Otherppl with Brad Listi | Books & Culture
Alle afleveringen
1.363 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Episode 308 — Michael Earl Craig
31 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 29 min
Michael Earl Craig is the guest. His latest book, Talkativeness, is available now from Wave Books.
Publishers Weekly says
"Craig renders unsettling dreams and quotidian clutter with sparse language and a quiet, distant voice to conjure poems brimming with the bizarre. His knack for the disturbing materializes in images from Dick Cheney being wheeled in á la Dr. Strangelove to President Obama's inauguration, to a husband and wife witnessing 'dark turkeys' encroaching on their property, to a speaker declaring his penchant for vocational talent: 'I have just very carefully cut/ my best friend's wife's bangs.' Even the lighter elements of the book seem a bit foul, such as the quick cameo of Death from Ingmar Bergman's Seventh Seal. This is the work of a writer who lives 'in an experimental town' where the 17 on-duty cops can only say, 'That's the way the cookie crumbles.' If it's the qualities of the macabre that lure the reader in, then it's our inability to look away from the grotesque that drive us to continue reading. That inability to turn back, much like the advice Craig offers about catching horses, is what remains at the end of this read: 'you can't fake looking away, horses/ know when you are doing this./ You have to really look away./ Some horsemen never come out of this.'"
Monologue topics: re-reading, Hunter S. Thompson, The Razor's Edge, my bad memory, melatonin, nightmares, fear, superstition.
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Episode 307 — Jim Ruland
27 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 23 min
Jim Ruland is the guest. His new novel, Forest of Fortune, is available now from Tyrus Books. It is the official August selection of The TNB Book Club.
The Los Angeles Times calls it
"[A] masterpiece of desperation, delusion and misdeeds.... Ruland...brilliantly taps the fundamental irony of casinos.... A satisfying read."
And Jerry Stahl says
"...[Forest of Fortune] captures the soul and voice of hard-luck, hard-living Americans in a way that conjures up earlier masters like Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. Jim Ruland has an uncanny ability to get inside his characters...."
Monologue topics: National Geographic, Going Deep, David Rees, Otherppl Premium, dive bars, disillusionment, fetishizing filth.
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Episode 306 — Joshua Wolf Shenk
24 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 25 min
Joshua Wolf Shenk is the guest. His new book, Powers of Two, is now available from Eamon Dolan Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Andrew Solomon says
"In this surprising, compelling, deeply felt book, Joshua Wolf Shenk banishes the idea of solitary genius by demonstrating that our richest art and science come from collaboration: we need one another not only for love, but also for thinking and imagining and growing and being."
And Susan Orlean says
"This is a book about magic; about the Beatles; about the chemistry between people; about neuroscience; and about the buddy system; it examines love and hate, harmony and dissonance, and everything in between. The result is wise, funny, surprising, and completely engrossing."
Monologue: solitude, individualism, hubris, needing people.
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Episode 305 — Cassandra Troyan
20 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 12 min
Cassandra Troyan is the guest. Her new book, Kill Manual, is available from Artifice Books in October 2014.
Chris Kraus says
"The sometime-narrator of Kill Manual anastasiasteele3577 haunts chat rooms and BDSM dating sites in search of oblivion. But oblivion hardly needs to be searched for: It’s already there. This disturbing and radical book reveals, among other things, the half-life left in the wake of ubiquitous, data-mined, robotically fabricated internet content. The world ends in exhaustion. Troyan’s piercingly felt, sampled text probes the immateriality of language. Her work is brilliant and brave."
And Megan Milks says
"This book beats with a steady intensity that is equal parts hot and terrifying; its words are sticky emissions, or fists in the flesh of the eyeball. With a voice both chillingly disembodied and viscerally corporeal, cut with mordant wit, Kill Manual moans, snarls, and laughs, harshly. Riveted by shame, refusing any boundary between pleasure and disgust, with these poems Cassandra Troyan orchestrates a fever march towards negation: 'You are not allowed to call this radical.'"
