To write is to breathe. I don't think about it. It's like oxygen. But if you take it away from me, I will suffocate. I need the blank page as the landscape upon which I stand, to think, ponder, consider, rant, rave, reveal, question, and explore where I have been, what I have done, and [...]

Why is the government teaching us to waste water? I'm asking you because I'm talking about your garden. The fact is, the gardening practices that are endorsed and taught by the U.S. government and the Department of Agriculture make extremely inefficient use of water. How can this be possible when, as of February 1, 2013, [...]

Describe your latest book. News from Heaven is a collection of 10 short stories set in and around Bakerton, the western Pennsylvania coal town that was the setting for my second novel, Baker Towers. What's the strangest or most interesting job you've ever had? Cleaning office buildings at night. Offer a favorite sentence or passage [...]

What do you write? I used to say book-length essays, but the inevitable follow-up question — essays about what? — would take me to another dodge, first-person narrative nonfiction... and seconds later I'd admit, I write about myself. Now I just say the word: memoir. I'm 38 years old and I'm working on my third [...]

David Shields's new book is a collagist's and lit lover's dream come true. Erudite and thoughtful, if you've ever lived or read a novel, you'll find much to admire and ruminate upon. Books mentioned in this post How Literature Saved My Life David Shields New Hardcover $25.95

During the winter, I like watching anything undulating in motion with the ocean. That might be seals or surfers. That might be mermaids or drift logs. That might be skinny-dippers or coils of kelp. My favorite day to watch is Sunday. Call it going to church. My favorite place to observe the winter undulations is [...]

Harry Silver commits a sin that will forever change his life, and no amount of foresight could have prepared him for what follows. Harry's brother, George, is suddenly out of the picture, and Harry is left with George's house, his two children, his pets, and all of George's many problems. Harry soon find himself sucked into Internet "dating," trouble at work, [...]

Growing up in an Italian-American family in Danvers, Massachusetts, Domenica Ruta had a life filled with violence and poverty but also imagination and love. Ruta's mother, Kathi, who "believed it was more important to be an interesting person than it was to be a good one," cycled between welfare and great wealth, helped get her [...]

I love books where the protagonists' stories are told in alternating chapters. That's one reason I'm enjoying Jennifer duBois's intelligent first novel, A Partial History of Lost Causes; it's also richly layered and poignant. Books mentioned in this post A Partial History of Lost Causes Jennifer Dubois Used Trade Paper $10.95 A Partial History of [...]

"I believe I'm one of a kind." In a world full of sentient robots exploited by humankind, Cat knows there is no one else like her childhood tutor, Finn. The tapestry of her life is woven with uncertainty and loss as she makes increasingly poor decisions in her struggle to conform to the expectations of society. [...]

Recently I was invited to give a reading at Colgate University, where I wrote my first novel, Y, while on a one-year teaching fellowship. A handful of my former students accompanied me to lunch the next day, and at some point we fell into a discussion about why the protagonist of my novel, Shannon, was [...]

Like stratosphere, troposphere, and mesosphere, atmospheric regions with which it shares part of its name, the biosphere is a shell-shaped zone enveloping our planet. But where the others are made of nitrogen, oxygen, water vapor, and trace gases, the biosphere is made of life. It extends in two directions — up and down — farther [...]

This tiny little novella tells the very big story of Cat, a former military medic who lost his foot when he stepped on a landmine during combat. Cat's military service is long over, but he begins to realize that "it was a good foot and we parted so hurriedly..." Leaving his wife and sons, Cat returns to [...]

It was in the middle of a gray and brittle February when I approached the wrought-iron gates of the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. I was already elbow-deep and several months into researching my book, A Grand Complication. I had read letters, diaries, and books, as well as countless newspaper clippings, yellowed documents, telegrams, and even hotel [...]

Describe your latest book. Fuse is the second installment in the Pure Trilogy, which follows a group of characters in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world. In the first novel, Pressia, a 16-year-old girl with a doll head fused to her fist, is surviving in this detonated, ash-choked world, and Partridge has survived inside of a protective [...]

Most days, around noon, something very strange happens to me. It starts off with a headache. My head begins to feel stuffy and there is a slight pain behind my eyes. I feel distant from my body. Then, after a few minutes, a fog of unusual thoughts settles in. I stop thinking about the thousand [...]

Valentine's Day: the spirit of love is in the air. I've never been a big fan of the day myself — I can practically hear the sighs of disappointed lovers in the air, smell the copious amounts of cheap perfumes wafting down the avenue, and taste the low-quality imitation chocolate taped to the inside of [...]

Question: What's the most memorably creative use of kelp you've ever witnessed on tan Oregon beach? My candidates: Jump rope Photographic subject for greeting cards Harness for a driftwood sled pulled by huskies Rotunda fort Telescope Whip for practice S&M Teenage fashion statement Dog toy Trampoline Riding crop Percussion instrument Coiled decoration on a pagan [...]

I recently started the unique biography Hemingway's Boat, which explores the mind and passions of the legendary author. Beautifully written, it reads with great promise. Books mentioned in this post Hemingway's Boat: Everything He... Paul Hendrickson New Trade Paper $16.95 Hemingway's Boat: Everything He... Paul Hendrickson Used Hardcover $11.95

I should confess that I have a fault or difficulty or issue that has always mildly complicated my life. I am, at the same time, quite shy and a showoff. It's like being a world-class figure skater living in the middle of the Sahara Desert. Over time the shyness has lessened as has, perhaps, the [...]

My novel The House Girl tells the story of two women: Lina Sparrow, a lawyer in modern-day New York, and Josephine Bell, a slave in 1850s Virginia. People often ask me why I chose to write about Josephine and who inspired her character. (They assume, I suspect, that Lina is a stand-in for myself: I [...]

If you read Ghostman, my debut novel that comes out tomorrow from Knopf, you'll probably notice one thing right away — I love facts. I'm a guy who digs the little things. The book is filled with crisp detail and practical minutia on a variety of criminal subjects, from the banking industry to the drug [...]

So my book about a high-profile bank robbery, Ghostman, comes out today. I have to say, the excitement here is already reaching something of a fever pitch. Yesterday I received almost a dozen requests for interviews, nearly 50 letters from eager fans (or soon-to-be fans), and literally hundreds of Twitter and Facebook mentions, most of [...]

George Saunders fans have long been stalwart champions of his work, recommending CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and Pastoralia to anyone who would listen, pushing copies of In Persuasion Nation and The Braindead Megaphone into the hands of the unconverted. He's always had critical praise, from no less than Thomas Pynchon ("An astoundingly tuned voice — [...]

I'm sitting in a bar in North Seattle, the kind of place where you only end up well after midnight in a blacked-out stupor. The place has got a name, but if I said it here I wouldn't be allowed back. It's that sort of place. It's also the middle of January, so the heat [...]