John Hoyer Updike was an American novelist, poet, short-story writer, art critic, and literary critic. One of only three writers to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction more than once, Updike published more than twenty novels, more than a dozen short-story collections, as well as poetry, art and literary criticism and children's books during his career.
Sir Kingsley William Amis, CBE was an English novelist, poet, critic, and teacher. He wrote more than 20 novels, six volumes of poetry, a memoir, various short stories, radio and television scripts, along with works of social and literary criticism. According to his biographer, Zachary Leader, Amis was "the finest English comic novelist of the second half of the twentieth century." He is the father of British novelist Martin Amis. In 2008, The Times ranked him ninth on a list of the 50 greatest British writers since 1945.
Saul Bellow was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only writer to win the National Book Award for Fiction three times and he received the National Book Foundation's lifetime Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters in 1990.
The idea of the Great American Novel is the concept of a novel of high literary merit that shows the culture of the United States at a specific time in the country's history. The novel is presumably written by an American author who is knowledgeable about the state, culture, and perspective of the common United States citizen. The author uses the literary work to identify and exhibit the language used by the people of the U.S. during that time and to capture the unique experience of living in the U.S. or one part of the U.S., especially at that time. In historical terms, it is sometimes equated as being the U.S. response to the national epic.
James Douglas Graham Wood is an English literary critic, essayist and novelist.
The Original of Laura is an incomplete novel by Vladimir Nabokov, which he was writing at the time of his death in 1977. It was finally published, after 30 years of private debate, on November 17, 2009. Nabokov had requested that the work be destroyed upon his death, but his family hesitated to carry out his wish to destroy an incomplete but perhaps important literary work. Over the next years its contents were viewed only by Nabokov's son, wife, and a few scholars.
The Harvard Advocate, the art and literary magazine of Harvard College, is the oldest continuously published college art and literary magazine in the United States. The magazine was founded by Charles S. Gage and William G. Peckham in 1866 and, except for a hiatus during the last years of World War II, has published continuously since then. In 1916, The New York Times published a commemoration of the Advocate's fiftieth anniversary. Fifty years after that, Donald Hall wrote in The New York Times Book Review that "In the world of the college – where every generation is born, grows old and dies in four years – it is rare for an institution to survive a decade, much less a century. Yet the Harvard Advocate, the venerable undergraduate literary magazine, celebrated its centennial this month." Its current offices are a two-story wood-frame house at 21 South Street, near Harvard Square and the University campus.
Thomas Mallon is an American novelist, essayist, and critic. His novels are renowned for their attention to historical detail and context and for the author's crisp wit and interest in the "bystanders" to larger historical events. He is the author of nine books of fiction, including Henry and Clara, Two Moons, Dewey Defeats Truman, Aurora 7, Bandbox, Fellow Travelers, Watergate, and most recently Finale. He has also published nonfiction on plagiarism, diaries, letters and the Kennedy assassination, as well as two volumes of essays.
Susann Cokal is an American author and academic. She is best known for having written the novels The Kingdom of Little Wounds, Mirabilis, and Breath and Bones, along with short stories, literary and pop-culture criticism, and book reviews. The Kingdom of Little Wounds won a Printz silver medal from the American Library Association in 2014. Cokal contributed short stories to anthologies and journals including Prairie Schooner, Hayden's Ferry Review, Bellevue Literary Review, The Cincinnati Review, and Ohio State University's The Journal. She also contributed essays about contemporary writers to Critique, Scandinavian Studies, Texas Studies in Literature and Language, Style, Broad Street Magazine, and The Centennial Review. She has reviewed almost four dozen books for the New York Times Book Review and has contributed reviews and essays to numerous other reviewing organs.
Stacy Madeleine Schiff is an American nonfiction author. She was formerly a guest columnist for The New York Times. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Brad Gooch has called her "perhaps the most seductive writer of nonfiction prose in America in our time."
James Kaplan is an American novelist, journalist, and biographer.
Bookforum is an American book review magazine devoted to books and the discussion of literature. Based in New York City, New York, it comes out in February, April, June, September, and December.
Diana Trilling was an American literary critic and author, one of the New York Intellectuals.
The War Against Cliché (2001) is an anthology of essays, book reviews and literary criticism from the British author Martin Amis. The collection received the National Book Critics Circle award in 2001.
Einstein's Monsters (1987) is a collection of short stories by British writer Martin Amis. Each of the five stories deals with the subject of nuclear weapons.
Arguably: Essays is a 2011 book by Christopher Hitchens, comprising 107 essays on a variety of political and cultural topics. These essays were previously published in The Atlantic, City Journal, Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, Newsweek, New Statesman, The New York Times Book Review, Slate, Times Literary Supplement, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The Wilson Quarterly, and Vanity Fair. Arguably also includes introductions that Hitchens wrote for new editions of several classic texts, such as Animal Farm and Our Man in Havana. Critics' reviews of the collection were largely positive.
Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont is a novel by Elizabeth Taylor. First published in 1971, it was her eleventh novel. It was shortlisted for the 1971 Booker Prize. The novel was adapted for television in 1973 and was the basis for a 2005 film, also called Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont.