Monologue topics: sleeplessness, My Little Pony, lying, unicorns.
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Episode 304 — Austin Kleon
17 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 22 min
Austin Kleon is the guest. He is the bestselling author of the books Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work!. Both are available from Workman Publishing.
Publishers Weeklysays
“Some people are natural self-promoters. For others, it’s painfully difficult to put their work out there. In this creatively designed pocket-sized book, Kleon offers the latter group effective strategies that allow them to share their work without leaving their comfort zone…. Kleon’s advice is sassy and spot-on.”
And The Atlantic says
"Austin Kleon is positively one of the most interesting people on the Internet... Kleon makes an articulate and compelling case for combinatorial creativity and the role of remix in the idea economy."
Monologue topics: creativity, block, doing the work, privilege, fun.
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Episode 303 — Tim O'Connell
13 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
Tim O'Connell is the guest. He is an editor at Vintage, Anchor, Knopf, and Pantheon.
Monologue topics: death, the old man who died, DMT, Tao Lin, Terence McKenna, psychedelic crocodiles who want to rape me, machine elves, fear.
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Episode 302 — Steve Almond
10 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 17 min
Steve Almond is the guest. His new book, Against Football: One Fan's Reluctant Manifesto, is due out from Melville House on August 26, 2014. (Author photo: Sharona Jacobs)
Publishers Weekly calls it
"Powerful… Almond is drawing on his own experiences as a fan to illustrate how difficult the problem, which provides the book with an engaging personal angle that will lure readers who are mature enough to hear him out whether they agree with his conclusions… An important read, even if as Almond concedes, it offers more questions than answers."
And Kirkus Reviews says
“A provocative, thoughtful examination of an ’astonishingly brutal’ sport… Comic, compassionate and thought-provoking.”
Monologue topics: football, fandom, non-fans, football as a lens through which to view the wider culture.
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Episode 301 — Shane Jones
6 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 17 min
Shane Jones is the guest. His latest novel, Crystal Eaters, is now available from Two Dollar Radio.
Vice says
"Jones demonstrates a tightrope-like eye for finagling between Pynchon-esque quasi-science-fictional feels and the books' physics, allowing almost anything to happen at any time, wrapped in a Wallace-like grip of childlike awe. The result is a novel that, paragraph to paragraph, is alive with imagination. Crystal Eaters is the rarest of kinds of objects, one that replenishes its readers' crystal counts by simply being read."
And The Millions says
"Crystal Eaters is splattered with Technicolor crystal vomit and eye goo, with bodies leaking red, yellow, and blue; the sun wants to swallow the earth; and the indestructible city encroaches on the country like kudzu. This crystal mining country is Jones’s own Yoknapatawpha County, a town with its own peculiar inhabitants and notions and schemes (such as a prison break in reverse). These fantastical trappings give way to deeper questions — about death, the nature of life, of what it takes to be remembered after you die."
Monologue topics: mail, emotionally satisfying mail.
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Episode 300 — Aimee Bender
3 augustus 2014 · 1 uur 14 min
Aimee Bender is the guest. She is the bestselling author of several books, including The Girl in the Flammable Skirt, The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, and The Color Master.
The LA Times says
"Bender’s work has never been the stuff of manic pixie dream-girl lit. Her fairy tales are dark and wicked, not hipster-precious and faux old-timey. Her sorcery altogether avoids the saccharine, and the thrills and chills of this sometimes sexual, often horror-drenched collection are completely adult. At a time when realism reigns supreme over the literary landscape, one can argue it is absolutely imperative that Aimee Bender be spotlighted for what she is: a vital MVP of modern letters, period…In our world of flash-and-trash insta-Internet-oddities and stranger-than-fiction social-media-bloopers, she will have surpassed the simple feat of inventiveness to own a most dazzlingly urgent relevancy."
