Dear Giller Shortlist, Oh, how I used to wait for your five names. Before readers could tweet about you, I camped on your webpage and, with a book in hand, pounded the refresh button religiously with every page turn. (My tech-minded fella told me it could be harmful to strike
Richard B. Wright's Mr. Shakespeare's Bastard Phyllis Bruce - Harper Collins, 2010 I was so annoyed with myself as a reader for not properly appreciating Richard Wright's October; I knew it was very well-done and it was simply my preternatural attachment to his earlier novel, Clara Callan, that interfered with
Sara Gruen's Ape House Bond Street Books, 2010 Reasons I read Water for Elephants: 1. I got tired of saying "No, I haven't, yet", when countless people -- with all kinds of reading prefereces between them -- asked me if I'd read it. 2. I love elephants (and books about
Michael Winter's This All Happened: A Fictional Memoir House of Anansi, 2000 Gabriel English was also the protagonist of Michael Winter's short story collection One Last Good Look. I realized this after I had finished this novel and felt a little badly. As though I'd arrived significantly late for an
David Bezmozgis "The Train of Their Departure" The New Yorker Fiction: 20 Under 40 August 9, 2010 issue It was the inclusion of names like David Bezmosgis' in The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 list that got me keen on reading the series as a whole. I absolutely loved his
