View the current featured book... Featured Author:  Wally Lamb Wally Lamb is a Connecticut native who holds Bachelors and Masters Degrees in teaching from the University of Connecticut and a Master of Fine Arts in Writing Degree from Vermont College. Lamb was in the ninth year of his twenty-five year career as a high school English teacher at his alma mater, the Norwich Free Academy, when he began to write fiction in 1981. He was also an Associate Professor at the University of Connecticut, where he directed the English Department’s creative writing program. Wally Lamb and his wife Christine live in northeastern Connecticut and are the parents of three sons, Jared, Justin, and Teddy. Wally Lamb has said of his fiction, “Although my characters’ lives don’t much resemble my own, what we share is that we are imperfect people seeking to become better people. I write fiction so that I can move beyond the boundaries and limitations of my own experiences and better understand the lives of others.

That’s also why I teach. As challenging as it sometimes is to balance the two vocations, writing and teaching are, for me, intertwined.” Honors for Wally Lamb include a National Endowment for the Arts grant, the Connecticut Center for the Book’s Lifetime Achievement Award, the Connecticut Bar Association’s Distinguished Public Service Award, the Barnes and Noble “Writers for Writers” Award, the Connecticut Governor’s Arts Award, The National Institute of Business/Apple Computers “Thanks To Teachers” award, and the 2010 Arts and Letters award from the YMCA of New York City. Lamb has received Distinguished Alumni awards from Vermont College and the University of Connecticut. He was the 1999 recipient of the New England Book Award for fiction. I Know This Much Is True won the Friends of the Library USA Readers’ Choice Award for best novel of 1998, the result of a national poll, and the Kenneth Johnson Memorial Book Award, which honored the novel’s contribution to the anti-stigmatization of mental illness. 

She’s Come Undone was a 1992 “Top Ten” Book of the Year selection in People magazine and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award for Best First Novel of 1992. I’ll Fly Away was a 2008 Connecticut Book Award Winner for non-fiction. I’ll Take You There Wishin’ and Hopin’: A Christmas Story The Hour I First Believed I’ll Fly Away: Further Testimonies from the Women of York Prison Couldn’t Keep It to Myself: Testimonies from Our Imprisoned Sisters I know This Much Is TrueGetting ready for the holidays. Ambiguous and unresolved ending. We recommend The Secret History of Wonder Woman by Jill Lepore, and The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber. Ann and I spent much of last week traveling around to tell bookstore customers and staff about the big books coming out for the holidays. Ann has started making her gift list and I’ve already started shopping. It truly looks like it’s going to be an amazing year for books as gifts.

This year, we’ll be doing something a little different for the BOTNS Gift Guide. royal velvet® encore ring-top curtain panelIt will be smaller, with personal blurbs from Ann and me. roxanne curtains east hamWe’re calling it Books on the Nightstand’s 12 Books* of Christmas, and it will be published no later than Friday November 28th.casual curtain in wethersfield ct *each (so that will be 24 personally selected titles)made to measure curtains cumbernauld Audiobook of the Week.sheer curtains 230cm drop

 for sponsoring this episode of Books on the Nightstand.net curtain wire wickes allows you to listen to over 40,000 audiobooks, instantly, wherever you are, and the first one is free. Download or stream any book directly to your Apple or Android device.  In one of my book presentations I described a book as having an ambiguous ending, and Ann noticed that a member of the audience wrinkled her nose. She knew right away it would be a great discussion. I immediately wanted to differentiate between two different kinds of endings (which I think might often get confused): ambiguous endings, where the author leaves some, or much, of the story’s end to the readers’ imaginations; and unresolved endings, in which you know exactly what happens to their characters but the story doesn’t fully resolve the issues raised by the plot. Ann and I both agree that ambiguous endings, that are done well, can enhance and extend the experience of the book.

Unresolved endings may seem frustrating but, because lives are rarely tied up neatly, they are more realistic. Another thing we discussed was the importance of discussion in helping some readers “come to terms” with ambiguous or unresolved endings. These types of books make for great book group selections. And online groups, like those on Goodreads, can serve that purpose for those not reading as part of group. Some of the books we discussed: We welcome your comments about ambiguous and unresolved endings both in the comments below, and at the thread we’ve started on our Goodreads group discussion board. We think spoilers should be allowed in these discussions, but please do put SPOILER ALERT at the top of your comment if you’re truly giving away a plot point, and not just the fact the book has an ambiguous or unresolved ending.She recommends a book about comic books!! (Not really, but close) Historian Jill Lepore has written what Ann calls a “general book of awesomeness.”