And The Wall Street Journal says
“The fairy-tale elements in her writing, far from seeming outlandish, highlight the everyday nature of her characters’ flaws and struggles. In Ms. Bender’s stories and novels, relationships and mundane activities take on mythic qualities.”
Monologue topics: Episode 300, thank you.
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Episode 299 — Dan Chaon
30 juli 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
Dan Chaon is the guest. He is the acclaimed author of several books, including the story collection Among the Missing, a finalist for the National Book Award, Stay Awake, and You Remind Me of Me.
The Boston Globe calls him
"The modern day John Cheever."
And the New York Times Book Review calls his work
"Superbly disquieting."
Monologue topics: complaining, Twitter, robots, simplicity, second-guessing. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 298 — Stuart Dybek
27 juli 2014 · 1 uur 15 min
Stuart Dybek is the guest. He is the award-winning author of several books of fiction and poetry, including Childhood and Other Neighborhoods, The Coast of Chicago, Streets in Their Own Ink, and I Sailed With Magellan.
George Saunders says
"[Stuart Dybek] somehow manages to conjure up beautiful, detailed imitations of real America, and then infuse them with so much surreal truth that they read like myths or fairy tales. Like the Chicago he often writes about, his work is full of genuine sentiment, and edge, and beauty. One of the most soulful writers in America, and a national treasure."
And the Chicago Tribune calls him
"A magician comparable to Eudora Welty and Joy Williams."
Monologue topics: Episode 300, wondering if it means anything, writing in coffee shops, guilt.
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Episode 297 — Cynthia Bond
23 juli 2014 · 1 uur 25 min
Cynthia Bond is the guest. Her debut novel, Ruby, is now available from Hogarth Press. Ruby is the official July selection of The TNB Book Club.
Edwidge Danticat raves
“Reading Cynthia Bond’s Ruby, you can’t help but feel that one day this book will be considered a staple of our literature, a classic. Lush, deep, momentous, much like the people and landscape it describes, Ruby enchants not just with its powerful tale of lifelong quests and unrelenting love, but also with its exquisite language. It is a treasure of a book, one you won’t soon forget.”
And the Dallas Morning News says
"In Ruby, Bond has created a heroine worthy of the great female protagonists of Toni Morrison…and Zora Neale Hurston… Bond’s style of writing is as magical as an East Texas sunrise, with phrases so deftly carved, the reader is often distracted from the brutality described by the sheer beauty of the language.”
Monologue topics: mail, war, peace, duality, mocking myself.
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Episode 296 — Jac Jemc
20 juli 2014 · 1 uur 17 min
Jac Jemc is the guest. Her new story collection, A Different Bed Every Time, is due out from Dzanc Books this fall.
Jesse Ball says
"To Jemc the world is a place where each person, every human cypher, must devour another. What then can we do, if we are devoured, if we are overcome with our own devouring? Her escape plan is inspired and ancient -- to become protean, to dwell in costume after costume, parcelling away the truth that can be found in each. But where is it hid? Ask her, though she may not say."
And Lindsay Hunter says
"Jac Jemc is an artisan. A Different Bed Every Time stays with you long after you've finished reading. Every story is painstakingly crafted with words and imagery that are honed and placed just so, creating a mosaic you feel grateful, exhilarated, thrilled to experience."
Monologue topics: awards shows, the word "lil," humanity, world peace, fuckedness.
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Episode 295 — Letitia Trent
16 juli 2014 · 1 uur 16 min
Letitia Trent is the guest. Her debut novel, Echo Lake, is now available from Dark House Press.
Kirkus Reviews says
"Trent’s years as a poet serve her well in this heavily atmospheric novel, which deftly conjures up both evil and the small town’s complicit reluctance to face its past."
And Kyle Minor says
"Echo Lake is more than just a good debut novel. It is the coming-out party for Letitia Trent, the new poet-queen of neo-noir."
Monologue topics: awards shows, celebrities, awkwardness, The Dude, Jeff Bridges.
