The Mookse and the Gripes

• Giller Prize

• Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award

• International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

• National Book Award

• National Book Critics Circle Award"

• Nobel Prize in Literature

• Orange Prize

• PEN/Faulkner Award

• Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

• The Man Booker Prize

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Click here to see what's happening in the fiction of each issue of The New Yorker.

Last Five Issues:

• Wells Tower: "The Landlord"

• Nell Freudenberger: "An Arranged Marriage"

• Yiyun Li: "The Science of Flight"

• Daniel Alarcón: "Second Lives"

• David Bezmozgis: "The Train of Their Departure"

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I'm liking Ron Charles more and more and more, and this video review of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom makes just makes me giddy.

Over at Critical Mass, the blog for the NBCC, Wyatt Mason writes about Roth's "tenth, short, and perfect novel, The Ghost Writer." I agree with Mason; this is one great novel, and a great place to start if you're looking to get to know Roth. Here is my review. It wasn't my first Roth, but it is the book that made him one of my favorite writers of all time (if not my favorite).

This promises to get interesting. Anis Shivani of The Huffington Post has posted his list of the fifteen most overrated contemporary American authors. As usual, he makes some great points. Often when I see these, though, I think, "Okay, so they are bad. Now, tell me who is good -- and why the difference." Shivani promises to follow-up with the most underrated contemporary American writers. Followed with similar lists for American writers of the past century, and going further to include lists for the global writers.

Patricia Zohn interviews Jennifer Egan at The Huffington Post. I still think A Visit from the Goon Squad is one of the best books of the year.

New York Magazine has a nice look at independent bookstores in the City, which are rising "against all odds."

At Reading Matters, Kim has featured my blog on her Triple Choice Tuesday. My choices? The Ghost Writer, So Long, See You Tomorrow, and Butcher's Crossing. Pop on over and see my fresh, brief write-up of each title.

For Independence Day, the Huffington Post has a slide show of fifteen great independent publishers, featuring a few of my favorites -- Open Letter, Archipelago -- and a few I didn't know about. New Directions is a model of perfection, and I agree. I have stacks and stacks of books from these three presses, and I'm anxious to see what the others have to offer.

Michiko Kakutani's review of Jacob de Zoet is surprising in its lack of substance. It's mostly just a plot rehash (which I think gives away a bit too much). It's boring to read and insightless, where I usually enjoy her reviews even if I disagree (as I do here). I'm not saying my reviews are better, surely, but this is pretty poor for The New York Times daily and from a Pulitzer-winning critic.

In the new issue of The New Yorker, James Wood takes a look at The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet: "This is to argue not that David Mitchell should be more like Tolstoy or Conrad or Beckett but, curiously, that he might be more Mitchellian—that the reader wants a kind of moral or metaphysical pressure that is absent, and that has ceded all the ground to pure storytelling."

The Paris Review blog has a Q&A with Jennifer Egan, author of The Goon Squad, a piece of which was published in The New Yorker and discussed here.

Click here for the Never Let Me Go trailer. I didn't like the book as much as I hoped I would, but the trailer makes the film look good. ____________________________

• National Book Critics Circle Award
  • Winner: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall

• PEN/Faulkner Award
  • Winner: Sherman Alexie's War Dances

• Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
  • Winner: Brigid Pasulka's A Long, Long Time Ago and Essentially True

• Pulitzer Prize
  • Winner: Paul Harding's Tinkers

• Orange Prize
  • Winner: Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna

• Man Booker Prize
  • Late July
  • Early September
  • Winner: October 12

• Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Winner: October

• Giller Prize
  • Longlist: September 20
  • Shortlist: October 5
  • Winner: November 9

• National Book Award
  • Finalists: October 13
  • Winner: November

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• National Book Critics Circle Award
  • Winner: Roberto Bolano's 2666

• Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award
  • Winner: Michael Dahlie's A Gentleman's Guide to Graceful Living

• Pulitzer Prize
  • Winner: Elizabeth Strout: Olive Kitteridge

• PEN/Faulkner Award
  • Winner: Joseph O'Neill's Netherland

• Orange Prize
  • Winner: Marilynne Robinson's Home

• Man Booker Prize
  • Winner: Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall

• Nobel Prize in Literature
  • Winner: Herta Müller

• Giller Prize
  • Winner: Linden MacIntyre's The Bishop's Man

• National Book Award
  • Winner: Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin

If the book reviewed was sent to me for free by the publisher, I have indicated as much in a caption under the book's cover image.

For a detailed explanation of my review policy, click here.

Email me at mookseandgripes [at] gmail [dot] com

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