Knopf Doubleday » Nan A. Talese

Ian McEwan’s Solar an Indie Next Pick

rfeldman — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 17:25:07 +0000

Ian McEwan’s forthcoming novel Solar was named an April 2010 Indie Next Pick by the American Booksellers Association. Darwin Ellis of Books on the Common in Ridgefield, CT wrote, “McEwan, as usual, writes a taut plot line, with suspense and dread of retribution building with each turned page.” Click here for his full summary. In bookstores March 30th!

An Interview with Marti Leimbach

rfeldman — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:27:04 +0000

“When American writer Marti Leimbach’s fascination with female reporters taken captive during the Vietnam War became obsessive, she knew she had her next book in the making,” Reuters reports. Click here to read the full interview, which includes Leimbach’s advice to aspiring authors.

The book has been praised by Dr. Abraham Verghese, author of the national bestseller Cutting for Stone: “You might question the ambition of a contemporary novelist electing to set a story in the Vietnam War era, but after you find (as I did) that you simply cannot put down The Man from Saigon, you question no more. Leimbach’s mastery of place, of the scents, sounds, terrors and sorrows of that time reminded me as perhaps only a great novel can that that we are never done with a war even when it is long over, and that only wars and love endure.”

Visit Leimbach’s website and Facebook page, and read her essay on Amazon about writing the novel.

Double Vision: Copyright Infringement in the Art World

rfeldman — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:32:05 +0000

When does inspiration cross over the line into plagiarism and copyright infringement? Mark Lamster, author of Master of Shadows, examined this question in Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. His article examines the work of photographers Sze Tsung Leong and David Burdeny and poses the question, “Did Leong have a doppelgänger stalking him around the globe, reproducing his images?”

Leong isn’t the first artist to deal with copyright infringement. Centuries earlier, the painter Peter Paul Rubens came into conflict with his printmaker Lucas Vorsterman, who attempted to acquire copyrights for the prints he had made of Rubens’s work. Lamster recounts the tense conflict in his latest book, Master of Shadows, a biography of Rubens’s career as a secret agent during the Thirty Years War. Here’s a review.

Adam Haslett on NPR

rfeldman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 22:58:13 +0000

“Union Atlantic sometimes reads as if Adam Haslett was listening into the private conversations that led to the economic collapse and the bank bailouts that followed,” Lynn Neary said on NPR’s Morning Edition. Click here to listen to the full interview.

Visit Haslett’s website to find out about his book tour, which is now in full swing. Read the review on Bookslut.com, the profile in New York Magazine and the interview in The Wall Street Journal.

John Burnside in NYC

rfeldman — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 15:51:49 +0000

John Burnside, the Scottish author of the terrifically spooky The Glister, will make a rare stateside appearance in New York this March. When the book was released in hardcover last year, The New York Times Book Review wrote, “Burnside’s writing conveys an almost palpable thrill of discovery, a delight in the play of his imagination over this bleak terrain, an irrepressible joy in cultivating metaphor after metaphor and seeing them all, improbably, bloom…. The emotion this brilliant and disturbing novel leaves you with is like the spooked feeling Leonard experiences at the sudden intimation of ’some essence, some hidden principle’ in the world: ‘It takes your breath away, but you don’t know if that comes from awe or terror.’ The Glister is that kind of story. It’s terrifying, and it feels like a gift.”

Meet the author at one of the following events:
Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Poems & Pints: Tuesday, March 2, 6:30pm at Fraunces Tavern with Meena Alexander

Reading: Thursday, March 4, 7:00pm at Brooklyn’s Pacific Standard with Ada Limón and Lindsay Turner

The Man from Saigon by Marti Leimbach

rfeldman — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:05:54 +0000

The breathtaking author of Dying Young and Daniel Isn’t Talking returns with a “vivid and powerful” tale (Publishers Weekly, starred review) of love and allegiance set in the jungles of Vietnam.

In 1967 Susan Gifford is one of the first female correspondents on assignment in Saigon, dedicated to her job and passionately in love with an American TV reporter. Son is a Vietnamese photographer anxious to get his work into the American press. Together they cover every aspect of the war from combat missions to the workings of field hospitals. Then one November morning, narrowly escaping death during an ambush, Susan and Son find themselves the prisoners of three Vietcong soldiers who have been separated from their unit. Now, under constant threat from American air strikes, helpless in the hands of the enemy, they face the daily hardships of the jungle together. As time passes, the bond between Susan and Son deepens, and it becomes increasingly difficult for Son to harbor the secret that could have profound consequences for them both.

