Alle afleveringen
1.622 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Michael Tolkin
2 november 2006 · 30 min
The Return of the Player (Grove) Lees meer
In this conversation, the subject of the immorality of Hollywood gives way to the subject of the immorality of wealth, which in turn, surprisingly, gives way to the question of whether the soul exists. If the soul does not exist, is there any immorality? Do fictional characters have souls? Gradually we uncover the moral equations underlying Tolkin's universe.
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Marisha Pessl
26 oktober 2006 · 30 min
Special Topics in Calamity Physics: A Novel (Viking) Lees meer
While Marisha Pessl's first novel has a bright and witty narrative voice, it has mysterious depths and a hidden Nabokovian counterstructure. We explore the author's ambitions and her decision to keep the book's secrets well-hidden.
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Andrew Holleran
19 oktober 2006 · 30 min
Grief (Hyperion) Lees meer
Andrew Holleran has written a beautiful, somber novella about loss. His narrator has come to Washington, D.C. to teach a course about AIDS literature. He is grieving the death of his mother and finds solace in the letters of Mary Todd Lincoln....
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Chris Kraus: Torpor
12 oktober 2006 · 30 min
Chris Kraus takes her aim at the traditional bourgeois novel about marriage and family and delivers a book full of bullet-holes... What is left standing?
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Mark Z. Danielewski
5 oktober 2006 · 30 min
Only Revolutions (Pantheon) Lees meer
There’s no mistaking a novel by Mark Danielewski for any other. This new one can be read forward, backward and upside down. It has multi-colored inks; two sewn-in bookmarks (green and gold); and a circular structure. Here, we explore how the book’s design reflects the joy-ride/killing spree of its two perpetual teenagers as they careen through time and space.
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Wole Soyinka
28 september 2006 · 30 min
You Must Set Forth at Dawn (Random House)
Nobel Prize-winning African playwright Wole Soyinka explores the myths of exile and return that underlie his most recent memoir. He contrasts European and African cosmologies, and describes his passionate activism as a quest influence by the gods. Lees meer -
John Updike, Part 2
21 september 2006 · 30 min
Rabbit Angstrom: The Four Novels (Everyman's Library)
A New York Times poll indicated that John Updike's quartet of Rabbit novels is one of the five most important achievements in fiction in the past quarter century. -
John Updike, Part 1
14 september 2006 · 30 min
Terrorist (Knopf)
The subject of John Updike's recent bestseller required that he contrast his own reliance on faith with the more violent faith of a young Islamic terrorist. This first of a two-part conversation explores the dark side of empathy and identification. Lees meer -
Stacey Levine
7 september 2006 · 30 min
Frances Johnson (Clear Cut Press) Lees meer
Using the model of the "nurse romances" of the 1950's, Stacey Levine has concocted a small-town romance--with a difference. The undercurrents of sexuality, repression and gender uncertainty rise to create flood tides. We discuss the nightmarish emissions from the unconscious that rock this seemingly placid novel.
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W. S. Merwin
31 augustus 2006 · 30 min
Present Company (Copper Canyon); Summer Doorways (Shoemaker and Hoard) Lees meer
For his first visit to Bookworm, the eminent American poet, W. S. Merwin, explores the sequence of odes in which he addresses everything from inanimate objects to his own soul...
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Uzodinma Iweala
24 augustus 2006 · 30 min
Beasts of No Nation (Harper Collins) Lees meer
Forcing himself to inhabit the terrifying heart of amorality and violence, Uzodinma Iweala has created the first-person voice of a child-soldier.
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Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly
17 augustus 2006 · 30 min
Big Fat Little Lit (Puffin)
Back by popular demand! Editors Spiegelman and Mouly talk about how they recruited and supervised the many artists and writers who created these "comics for kids..." -
Carlos Fuentes
10 augustus 2006 · 30 min
The Eagle's Throne Lees meer
Carlos Fuentes casts a satiric eye on Mexican politics and, by extension, on global politics, skewering the art of politics in its entirety...
