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Bruce Holsinger

Goodreads Author

Born

in Fairfax, VA, The United States

Website

http://www.bruceholsinger.com

Twitter

bruceholsinger

Genre

Fiction, Contemporary, Suspense

Member Since

April 2013

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/bruceholsinger

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Bruce Holsinger is the author of five novels, including Culpability (forthcoming from Spiegel & Grau), The Displacements and The Gifted School (both from Riverhead), and many works of nonfiction, most recently On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age (Yale University Press). His books have been recognized with the Colorado Book Award, the John Hurt Fisher Prize, the Philip Brett Award, the John Nicholas Brown Prize, the Modern Language Association's Prize for a First Book, and others. His essays and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many other publications and he has been profiled on NPR's Weekend Edition, Here & Now, and Marketplace. He is the recipient of a Gu ...more

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Bruce Holsinger’s books

Average rating: 3.86 · 89,141 ratings · 10,865 reviews · 15 distinct works • Similar authors

	The Gifted School 3.71 avg rating — 41,688 ratings — published 2019 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Culpability 4.06 avg rating — 34,452 ratings — published 2025 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Displacements 3.97 avg rating — 7,029 ratings — published 2022	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Burnable Book (John Gower, #1) 3.55 avg rating — 4,560 ratings — published 2014 — 13 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Invention of Fire (John Gower, #2) 3.87 avg rating — 1,357 ratings — published 2015 — 18 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Neomedievalism, Neoconservatism, and the War on Terror 4.12 avg rating — 25 ratings — published 2007 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	A Burnable Book: Free Sampler 3.29 avg rating — 28 ratings	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer 3.89 avg rating — 18 ratings — published 2001 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age 4.25 avg rating — 16 ratings — published 2023 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Premodern Condition: Medievalism and the Making of Theory really liked it 4.00 avg rating — 12 ratings — published 2005 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Series by Bruce Holsinger

John Gower (2 books)
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Bruce Holsinger (Goodreads Author)

3.62 avg rating — 5,916 ratings

The United States of America is an awfully big place. Sensibly, we chopped it into states a long time ago. This simplifies...

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Bruce Holsinger answered Brenda Walkey's question: I chose Culpability for our book club and can't wait to host what will be a thought provoking discussion on AI, raising kids, family/marriage dynamics, so many great issues! What inspired you to write this? Did you witness or experience AI interacting with families in ways that affected you? Thank you for writing the best book I've read in a long time!! Thanks for the question, Brenda. I was inspired by a number of things--a family escape to the Chesapeake Bay, my obsession with questions of autonomy, my interest in AI as a teacher...I talk in a lot of detail about this in the interviews with Oprah, See Full Answer
Jul 25, 2025 06:33PM · 1 like · like
Bruce Holsinger wants to read The Lost Book of Elizabeth Barton by Jennifer N. Brown (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Jul 05, 2025 05:20AM · like
Bruce Holsinger answered a question about Culpability: Exactly what year do we think this book takes place in? Obviously in the future but with the mention of events like covid we know it's not crazy far into the future. It's a great question! I kept it deliberately ambiguous--I wanted it to be feasibly set six months from now, two years from now...the very, very, very near future, I suppose you could say, just like The Displacements.
Apr 30, 2025 03:43PM · 3 likes · like
Bruce Holsinger wants to read Culpability by Bruce Holsinger (Goodreads Author)	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Feb 17, 2025 05:17PM · like · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Culpability by Bruce Holsinger. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Culpability by Bruce Holsinger <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

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Quotes by Bruce Holsinger (?)

“Insidious, these false versions of superiority and ease we project onto other families: how often they blind us to the surer comforts of our own.”
― Bruce Holsinger, The Gifted School

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“You must convince your readers that your characters are flesh and blood rather than words on dead skin, that their loves and hatreds and passions are as deep and present as the readers' own. Your task is to delight, to pleasure, to lift your reader to another sphere of being and then strand him there, floating above the earth and panting for more lines.”
― Bruce Holsinger, A Burnable Book

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“You’ll be a lot less obsessed with what people think of you when you understand how infrequently they do.”
― Bruce Holsinger, The Gifted School

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Polls

November BoTM Nominations ~ Outside Scene on Cover ~ 1st Poll
Top books move onto final poll.

Beautiful Ugly

by Alice Feeney

7 votes, 33.3%

Small Town Sins

by Ken Jaworowski

3 votes, 14.3%

These Silent Woods

by Kimi Cunningham Grant

3 votes, 14.3%

I Cheerfully Refuse

by Leif Enger

2 votes, 9.5%

Culpability

by Bruce Holsinger

2 votes, 9.5%

Middle of the Night

by Riley Sager

1 vote, 4.8%

Dirt Creek

by Hayley Scrivenor

1 vote, 4.8%

Memorial Days

by Geraldine Brooks

1 vote, 4.8%

Someone Knows My Name

by Lawrence Hill

1 vote, 4.8%

The Mercy Seat

by Elizabeth Hartley Winthrop

0 votes, 0.0%

21 total votes

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