Philip Roth

Wendy Strothman did the damnedest thing a few years ago. She crossed the street from publisher to literary agent. She went from 250 employees to two. She traded a big office and expense account as head of the trade and reference division of Houghton Mifflin -- the one that puts everything from Curious George to Philip Roth into bookstores -- for a tiny nest near Faneuil Hall. Strothman, 55, had spent 30 years in publishing: She was, among other things, director of Beacon Press before Houghton.

Few things in life are as disturbing as the untimely death of a child, except perhaps the untimely deaths of thousands of children. Polio, a viral illness that we barely think about anymore, killed and maimed its young victims in unimaginable numbers in the first half of the 20th century. The worst outbreak in US history occurred in 1952, with 58,000 reported cases, which killed 3,145 children and left 21,269 with mild to severe paralysis. Before Jonas Salk's announcement of the polio vaccine in 1955, epidemics were a regular event during the summer months in cities, fueling panic in the public,...

John Irving’s career as a novelist began in 1968, with the publication of “Setting Free the Bears.’’ The career of novelist Danny Angel, the main character in Irving’s new novel, “Last Night in Twisted River,’’ spans the same 41 years. This is not a casual gesture on Irving’s part. To further entangle author and character, Irving creates obvious career parallels: Angel becomes an international success in the late 1970s with his fourth novel, as Irving did with his fourth, “The World According to Garp’’; Angel publishes an “abortion novel’’ called “East of Bangor’’ in the...

WASHINGTON — Before he became an international literary sensation last year at age 100, Hans Keilson was better known as a psychoanalyst and an expert in childhood trauma. A Jew born in Germany, whose medical career was derailed when Hitler took power in the early 1930s, he fled to the Netherlands and joined the Dutch Resistance as a counselor for children orphaned by the Holocaust. He interviewed hundreds of young people and with his findings wrote a seminal study of “sequential traumatization,’’ the piling on of horrors one after another.

How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood By Thomas Beller Norton, 256 pp., paperback, $14.95 It's hard not to share Thomas Beller's affection for his younger self. He is sweetly nostalgic for who he was, who he wanted to be, what he had and didn't know how to value. A clever city child, he grew up in the 1970s on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he also held a number of short-term jobs while becoming a writer. In "Portrait of the Bagel as a Young Man," Beller cherishes the memory of checking inventory behind a pillar of brown sugar in the basement of H & H Bagel and lunching on the traffic...

The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973-1982 Edited by Greg JohnsonEcco, 509 pp., illustrated $29.95 As one of America's most prolific writers, whose acclaimed literary contributions include novels, novellas, short stories, essays, reviews, even plays, it's no surprise Joyce Carol Oates also kept journals. It reflects what we know of this remarkable writer as obsessively reflective and creative, so disciplined she confesses a sense of "profound worthlessness" if a day or two passes without writing.

WASHINGTON — Before he became an international literary sensation last year at age 100, Hans Keilson was better known as a psychoanalyst and an expert in childhood trauma. A Jew born in Germany, whose medical career was derailed when Hitler took power in the early 1930s, he fled to the Netherlands and joined the Dutch Resistance as a counselor for children orphaned by the Holocaust. He interviewed hundreds of young people and with his findings wrote a seminal study of “sequential traumatization,’’ the piling on of horrors one after another.

Whenever I do any public speaking, I am inevitably struck by the gregarious nature of the book-loving masses. We are supposed to be a shy lot, according to legend and stereotype: shuffling, myopic people who prefer text to other people, or dream-catchers who mumble thoughtfully about arcane theories and highbrow literary trends. 'Twas never so, from my poll of the lively audiences. Critics, too, have a narrow reputation; last year, a lovely independent bookseller said to me, by way of compliment, "You're so friendly, you don't seem like a reviewer at all!"

Few things in life are as disturbing as the untimely death of a child, except perhaps the untimely deaths of thousands of children. Polio, a viral illness that we barely think about anymore, killed and maimed its young victims in unimaginable numbers in the first half of the 20th century. The worst outbreak in US history occurred in 1952, with 58,000 reported cases, which killed 3,145 children and left 21,269 with mild to severe paralysis. Before Jonas Salk's announcement of the polio vaccine in 1955, epidemics were a regular event during the summer months in cities, fueling panic in...

