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Andersen is a columnist for New York magazine and host of Studio 360 on public radio.

In the middle of the nineteenth century, modern life is being born: the mind-boggling marvels of photography, the telegraph, and railroads; a flood of show business spectacles and newspapers; rampant sex and drugs and drink (and moral crusades against all three); Wall Street awash with money; and giddy utopian visions everywhere. Then, during a single amazing month at the beginning of 1848, history lurches: America wins its war of manifest destiny against Mexico, gold is discovered in northern California, and revolutions sweep across Europe–sending one eager English gentleman off on an epic transatlantic adventure. . . .Amid the tumult, aristocratic Benjamin Knowles impulsively abandons the Old World to reinvent himself in New York, where he finds himself embraced by three restless young Americans. Beckoned by the frontier, new beginnings, and the prospects of the California Gold Rush, all four set out on a transcontinental race west–relentlessly tracked, unbeknownst to them, by a cold-blooded killer bent on revenge.

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The Czech novelist Arnost Lustig has been named the eighth winner of the Franz Kafka award for literature.
Previous winners include Harold Pinter, Philip Roth and Haruki Murakami.

McEwan's On Chesil Beach Find this book in our catalog won the Reader's Digest Author of the Year award. Rowling earned this year's Outstanding Achievement honor, adding it to her collection of four previous Galaxy awards. Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns Find this book in our catalog earned the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year, given by the hosts of a hugely popular TV show book group.