Thursday, February 12, 2009

What is Chandra Prasad reading?

The current featured contributor to Writers Read: Chandra Prasad, author of On Borrowed Wings, a novel set in Depression-era Connecticut about a quarryman’s daughter who attends a prestigious university in 1936 in the guise of a boy, and other books.

Her entry begins:
I’m going to preface this entry by saying my son just turned two, and it’s a big, intense, rambunctious two. The taller this child gets, the shorter my attention span. Thus, I’ve been reading smaller works: magazine articles, short stories, the backs of cereal boxes, in-one-sitting things. My steady intake has included The Week Magazine, The Economist (which lately has been sweepingly critical of President Obama for no well-argued reason), The New York Times Magazine (the last few weeks of the “Lives Column” have been standouts), and Mental Floss Magazine, which is just plain fun. Two quality non-fiction collections on my bedside table are Call Me Okaasan: Adventures in Multicultural Mothering edited by Suzanne Kamata and Couldn't Keep It to Myself: Wally Lamb and the Women of York Correctional Institution. The latter book has a marvelous cover, like Lamb’s new book: The Hour I First Believed.

And speaking of beautiful images, I can’t stop staring at ...[read on]
Chandra Prasad's books include Death of a Circus, which Tom Perrotta says is “narrated with Dickensian verve, a keen eye for historical detail, and lots of heart.” She is the originator and editor of — as well as a contributor to — Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience, which was published to international acclaim by W.W. Norton.

Read an excerpt from On Borrowed Wings, and learn more about the book at the publisher’s website.

Visit Chandra Prasad's website.

The Page 69 Test: On Borrowed Wings.

Writers Read: Chandra Prasad.

--Marshal Zeringue