Phil Klay’s brutal and piercing ‘Redeployment’ wins this year's Chautauqua Prize

How many awards can one grim but brilliant debut novel win?

Phil Klay’s Redeployment (reviewed in this blog on April 2), has already (quite deservedly) won the 2014 National Book Award for Fiction and the John Leonard First Book Prize. It’s been selected as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times Book Review, Time, Newsweek, and The Washington Post Book World. Klay was also a National Book Foundation

Artist in Residency summer workshops program now open in enchanting San Miguel de Allende

William González photo

The inaugural “San Miguel Literary Sala Artists in Residency” program will take place in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico from June 27 to August 2, 2015. It is being organized by the folks behind the annual San Miguel Writers’ Conference and registration is now open.

Three artists will spend a month in San Miguel. They will be working on

Kent Haruf’s ‘Our Souls at Night’ is a tender, bittersweet story of happiness found late in life

Photo by Michael Lionstar

Our Souls at Night begins:

And then there was the day when Addie Moore made a call on Louis Waters. It was an evening in May just before full dark.

Addie is a widow; Louis is a widower. They are both in their seventies and have lived in the same neighborhood in small town Holt, Colorado for decades. Addie has come to ask a question:

I wonder if you would consider coming to my house sometimes to sleep with me.

What? How do you mean?

I mean we’re both alone. We’ve been by ourselves for too

Happy Birthday, Pippi!!

This year is the 70th anniversary of the publication of the first book in Astrid Lindgren’s much loved Pippi Longstocking series. The Swedish Institute is planning a year-long celebration and is encouraging Pippi fans all over the world to organize their own Pippi events. (presentingsweden.si.se)

The daughter of a buccaneer captain, Pippi (who was named by Lindgren’s then nine year old daughter) has four “best friends:” her
horse, her monkey, and Tommy and Annika, neighborhood children.

‘The Jesus Cow’ Fizzles

I wanted to like Michael Perry’s debut novel, The Jesus Cow. I really did. I ordered it the minute I heard it was being released.

I could clearly imagine the acquisition meeting at the publishing house: “Hey, this guy’s got all those best-selling memoirs under his belt – funny as hell – a YA book, and a nationally syndicated radio program. Three live humor albums – loved Never Stand Behind A Sneezing Cow, didn’t you? – big online presence. It’s a no-brainer! What could possibly go wrong?”

What went wrong is that the book is terribly uneven. The prologue, chapters 1-3 and 20-23 are very funny and their pace is lively. The rest of the 31 chapters and the

You’ll have to wait 100 years to read these books

onceptual artist Katie Paterson announced the Oslo Future Library Project on her website (katiepaterson.org). She wrote:

“A forest in Norway is growing. In 100 years it will become an anthology of books.

A forest has been planted in Norway, which will supply paper for a special anthology of books to be printed in one

‘How to be Both’ by Ali Smith: Mindbending and Unforgettable

Photo by Antonio Olmos

The game starts before you read the first word of the book. How to be Both is made up of two sections, each labeled “Part I.” One of the sections centers on the 15th century painter, Francesco del Cossa; the other takes place in 2013 and its protagonist is Georgia, a teenaged English girl mourning the loss of her mother.

Half of all the printed copies of the book have the del Cossa part first; the other half have the George (as Georgia is called throughout) part first. Both have the same cover. It’s the luck of the draw as to which you read but the one that you read also changes your experience of the book.

My edition had the del Cossa section first and I found it to be the