Dear Reader,
For more than twenty years, the Discover Great New Writers program has introduced readers to extraordinary literary talents, many of whom have gone on to become perennial bestsellers as well as win Pulitzers and National Book Awards, among other prizes.
Jeffrey Eugenides, Elizabeth Gilbert, Andre Dubus III, Khaled Hosseini, Kathryn Stockett, Jhumpa Lahiri, Jonathan Franzen, Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz, Haruki Murakami, Jennifer Egan, Jonah Lehrer, Mary Roach, Terry McMillan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Rebecca Skloot, Mary Karr, Cormac McCarthy, Chang-rae Lee, Geraldine Brooks, Michael Ondaatje, Dorothy Allison, and Colson Whitehead are but a few of our alums whose work continues to captivate readers.
Fiction and non, titles selected for this marquee program have one thing in common: Great writing, from authors at the start of their careers. A select group of booksellers carefully review roughly 1,000 books a year—story collections and novels, as well as memoirs and narrative nonfiction that reads like fiction—and they then handpick 15 titles each quarter to present as a season of Discover Great New Writers selections.
To celebrate our legacy, and introduce ourselves to a new generation of avid readers, we’ve designed a Discover Great New Writers Facebook Sweepstakes: Tell us who you’ve discovered lately, and enter for a chance to win a Nook Tablet with 10 of our greatest hits, plus two titles (A Good American and Behind the Beautiful Forevers) from the Spring 2012 list. Five other winners will receive themed greatest hits packages of ten print books each. Click here for entry and details.
Our spring list features 15 unforgettable debuts that we’ve discovered, six of which are available now:
- American Dervish, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story about growing up Muslim in the Midwest from playwright/director Ayad Akhtar.
- From the Memoirs of a Non-enemy Combatant, the blistering, laugh-out-loud funny, political satire by Alex Gilvarry.
- Glaciers, a delicate examination of love and loss in the life of a young woman from Alexis M. Smith.
- Running the Rift, Naomi Benaron’s thought-provoking, and ultimately hopeful, novel about a young Rwandan runner.
- Francesca’s Kay’s The Translation of the Bones, in which the search for faith – in all its manifestations – quietly pulses.
- Wayward Saints, a charming and compassionate look at what happens when we try to go home again, from folk rock legend Suzzy Roche.
For more about the Discover Great New Writers program, please go to www.bn.com/discover or swing by one of our stores to check out the display, which updates monthly. We’re also blogging about current Discover selections and alumni news here.
Who have you discovered lately?
Cheers,
Miwa Messer
Director, Discover Great New Writers