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Joyce Carol Oates: High Lonesome
3 augustus 2006 · 30 min
When you've written as many stories as Joyce Carol Oates, the process of choosing just sixty of them for an omnibus is daunting. Here, Oates explores those choices...
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T.C. Boyle
27 juli 2006 · 30 min
Talk Talk (Viking)
When T. C. Boyle sits down to write a thriller, none of the usual rules apply. He starts with a young deaf woman, a computer animator and an identity thief and creates a novel about communication. We explore some of the buried connections that take him beyond the thriller form into an exploration of the things that keep human identity intact. Lees meer -
David Mitchell
20 juli 2006 · 30 min
Black Swan Green Lees meer
(Random House)
David Mitchell, one of the younger generation of British writers, provides a jolt of energy to the coming-of-age novel. First off, this novel ends just when the rite-of-passage traditionally begins...
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Irving Feldman
13 juli 2006 · 30 min
Collected Poems: 1954-2004 (Schocken) During our conversation, Irving Feldman talks about everything from religion to cannibalism, from poetic diction to the structure of families. This intense discussion explores the poet's imagination and convictions, while revealing his passionate intellect. Lees meer
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Alice Quinn
6 juli 2006 · 30 min
Edgar Allan Poe and the Juke-Box: uncollected poems, drafts, and fragments by Elizabeth Bishop, edited and annotated by Alice Quinn (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Lees meer
Alice Quinn, the poetry editor of the New Yorker, assembled this volume of drafts and fragments from Elizabeth Bishop's notebooks and archives. The result is an extraordinary free association about Bishop: her childhood, her sexuality, her influences...
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John Yau
29 juni 2006 · 30 min
Paradiso Diaspora (Penguin)In a searching inquiry into the language of poetry, John Yau talks about avoiding autobiography while creating poetry that reflects his Chinese-American background--the influence of what he calls "Ing Grish." We explore the evolution of a dream language that is, in itself, an aesthetic of diaspora. Lees meer
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Leonard Cohen
22 juni 2006 · 30 min
Book of Longing (Ecco) Lees meer
Leonard Cohen talks about his early years as a poet in Montreal; his novel, Beautiful Losers; his songs; and now, ten years since his last book and fifty years since his first, the vicissitudes and recoveries that led to the art, lyrics and poems in his new Book of Longing.
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Yannick Murphy
15 juni 2006 · 30 min
Here They Come Lees meer
(McSweeney's)
Memory, instinct and aesthetics combine to recreate childhood in Yannick Murphy's new novel...
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David Foster Wallace: Consider the Lobster and Other Essays
2 maart 2006 · 30 min
David Foster Wallace insists on a conversation where what can be said must be said honestly (along with a sidebar defining honesty), sincerely (ditto defining sincerity), and with full consideration of how media affect honesty and sincerity (ditto media). Given these requirements, we discuss Wallace's new collection of essays with an eye to how he attempts the nearly impossible task of telling the truth. Lees meer
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Robert Pinsky
29 december 2005 · 30 min
The Life of David (Schocken)Robert Pinsky, a former poet-laureate, writes a biography-tribute to the Biblical King David, the poet warrior. Our conversation circles the subject of heroism as it is manifested in the contradictory character of King David--the most paradoxical figure in the Old Testament. Lees meer
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Stanley Crawford
22 december 2005 · 30 min
Petroleum Man (Overlook) Lees meer
In Stanley Crawford's satire of corporate greed, a "gas-guzzling" super-magnate writes a loving description of every car he has ever owned. What is more, he intends to leave this chronicle of automotive ownership to his (largely indifferent) grandchildren...
