Bookworm

The Best of Jackson Payne (Knopf)

A conversation with author Jack Fuller, who happens to be the president of the Tribune Publishing Company, and Steve Wasserman, editor of the Los Angeles Times Book Review, about concern journalistic ethics, conflicts of interest, and art.

The Glass Palace (Random House)
Amitav Ghosh's ambitions are Tolstoyan. He chronicles the tragedies of the British Empire in India and Burma. His mission: to reconcile large historical themes with his novelistic interest in the intimate details of personal destiny.

Woodcuts of Women (Grove)

Dagoberto Gilb's stories have enormous poetic vitality, yet he feels that he suffers from a lack of recognition. Has his status as a Latino inhibited his acceptance by the literary establishment?

Father of the Four Passages (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

In this novel, the distance between autobiography and fiction is minimal. Lois-Ann Yamanaka is living with the problems of raising an autistic child; she has written about the struggle. Does writing help?

The Bonesetter's Daughter (Putnam)

During the writing of The Bonesetter's Daughter, Amy Tan endured both the death of her mother and the death of her editor...

(Norton)

Guess Again (Simon & Schuster)

Bernard Cooper explores the temptations he faces in his writing: a yearning for permanence and security rivaled by a sneaking affection for odd, transient and unique experiences...

Expressing outright admiration for this new collection of stories, Bookworm attempts to pin down Ann Beattie's elusive techniques...

Matthew Klam discusses the sexcapades of the stud muffins and alleycats of his post-moral stories, truly the most audacious chronicle of sexual discomfort since the stories of John O'Hara...