In the conclusion to My Bookstore: Writers Celebrate Their Favorite Places to Browse, Read, and Shop, Emily St. John Mandel says, “Things happen in independent bookstores that don’t happen in the other places where we buy books.”... Read More

There are versions of the South that sell glossy magazines. And then there’s the South itself: a little bit grittier, a little less polite. More fighting and less showering, more guzzling and less sipping As editor Tom Franklin... Read More

When Joe Brainard died in 1994 at age 52, he not only left behind a considerable legacy as a visual artist—his primary vocation—but also as a writer. Despite this fact, he had actually quit working in both arenas a full fifteen years... Read More

From the murky circumstances of her birth in Geneva in 1877 to her dramatic death in a flash flood in Ain Sefra, Algeria, Isabelle Eberhardt lived an unconventional life. At twenty, she unshackled herself from the “fetters” of modern... Read More

Imagine the journalist’s life: immersed in experience, on intimate terms with one’s subject, embarked on multiple and continuous journeys of discovery, and then asked to explain it all to a distractible audience. This is Lawrence... Read More

Once upon a time, vampires were not the sole literary domain of Twilight. As *First Blood: Birth of the Vampire—*an anthology of classic vampire literature—demonstrates, vampires have been ensnaring imaginations for centuries, and... Read More

Literary Capital: A Washington Reader is a collection of narratives by residents of and visitors to Washington, DC. In other words, a real grab bag. Reach in and pull out goodies from Dickens, Emerson, and Melville, or put them back and... Read More

Literature is one of the few places left for savoring the gifts of maturity; in this vein, the musings and conclusions of Edward Hoagland, long-time essayist, must not be missed. Hoagland has traveled widely—the essays in this book... Read More