Like Rip Van Winkle returning to his hometown to find that all has changed, Nathan Zuckerman comes back to New York, the city he left eleven years before. Alone on his New England mountain, Zuckerman has been nothing but a writer: no voices, no media, no terrorist threats, no women, no news, no tasks other than his work and the enduring of old age. Walking the streets like a revenant, he quickly makes three connections that explode his carefully...

First published in 1928, Aldous Huxley's "Point Counter Point" draws its name from the back and forth exchange that occurs during a debate. In a similar way Huxley presents a series of interconnected storylines centered on the various characters of the novel. There is Walter Bidlake, a young journalist who is caught between two love interests. Walter's father, John, is a famous painter whose skill and health is in decline. John's daughter, Elinor,...

"Andrew J. Rush has achieved the kind of critical and commercial success most authors only dream about: He has a top agent and publisher in New York, and his twenty-eight mystery novels have sold millions of copies around the world. He also has a loving wife and three grown children and is highly respected as a philanthropist in his small New Jersey town. Only Stephen King, one of the few mystery writers whose fame exceeds his own, is capable of inspiring...

"When celebrated writer Alma Cruz inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, she turns it into a place to bury her untold stories--literally. She creates a graveyard for manuscript drafts and revisions and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her. Alma wants her characters to rest in peace, but they have other ideas, and the cemetery becomes a mysterious sanctuary for their true narratives."...

Writer Lucas Yoder, editor Shirley Marmelstein, critic and would-be author Karl Streibert, and reader Jane Garland, who treasures the written word, play key roles in a study of the people who create, publish, critique, and enjoy books.

"Rachel Rubenstein-Goldblatt is a nice Jewish girl with a shameful secret: she loves Christmas. For a decade she's hidden her career as a Christmas romance novelist from her family. Her talent has made her a bestseller even as her chronic illness has always kept the kind of love she writes about out of reach. But when her diversity-conscious publisher insists she write a Hanukkah romance, her well of inspiration suddenly runs dry. Hanukkah's not magical....

A tale inspired by the life of Herman Melville finds the aging author's wife witnessing his descent into alcoholism and obscurity in the decades after the failure of "Moby Dick," a work of creative genius shaped by memories of youthful seafaring adventures.

While helping a famous visiting novelist with a problem, New England English professor Karen Pelletier learns her client is accused of stealing a priceless manuscript from the library and murdering a thief, and must work to help her clear her name.