By the Book

The U.S. poet laureate’s new book, “Transient Worlds,” collects 23 poems in 13 languages to show the many ways a work can be translated.

She vividly recalls what the novel, and others like it, meant to her mother. Her own new book is “The Glorians: Visitations From the Holy Ordinary.”

“I have written six books and counting just because I was very annoyed at how a character was written in a video game,” she says. Her “disgusting” new novel is “Wolf Worm.”

Waiting for readers of Diana Gabaldon’s series to see the episode is “exciting and nerve-racking,” says its star, who wrote five books during its 12-year run.

James Salter’s “Light Years” had a big influence on “So Old, So Young,” his new book about college friends drifting in and out of one another’s lives.

“I love to fall asleep with a book nearby,” says the “Autobiography of Cotton” author. “Dreaming and reading merge in beautiful, uncompromising ways.”

“I’ve thought more about men who saw combat in World War I,’’ he says, “and have eased up on a few of the characters.” His new novel is about 20th-century labor strife.

She reads Nora Ephron’s comic novel “Heartburn” every year, wants more “Forever” and credits Antonya Nelson with changing her life course.

Starring in the 1992 film adaptation helped launch an eclectic career. “Ongoing” is the book that accompanies a retrospective on her work.

“Fingers crossed she isn’t racist — it was a different time,” says the author of “My Sister, the Serial Killer” and the recent “Cursed Daughters.”