Edward St. Aubyn, author of At Last, and the 2004 Discover selection Some Hope, shares the Upstairs at the Square stage with singer-songwriter Joseph Arthur, whose latest album is The Graduation Ceremony.

Jonah Lehrer's delightful first book, Proust was a Neuroscientist, was a 2007 selection of the Discover Great New Writers program , and now his new book, Imagine: How Creativity Works (on sale 3/19/12) is the first nonfiction selection of the B&N Recommends program.

We asked Alex George for a sampling of some of the music he listened to while writing A Good American, and this is what he said...

"If Willa Cather and Gabriel García Marquez had collaborated on a book, The Snow Child would be it."

-- Robert Goolrick, author of A Reliable Wife and The End of the World as We Know It, a 2007 Discover pick

The author of Spring 2012 Discover selection Wayward Saints shares the Upstairs at the Square stage with her daughter, Lucy Wainwright Roche.

"The stories in Monstress announce the debut of an electric literary talent. Brilliantly quirky, often moving, always gorgeously told, these are tales of bighearted misfits who yearn for their authentic selves with extraordinary passion and grace."

-- Chang-rae Lee, winner of the 1994 Discover Award for Native Speaker

This searingly honest memoir about one woman's rocky adolescence defined by loss -- with all its attendant rage, regret, and desperation -- and her subsequent search for home is a Spring 2012 Discover selection.

"I started the book with one simple overarching aim: to tell a really good story."

-- Alex George, in an exclusive Q&A posted to bn.com

"We can talk all we want about how corruption or indifference robs people of opportunity -- of the immense talent our societies squander -- but if we don't really grasp the intelligences of those who are being denied, we're not going to grasp the potential that's being lost." 

-- Katherine Boo, in an exclusive Q&A posted to bn.com

Here are the 15 titles you'll find on the shelves in the Discover Great New Writers bay for the Spring 2012 season, which starts today and runs through 4/30/12.

Discover alum William Boyd's Washington Post review of Spring 2012 Discover pick Running the Rift by Naomi Benaron sent me to the bookcases at home, an informal archive of Discover selections (among other things)...

[Drumroll, please...] The 2o11 Discover Great New Writers Award shortlist, chosen by our esteemed judges, and presented in alphabetical order by title.