Author Interview

Q: Some readers of The Palace of Illusions will be encountering the Mahabharat for the first time. Please explain exactly what it is and what significance it has in Indian culture. Are there any analogous texts in Western literature?

Chitra: The Mahabharat is an ancient Indian epic, similar to Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey. It is a very famous story. Most people in India, even those who cannot read or write, would know this story of a great war because it is passed on orally from generation to generation. Like the Iliad, the Mahabharat has literally hundreds of characters and tells the complicated, fascinating story of a great war. One of my challenges was to be true to the original story while changing the focus and the significance of actions and characters, to suggest different motives, and to create intimate moments to give us a whole different understanding of Panchaali’s character. (more…)

Praise for three-time New York Times bestselling author Leigh Montville’s latest book The Mysterious Montague:

“an entertaining read for the golf lit completist…” —Publishers Weekly

Leigh Montville “…hits the pin in one with this page-turning account of a long-forgotten golfer…Explaining why reporters loved to write about Montague, the author declares, ‘Intrigue is a better seller than great golf any day.’ Here, he gives readers both.” —Kirkus, starred review.

Click here to learn more about The Great Derangement. In stores now

Meet Matt Taibbi - View the complete event schedule.

Read reviews of The Great Derangement at DailyKos, Time Out New York, and the
Los Angeles Times.

Click here to learn more about Clapton. In stores now

Visit Eric Clapton’s website.

Click here to learn more about Buyology, coming Sept. 2008

Visit Martin Lindstrom’s website.

A number-one bestseller from one of Britain’s most popular novelists, Sheer Abandon is an all-consuming story revolving around the consequences of a desperate act…Here are some questions for discussion.

1. We join Martha, Jocasta, and Clio at Heathrow Airport a year before a baby is born to, and abandoned by, one of them. And then get to know them a little better in the early chapters. Purely on the basis of their personalities, which of them seemed the most likely to have done something so shocking and wretched; and why?
2. Did you guess correctly? Did you spot the qualities that made such a course of action possible? And if you were wrong, what specific things misled you?
3. Did you sympathise with the woman who abandoned her baby? What would drive someone to such desperate actions? Can you imagine a situation or a time in your life when you might have done something equally devastating? Can anyone (mother or child) ever recover from such an event? (more…)

Rolling Stones tribute band The Stoney Rollers played to a packed house at Arlene’s Grocery in NYC’s Lower East Side to celebrate the launch of Steve Kurutz’s new book Like a Rolling Stone — The Strange Life of a Tribute Band.

Learn more about the book here.

Visit Steve’s blog here. Make sure to read his post on the launch party.

Read a review of the book in the LA Times.

Photographs by Maryanne Ventrice. More photographs can be seen at Doubleday’s Flickr page.

Click here to learn more about Escape.

Watch Carolyn Jessop on Good Morning America discuss the authorities’ decision to place more than 400 children from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in protective custody in Texas.