November 28, 2012 Ben Fountain's newest book, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, takes place over the course of a single day in the life of Spc. William Lynn. Author Jonathan Evison writes that this is a book so vivid he felt like he lived it. Have you ever read a book that felt real? Tell us in the comments.

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November 27, 2012 In fiction, Paula McLain explores Hemingway's first marriage, while Anita Desai re-examines modern India. In nonfiction, Joseph Epstein defends gossip, Rosamond Bernier remembers midcentury Paris, and Stuart Isacoff lauds the piano.

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November 27, 2012 In his new book, journalist Gregory Johnsen charts the rise of Yemen as a haven for al-Qaida and explores the recent history of radical Islam in the Arabian Peninsula. The death of Osama bin Laden, he says, had more of an effect on the U.S. psyche than it did on people in Yemen.

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November 26, 2012 Independent bookstores have weathered competition from big chains, Amazon and now e-books. But NPR's Lynn Neary reports that this year's holiday shopping season looks like an improvement on past years, as booksellers offer quality hardcovers and their own take on e-readers.

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November 26, 2012 Author Hortense Calisher once called the short story "an apocalypse in a teacup." Critic Jane Ciabattari presents her favorite mini-apocalypses of 2012, from veteran authors like Sherman Alexie to newcomer Claire Vaye Watkins, who combines a unique voice and a shadowed family history in her debut collection.

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November 26, 2012 Hilary Mantel is the first woman to win the Man Booker Prize twice, first for her 2009 novel, Wolf Hall, and now for that book's 2012 sequel, Bring Up the Bodies. The novels are part of a historical fiction trilogy about Tudor England and the events surrounding the reign of King Henry VIII.

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November 26, 2012 The Battlefield Where The Moon Says I Love You may be more than 15,000 lines of almost entirely unpunctuated poetry, but author Steve Stern says this Southern gothic fun house is so bewitching you'll have to finish it. Do you have a favorite impossible book? Tell us in the comments.

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November 26, 2012 Just before her 30th birthday, Ellen Forney received a diagnosis that finally explained her super-charged highs and debilitating lows: bipolar disorder. In Marbles, a new graphic memoir, Forney recalls both the pain and the humor of her path to stability.

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November 25, 2012 The momentous life of Pulitzer Prize winner William Styron is now chronicled in more than 1,000 of his letters compiled by his widow, Rose Styron. The collection is called, Selected Letters of William Styron.

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November 25, 2012 For his new book, archivist Todd Andrlik tracked down 18th century newspapers to provide a sense of the Revolution as it actually unfolded. Andrlik says the newspapers preserve things that didn't make it into history textbooks — like the fact that the Boston Tea Party was not universally popular.

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November 24, 2012 Growing up blond-haired and blue-eyed in Southern California, Joe Mozingo always thought his family name was Italian. In his book Fiddler on Pantico Run, he tells the family's secret, buried in 300 years of American history.

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