories.” Why is it that after a lifetime of writing — newsletters, a blog, one memoir, two…

Parlor Tricks

The pleasure of reading Jane Austen’s 1813 classic, Pride and Prejudice, comes in part from being so wholly immersed in Georgian-era England. As we follow the travails of one Elizabeth Bennet and her sisters after the turn of the 19th century, we learn about that period from the inside out.…

The Washington Writers Conference Presents Joe McGinniss Jr.

Along with penning two novels, Carousel Court and The Delivery Man, and finishing up a memoir-in-progress, Joe McGinniss Jr. also wrote the poignant essay “Lessons from My Father,” about his famous author/dad, for the New Yorker. Find out what lessons McGinniss has to offer you during the 2024 Washington Writers…

An Interview with Alice McDermott

Bestselling author Alice McDermott has written multiple novels, one of which, Charming Billy, won the National Book Award. Each of her works, in its own way, is an exploration of what it means to be mortal, often through a Catholic lens. My class of fiction writers at George Washington University…

Jenn M. Jackson in Conversation with Preston Mitchum

Jenn M. Jackson, Ph.D., has been known to bring historical acuity to some of the most controversial topics in America today. Now, in their first book, Jackson applies their critical analysis to the questions that have long energized their work: Why has Black women’s freedom-fighting been so overlooked throughout history,…

Our 7 Most Favorable Reviews in January 2024

November 1942: An Intimate History of the Turning Point of World War II by Peter Englund; translated by Peter Graves (Knopf). Reviewed by Larry Matthews. “There are thousands and thousands of books about World War II. Some are fiction. Some are scholarly. Yet rarely do they offer the kind of…

5 6 7 8 9 Page 7 of 41