Fiction

"Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities. Truth isn't." — Mark Twain

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  Murder Mysteries After the Death of the Author

  That Sophie Hannah has managed to write a traditional Poirot novel is both the success and failure of this book.

  Kaya GençJul 19, 2015

  • Fiction

• Language Lessons

  The Way Things Were is about one of author Aatish Taseer’s obsessions: the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit.

  Karan MahajanJul 18, 2015

  • Fiction

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  Fiction as Memoir as Fiction: Tomás González’s “In the Beginning Was the Sea”

  Michael Thomsen examines the work of Tomás González — specifically his first novel published in English, In the Beginning Was the Sea.

  Michael ThomsenJul 17, 2015

  • Fiction

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  A Nice Hobby, Like Knitting: On Barbara Pym

  Now recognized as a master for her wry, comic novels of spinsters and clergymen, Barbara Pym was unpublished until the very end of her life.

  Victoria PattersonJul 16, 2015

  • Fiction

• Untrue Crime

  A masterfully constructed hall of mirrors, Edgar Award–winning true crime writer Harry N. MacLean's "The Joy of Killing" reinvents the conventional thriller.

  Tom AndesJul 14, 2015

  • Fiction

• Virtue for Spite

  In "The Harder They Come," T.C. Boyle takes on the toxic kernel of the American far right, calling attention to the durable saliency of the libertarian fringe.

  Jonathan StevensonJul 8, 2015

  • Fiction

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  The Wonder of Disillusionment

  Even when you finish reading T.C. Boyle's new novel, "The Harder They Come," you will turn the blank page hoping for more.

  Fred LeebronJul 8, 2015

  • Fiction

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  Bloody Artistry

  Mario Vargas Llosa on loving bullfighting as a dance, a sport, and an artistic influence.

  Bill HillmannJul 7, 2015

  • Biography & Autobiography

  • Fiction

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  To Forget History

  It would be easy to interpret Kundera’s sympathy for those who want to rewrite their pasts as the author’s hidden desire to forget something shameful from his own past.

  Johannes LichtmanJul 5, 2015

  • Fiction

• A Religion of the Text

  To observe the dietary laws of a religion is fundamentalism, but so too is staying off the grid, so too is attempting to remain illegible to commercial …

  Ben BushJul 4, 2015

  • Fiction

• A Spell of Foreign Travel

  The "Diver's Clothes Lie Empty" loses no time in engaging a question that epitomizes what the most authentic travel is about: what is it to have an identity?

  Anne GermanacosJul 3, 2015

  • Fiction

• Golden Ages Past

  Muse is a kind of mystery: not so much a who-done-it but a more satisfying who-felt-it, who-experienced-it, who-saw-it-for-what-it-really-was.

  Robert WallaceJun 25, 2015

  • Fiction