Visit Leimbach’s website and Facebook page, and read her essay on Amazon about writing the novel.

Frances Perkins Biography a Finalist for LA Times Book Prize

rfeldman — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:54:27 +0000

Kirstin Downey’s riveting biography of Frances Perkins has been named a finalist for the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize! Titled The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR’s Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience, the book traces the life of the first female cabinet secretary, one of the most influential women of the twentieth century whose ideas became the cornerstones of the most important social welfare and legislation in the nation’s history, including unemployment compensation, child labor laws, and the forty-hour work week.

Jon Meacham, bestselling author of American Lion, raved, “Kirstin Downey has given us a rich, nuanced portrait of one of the most significant figures of the Age of Roosevelt. Frances Perkins has fallen out of the popular imagination; this fine book should do much to rectify that, and bring the first female member of a president’s Cabinet to vivid life once more.”

The prizes will be awarded Friday evening at 8 pm, April 23, 2010, in a ceremony at the Los Angeles Times building. Congratulations, Kirstin!

Bank Bailout Novel

rfeldman — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:03:55 +0000

The Wall Street Journal wrote last week, “Union Atlantic is the first serious fictional portrait of the bailout era — in which the unbridled risk-taking of our banking institutions bumped up against powerful government officials trying to keep the system afloat. Decades from now, this fine novel will help readers understand the period we’ve just been through.” The New York Times Book Review agreed. “The eerie overlap of Haslett’s narrative with current events in the American economy,” wrote Liesl Schillinger, “gives Union Atlantic unusual impact.”

Want to see what all the fuss is about? Meet the author on his book tour, which is now in full swing. Or listen to the interview he gave today on The Leonard Lopate Show. Read the review on Bookslut.com, the profile in New York Magazine and the interview in The Wall Street Journal. And be sure to pick up a copy!

On Sale Today: Union Atlantic

rfeldman — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:00:45 +0000

“The first great novel of the new century. It’s big and ambitious, like novels used to be. It’s about us, now. All of us.” —Esquire

Adam Haslett’s “intensely atmospheric, psychedelically tinged debut novel” (Elle) is on sale today! Written over the course of five years and finished the week that Lehman Brothers’ collapse set off the Wall Street panic of 2008, it portrays the gilded age of the first decade of the 21st century and the conflicts over class, corporate power, and personal identity that shape contemporary life.

Read New York Magazine’s profile of Haslett and the early review from Bookslut. And visit Haslett’s website to find out about upcoming events.

Adam Haslett: An Unlikely Prophet

rfeldman — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 19:12:57 +0000

If you haven’t read New York Magazine’s profile of Adam Haslett, whose forthcoming novel foretold our current financial disaster, it’s time to get acquainted with the virtuoso author. The media will be buzzing next Tuesday when Union Atlantic hits bookshelves. An early review in Bookslut claims, “Haslett is a major talent. Union Atlantic should cement his reputation as one of America’s great young authors — there aren’t many writers this original, and this intelligent, both intellectually and emotionally, around these days. It’s been years since a novel has captured the zeitgeist of contemporary America this well; it’s been years since a new author has convinced us, with just two books, that there might be nothing he can’t do.”

New York Magazine explains the novel’s winding road toward fruition thus: “[Haslett] had decided to imagine himself inside the Fed’s massive, impregnable doors ten years ago, before he went to Yale Law School and before he wrote a collection of stories, You Are Not a Stranger Here, that earned Haslett a 2003 Pulitzer nomination and a plug from his former teacher at Swarthmore, Jonathan Franzen. Haslett finished his law degree soon after his book unexpectedly hit the best-seller list, but he has never practiced.

“Union Atlantic is an unlikely follow-up to those intensely insular stories. The new novel, which deftly interweaves harrowing plot twists and tragic character studies, also manages to probe the twin fatal obsessions of the aughts: military hubris and a manic banking spree untethered from any sense of public accountability. But the biggest shock came the week Haslett finished the book, which was also the week Lehman Brothers collapsed.”

Find out more about Union Atlantic on Haslett’s website. Look for it on shelves February 9th.