Fool (Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries) - Softcover

Frederick G. Dillen was born in Greenwich Village to a family on fire, raised in a New Hampshire boarding school, and graduated from Stanford. To pay for his writing, he worked odd jobs from Lahaina to Taos and New York to L.A., managing a hotel and running a fake ranch, carrying plates and shilling for business. His short fiction has appeared in literary quarterlies and Prize Stories: The O. Henry Awards.His Hero was named Best First Novel of 1994 by the Dictionary of Literary Biography. Dillen and his wife Leslie are parents of two grown daughters and three dogs and have settled, for good they hope, in New Mexico.

Nancy Pearl is a librarian and lifelong reader. She regularly comments on books on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition. Her books include 2003’s Book Lust: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment and Reason, 2005’s More Book Lust: 1,000 New Reading Recommendations for Every Mood, Moment and Reason; Book Crush: For Kids and Teens: Recommended Reading for Every Mood, Moment, and Interest, published in 2007, and 2010’s Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers. Among her many awards and honors are the 2011 Librarian of the Year Award from Library Journal; the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association; the 2010 Margaret E. Monroe Award from the Reference and Users Services Association of the American Library Association; and the 2004 Women's National Book Association Award, given to "a living American woman who ...has done meritorious work in the world of books beyond the duties or responsibilities of her profession or occupation."

"This novel brims with love of the human soul's possibilities for hope and joy and love and resilience and failure. Dillen writes with the excitement and curiosity of a child and the wisdom and talent of a master. Fool is romantic, funny, sad, sometimes violent, and absolutely serious. Dillen is a unique writer, you won't read anyone else like him."--Andre Dubus

"As compelling as a romping game of tennis."--Booklist

An "assured and sophisticated novel."--Publishers Weekly

"Dillen's prose is astonishing."--Library Journal

Praise for Frederick G. Dillen's Hero:

"Not just poignant and charming but impressively realized as well."--The Times Literary Supplement

"Completely engrossing."--The Boston Globe

"Brilliant."--The Times-Picayune (New Orleans)

"In a busy field of excellent first novels, any number of them first-rate by all the usual standards, Frederick G. Dillen's Hero stand out...this small and powerful story is also strangely beautiful and deeply touching. Hero is an experience, real enough to become a memory."--Dictionary of Literary Biography on Awarding Hero its First-Novel Prize