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Episode 294 — Leesa Cross-Smith
13 juli 2014 · 1 uur 15 min
Leesa Cross-Smith is the guest. Her debut story collection Every Kiss a War is now available from Mojave River Press. It was a finalist for the Flannery O'Connor Short Fiction Award and the Iowa Short Fiction Award.
Roxane Gay says
“Leesa Cross-Smith is a consummate storyteller who uses her formidable talents to tell the oft-overlooked stories of people living in that great swath of place between the left and right coasts. She offers thrilling turns of phrase like, 'His mouth tasted like thousand-page Russian novels I’d never read,' or 'let your smeary mouth be his question mark.' Where she is most stunning is in the endings of each of the 27 stories in Every Kiss a War, creating crisp, evocative moments that will linger long after you’ve read this book’s very last word.”
Monologue topics: mail, friends, IRL communities, fostering connectivity, being social. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 293 — Guillaume Morissette
9 juli 2014 · 1 uur 19 min
Guillaume Morissette is the guest. His debut novel, New Tab, is now available from Vehicule Press.
Melissa Broder says
“In this hilarious novel, Morissette meditates on finding and making meaning in a time when distractions coalesce to form the new and glossy void. The deconstruction of regrets, an email with feelings and the screaming universe cement Morissette as both a master of the absurd and a seer of the real. I lol’d.”
And Dazed and Confused calls him
"Canada's Alt Lit poster boy."
Monologue topics: being late, rushing, being unprepared, Alt Lit initiation, Frank Hinton's genitals.
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Episode 292 — Julia Fierro
6 juli 2014 · 1 uur 24 min
Julia Fierro is the guest. She is the founder of the Sackett Street Writers' Workshop and her debut novel, Cutting Teeth, is now available from St. Martin's Press.
The Millions says
"When a group of thirty-something parents gather at a ramshackle beach house called Eden, no serpent is required for the sins, carnal and otherwise, to pile up. Fierro, founder of Brooklyn's Sackett Street Writers' Workshop, argued in The Millions last year that writers need to put the steam--and the human sentiment--back into sex scenes in literary novels. You may want to keep Fierro's debut novel on a high shelf, away from children and prudish literary snobs."
And Megan Abbott says
"Julia Fierro’s Cutting Teeth offers immense rewards to readers far beyond those who will identify with the frantic, conflicted, yearning parents who fill the novel (though many will). It’s for any reader seeking a tale rich in character, strong in voice and filled with both incisive social critique and a luminous generosity of spirit, a rare combination indeed."
Monologue topics: mail, Labor Day, childbirth.
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Episode 291 — John Brandon
2 juli 2014 · 1 uur 21 min
John Brandon is the guest. His new story collection, Further Joy, is now available from McSweeney's.
Kirkus Reviews calls it
“An impressive collection, cleareyed and penetrating.”
And Booklistcalls it
"Intensely readable, and enormously entertaining.”
Monologue topics: vacation, relaxation, terrifying hippies, chickens, dancing white women, Coldplay.
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Episode 290 — Smith Henderson
29 juni 2014 · 1 uur 21 min
Smith Henderson is the guest. His debut novel, Fourth of July Creek, is now available from Ecco.
Ron Charles of The Washington Post calls it
“The best book I’ve read so far this year...Henderson choreographs these parts so masterfully that the novel is never less than wholly engaging… All week I was looking for opportunities to slip back into these pages and follow the trials of this rural social worker.”
And The New York Times says
“First novels don’t come much more confidently written or fully imagined than this.”
Monologue topics: travel, family travel, parental aspirations, travel hell.
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Episode 289 — Miranda Beverly-Whittemore
25 juni 2014 · 1 uur 22 min
Miranda Beverly-Whittemore is the guest. Her new novel, Bittersweet, is now available from Crown. It is a New York Times bestseller and the official June selection of The TNB Book Club.
