Maureen Corrigan
Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air, is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.
Corrigan served as a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. Her book So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures was published by Little, Brown in September 2014. Corrigan is represented by Trinity Ray at The Tuesday Lecture Agency: trinity@tuesdayagency.com
Corrigan's literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading! was published in 2005. Corrigan is also a reviewer and columnist for The Washington Post's Book World. In addition to serving on the advisory panel of The American Heritage Dictionary, she has chaired the Mystery and Suspense judges' panel of the Los Angeles TimesBook Prize.
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Gentlemen Prefer Blondes is about two flappers on the prowl for sugar daddies. First published in 1925, Anita Loos' cheeky comic novel has now been reissued in paperback.
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Helen Whybrow's memoir, The Salt Stones, is a closely-observed account of her life as a shepherd. In A Marriage at Sea, Sophie Elmhirst tells the true story of a couple adrift on a rubber raft.
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Maureen Corrigan recommends four great reads: El Dorado Drive, by Megan Abbott; The House on Buzzards Bay, by Dwyer Murphy; King of Ashes, by S.A. Cosby; and Murder Takes a Vacation, by Laura Lippman.
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Mallon has been keeping diaries for most of his life. The Very Heart of It collects entries from the years 1983 to 1994, when he had recently come out as gay and moved to New York City.
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Kay Sohini's graphic memoir, This Beautiful, Ridiculous City, tells a story of migration and redefinition. Gay Talese gathers many of his great pieces about the city in A Town Without Time.
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Book critic Maureen Corrigan remembers the veteran NYC newsman, who died Aug. 5, as "a tenement kid and high school drop out who never lost connection to where he came from."
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Margaret Renkl's vivid and original essays capture the cycle of life in a new book that will make you want to stay put, reread and savor everything about the moment.
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Colson Whitehead's deeply affecting new novel is based on the true story of a segregated reform school in Florida where African American boys were brutalized and possibly murdered.
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The short chapters in Laila Lalami's novel are narrated by a rotating cast of characters. They conjure a murder mystery, a cross-cultural romance, an immigrant saga, war stories and family dramas.
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The Lady from the Black Lagoon tells the story of Milicent Patrick, who designed the Creature's monster suit. Giraffes on Horseback Salad was a Marx Brothers script scenario written by Salvador Dalí.