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Robert Coover, Part 2 of 2
15 december 2005 · 30 min
A Child Again (McSweeney's) In part two of the interview, Coover lays bare the illusions and delusions that his stories about childhood and growth are meant to dispel. He reads from a story about Puff, the dragon, and speculates about how older knights slay the dragons of their later years. Lees meer
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Robert Coover, Part 1 of 2
8 december 2005 · 30 min
A Child Again (McSweeney's) Robert Coover, a reigning master of experimental narrative, gives a two-part interview for this, his long-anticipated first visit to Bookworm. In part one, Coover offers an overview of his career, revealing that even from the first his themes, intentions and methods were fully imagined. He then worked on these retold fairy tales and comic political allegories sometimes for a decade or more before completion and publication. Lees meer
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Peter Maresca and Art Spiegelman
1 december 2005 · 30 min
Little Nemo in Slumberland: Splendid Sundays 1905-1910 (Sunday Press)
A celebration of the great Winsor McCay's Sunday funnies! Why? Because Nemo in Slumberland has been printed in its original full-color and actual size for the very first time! -
Mary Caponegro
24 november 2005 · 30 min
The Complexities of Intimacy (Coffee House) The very contrary Mary Caponegro doesn't write or think like anyone else. She is a complete original. In the course of this interview, the snowballing perplexities of fusing logic and madness emerge with great force. Each of her stories is a triumph against nearly insuperable odds--but what a triumph! This interview will not air on KCRW (as it will be pre-empted by special Thanksgiving programming.) Lees meer
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Richard Howard
17 november 2005 · 30 min
Inner Voices: selected poems 1963-2003; Paper Trail: selected prose 1965-2003 (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Lees meer
Richard Howard's extraordinary urbanity and sophistication are evident as he explores his influences: Henry James' winding syntax, Proust's evocation of a lost past, Whitman's teeming democracies....
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Salman Rushdie: Shalimar the Clown
10 november 2005 · 30 min
Shalimar the Clown (Random House)
Although the history of Kashmir provides the backdrop of Salman Rushdie's new novel, it is a larger-than-life romance with larger-than-life characters--a version of Romeo and Juliet and the Ramayana. In this conversation, he describes the ways in which an historical conflict can determine the course of love. Lees meer -
Jane Smiley
3 november 2005 · 30 min
Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (Knopf) Lees meer
Two novel-lovers share their deep passions for reading. Jane loves the realists; Michael the Bookworm loves the inventors. But more than anything, they love "a lengthy written narrative with a protagonist" the novel.
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Campbell McGrath
27 oktober 2005 · 30 min
Pax Atomica: poems (Ecco) Lees meer
Campbell McGrath has figured out how to perform a wonderful trick: he writes ecstatic comic poetry about the decline of America...
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Christopher Sorrentino
20 oktober 2005 · 30 min
Trance (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Lees meer
Christopher Sorrentino takes the Patty Hearst saga as the springboard for an exploration of the mass hypnosis of American culture. This novel about inter-generational warfare is written by the son of formidable avante-gardiste Gilbert Sorrentino.
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Joyce Carol Oates: Missing Mom
13 oktober 2005 · 30 min
Joyce Carol Oates says this novel was written as a tribute to her mother, who died last year. Clearer, simpler, less literary than Oates' other books, it was meant to be a novel her mother would have enjoyed....
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George Saunders: The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
6 oktober 2005 · 30 min
The author of The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp decided he'd try to write another satire-fantasy.
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Colm Tóibín: The Master
29 september 2005 · 30 min
The Master Lees meer
(Scribner)
The winner of this year's Los Angeles Times award for fiction reveals the difficulties of writing about the life of Henry James...
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Francine du Plessix Gray
22 september 2005 · 30 min
Them: A Memoir of Parents (The Penguin Press) After an affair with the great Russian poet Mayakovsky, Francine du Plessix Gray's mother married a man who became a kingpin in the Cond- Nast fashion magazine empire. All the high fashion and social elite of New York are discussed, but they pale beside the evocation of true genius. Mayakovsky and poetry triumph over commerce. Lees meer
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Louise Erdrich: The Painted Drum
15 september 2005 · 30 min
Louise Erdrich's beautiful short novel emerged over a period of ten years, after an older story suddenly suggested deeper meanings...
