Bomb Magazine: Speak Fiction and Poetry! : The Best of Bomb Magazine's Interviews With Writers (Betsy Sussler, Editor). Now in paperback - a must read guide to many terrific contemporary literary fiction writers.

Chekhov, Anton: The Undiscovered Chekhov (38 New Stories). Newly found short stories from his youth, including "On Mortality" and "Indigestion." Many are quite good.

Ellison, Ralph: Juneteenth (Random House). It's been 40 years since this author's last novel, The Invisible Man. His latest beautifully mythologizes June 19, 1865, the day the union troops landed at Galveston, Texas, bringing the news of Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, two and a half years after the event.

Flannery, Tim: Throwim Way Leg (Grove/ Atlantic). A scientist writes of the wonders he found in New Guinea and the dangers its primitive peoples face from civilization. Non-fiction.

Gowdy, Barbara: The White Bone (Henry Holt & Co.). Told from the point of view of Young Mud, an elephant. "Pretty amazing" – Amy Hempel

Grand, David: Louse (Arcade). Remarkable first novel on Louse, a man working for a Howard Hughes-like character. Darkly comic, thrilling, yet reflects somewhat on theology. Reminiscent of Orwell's 1984 or Niccol's Gattaca.

Keegan, John: The First World War (Knopf). Another brilliant book from the award-winning author of The Second World War. Wonderfully readable scholarly description of the first Great War. Non-fiction.

Lesser, Wendy: The Amateur: An Independent Life of Letters (Pantheon). Extraordinary essays by the founder and editor of The Threepenny Review.

Lish, Gordon: Arcade or How to Write a Novel (Four Walls). Lish fans -it's his best work yet! Describes in true Lish fashion his quick journey from childhood to aging novelist.

Mason, Bobbie Anne: Clear Springs: A Memoir (Random House). The story of this award winning writer's family in Clear Springs, Kentucky.

Merwin, W.S.: The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative in Verse (Knopf). Thrilling story, in verse, about 19th century Hawaii. Sense of place is astounding.

Munro, Alice: The Love of a Good Woman (Knopf). Her latest set of stories.

Packer, George: Central Square (Graywolf). Author of Village of Waiting. Writing reminiscent of Dostoevsky and Graham Greene. Set in Boston; best book on modern urban community I've ever read. 

Parks, Tim: Europa (Arcade). Shortlisted for 1997 Booker Prize, savage, comic tale about a middle-aged academic and his obsessive romantic life.

Phillips, Dale Ray: My People’s Waltz (WW Norton). Debut collection. "Intense, fresh, ragged life." – Barry Hannah

Pound, Ezra and Dorothy: Letters in Captivity, 1945 - 1946 (Oxford University, ed. by O. Pound and R. Spoo). Documents Pound’s years of imprisonment in Italy then in Washington. Non-fiction.

Stark, Marisa Kantor: Bring Us the Old People (Coffee House). Praised by Russell Banks, this author's first novel is about a woman in NYC nursing home who's haunted by her upbringing in Nazi Poland.

Wiesel, Elie: The Testament (Pantheon). Story of a fictional poet, Paltiel Kossover, who was executed on August 15, 1952, when Russia's greatest Jewish writers were secretly executed by Stalin, but not before leaving us this written testament.

White, Bailey: Quite a Year For Plums (Vintage). Hysterically funny stories from Georgian whose commentaries on NPR have made her famous.

Wright, Charles: Appalachia (FSG). New collection of poems.