Entertainment Weekly says
“What begins a little like Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep quickly warps into a sickly addictive thriller…think ABC’s Revenge when it was good, only more scandalous…With books like Bittersweet to stuff in beach bags, it’s beginning to feel a lot more like summer."
And The New York Times Book Review says
"A fairy tale aspect—of the Grimm, not the Disney variety—pervades the novel, which artfully builds an increasing sense of menace…Like a Downton-in-Vermont, Bittersweet takes swift, implausible plot turns, and its family secrets flow like a bottomless magnum of champagne, but Beverly-Whittemore succeeds in shining a light into the dark, brutal flaws of the human heart.”
Monologue topics: success, competition, ego, Vanity Fair, The Last Magazine. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 288 — Mike Sacks
22 juni 2014 · 1 uur 20 min
Mike Sacks is the guest. His new book, Poking a Dead Frog: Conversations with Today's Top Comedy Writers, is now available from Penguin.
Bob Odenkirk says
“No one generates more interesting, revealing, or entertaining interviews than Mike Sacks. Poking a Dead Frog is a classic.”
And Will Ferrell says
“This book is what I really look forward to in a book about humor: rich with words and humor, and funny stories with words. Thank you for your time.”
Monologue topics: family vacation, sweltering heat, chickens, fear, sexlessness.
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Episode 287 — Robin Sloan
18 juni 2014 · 1 uur 20 min
Robin Sloan is the guest. His bestselling novel, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, was the May 2014 selection of the TNB Book Club. It is now available in paperback from Picador.
George Saunders calls it
“A real tour de force [and] a beautiful fable...The reader is swept along by Sloan’s enthusiasm.”
And John Hodgman says
“In a time when actual books are filling up tag-sale dollar boxes, along with VHS tapes and old beepers, Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore reminds us that there is an intimate, adventurous joy in the palpable papery things called novels, and in the warm little secret societies we used to call ‘bookstores.’ Robin Sloan’s novel is delightfully funny, provocative, deft, and even thrilling. And for reasons more than just nostalgia, I could not stop turning these actual pages."
Monologue topics: Episode 300, Stephen King, Lorrie Moore, Teju Cole, angst, Mary Karr, false summits.
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Episode 286 — Ariel Schrag
15 juni 2014 · 1 uur 16 min
Ariel Schrag is the guest. Her new novel Adam is now available from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Publishers Weekly says
"Schrag's frisky debut...is one of the most original coming-of-age stories of recent years."
And Flavorwire says
"Ariel Schrag’s story about a teenager who goes to spend the summer in New York with his sister is unlike any coming-of-age story you’ll read anytime soon. Funny and tender... Anybody familiar with Schrag’s comics won’t be disappointed with her work as a novelist; if you haven’t read her other work, let Adam be your introduction and read everything else you can find of hers from there."
Monologue topics: preschool, social anxiety, inferiority, courtesy, instincts. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 285 — Tom Barbash
11 juni 2014 · 1 uur 19 min
Tom Barbash is the guest. His story collection Stay Up With Me is now available in paperback from Ecco.
The Daily Beast calls it
“Fantastic…These Cheever-esque stories all show that Barbash has a sensitive ear towards the subtle ways that relationships are formed and altered, but he’s also not afraid to open a story with a car accident and watch the sparks fly.”
And The New York Times says
“These stories should come with a warning: They might undo you.”
Monologue topics: competition, competitive mania, confusion, fear, loathing.
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Episode 284 — Brittani Sonnenberg
8 juni 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
Brittani Sonnenberg is the guest. Her debut novel, Home Leave, is now available from Grand Central Publishing.
Karen Russell says
"It's hard to believe that this astonishing novel is Brittani Sonnenberg's first--she writes about family with wisdom, humor, and native daring. Here is Persephone's journey, undertaken by an entire family, the Kriegsteins, who ricochet through time zones, moving from Berlin to Singapore to Wisconsin to Shanghai to Atlanta, together and alone. Sonnenberg's prose is so vital and so enchanting that you will read this book in the dilated state of a world-traveler, with all of your senses wide open. Her family members are so well-drawn and complex that you'll close this book certain they exist."
