Don DeLillo's latest offering, Point Omega, is perhaps the best thing he's written since White Noise, and certainly one of the most thought provoking works that you are likely to read this year. DeLillo has always been a master of weaving seemingly disparate subjects into the same tapestry, but in this weird and haunting tale he has exceeded his own high standard, and achieved a personal best. Read more.

_{Photo credit: Simon & Schuster}

Point Omega by Don DeLillo originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Monday, March 15th, 2010 at 09:39:36.

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The University of Texas' Harry Ransom Centre has acquired David Foster Wallace's writing archive and will make this material available for public viewing autumn of this year.

Included in the archive are draft manuscripts, college and graduate school writings, hand-edited stories and essays, and, according to this Guardian article, an early childhood poem:

"This last, 'Viking Poem', was composed at around the age of six, and shows Wallace experimenting with his signature as well as revealing early signs of the acute comic sensibility that would mark his later work. ('If you were to see a viking today" the poem advises, "It's best you should go some other way / because they'd kill you very well / and all your gold they'd certainly sell / For all these reasons stay away'.)"

Read more from The Guardian.

David Foster Wallace Biography

Books by David Foster Wallace

The David Foster Wallace Archive Opens This Fall originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 08:29:45.

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Sarah Blake's The Postmistress is composed of intertwined stories of three woman during World War II - a Cape Cod postmistress, a radio gal in London, and a young bride who awaits her husband's return from the war. Read review.

_{Photo credit: Putnam}

The Postmistress by Sarah Blake originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Monday, March 8th, 2010 at 09:38:50.

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You've been keeping it to yourself, haven't you? This haven of yours, this maze of wooden shelves and tables piled high with books. It's musty with paper, or perhaps it smells wonderfully of cappucino. Large, highbacked chairs or wooden stools crammed in narrow aisles. Whatever it is, you love going there and this bookseller loves having you as a patron.

Share the love! Tell us about the bookstore in your town. A few readers already have, but we want more - we want yours! Visit My Favorite Indie Bookstore and invite us in.

Tell Us About Your Local Bookstore originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010 at 14:04:57.

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Jasper Fforde may just be my new ffavorite author. He makes my job easy and enjoyable and perhaps even entirely unnecessary. You don't actually have to continue reading this review, really. If you are at all disposed to dystopian and decidedly satirical coming-of-age steampunk, with a healthy dose of Monty Pythonesque laughs, you may skip all this and run out to get a copy of Shades of Grey immediately.

^{Photo credit: Penguin}

Shades of Grey by Jasper Fforde originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 09:33:00.

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Nearly 350 novels and short story collections were considered in selecting the five finalists for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the $15k literary prize established by William Faulkner. The five works in the short list were:

• A Gate at the Stairs by Lorrie Moore
• Homicide Survivors Picnic by Lorraine López
• The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
• Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
• War Dances (short stories) by Sherman Alexie

The winner will be announced on March 23. Read more from the PEN/Faulkner Foundation.

Previous PEN/Faulkner Award winners.

PEN/Faulkner Finalists Announced originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Wednesday, February 24th, 2010 at 12:14:45.

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The most compelling reason to read a novel is that it has a story that clutches the reader. The story, whether it is a murder mystery or love story, must have dramatic tension. The characters must move the reader with love or loathing; there is no in between. The tempo at which the story unfolds must fit. Elizabeth Kostova (The Historian) has met each of these criteria in her newest novel, The Swan Thieves.

^{Photo credit: Little, Brown & Co.}

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Monday, February 22nd, 2010 at 09:22:29.

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Today, First Second Books launches Zahra's Paradise, a serialized web comic about the search for Mehdi, a young man who has disappeared during Iran's 2009 election protests. The comic's creators, an Iranian-American human rights activist and a fine artist, go by the names Amir and Khalil, and they use Mehdi's story to explore social, political and human rights issues in Iran.

Zahra's Paradise appears in multiple languages and will be updated each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

_{Image courtesy of First Second Books}

Web Comic Depicts Iranian Election Protests originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Friday, February 19th, 2010 at 11:42:50.

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NPR's Three Minute Fiction - a contest in which NPR listeners can submit a story that can be read in three minutes (think 600 words) or less - is happening right now.

In this third incarnation of Three Minute Fiction, entrants are asked to submit a story inspired by this photograph on or before February 28.

Stories will be judged by NPR book critic, Alan Cheuse with help from authors at the Iowa Writers workshop. The winning story will be read on-air during All Things Considered weekend, and the story's author will be interviewed by host Guy Raz.

The photo, form, rules, and everything else you need is at www.npr.org/threeminutefiction. Get writing!

NPR's Three Minute Fiction Contest originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 08:42:51.

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In Committed, Elizabeth Gilbert - author of the self-described "megajumbo international best seller" Eat, Pray, Love (2006) - spends a year exploring the Western marriage tradition by delving into topics such as history, feminism, autonomy, and expectation. Read more.

_{Photo credit: Viking}

Committed by Elizabeth Gilbert originally appeared on About.com Contemporary Literature on Monday, February 15th, 2010 at 09:24:42.

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