Hot new writers to check out!

It is difficult to breathe with this albatross of student research papers hanging around my neck. Friends, [she sighs with exasperation, throwing her hands up into the air] I cannot create like this, I tell you!

So, until I am freed from this burden, read these two books. By the time you finish both and post your responses to them here, I will have finished these papers, guaranteed. Deal?

Praise for Cheryl Strayed's first novel, Torch:

"Torch is a deeply compelling, wonderfully crafted story about a journey into, through, and past grief . . . I loved the honesty of this novel, the way it looked at every aspect of loss and recovery -- the pain, the joy, the absurdity, the anger, the despair, the hope, and the great beauty -- without ever holding back."

---Elizabeth Berg

Praise for Salvador Plascencia's first novel, The People of Paper:

"A stunning debut by a once-in-a-generation talent. I don't know of a young American writer more original, innovative, or intense than Salvador Plascencia. The People of Paper is harrowing and gorgeous, experimental in the truest sense: it creates new means to explore essential and timeless emotional subjects."

---George Saunders