BOOKS I'VE BOUGHT RECENTLY ...

Writing with Intent: Essays, Reviews, Personal Prose, 1983-2005 (published as Curious Pursuits: Occasional Writing in the U.K.) (2005) / Margaret Atwood
A fine collection of nonfiction by the Canadian writer, where she talks about herself and literature. Some of her best writing in this collection come in the shape of memoirs: Atwood’s childhood reading tastes, her first encounter with Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse and the highlights of her first European trip back in the early 1960s. A worthwhile collection to have and to savour.



You Remind Me of Me (2004) / Dan Chaon
A fine piece of writing from short-story writer Dan Chaon. A compelling first novel, You Remind Me of Me has a great beginning and it is full of humanity in all its beauty and flaws.












Specimen Days (2005) / Michael Cunningham
Three intertwined novellas connected by Walt Whitman and the same trio of characters in three different eras and genres. A strange hybrid of an animal, but it is ambitious and courageous. Cunningham is a gifted storyteller with a spare, incisive and lyrical prose style.

26a (2005) / Diana Evans

Bibliography
CHAON Dan [1964-] Short-story writer, novelist. Born in Sidney, Nebraska, U.S. NOVEL You Remind Me of Me (2004) STORIES Among the Missing (2001: shortlisted for the 2001 National Book Award for Fiction); Fitting Ends and Other Stories (1996)

CUNNINGHAM Michael [1952-] Novelist. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. NOVELS Specimen Days (2005); The Hours (1998: winner of the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the 1999 Pen/Faulkner Award for Fiction; shortlisted for the 2000 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award); Flesh and Blood (1995); A Home at the End of the World (1990); Golden States (1984) TRAVEL Land’s End: A Walk Through Provincetown (2002)

EVANS Diana [1972-] Novelist. Born in London, England, U.K. NOVEL 26a (2005: winner of the 2005 Orange Award for New Writers)