My idea of fun: The authors -- longtime pals -- of Spring '12 Discover Great New Writers selections Birds of a Lesser Paradise and The Book of Jonas talk about character and place, process, inspiration, and readers, among other things...

Thoughts of vacation reading and good news for William Boyd -- novelist, screenwriter, director, critic, art-world prankster, and Discover alum -- have me thinking...

If you've already read Charlotte Rogan's deceptively-slim and psychologically-complex debut, The Lifeboat, and are looking for your next compelling read, you might try Amanda Coe's haunting novel, What They Do in the Dark, another 2012 Discover Great New Writers selection.

Twenty years ago, Peter Carey's masterful black comedy, The Tax Inspector, was selected for the Discover Great New Writers program.  His newest novel, The Chemistry of Tears is out today.

Enthralled by the narrator's quirky voice, the Discover selection committee members chose Malarky for the Summer 2012 list.  The novel's author, Anakana Schofield, talks about Irish women, grief, motherhood, and writing about sex, among other things, with Discover Great New Writers.

"A form as distinct as poetry." Aria Minu-Sepehr, author of the Summer 2012 Discover selection We Heard the Heavens Then, recommends three fantastic short story collections.

Discover alum Terry Tempest Williams (Refuge, 1992) returns with a new book that asks "What does it mean to have a voice?"

Published to rave reviews in the U. K., winner of the 2012 DSC Prize for South Asian literature, and just released in the U. S. by Graywolf Press, Summer 2012 Discover pick The Legend of Pradeep Mathew is, in the words of Discover alum Michael Ondaatje, "a crazy ambidexterous delight."  The author, Shehan Karunatilaka talks about why Americans would want to read a novel about cricket, and reveals more about his debut novel for Discover Great New writers.

Discover alum Caitlin Horrocks, author of This is Not Your City and winner of the 201o Plimpton prize for her story "At the Zoo", recommends three great reads.

Winner of the 2006 Discover Award (first place, fiction) for his remarkable story collection Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, Ben Fountain returns with an indelible novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which Karl Marlantes calls "The Catch-22 of the Iraq War."  We're excerpting today's rave review from The New York Times here.

"An unlikely friendship between two people, two families, and two countries shines at the center of this book. We are privileged to witness it and become part of this journey via Julia Alvarez's funny and reflective narrative of both pre- and post-earthquake Haiti." -- Discover alumna Edwidge Danticat on A Wedding in Haiti by Julia Alvarez, author of the 1991 Discover selection How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents

"I was going to call it a novel, but I'm not actually sure that's what it is. Then again, what else can you call it?" Sam Taylor writes about translating Laurent Binet's brilliant, fast-paced, Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman-winning HHhH, a Summer 2012 selection of the Discover Great New Writers program.

Kevin Wilson, author of Fall 2011 Discover pick The Family Fang recommends three great reads.

It feels like only a minute ago that we finished our deliberations for the Spring list, our first for 2012, and announced the winners of the 2011 Discover Awards. Yet somehow, the calendar reads May 1, which means it's time for us to announce the Summer 2012 Discover Great New Writers selections, a mix of fiction, memoir, and reportage by writers we believe readers need to know now.

Two years ago this month, readers and reviewers across the country were embracing Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes's epic, indelible novel of the Vietnam war.  The Discover Great New writers program had a hand in bringing Matterhorn's original publisher, El Leon Literary Arts of Berkeley, together with the venerable Grove/Atlantic, and...

This thrilling story of religious frenzy and its consequences in a small town is a remarkably assured work whose brilliantly voiced characters make it hard to believe this is author Wiley Cash's debut novel.   Cash shares his thoughts on Southern literature and adolescent poetry, among other things, here.

Glen Finland, author of the disarmingly honest and witty Summer 2012 Discover selection Next Stop: A Memoir of Family, shares her eclectic list of books she frequently recommends.

By turns poignant and impassioned, Aria Minu-Sepehr's eloquent memoir, We Heard the Heavens Then, a Summer 2012 Discover Great New writers selection, captures the calamitous effects of political and social change on his family -- and their beloved country -- after the 1979 overthrow of the Shah, revealing a world rarely seen by outsiders. Here Minu-Sepehr talks about a childhood shaped by revolution, Iranian society, and more.

One of the Discover selection committee members calls Laurent Binet's HHhH "a jaw dropping high wire act of a novel." Winner of the Prix Goncourt du Premier Roman, HHhH is Binet's American debut, and a Summer 2012 Discover Great New Writers selection.

Ismet Prcic, author of Holiday 2011 pick Shards, wins Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction at the 2012 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, and more...

In advance of his highly-anticipated, darkly comedic, poignant novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, Ben Fountain-- winner of the 2006 Discover Award (first place, fiction) for Brief Encounters with Che Guevara -- writes about 3 books he frequently recommends (plus a surprise bonus pick).

Dreams and secrets are revealed through alternating voices fom one family's present and past in True (Discover, Summer 2012), a poignant family drama by Finnish Writer Riikka Pulkkinen. In a guest post, the novel's translator, Lola Rogers, tells us what drew her to this lyrical, melancholic novel about love and the nature of truth.

Self-professed "recovering journalist" Annalena McAfee talks about her very, very funny first novel, The Spoiler, a sharp satire and Summer 2012 Discover selection -- and recommends a lost novel recently republished in the U. S.

"I was desperately homesick for North Carolina the moment I left in 2003, but I found that I could return home whenever I sat down to write or opened a book by one of my favorite North Carolina authors. Music does the same thing for me; it takes me back. I wrote A Land More Kind Than Home with my favorite Southern musicians in the background, and these are the songs I listened to." -- Wiley Cash

Francesca's Kay's Spring 2012 Discover Great New Writers selection, The Translation of the Bones, was longlisted for the UK's Orange Prize for fiction, and we're posting an exclusive Q&A in advance of the longlist anouncement tomorrow.

Charlotte Rogan, author of the Summer 2012 Discover Great New Writers selection The Lifeboat, answers some questions about her book -- and tells us what she's recently added to her personal reading "Life List" a.k.a. "Books That Knocked My Socks Off" -- all of which we're sharing here.

Four sometime quirky -- but always striking -- narrative voices  from the last three seasons of the Discover Great New Writers program.

"For readers who shy away from short stories on the grounds that they're often quiet or uneventful, lacking the depth of character or range of tone of novels, Tenorio might make a convert of you." -- The San Francisco Chronicle

"Stories that are savagely funny, stories that haunt and sear and stun, stories so original they defy categorization -- above all, stories generously laden with sheer reading pleasure: I Am an Executioner is a brilliant and spellbinding collection." -- Manil Suri, author of The Death of Vishnu, winner of First Place for Fiction at the 2001 Discover Awards.

Alexander Masters, author of the 2006 Discover pick and NBCC finalist for biography, Stuart: A Life Backwards, returns with a new tale of English eccentricity, "writt[en] with uncanny delight and wonder." (Kirkus Reviews)