NWPR Books

Craig Morgan Teicher's latest collection of poetry is called To Keep Love Blurry.

Fifty years ago today, Sylvia Plath ended her life as a major poet and an artist of the highest order. But one could hardly have predicted, from her taut yet unfocused first book, The Colossus, her only book of poetry published in her lifetime, that she would, or even could, become the poet we know, revere — and maybe even fear — as Sylvia Plath.

Flotsam and Jetsam: of such things are stories made. Writers use objects to give their stories weight, attachment and verisimilitude, like Gary Paulsen's The Hatchet; Jean Shepherd's Red Ryder BB Gun inspired A Christmas Story; and how about Dashiell Hammett's The Maltese Falcon?

On a Virginia plantation in 1852, a young house slave tends to her ailing mistress, creates exquisite paintings and plans her escape. In 2004 New York, an ambitious young lawyer works night and day on the biggest case of her promising career.

Tara Conklin's debut novel, The House Girl, intertwines these women's narratives in a story of art and injustice.

In Teddy Wayne's new novel, YouTube sensation Jonny Valentine has the sugar-sweet pipes of a teen heartthrob. But he also has a controlling manager-mom, a missing father, a retinue of people who work for him and a record label that's leaning on him to move the merchandise — fast.

So who wrote the book on love?

In a lot of ways, you might say it's author and screenwriter Nicholas Sparks. All of his novels, which include The Notebook, Message in a Bottle and Safe Haven, have been huge international bestsellers, with 80 million copies in print in more than 45 languages.