Jonathan Dee is the author of five novels, including The Privileges, a finalist for the 2010 Pulitzer Prize and winner of the 2011 Prix Fitzgerald. He is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, a National Magazine Award-nominated literary critic for Harper's, and former senior editor of The Paris Review. Dee ''is the kind of writer who thinks hard about contemporary realities and then builds sturdy, stately novels of ideas around them'' (New York Times) that are ''full of elegance, vitality and complexity'' (New York Times Book Review). In his new book, the fallout from a marriage tests the bounds of truth, apology, forgiveness, and redemption.

''An astoundingly tuned voice-graceful, dark, authentic, and funny-telling just the kinds of stories we need to get us through these times,'' (Thomas Pynchon), George Saunders is the acclaimed author of several collections of short stories, including the New York Times Notable Books Pastoralia and CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, as well as a collection of essays and a book for children. One of Entertainment Weekly's 100 top most creative people in entertainment, Saunders is the recipient of Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships and a 2009 inductee into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His new book, Tenth of December cuts to the core of contemporary existence in a moving collection of stories about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war. (recorded 3/28/2013)