A new novel by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides follows three college students graduating in the midst of an economic downturn. With unemployment around 10 percent, the characters try to find ways to cope — moving home, busing tables, applying to graduate school. One flees the country entirely, running from the recession at home to volunteer in India. It sounds like a novel set in 2011, until Eugenides' characters start calling each other from land line phones and writing letters home from abroad. 

When David Foster Wallace took his own life in September of 2008, he left behind reams of unfinished work and a veritable young generation of readers still hungry for his work. This week, posthumous novel "The Pale King" is released from Wallace's long time publisher Little Brown. The book is unfinished, but was assembled from DFW's raggedy genius by longtime editor Michael Pietsch. Peitsch talks about how emotional it is for an editor to bring a book into the world when it's author is gone.

For decades, teenagers have enjoyed stories of darkness and dystopia — from social critiques like “The Lord of the Flies” to dystopian nightmares like “A Clockwork Orange.” But in the last year or two, the market for dystopian and apocalyptic young adult fiction has exploded with more books and darker stories than ever, and the year ahead promises the most books in this genre to date.What's behind this teen dystopian trend, and why is there so much demand for it?

J.D. Salinger, author of "The Catcher in the Rye," died yesterday at age 91. The critically acclaimed novel about teenage angst shocked and inspired the world of literature for decades, while its author refused interviews and eventually withdrew to a small town in New Hampshire.

Margaret Atwood, the Canadian writer famous for her inventive and dark novels — including "Oryx and Crake," "The Handmaid's Tale" and "The Blind Assassin" — talks with us about science, devotion,and her new novel, "The Year of the Flood." Unlike her previous standalone works, this book is something of a companion piece to "Oryx and Crake," involving characters new and old. It also includes a separate "soundtrack" of hymns about God, the earth and animals.