Novels that Stretch Our Souls

We have always loved novels that deliver insightful portraits of complex human beings, the variety and tang of relationships, the ambiguity of our motives, the constant stress of work, and the pressures of social structures and institutions.

Novelists as Our Spiritual Companions

Most novelists have a high regard for creativity and the best use of language, but when it comes right down to it, we are most fond of novelists who see themselves as meaning-makers. As such, we consider them as spiritual companions on the journey through life.

Interviews with 55 Novelists

John Freeman is an award-winning writer and book critic who was the former editor of Granta. He won the 2007 James Patterson Page Turner Award for his work as the president of the National Book Critics Circle. In this authoritative paperback, he has gathered 55 of his best profiles and interviews.

Keyhole Access to Novelists

• Check out the Spartan routine Toni Morrison follows to get her creative juices flowing.

• David Foster Wallace says: "If fiction has any value, it's that it lets us in. You and I can be pleasant to each other, but I will never know what you really think, and you will never know what I am thinking. I know nothing about what it's like to be you. As far as I can tell, whether it is avant-garde or realistic, the basic engine of narrative art is how it punctures those membranes a little."

• John Irving characterizes his readers as "neither lazy nor impatient" since many of his novels are very long.

• Philip Roth is America's most revered novelist, according to Freeman, and in the piece in this book, he ponders death.

• Tom Wolfe notes that the first line off the Hippocratic oath for doctors is: "First, do no harm." And I think for the writers it would be: "First, entertain."

• Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer who is enjoying the acclaim that has come her way after years of difficulties finding publishers for her eclectic literary output.

• Marilynne Robinson believes that individualism does not divide people but serves as a catalyst to nurture empathy among diverse people.

A Concluding Thought from Emily Dickinson

"There is no frigate like a book
To take us lands away."