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. She has received the 2019 Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle, the 2023 John Seigenthaler "Legends Award" and the 2023 Kukula Award for Excellence in Non-Fiction Reviewing from Washington Monthly Magazine.
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. She is the author and presenter of the 24 lecture series on banned and challenged books entitled, "Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works" (Great Courses/Wondrium, 2023). Other recent work includes the: "Introduction" to the 100th Anniversary Edition of Willa Cather's A Lost Lady (Vintage, 2023) and The Mysterious Case of Agatha Christie (An Audible Audiobook Original published 2021).
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Daniel Mason's new novel is a spin on Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which academics collide with locals — and a few seductive fairies — in the woods of Vermont. -
David S. Reynolds' book examines the twin legacies of the Mayflower, which carried the Pilgrims to Plymouth in 1620, and the White Lion, which brought the first enslaved Africans to Virginia in 1619. -
Summer is the perfect time to go back to great books that whizzed by in spring, including The Family Man, by James Lasdun, The Hill, by Harriet Clark and A Beautiful Loan, by Mary Costello -
As a classics professor, Beard has spent her career pondering life in the ancient world. The central question of her latest book is: What on earth was it like to be there? -
The books had to be light and small enough to fit in servicemen's pockets. The motto of the Council on Books in Wartime was: "Books Are Weapons in the War of Ideas." -
Aguda's novel, One Leg on Earth, follows a young woman in Nigeria facing an unintended pregnancy. The Things We Never Say, by Strout, centers on a high school teacher leading a secret life of sadness. -
Looking for a read that's complicated, gutsy and entertaining? Maureen Corrigan recommends Yesteryear, by Caro Claire Burke; American Fantasy, by Emma Straub; and Enormous Wings, by Laurie Frankel. -
Nancy Foley's deviously-plotted novel centers on an aging artist in New Mexico. Brutally dismissive of anyone who disagrees with her, Agatha is a perfectly engaging (if unreliable) narrator. -
Set in a quaint Irish village, The Keeper follows The Searcher and The Hunter, and solidifies the crime series' status as a contemporary classic. -
Mexican novelist Álvaro Enrigue re-imagines the story of the American West — and the Apache fight for survival — in an epic that's both defiantly challenging and, at times, magical.
