Gustave Flaubert

Passionate pairings, dysfunctional marriages, and jealous love triangles stoked many writers’ creative fires, producing the nine memorable works below. Joni Rendon and Shannon McKenna Schmidt are the authors of Writers Between the Covers: The Scandalous Romantic Lives of Legendary Literary Casanovas, Coquettes, and Cads.

When Gish Jen delivered the Massey lectures in American history at Harvard in 2012—now published as Tiger Writing—the daughter of Chinese immigrants examined the East-West divide, not only in child-rearing but in fiction writing. Almost every novelist has had to contend with the question of “what is fiction,” and Jen picks her favorite lectures on writing, from Nabokov’s attention to detail, to a meditation on Edwidge Danticat’s immigrant experience, to Toni Morrison’s own Massey lecture.

A right-wing media star drops dead … a coroner’s technician dies weeks later … right-wing blogs erupt! But who killed the tech? Christine Pelisek reports.

The author of 'Mr. Peanut,' Adam Ross, picks his favorite books under 200 pages.

Sheryl Weinstein, the Ponzi victim who slept with Bernie—and just wrote a tell-all about it—might just be an Emma Bovary for the 21st century.