Jane Ciabattari
Jane Ciabattari is the author of the short-story collections Stealing The Fireand California Tales. Her reviews, interviews, and cultural reporting have appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Daily Beast, the Paris Review, the Boston Globe, The Guardian, Bookforum, Chicago Tribune, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and BBC.comamong others. She is a current vice president/online and former president of the National Book Critics Circle.
Person Page
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In her debut novel, Swamplandia!, Karen Russell tells a fantastical story of a gator-theme-park-owning family trying to make ends meet in the lush (and dangerous) Florida swamplands.
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Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts' memoir of essays explores Harlem's current gentrifying transformation in relation to the Harlem Renaissance as chronicled by James Baldwin, Jean Toomer and other literary greats.
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Charles Baxter is a genius of the quotidian. From his earliest stories on, he has shown a gift for illuminating the surreal just below the surface of daily life. -
In his lyrical new novel, Brooklyn's Paul Auster tracks a disaffected young man's wanderings through the outer boroughs, and his struggles with loss, estranged family and the Great Recession. -
In Myla Goldberg's The False Friend, a woman revisits her hometown to atone for a crime that no one remembers. Ten years after Bee Season, Goldberg's compelling new novel examines the nature of childhood trauma, and just how subjective memories can be. -
In Antonya Nelson's provocative novel Bound, the lives of two high school best friends tragically collide after years of estrangement. Nelson's prose captures the clamor of 21st century life, and the ways in which friends obligate, abuse and occasionally rescue each other. -
Yiyun Li's lyrical and elegant short stories explore loneliness in modern China. Born in Beijing in 1972, Li focuses with great empathy on older generations who survived the chaos and personal disruptions of the Cultural Revolution. -
Mona Simpson's new novel focuses on a group of wealthy Santa Monica mothers — juggling families, jobs and packed social calendars — and their immigrant nannies, who make it all work. Critic Jane Ciabattari says the novel is a resonant and timely observation about the gap between Hollywood's haves and have-nots. -
In his dense, provocative and often hilarious ninth book, Rick Moody takes a sly, Swiftian approach to sci-fi, serving up a goofy B-movie-style space opera. Critic Jane Ciabattari says it's satire with a sobering aftertaste. -
Bestsellerdom doesn't necessarily bring with it a promise of quality, so we've hand-selected five titles from the NPR Bestseller List: an acutely observed first novel with satiric punch, three works of fiction from established authors at the top of their game, and a startlingly powerful science thriller from a nonfiction newcomer.
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The characters in Aimee Bender's latest novel could be modern-day descendants of J.D. Salinger's Glass family. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake tells the story of Rose, a precocious young girl with a blessing — and a curse: She can taste the emotions of those who cook her food. -
Private Life, the new novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jane Smiley, centers around the marriage between a small-town girl and an eccentric astronomer in the first years of the 20th century.