At first glance, and for much of its brief length, Philip Roth’s new novel seems a departure from his sagas of intricate, glittering obsession — sexual, artistic, racial, metaphysical — or simply his tooth-marked attacks on the human condition. Grippingly and with documentary expertise, it tells a story set in the devastating 1944 polio epidemic, detailing its impact upon a modest Jewish neighborhood in Newark. Quite unlike the usual Roth pattern, everyone in it is uncomplicatedly good; none more so than its tough, devoted protagonist, Bucky Cantor, a physical education teacher and summer playground...

At first glance, and for much of its brief length, Philip Roth’s new novel seems a departure from his sagas of intricate, glittering obsession — sexual, artistic, racial, metaphysical — or simply his tooth-marked attacks on the human condition. Grippingly and with documentary expertise, it tells a story set in the devastating 1944 polio epidemic, detailing its impact upon a modest Jewish neighborhood in Newark. Quite unlike the usual Roth pattern, everyone in it is uncomplicatedly good; none more so than its tough, devoted protagonist, Bucky Cantor, a physical education teacher and summer playground director who must...

John Irving’s career as a novelist began in 1968, with the publication of “Setting Free the Bears.’’ The career of novelist Danny Angel, the main character in Irving’s new novel, “Last Night in Twisted River,’’ spans the same 41 years. This is not a casual gesture on Irving’s part. To further entangle author and character, Irving creates obvious career parallels: Angel becomes an international success in the late 1970s with his fourth novel, as Irving did with his fourth, “The World According to Garp’’; Angel publishes an “abortion novel’’ called...

The Journal of Joyce Carol Oates, 1973-1982 Edited by Greg JohnsonEcco, 509 pp., illustrated $29.95 As one of America's most prolific writers, whose acclaimed literary contributions include novels, novellas, short stories, essays, reviews, even plays, it's no surprise Joyce Carol Oates also kept journals. It reflects what we know of this remarkable writer as obsessively reflective and creative, so disciplined she confesses a sense of "profound worthlessness" if a day or two passes without writing.

Whenever I do any public speaking, I am inevitably struck by the gregarious nature of the book-loving masses. We are supposed to be a shy lot, according to legend and stereotype: shuffling, myopic people who prefer text to other people, or dream-catchers who mumble thoughtfully about arcane theories and highbrow literary trends. 'Twas never so, from my poll of the lively audiences. Critics, too, have a narrow reputation; last year, a lovely independent bookseller said to me, by way of compliment, "You're so friendly, you don't seem like a reviewer at all!"

Wendy Strothman did the damnedest thing a few years ago. She crossed the street from publisher to literary agent. She went from 250 employees to two. She traded a big office and expense account as head of the trade and reference division of Houghton Mifflin -- the one that puts everything from Curious George to Philip Roth into bookstores -- for a tiny nest near Faneuil Hall. Strothman, 55, had spent 30 years in publishing: She was, among other things, director of Beacon Press before Houghton.

How to Be a Man: Scenes from a Protracted Boyhood By Thomas Beller Norton, 256 pp., paperback, $14.95 It's hard not to share Thomas Beller's affection for his younger self. He is sweetly nostalgic for who he was, who he wanted to be, what he had and didn't know how to value. A clever city child, he grew up in the 1970s on Manhattan's Upper West Side, where he also held a number of short-term jobs while becoming a writer. In "Portrait of the Bagel as a Young Man," Beller cherishes the memory of checking inventory behind a pillar of brown sugar in the basement of H & H...

Julie Otsuka's "The Buddha in the Attic," a brief, poetic novel about young Japanese women who emigrate to the U.S. and marry men they have never met, has won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. The PEN/Faulkner Foundation announced Monday that Otsuka will receive $15,000 for the prize, which has been given in previous years to Philip Roth and John Updike among others. Her novel was a finalist last fall for the National Book Award. Faulkner finalists included novels by Anita Desai and Russell Banks and short story collections by Don DeLillo and Steven Millhauser.

Novelist Philip Roth, Jeffrey Eugenides who wrote "The Virgin Suicides," mystery writer Patricia Cornwell and singer Jewel are joining the lineup of authors for the 2012 National Book Festival on the National Mall later this year. The Library of Congress on Thursday announced the authors and poets who will appear at the festival Sept. 22 and 23. The weekend festival features speeches and book talks by authors, book signings and a chance to meet favorite writers. Steve Inskeep of NPR's "Morning Edition" is joining the lineup, along with Walter Isaacson,...