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Kazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me Go
8 september 2005 · 30 min
Kazuo Ishiguro never tells more than he has to -- his stripped-down narratives are filled with absence and mystery.
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Michel Houellebecq
1 september 2005 · 30 min
H.P. Lovecraft: Against the World, Against Life (Believer Books) The controversial French writer on his early influence, H. P. Lovecraft, the American writer of classic horror fantasies. Houellebecq discusses their shared, essentially anti-human stance and then quietly, poignantly reveals his own pessimistic philosophy. Lees meer
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Umberto Eco
25 augustus 2005 · 30 min
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana Lees meer
(Harcourt)
The loss of memory is Umberto Eco's subject here. After a stroke, an antiquarian bookseller remembers every book he's read--but he remembers nothing about himself....
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Nicole Krauss: The History of Love
18 augustus 2005 · 30 min
The History of Love: A Novel (Norton) Lees meer
Memory is the subject of many novels, but Nicole Krauss' subject is the transmission of memory: how do you tell another person about the things that are no longer there?
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Bret Easton Ellis
11 augustus 2005 · 30 min
Lunar Park (Knopf) Beginning as an autobiography, Lunar Park turns into a classic horror novel. The haunted house, however, is spooked by Bret Ellis- personal demons, and the past comes alive in creepy ways that go way beyond autobiography.
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Bookworm Series Finale (Part 10 of 10)
4 augustus 2005 · 30 min
Maya Angelou believes that a writer who tells the truth can be read by anyone. James Baldwin, for example, can be enjoyed by black, white, Muslim or Jewish readers -- indeed by anyone who values reading the truth...
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Beyond Identity--A Dark Vision (Part 9 of 10)
28 juli 2005 · 30 min
Tom Wolfe discusses neuroscience and its view that there is no such thing as identity. Margaret Atwood talks about the coming threat to identity by cloning and genetic experimentation. Irish writer John Banville rails that identity does not exist.
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Hispanic Identity in Writing (Part 8 of 10)
21 juli 2005 · 30 min
Sandra Cisneros and Nina Marie Martínez Lees meer
The two Hispanic women explain how they've been put into the cage of multiculturalism, sometimes by the way they view themselves, but primarily by publishers and readers, to the extent of being expected to read only certain kinds of literature. When the names Thomas Pynchon and Marguerite Duras come up, the conversation takes a turn, and the satisfactions of broad, deep reading are embraced...
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Asian Identity in Writing (Part 7 of 10)
14 juli 2005 · 30 min
Susan Choi, Maxine Hong Kingston and Don Lee Lees meer
American-born writers of Asian descent explore the challenge of forging identity, while living "between cultures."
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Sexuality and Literary Theory (Part 6 of 10)
7 juli 2005 · 30 min
James McCourt, Camille Paglia, Alan Hollinghurst and Edmund White Lees meer
James McCourt discusses the emergence of "queer identity" and gives an overview of French literary theories and their influence on multiculturalism, while Camille Paglia explains the destructive nature of such theories. Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst, who writes about the gay experience, reveals that he reads very little popular gay literature. Edmund White explains how he has turned away from the aesthetic and has embraced social realism in his desire to document the AIDS crisis.
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Jewish Identity in Writing (Part 5 of 10)
30 juni 2005 · 30 min
Cartoonist and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman explains how writers' identities are revealed in their work, that reading a book is like crawling into the writer's head. Cynthia Ozick and Jonathan Rosen talk about the immigrant experience and the Jewish American novel... Lees meer
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African Americans and Identity in Writing (Part 4 of 10)
23 juni 2005 · 30 min
Rita Dove, Edward P. Jones, Alice Walker and Jayne Cortez Lees meer
Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove reads her thrilling poem "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove" and discusses black identity and American culture. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones talks about the history of slavery; Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award-winner Alice Walker explains that writing must address a worldwide crisis; and poet, spoken-word artist and activist Jayne Cortez talks about the Watts Writers' Workshop of the 1960's.