Date: 2004 Author: Julie Hecht An accomplished cynic, Hecht is also deeply gratifying writer. She reaches “dark funny” in a…

Date: 2006 Author: John Follian The strength of Follian’s book is also its weakness: choice of characters. He narrates the…

Date: 1991 (2000) Author: Bret Easton Ellis This hideously cruel novel is also wickedly lucid. What Ellis accomplishes is rare…

Date: 1996 Author: Richard Ford Deep into Ford’s second Frank Bascombe saga, the now mid-40-something narrator sees parachute jumpers as…

Date: 1999 (2002) Author: Amélie Nothomb, translated from the French by Adriana Hunter What gets lost in the enfant terrible accolades that…

Date: 2005 Author: James Salter The underrated James Salter (born James Horowitz) is among the great American prose stylists of…

Date: 1982 (2005) Author: Kazuo Ishiguro Ishiguro’s debut novel is all pastels and light pencil. Melancholy Etsuko, who lives in…

Date: 2004 Author: Lorraine Adams It’s hard to imagine a more insightful book about terrorism than Adams’ novel (including Ian…

Date: 1987 (2001) Author: Ryszard Kapuscinski, translated from the Polish by William R. Brand and Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand It’s always in…

Date: 2001 Author: Lydia Davis Here’s a line from the Davis story “Our Trip”: “…you certainly can’t tell anyone the…

Date: 2005 Author: James Salter Salter’s method is painstaking. It’s one flawless sentence after another. From twigs, he make carpets…

Date: 1997 (2006) Author: Ryu Murakami, translated from the Japanese by Charles McCarthy Serial killer tales are a dime a…