And Wim Wenders calls it
"A captivating tour de force that follows a nomadic family across generations and continents."
Monologue topics: mail, multilingualism, cultural superiority, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Iran, Egypt.
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Episode 283 — Nicholas Grider
4 juni 2014 · 1 uur 15 min
Nicholas Grider is the guest. His story collection, Misadventure, is now available from A Strange Object.
Brian Evenson calls it
"A dark and luscious hell ride through the damaged but nonetheless appealing rituals of bondage. These are tantalizing and difficult stories in which fantasy and reality bleed (quite literally) into one another."
And Matt Bell says
"Each of these compelling stories is ruled not by certainty but by maybe, by sometimes, by ‘this is not necessarily a proclamation of anything’—and so we finally sense behind their pages the nervous heart of the modern man, stubbornly clinging to a fading authority, now more desperately than ever before.”
Monologue topics: thanks, Skylight Books, xTx, Roxane Gay, Lisa Mecham, curtseying.
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Episode 282 — Aaron Gwyn
1 juni 2014 · 1 uur 13 min
Aaron Gwyn is the guest. His new novel, Wynne's War, is now available from Eamon Dolan Books.
Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, says
"Gwyn’s (Dog on the Cross) story is a gripping tale of men at war in the desolate snow-capped mountains of eastern Afghanistan, and captures the essence of close combat—the terror, excitement, chaos, tension, and cruelty, as well as the harsh decisions men make under stress...its gritty realism is part of the strength."
And Nic Pizzolatto, creator of HBO's True Detective, says
“Wynne's War is a deep and beautifully written story of men, war, and madness, told by a young American master. A page-turner of poetic and savage grace, of our time but transcending it, this novel takes its rightful place among the great American literature of war.”
Monologue topics: bad news, miscarriage, feeling bad about feeling bad, bad luck, bad.
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Episode 281 — Ana Carrete
28 mei 2014 · 1 uur 19 min
Ana Carrete is the guest. Her poetry collection Baby Babe is now available from Civil Coping Mechanisms.
Sam Pink says
“The first time I heard Ana’s writing was 2 years ago. In November of 2010, I read at the ‘Ear Eater’ reading series in Chicago. Ana was another reader. She was reading via Skype. There were a lot of people at the reading. After I read, I walked out of the room and stood in a hallway, staring at the floor. After a few difficult conversations with people in the hallway, I heard the host of the reading talking to someone on the computer. It was Ana. Ana started reading. I laughed a lot and enjoyed her reading. Seemed like other people weren’t enjoying it as much as me but I was enjoying it a lot. I stood in the hallway laughing and shaking my head ‘Yes’ and people looked at me. I kept thinking, ‘I want to go into the room and watch her face reading’ but then I would think, ‘No, don’t do that, just listen.’ Not sure why I kept telling myself not to go into the room where she was reading but I stood in the hallway and listened and enjoyed it a lot. Two years later, Ana emailed me Baby Babe. I opened the PDF just to skim a few poems but then I read the whole book. When I was done reading the book, I thought, ‘I’ll be glad to have this book so I can look at it whenever I want.’”
Monologue topics: foreign languages, bilingualism, power dynamics, ego, inferiority, anger.
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Episode 280 — Kelly Braffet
25 mei 2014 · 1 uur 17 min
Kelly Braffet is the guest. Her novel Save Yourself is now available in paperback from Broadway Books.
Dennis Lehane calls it
"The real deal. Save Yourself is an electrifying, tomahawk missile of a thriller with honest-to-God people at its core. It rocks the house."
And The New York Times says
"There’s storytelling skill to burn here. Ms. Braffet has empathy for her working-class characters and brings neglected places to convincing life."
