Jasper Fforde
Three separate interviews in which Jasper Fforde discusses the Thursday Next series, his Nursery Crime novels and Shades of Grey, the first in a trilogy set in a future world recognizable as our own - but only just.
Abraham Verghese
An interview with Abraham Verghese about his life and writing and in particular about his extraordinary 2009 novel Cutting for Stone, set in 1960s and '70s Ethiopia and 1980s New York.
Martha A Sandweiss
An interview with Martha Sandweiss in which she discusses her book Passing Strange, a biography of Clarence King who lived a double life—as the celebrated white explorer, geologist, and writer Clarence King and as a black Pullman porter named James Todd, married to Ada with whom he had five children.
Amy Greene
Amy Greene talks about her first novel, Bloodroot, which brings her native Appalachia—and the faith and fury of its people—to rich and vivid life.
He stood just in the entrance of the cell, a tall man with his hat in his hands.
She could make out the cream of his necktie. She knew why he had come. She
waited and could see him struggle with irritation and uncertainty as she
remained seated on the bed. The smell had assailed his nostrils when he first
entered, but now he could smell the bed. She let it reach him and relished the
satisfaction of seeing his small step backwards.
She knew about him. The very famous new Superintendent about whom everyone
talked. Once, when she was out in the yard, he had come clattering to visit the
Warden. She had been invisible except as one of those people he had been so good
at keeping obedient. He looked at her now as if she were a fool. She said
nothing.
“What is that stench?” He did not ask this of her.
“Sanitation issa problem, Excellency.”
He turned abruptly to face the guard who remained invisible on the other side of
the doorframe.
“What the hell does that mean, man?"
He asked for meaning. She felt the laughter bubble up in her throat.
"The Warden will explain, Excellency, when he comes back, Excellency."
Sila could hear the guard shifting from foot to foot.
“Has she been here all this time?”
"Excellency? Yes. Warden will explain, Excellency. We have nowhere else … this
is why we put her and her child here with the other …”
"Child? What child?"
She understood his surprise. How on earth could she have been here all this
time, under their noses, and not be noticed, she and her child, the one she
called Meisie despite the name they wanted her to use? How could they have
forgotten about her, forgotten? But he could not bring himself to ask these
questions, they would have exposed his ignorance, and a great Superintendent of
order could never admit to such a thing.
For a moment the walls spun. The sour damp straw of her bed reached her
nostrils. Her move to grip the wall made him turn.
“What have you to say for yourself?” he demanded, but she could see it was to
stave off his alarm. “Ek se, wat het jy vir jouself te sê?”
His accent was so stupid. She lay back and laughed, drawing her skirt up. This
was how they liked it, filthy and stinking. He should know that, Superintendent
of cleanliness and order. The naai maintje was here. Yes, he should know who and
what this place had made of her in all these years she had been forgotten.
“Sit up! Sit up!”
She disobeyed.
“Can you confirm that you are Sila van den Kaap, slave to the burgher Stephanus
Van der Wat?”
Slave? Who was he calling slave? She sat up and pulled her dress into place.
“Are you the woman who came from Van der Wat?”
"From Van der Wat, yes." Something old and cold, heavy and dull was pushing her
heart down.
“What child is with you? Is this a child that came with you when they brought
you from Van der Wat's farm?”
"Meisie. She was born here."
The Superintendent's mouth opened. He looked around the cell then turned toward
the door.
The guard's silhouette vanished with a jump. "She is a very bad woman,
Excellency!"
She had no energy to deny this. She was a prisoner in the country of lies. Truth
was a foreign language here. She rested her head back against the wall and
inhaled. Soon she would be done with it all. Not even the thought of Meisie, or
Pieter who was still on Van der Wat's farm, could keep her in this world. The
demons of this world had swallowed up her children as they had swallowed so many
before them.
"I am Sila who was taken from Cape Town to Van der Wat."
Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today.
Samara Taylor used to believe in miracles. But her mother is in rehab, and her father seems more interested in his congregation than his family. And when a young girl in her small town is kidnapped, her already-worn thread of faith begins to unravel.
When she's not digging up bones or other ancient objects, quirky, tart-tongued archaeologist Ruth Galloway lives happily alone in Norfolk. But when a child's bones are found on a desolate beach nearby, and Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson calls Galloway for help, Ruth finds herself in...
Few works of literature are as universally beloved as Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Now, in this spellbinding historical novel, we meet the young girl whose bright spirit sent her on an unforgettable trip down the rabbit hole –and the grown woman whose story is no less...
The Coral Thief, as riveting and beautifully rendered as Ghostwalk, Rebecca Stott’s first novel, is a provocative and tantalizing mix of history, philosophy, and suspense. It conjures up vividly both the feats of Napoleon and the accomplishments of those working without fame or...
I rarely read anything before this. Years ago I picked this one up and couldn't put it down. It changed me into a book nut. It was a wonderful ...
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I can't believe I waited so long to read this book. Shame on me. This book was wonderful, lyrical, entertaining - all the makings of a wonderful ...
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The book held so much for the reader but in the end I felt robbed. The evolution of Trudy was disturbing and somewhat insulting. She came across as ...
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Justice Department still has issues with Google Settlement(Feb 05 2010) The Department of Justice dealt a serious blow Thursday evening to the chances that the Google Book Search settlement will gain court approval later this...
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Hachette formally adopts 'agency model'(Feb 05 2010) Hachette Book Group USA became the second major U.S. publisher to officially announce its intention to move to an agency model for the sale of e-books....
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Unconfessed
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