we get access to the tale of Ethan's passion for Mattie, his wife's cousin. It all ends in a very nasty sledging accident.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Lorraine Adams was educated at Princeton University and was a graduate fellow at Columbia University, where she received a master’s degree in literature. A staff writer for the Washington Post for 11 years, she won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. Her new novel is The Room and the Chair.

Adams named her six best books for The Week magazine. One book on her list:

The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh

Bao Ninh was a North Vietnamese soldier. His novel follows the story of a young conscript assigned to a unit that recovers soldiers’ corpses from the combat zone. Neither pro–North Vietnam nor anti-American, Ninhwrites about the possibility of humanity in a man-made hell.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Paul Murray's first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was shortlisted for the Whitbread prize in 2003. The Irish writer has just published his second novel, Skippy Dies.

For the Guardian, he named a ten best list of the worst fictional clergymen. One priest on the list:

The Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

This "unwritten poem", which nihilistic Ivan Karamazov relates to his saintly brother Alyosha, is set in 16th-century Seville at the height of the Inquisition. Christ has made a brief reappearance to boost the flagging faith of his people. Witnessing him resurrect a little girl, the Grand Inquisitor has him arrested, and that night in his cell reveals that the church has long