Grade 9 Up–This A-to-Z reference contains 450 biographical overviews of American and foreign-born authors living in the United States and 500 signed analytical essays on their novels. The works chosen are those most studied, or are significant for the genre.
The time span ranges from 18th- and 19th-century writers such as Charles Brockden Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe to contemporaries such as Cormac McCarthy and Anne Tyler. There isn't an analytical essay for each author profiled; for example, the entry on Dan Brown does not include a separate essay about his best seller The Da Vinci Code. Works by foreign-born authors include Bharati Mukherjee's Jasmine and Cristina Garcia's Dreaming in Cuban.
Most Pulitzer and National Book Award winners are included, and there is a section of genre essays about novels by African-American, Asian-American, Latino, and Native American authors. Biographical sketches contain some personal information but focus on the writers' careers and their work. Essays on specific novels neatly describe social context, themes, genre, and critical reception. The last volume includes a list of novels; sources, including Web sites; and an index with plenty of cross-references. Libraries will value this compact set for including classics as well as hard-to-find contemporary authors.–Vicki Reutter, Cazenovia High School, NY
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