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In this video, Book Riot offers six recommendations for books that feature refugees including Girl at War (Random House, 2015) by Sara Nović, Inside Out and Back Again (Harper, 2011) by Thanhha Lai, and Exit West (Riverhead Books, 2017) by Mohsin Hamid.
“For me, books are the things that tell you what you need to do in life and they’re also the things that help you make sense of your life.” Will Schwalbe, author of Books for Living (Knopf, 2016), speaks with PBS NewsHour’s Jeffrey Brown about the importance of reading and the books that have taught him life lessons such as Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), James Baldwin’s Giovanni’s Room (Dial Press, 1956), and Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon (Knopf, 1977).
The Handmaiden, directed by Park Chan-wook, is a South Korean film adaptation of Sarah Waters’s crime novel Fingersmith (Riverhead Books, 2002). The film, which premiered at the 2016 Cannes Film Festival, transfers the setting of the Victorian era story—about an orphaned pickpocket hired to pose as a maid for a wealthy heiress—to Korea under Japanese colonial rule in the 1930s.
“It took me a very long time to learn how to write about Colombia.” At the 2015 National Book Festival, Juan Gabriel Vásquez speaks with PBS NewHour’s Jeffrey Brown about his literary influences and journey to write stories about Colombia, where he was born. Vásquez’s fourth novel, Reputations (Riverhead Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the September/October issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
“This is my house—it doesn't have any curtains and half the time half the door is open, that's true.” Claire-Louise Bennett reads from her debut book, Pond (Riverhead Books, 2016), which is featured in “First Fiction 2016: Nine More Notable Debuts” in the July/August issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
The feature film adaptation of British author Paula Hawkins's best-selling thriller, The Girl on the Train (Riverhead Books, 2015), relocates the novel from London to New York and follows a woman who becomes entangled in a mystery. Directed by Tate Taylor with a screenplay by Erin Cressida Wilson, the film stars Emily Blunt, Haley Bennett, Justin Theroux, Luke Evans, Allison Janney, and Laura Prepon.
"A few years ago, God gave me a birthday present. Joey McIntyre was coming to Madison, Wisconsin, four days before my twenty-seventh birthday." Listen to Emma Straub read her essay "Teenage Dream" for the Franklin Park Reading Series. Her new novel, Modern Lovers (Riverhead Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the May/June issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
"I didn't know what I was doing, I wasn't very good at it, but I just couldn't stop doing it. I still can't." Manuel Gonzales talks about the writing life in this episode of City of Asylum Pittsburgh's the Writer's Block. Gonzales's debut novel, The Regional Office Is Under Attack! (Riverhead Books, 2016), will be released in April.
"To the naked eye Boudicca is a haze of noxious green that lurks among fronds of seaweed looking exactly like the aftermath of a chemical spill." Helen Oyeyemi reads her short story "'Sorry' Doesn't Sweeten Her Tea" at the British Council Literature Seminar in Berlin. Oyeyemi's collection of stories, What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours (Riverhead Books, 2016), is featured in Page One in the March/April issue of Poets & Writers Magazine.
Tsitsiqui Apantzequa Chanaqua, a word in the Purépecha language found in Álvaro Enrigue's new novel, Sudden Death (Riverhead Books, 2016), translated from the Spanish by Natasha Wimmer, refers to "a game played with roses as if with balls." Several attempts are made to pronounce the term correctly, before Enrigue himself steps in.
