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Editorial Content for A View from the Stars: Stories and Essays

Contributors

Reviewer (text)

Pauline Finch

Despite having written award-winning science fiction for more than three decades and building up an international niche following, Chinese author-engineer Cixin Liu is still something of an enigma. And A VIEW FROM THE STARS, his second anthology of shorter essays and fiction pieces, does very little to dispel that mystique. But it nevertheless offers a wide range of distinctive and absorbing approaches to an ever-evolving genre. Read More

Teaser

A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.

Promo

A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time. This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.

About the Book

From the author of the New York Times bestselling Three-Body Problem series --- now a Netflix Original series --- A VIEW FROM THE STARS is a new collection of short fiction and nonfiction pieces.

A VIEW FROM THE STARS features a range of short works from the past three decades of New York Times bestselling author Cixin Liu's prolific career, putting his nonfiction essays and short stories side-by-side for the first time.

This collection includes essays and interviews that shed light on Liu's experiences as a reader, writer and lover of science fiction throughout his life, as well as short fiction that gives glimpses into the evolution of his imaginative voice over the years.

Audiobook available, read by Brian Nishii

June 21, 2024

I love summer. I enjoy early morning swims, gardening, and reading in the pool or in the turquoise tent that we affectionately call “the Cleopatra tent.” I finally found some terrific dinner plate dahlias at the nursery. Last year, I bought two plants at another nursery that they swore were dinner plates, but they turned out to be regular-sized flowers, which was a disappointment. You can see what I am talking about above. Karyn, who has been doing a lot of planting for us, was here early this morning, working on a section that we bought plants for last week. But it was just too hot; the ground was way too dry.

When you go on vacation, what do you do about books? Please check all that apply.

June 21, 2024, 642 voters

Shelterwood by Lisa Wingate

June 2024

I know little about Eastern Oklahoma, and I never have traveled there. But after reading SHELTERWOOD by Lisa Wingate, I would love to see this part of the country.

The book is set in two time frames. In 1909, we meet 11-year-old Olive Augusta Radley, who knows that the two Choctaw girls boarded in their home as wards are not safe around her stepfather. The older girl disappears, and shortly after, Ollie flees to the woods with the younger girl. After the passage of the Dawes Act, which gave every Indian man, woman and child land, the youngest of these inheritors were preyed upon by men who wanted to lay claim to their oil rights. Children were hidden in the woods in places like the Winding Stair Mountains. There they would forage for food and protect one another, setting up their own systems of order in which the older children would watch out for the younger ones.

June 21, 2024 - July 12, 2024

Here are reading recommendations with your comments and a rating of 1 to 5 stars for the contest period of June 21 - July 12.

RGG Speed Dating June 2024 Event

June 18, 2024

In this newsletter, you will find books releasing the weeks of June 17th and June 24th that we think will be of interest to Bookreporter.com readers, along with Bonus News, where we call out a contest, feature or review that we want to let you know about so you have it on your radar.

This week, we are calling attention to our 13th Annual Book Group Speed Dating event, which is now available for viewing. Earlier this month, representatives from six publishers presented 30 titles perfect for book groups that will be published between now and October.

June 18, 2024

This Bookreporter.com Special Newsletter spotlights a book that we think is a great summer reading selection. Read more about it, and enter our Summer Reading Contest for a chance to win one of five copies of BELONGING by Jill Fordyce, which released earlier this year.

Please note: Typically our Summer Reading giveaways are open for just 24 hours, but due to the Juneteenth holiday, we are extending the deadline of this contest to Thursday, June 20th at noon ET. That gives you an extra day to submit your entries!

Eric Weiner, author of Ben & Me: In Search of a Founder's Formula for a Long and Useful Life

Ben Franklin lingers in our lives and in our imaginations. One of only two non-presidents to appear on US currency, Franklin was a founder, statesman, scientist, inventor, diplomat, publisher, humorist and philosopher. He believed in the American experiment, but Ben Franklin’s greatest experiment was…Ben Franklin. In that spirit of betterment, Eric Weiner embarks on an ambitious quest to live the way Ben lived. Not a conventional biography, BEN & ME is a guide to living and thinking well, as Ben Franklin did. It is also about curiosity, diligence and, most of all, the elusive goal of self-improvement. As Weiner follows Franklin from Philadelphia to Paris, Boston to London, he attempts to uncover Ben’s life lessons, large and small.

Katherine Center, author of The Rom-Commers

Emma Wheeler desperately longs to be a screenwriter. But she’s also been the sole caretaker for her dad, who needs full-time care. Now, when she gets a chance to rewrite a script for famous screenwriter Charlie Yates, it’s a break too big to pass up. Emma’s younger sister steps in for caretaking duties, and Emma moves to L.A. for the writing gig of a lifetime. But Charlie Yates doesn’t want to write with anyone --- much less “a failed, nobody screenwriter.” Worse, the romantic comedy he’s written is so terrible it might actually bring on the apocalypse. Plus, he doesn’t even care about the script; it’s just a means to get a different one green-lit. But Emma is not going down without a fight. She will convince him that love stories matter --- even if she has to kiss him senseless to do it. But what if that kiss is accidentally amazing?