Established in 2001, The New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award annually honors the work of one young writer, under the age of 35, with a $10,000 prize. We're so excited that Molly Antopol, for her story collection The UnAmericans, has been named one of five finalists for the 2015 award.
Akhil Sharma's Family Life is shortlisted for the Folio Prize
We’re thrilled to see that Akhil Sharma’s Family Life has been shortlisted for the Folio Prize.
Announcing the shortlist at the British Library, Chair of Judges William Fiennes, said:
“This shortlist is the result of months of reading and hours of passionate conversation. The eight books we’ve chosen explore vast themes – time, loss, belonging, war, solitude, marriage and family, the making and the mystery of art – with amazing vitality and grace.
“They manage to be both epic and intimate – in fact, they show those dimensions to be two sides of the same coin. They’ve surprised, moved, challenged and enchanted us. They’ve made us laugh. They’ve grown and deepened when we read them again.”
The UnAmericans is selected as one of three fiction finalists for the B&N Discover Great New Writers Award
Barnes & Noble has revealed the six finalists for its 2014 Discover Great New Writers Awards, and we’re so happy to see that Molly Antopol is one of the three finalists for fiction. The program, which celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, recognizes great fiction and nonfiction debuts from authors at the start of their careers.
An excerpt from Mark Doten's The Infernal
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Pushed through committee room door same seat and desk same mic whose sharp black bud was stuck there yet again to coax or spirit or otherwise prize from his lips who knows what putatively incriminating shit for the gathered senators to smear the walls with and point at the walls and send a photo of the walls back home to the ravening over-it un-pay-tree-aughts in advance of the campaign season aw-shucksing..."
Read MoreChristopher Bollen takes on the North Fork of Long Island
"Artists, collectors, curators and gallerists with homes on the East End of Long Island are sure to be scanning a new murder mystery next summer to see if they get bumped off.
Christopher Bollen, former editor-in-chief of Interview magazine, has written, 'Orient,' set in the same North Fork town where real-life residents include artists Rob Pruitt, Elizabeth Peyton, Lisa Yuskavage, Wade Guyton, T. J. Wilcox and Kelley Walker.
'People will see themselves in some of the characters,' warns Bollen, who hatched the plot while staying an artist’s home in the titular town. 'There’s the Russian collector, the Swiss gallerist and the crazy older photographer.'"
- Page Six
It's Tiny's turn to shine in a new book by David Levithan
“If you couldn’t get enough of big gay hero Tiny Cooper in “Will Grayson, Will Grayson,” then gird your loins and warm up your vocal chords: He’s back, in an amazing musical companion novel! “Hold Me Closer: The Tiny Cooper Story” is David Levithan’s own enthusiastic followup to the book he co-wrote with John Green, in which Tiny gets his long-awaited and much-deserved turn in the spotlight. And while it won’t be on shelves until March 2015, we’ve got an exclusive first peek at its beautiful cover, which is decorated with some very holiday season-appropriate sparkle.
MTV News got in touch with Levithan to get some scoop about the “Tiny Cooper” cover, and the story behind it.”
– MTV News
We Are Not Ourselves is one of Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year
“Ten years in the making, Thomas' epic debut traces three generations of Irish-Americans living in New York, all driven by the goal of doing better than their parents—and making sure their children do better than they have. It's a wrenching meditation on the limits of the American dream for immigrants and the working class during the 20th century. But it's also just a gripping family drama. Be prepared to ugly-cry at the end.”
– Entertainment Weekly
See Entertainment Weekly’s 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year.
Akhil Sharma’s Family Life is one The New York Times 10 Best Books of The Year
“Sharma’s austere but moving novel tells the semi-autobiographical story of a family that immigrates from India to Queens, and has just begun to build a new life when the elder son suffers severe brain damage in a swimming pool accident. Deeply unnerving and gorgeously tender, the book chronicles how grief renders the parents unable to cherish and raise their other son; love, it suggests, becomes warped and jagged and even seemingly vanishes in the midst of mourning.”
– New York Times
Ottessa Moshfegh has a short story in the new issue of The Paris Review
Slumming
By Ottessa Moshfegh
“Half a dozen years had passed since that first summer in Alna, and almost nothing had changed. The town was still full of young people crashing junk cars, dirty diapers littering the parking lots. There were x-ed–out smiley faces spray-painted over street signs, on the soaped-up windows of empty storefronts, all over the boarded-up Dairy Queen long since blackened by fire and warped by rain. And the zombies, of course, still inhabited Alna’s shadowy, empty hilltop downtown. They slumped on the curb nodding, or else they rifled through dumpsters for things to fix or sell. I often saw them speed-walking up and down the slopes of Main Street with toasters or TV sets under their arms, ghost faces smeared with Alna’s dirt, leaving a trail of garbage in their wake. If they ever left Alna, cleaned up, shipped out, the magic of the place would vanish. Monday, Wednesday, Friday—I figured three times a week was a sane frequency—I visited that bus-depot restroom, my ten-dollar bill at the ready.”
Read the full story at The Paris Review.
Congrats Rivka, Matt, Akhil and Zach!
We’re happy to see that Rivka Galchen, Matthew Thomas, Akhil Sharma, and Zachary Lazar all made The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2014.
See the complete New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2014 list.
