Book by Book

By Jessica Teisch

The National Book Award-winning author writes his first "American" novel.

By Rob Tocalino

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Thus opens Pride and Prejudice (1813), Jane Austen’s beloved novel about class, manners, and social mores in Georgian England. Nearly two centuries after her death, Austen (1775-1817), who published six novels anonymously as "A Lady," remains one of our most revered writers.

Richard Russo sets his latest novel in Thomaston, New York, where the defunct tannery, once the lifeblood of the blue-collar town, has poisoned the river and its citizenry. Lou C. "Lucy" Lynch and his wife, Sarah, who inherited the family’s convenience store and slowly moved up the social ladder, are preparing for a trip to Italy.