2011 Discover Awards

Untouchable

Scott O'Connor

David Darby is trying to hold it together after the unexpected death of his wife, while his son, The Kid, is facing problems of his own -- and hasn't spoken in almost a year. Alternating between the troubled, bewildered voices of father and son, O'Connor's deft prose is unforgettable. Read More

Turn of Mind

Alice LaPlante

In this haunting bestseller, the chief suspect in a Chicago murder is a woman whose memories are filtered through the shadowy mazes of Alzheimer's. Artfully constructed from fractured recollections, this stunning narrative slowly reveals a shared truth behind complicated lives. Read More

Volt

Alan Heathcock

Told in crisp, unsparing prose and suffused with compassion, these revelatory stories unfold while the residents of a small American town struggle at the intersection of survival and sorrow, loneliness and faith, escape and retribution -- and create a living, breathing world of their own. Read More

Kosher Chinese

Michael Levy

This irreverent, often poignant memoir is the story of a New York schoolteacher (and kosher vegetarian) posted to rural China with the Peace Corps and thrown head-first into the complexities and contradictions of a China that Westerners don't often see reflected in the news media. Read More

Day of Honey

Annia Ciezadlo

Part exploration of Middle Eastern food and culture, part meditation on reporting from (and surviving in) war zones, and part memoir of a marriage, this fiercely intelligent, beautifully written narrative is an intimate story of everyday survival under extraordinary circumstances. Read More

[sic]

Joshua Cody

This vivid, unconventional memoir recounts a young composer's winning battle against cancer. In aggressive, vibrant prose punctuated by pages from journals (his own and his mother's) and his father's scrapbooks, [sic] intertwines reflections on music, literature, art, and illness.