Atticus Lish's ‘Preparation for the Next Life’ is an impressive debut novel of unsettling power

In awarding Atticus Lish the PEN/Faulkner Award for his debut novel, Preparation for the Next Life, the judges said it “scours and illuminates the vast, traumatized America that lives, works and loves outside the castle gates. The result is an incantation, a

Raleigh apartment complex bans kids’ reading program (while allowing ice cream trucks)

Hopefully, by the time you read this, the management of the Grand Arbor Reserve will have seen the light. If not, please contact them and the corporate owner, Landmark Apartment Trust, to point out the errors of their ways.

According to a front-page story in the Saturday Raleigh News and Observer, teachers from the Lacy Elementary School load up their cars once a week with donated books and take them to two nearby apartment

Registration is now open for the thirteenth annual James River Writers Conference in Richmond

Registration is now open for the thirteenth annual James River Writers Conference to be held October 16-18, 2015 at the Greater Richmond Convention Center in Richmond, Va.

Pre-conference Master Classes will be offered on Friday, October 15. They include:

‘One Man Against The World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon’

In an author’s note at the beginning of his One Man Against The World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon, Tim Weiner asks the obvious questions about his subject:

What compelled him to commit crimes – secretly collecting campaign cash from foreign dictators and aspiring American ambassadors, wiretapping his loyal aides and distinguished diplomats as if they were foreign spies – and then conspire to conceal them? Why did he drive the nation deeper into Vietnam, at a cost of tens of

Lisa Scottoline and her daughter ask: “Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?”

Prolific mystery writer Lisa Scottoline and her daughter, Francesca Serritella, have released their sixth collection of short essays designed to appeal to women readers. From the jacket copy: “The unstoppable, irreverent mother-daughter team presents a collection of funny stories and true confessions that

Time to pre-order ‘Murder Under the Oaks,’ Bouchercon’s 2015 anthology

Bouchercon 2015, the 46th annual international crime fiction event, is being held in Raleigh October 8-11. More than a thousand authors, fans, publishers, reviewers, booksellers and editors are expected. (You can see a list of special guests and registered attendees at Bouchercon2015.org).

The 2015 Bouchercon Anthology: Murder Under the Oaks, is now available for pre-order from Down and Out Books. Edited by Art Taylor,

T. C. Boyle’s ‘The Harder They Come’ is a yes-you-oughta’-read-it-now novel

Almost every time I pick up a T.C. Boyle book, I begin to wonder what kind of Faustian deal I could make that would allow me to write half as well as he does. OK, a tenth as well. (Pssst! Call me, Mephistopheles.)

Boyle’s The Harder They Come (not to be confused with Perry Henzell’s 1972 Jamaican crime film of the same name) is his fifteenth novel and twenty-fifth book. Set mostly in Northern California, it “explores the roots of violence and anti-authoritarianism inherent in the American character.”

The three main characters are Sten Stenson, a Vietnam vet and retired school principal, now in his 70’s, his son, Adam, and Adam’s older girlfriend, Sara.

Sten has a trigger temper. In the opening scene of the book, he and his wife are on a cruise and have signed up for a nature walk in the Costa