Shilpi Somaya Gowda
At every stage of life, since being a kid with a flashlight under the covers, reading has always been my favorite activity. More
Blonde
A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. More
The Shipping News
Highly acclaimed international bestseller; winner of both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award. More
People of the Book
Winner of the Australian Book Industry Awards Book of the Year 2008. More
The 42nd Parallel
The first volume of the “brilliantly original” (Alfred Kazan) U.S.A. trilogy, a landmark of modernism. More
Candy package with Timothy Findley’s plans for his novella You Went Away
Canadian author Timothy Findley’s only novella, You Went Away (1996), was based on his parents’ marriage. More
The Corrections
Winner of the National Book Award in 2001 and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in 2002. More
The Bridge of San Luis Rey
The Pulitzer Prize–winning novel of fate, tragedy, and the meaning of the human condition. More
Room
Winner of the 2011 Commonwealth Writers’ Prize regional prize; made into a major motion picture. More
Michael Chabon
The first writer that I really fell in love with was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in particular his Sherlock Holmes stories, and the first story that I ever wrote was a Sherlock Holmes story. More
Matt Haig
It sounds ridiculous, but reading saved my life. More
T. C. Boyle
I read in the way that I breathe, as a necessity of life. More
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Kundera’s postmodern masterwork; named one of the best books of 1984 (New York Times Book Review). More
The Known World
The Pulitzer Prize–winning novel that examines the troubling complexities of slavery. More
The Book of Negroes
A milestone in Canada’s understanding of black history and one of the bestselling books in Canadian publishing history. More
Pilgrim
A finalist for the Giller Prize and a Canadian bestseller that surpassed the author’s own impressive sales records. More
Our Town
Pulitzer Prize–winning drama; hailed by Edward Albee as “The finest play ever written by an American.” More
Cigarette packet with Timothy Findley’s handwritten book proposal for Pilgrim
While at lunch with his editor, Iris Tupholme, Canadian author Timothy Findley reached into his pocket to read from a note that he had written on the inside flap of his cigarette package. More
The Stone Diaries
Winner of the 1993 Governor General’s Award (Canada) and the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. More
The Poisonwood Bible
Pulitzer Prize finalist and runaway bestseller. More
Bel Canto
Patchett’s critically acclaimed novel that won the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction. More
Lionel Shriver
Why I write: To find out what I think. More
Barometer Rising
The first novel by MacLennan, one of Canada’s most significant novelists of the mid-twentieth century. More
Original proposal for Lawrence Hill’s The Book of Negroes
Lawrence Hill’s agent, Janet Turnbull Irving, submitted this one-page summary for his as yet unwritten novel Migration to HarperCollins Canada Editor-in-Chief Iris Tupholme in 1998. More
Rosemary Sullivan
I write out of compulsion. “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner,” as Alan Sillitoe remarked—the exhilaration and discipline of the run; the finish line unknown until you get there. More
Lawrence Hill
Writing is the one pursuit I have always pursued, and always known I was compelled to pursue. More
One Hundred Years of Solitude
This landmark of magical realism sparked a wave of interest in Central and South American literature. More