Gregory Cowles

An editor recommends old and new books.

The American writer, who won a Nobel Prize in 2020, wrote with cool clarity and often puckish wit.

An editor recommends Lorrie Moore’s “Birds of America” and Mary Webb’s “Precious Bane”

The Nobel laureate’s “Small Memories” is a mix of peasant life, boyhood adventure and wide-eyed wonder.

Carl Sandburg’s boyhood; Carolyn Forché’s political awakening.

The Nobel Prize-winning author specialized in exacting short stories that were novelistic in scope, spanning decades with intimacy and precision.

Our poetry editor recommends collections that revel in nature, family life, hard work and language.

His fascination with terrorism, cults and mass culture’s weirder turns has given his work a prophetic air. Here’s where to start.

It’s been described as embarrassing, clichéd or “unhelpful singsong.” Many poets dislike it too, but it’s a style they’ve learned from each other.

“We the People,” by Jill Lepore, won the history prize, and Daniel Kraus received the fiction prize for “Angel Down.”