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“What one carries from one point to another, geographically or temporally, is one’s self.” Yiyun Li reads from her debut memoir, Dear Friend, From My Life I Write to You in Your Life (Random House, 2017), in this video produced by the Office of Communications at Princeton University. Li, whose novel Where Reasons End is forthcoming from Random House in February, is featured in “Portraits of Inspiration” in the January/February issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“This is a great one to give—it’s the sort of thing you can keep in the loo at Christmas when you’ve eaten too much food.” Jeanette Winterson reveals some of her favorite books for the holiday season, including The Trouble With Women (Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2016) by cartoonist Jacky Fleming, Tara Westover’s Educated: A Memoir (Random House, 2018), and her own collection of winter tales and festive recipes, Christmas Days: 12 Stories and 12 Feasts for 12 Days (Grove Press, 2016).
“If you’ve never read my work before, then I would hope when you read it, that you felt the way you did when you were a kid, that you felt a sense of wonder.” Kelly Link, a 2018 MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship recipient, talks about her literary influences and why she incorporates the fantastic into stories of contemporary life.
In this humorous video, Gary Shteyngart receives dubious feedback on his fourth novel, Lake Success (Random House, 2018), from “Sean, the World’s Worst Editor,” which includes inserting a laugh track into the book, holding book signings in an actual lake, and changing Shteyngart’s last name. Lake Success is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“Jeff Park’s living room was as palatial as the entrance to a modest New York museum.” Gary Shteyngart reads an excerpt from his fourth novel, Lake Success (Random House, 2018), at the University of Washington’s Stroum Center for Jewish Studies. Lake Success is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Bill Gates shares his annual summer reading list, which includes Walter Isaacson’s biography Leonardo da Vinci (Simon & Schuster, 2017) and George Saunders’s novel, Lincoln in the Bardo (Random House, 2017).
Marie Arana, literary advisor at the Library of Congress, presents a video tribute of the late Denis Johnson, who was awarded the 2017 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Johnson’s second story collection, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden (Random House, 2018), is featured in Page One in the January/February 2018 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The Alienist (Random House, 1994), Caleb Carr’s historical suspense novel, has been adapted into a television series. The series stars Daniel Brühl, Luke Evans, and Dakota Fanning, and follows an investigative duo using innovative forensic science techniques to solve a serial murder crime in nineteenth-century New York City.
“The whole engine to my writing is always to try and understand what it feels like to be another person…” Elizabeth Strout, author of Anything Is Possible (Random House, 2017), talks to Mary Laura Philpott of A Word on Words about her attempt at stand-up comedy and what inspires her to write.
“I became a writer once I realized no one liked my stuff. I just had no choice but to keep going and start a new novel.” In an interview for Louisiana Channel, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Colson Whitehead talks about how rejections of his first manuscript pushed him forward to pursue writing and why he enjoys exploring different genres.
![The Alienist [OFFICIAL TRAILER] | TNT](https://www.pw.org/files/styles/video_thumb_medium/public/media-oembed/i.ytimg.com/vi/JcJQnaXiCfI/hqdefault.jpg?itok=6nfDtfbo)
