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original essays
DecemberIn December, Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop's novel of spellbinding emotional power, 11-year-old Isabelle hasn't spoken in eight months. As characters spiral desperately around Isabelle's impenetrable silence, she herself emerges, in a fascinating, boldly original portrait of an exceptional child. "A captivating read, peopled with characters hard to forget," hails Booklist.
From "December"
Most of my memories are organized and stowed away like so many snapshots, and as I flip through the album of my mind, I am struck by the difference between childhood memories and recent ones. Of course, to a certain extent this is to be expected; our experiences as adults are different from our experiences as children, as are our interpretations of events... (read more)

The ConditionThe long-awaited third novel from the bestselling, award-winning author of Mrs. Kimble and Baker Towers, PEN/Hemingway-winner Jennifer Haigh's The Condition explores the immutable bonds of family witnessed through one turbulent year in the lives of New England's McKotch family. "Compelling; highly recommended," praises Library Journal.
From "Another Family Story?"
I am often asked why I keep writing about families. The truth is, I don't do it on purpose. I always start out writing about something else: in Baker Towers, the tragic decline of a mining town; in Mrs. Kimble, a mysterious drifter who steals women's hearts... (read more)

The Dominant AnimalHumans are unquestionably the dominant animal. Why, then, are we creating a world that threatens our own species? In The Dominant Animal, renowned scientists Paul and Anne Ehrlich tackle the fundamental challenge of the human predicament and offer a vivid and unique exploration of humanity's origins, evolution, and its potential future.
From "Too Many of the Dominant Animal?"
It's been four decades since The Population Bomb was published in May of 1968, and we've recently had occasion to revisit the topic of the human future. Writing our new book, The Dominant Animal: Human Evolution and the Environment, which tells where humanity came from... (read more)

My Life in FranceMy Life in France is a delightful memoir of celebrated chef Julia Child's years in Paris, Marseille, and Provence that opens with Paul and Julia — a tall, wide-eyed girl from Pasadena who can't cook and doesn't speak a word of French — disembarking in Le Havre, and ends with the launching of the two "Mastering" cookbooks and Julia winning the heart of America as "The French Chef." Co-writer (and grandnephew of the Childs) Alex Prud'homme discusses how My Life in France came to be written in his original essay for Powells.com.
From "Timekeeper"
A few days ago, an old friend handed me a watch that no longer keeps time. It's plain looking, a timepiece from the 1970s, with a solid silver-plated body and a linked wristband. It has a blue face and white arms stopped at 12:04. The date is becoming Monday the 10th (of which month, and which year?). "It was Paul's," my friend said. "I don't know what to do with it. Maybe it will mean something to you." (read more)

Die with MeDie with Me marks the start of an original detective series in the style of "Prime Suspect" from Elena Forbes, a new talent from the U.K. In its starred review, Booklist declares that Forbes "renders crisp prose, a clever plot, and an unsettling portrait of a charismatic psychopath. She is definitely one to watch."
From "The Darker Side"
As a writer, I am always being asked: 'Where do your ideas come from?' Sadly, there is no simple answer. But when those moments of inspiration strike, as if from nowhere, often when I am in the oddest of places, it is one of the greatest excitements of my day... (read more)

Shooting WarShooting War, written by Anthony Lappe and illustrated by Dan Goldman, is an irreverent and unflinching graphic novel satirizing network news, the Iraq War, and the burgeoning "citizen journalism" movement that Rolling Stone magazine calls "a scary-smart take on what the horrors of the future may hold."
From "No One is Safe"
Shooting War is the story of an indie-media heartthrob named Jimmy Burns. The year is 2011, and the Brooklyn-based videoblogger gets his big break as he happens to be uploading a live rant in front a Starbucks when a suicide bomber blows the coffee joint to kingdom come... (read more)

From "Closing the Invisible Distance"
There was a constant thread of responsibility running through my creation of the visuals for Shooting War, a nagging need to do enough homework to make the war-torn streets of Baghdad in 2011 ring as true as possible... (read more)


These are the ways the world ends. Edited by Justin Taylor, The Apocalypse Reader offers 34 new and selected doomsday scenarios: an enthralling collection of work by canonical literary figures, contemporary masters, and a few rising stars (including respectively Joyce Carol Oates, Michael Moorcock, and Neil Gaiman), all of whom have looked into the future and found it missing.
From "Big-League Doom: Stephen King's Apocalypses"
This is what happened. In the fall of 2006, the Avalon Books spring preview catalog came out. The page devoted to The Apocalypse Reader, an anthology I was editing, contained several errors, not least among them the inclusion of Stephen King's name on the list of contributors. Much to my chagrin — and despite my placing several irate phone calls and emails — this misinformation resurfaced again at publication time on the websites of internet booksellers. (Powell's, I'm happy to note, was the first to post the correct information after I sent it to them.)... (read more)

The Teahouse FireIn The Teahouse Fire, Ellis Avery composes sweeping debut novel, drawn from a history shrouded in secrets, that follows two women — one American, one Japanese — whose fates become entwined in the rapidly changing world of late-19th-century Japan.
From "Tea and the Writing of The Teahouse Fire"
If I had known that Japanese tea ceremony was a living art, I would have studied it in college: I grew up with my mother's enthusiasm for Japan and majored in Performance Studies, a cross-cultural mix of anthropology, theater, and religion. And, then as now, I loved tea: my college best friend and I held a tea every Friday afternoon... (read more)

Teenage WaistlandIn her frank, compassionate, witty debut, Teenage Waistland, Abby Ellin, a former fat camper turned journalist, investigates current approaches to and attitudes toward weight loss to illuminate how they do and don't address the logistical, psychological, and emotional realities for overweight teens.
From "One Size Does Not Fit All"
I knew I would write this book, way back when I was 12 years old and my grandmother refused to let me visit her in Florida unless I lost ten pounds. Knew I would write it the second I set foot on the grounds of Camp Colang, the very first Weight Watchers camp I attended in 1984, when I was 16 and wanting to lose 20 pounds... (read more)

The Last of Her KindAn "engrossing, beautiful novel [that] will enthrall readers" (Booklist), Sigrid Nunez's The Last of Her Kind follows the twisty path of an unlikely friendship that begins on a college campus in 1968 and leads to a 1976 murder conviction.
From "The Way We Looked Then"
There was a time in my girlhood when all I wanted was to be beautiful. Of course, there have always been girls who share this dream, but I believe in my case it was more pronounced. This may have had something to do with having an attractive mother, whose looks were often commented on when I was growing up... (read more)

Sharp ObjectsGillian Flynn's debut novel, Sharp Objects, was hailed as an "admirably nasty piece of work" by Stephen King, while Kirkus Reviews called it "[p]iercingly effective and genuinely terrifying."
From "I Was Not a Nice Little Girl"
I was not a nice little girl. My favorite summertime hobby was stunning ants and feeding them to spiders. My preferred indoor diversion was a game called Mean Aunt Rosie, in which I pretended to be a witchy caregiver and my cousins tried to escape me... (read more)
L.A. Rex"[B]rutal and dynamic" (Philadelphia Inquirer), Will Beall's debut novel, L.A. Rex, is a ferocious, grittily cinematic debut set in South Central Los Angeles that recalls both Richard Price and James Ellroy, written by an LAPD antigang officer who continues to patrol the streets he writes about.
From "The Grand Guignol 'Hood"
I'm walking the drab, cavernous corridors of the Los Angeles County Coroner's Office. Witchy purple light flickers from those Flintrol Insect Electrocutors. I put on booties, plastic gloves, a plastic apron, a filtered 3M mask that is supposed to protect against airborne pathogens... (read more)