If you're sitting on a bookstore gift card with no idea what to buy, there's a book coming out on the 12th of January that I've been looking forward to. It's essentially a distilled version of a course George Saunders has been teaching to mfa students at Syracuse for twenty-odd years on Russian short fiction. Not necessarily a writing book in the "how-to" sense, but I'll bet it's plenty revealing as to what the Russian masters did that makes their work so compelling.
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Lesley, I've been looking forward to this too because I love George Saunders. And today's the 12th! Woohoo! Thanks for the specific info w/ that.