Monologue topics: orders of business, questions from listeners, blogging, what I'm reading currently. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 279 — Lee Klein
21 mei 2014 · 1 uur 24 min
Lee Klein is the guest. He has two books out this year. The first is called Thanks and Sorry and Good Luck, available now from Barrelhouse. The second, due out in August 2014, is called The Shimmering Go-Between (Atticus Books).
Blake Butler says
"Somewhere on the brutal truth continuum between Bill Hicks and Mussolini, Lee Klein’s rejection letters are mini-masterpieces of literary criticism disguised as no-thank-yous from Writer’s Hell. And yet, in each, a little lesson; a steadfast faith that says 'I took the time to read what you created and this is exactly what I thought.' They should be passing these things out under the pillows at MFA camp; we’d all be better off."
And Elizabeth Ellen says
"Lee Klein made me cry. He was the only editor ever to make me. This was back in 2002. I wish I still had the email. I remember it going something like, 'whenever you have the instinct to write a line like that, delete it immediately, without prejudice.' I hated him for a while. I pictured him looking like the guy in that 90’s movie Heavy (the one with Liv Tyler), except housebound and with no redeemable qualities. Then, somewhere around 2004, I met him 'IRL' and he was soft-spoken and sweet. It was harder to hate him after that. Reading all of these rejection letters here in this book made me finally fall a little in love with him, I think. I think if I had had access to (and disassociation from) these letters then, I might have fallen in love with him then. This is the funniest book I have read in a long time. It is also the smartest. I feel confused now, like I’m unsure whether to love or hate Lee Klein. But both of us are married now so it doesn’t really matter."
Monologue topics: analytics, paranoia, See's Candies, death, parenthood, mortal fear.
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Episode 278 — Katherine Faw Morris
18 mei 2014 · 1 uur 13 min
Katherine Faw Morris is the guest. Her debut novel, Young God, is now available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
Daniel Woodrell says
"Young God is a poetic, grim, and beautifully dark novel about backwoods violence and horror recounted in a numbed, laconic voice. Morris writes with splendid economy, chapters short as contes, and plenty of slashing insights on the rough world of throwaway lives and varieties of wrong."
And Richard Hell says
"This book is so clean and dirty: thirteen-year-old Nikki’s nipples pop like buttons; Kool Kings come in a hard box; white goo tastes a little salty but mostly like nothing. The best dreams are of nothing. Except that it is not nothing. It is charged white space: These pages happen to you and now you’re awakening, groping groggily to reconstruct. Get mixed up by it. Enter the single-wide and find some ecstasy with Katherine Faw Morris."
Monologue topics: mail, videos, intoxicated listeners on rooftops, my bad memory.
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Episode 277 — Stacey D'Erasmo
14 mei 2014 · 1 uur 16 min
Stacey D'Erasmo is the guest. Her new novel, Wonderland, is now available fromHoughton Mifflin Harcourt.
Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, calls it
"A spellbinding look into the protagonist’s being... meticulously crafted ... Days and shows pass, but within this routine, a transformation slowly creeps into the narrative: that of commitment, and, perhaps, hope for the future."
And Michael Stipe says
"The world of Wonderland is authentic, vibrant, and genuine. Stacey D’Erasmo explores the delight and terror of second chances. A great read!"
Monologue topics: heat, Santa Ana winds, climate change, indifference, idiocy, fear.
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Episode 276 — Megan Stielstra
11 mei 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
Megan Stielstra is the guest. Her new essay collection, Once I Was Cool, is now available from Curbside Splendor.
Roxane Gay says
"In Once I Was Cool, Megan Stielstra is warm and open and wise. Whether she’s writing about the complex loneliness of early motherhood or failing to rise to the occasion or find the right language while living abroad, Stielstra is a masterful essayist. From the first page to the last, she demonstrates a graceful understanding of the power of storytelling. What she’s truly offering with her words, is the grandest of gifts."
And Christine Sneed says
"What an amazing cri de coeur Once I Was Cool is. Megan Stielstra tells us in a witty, sympathetic, confident voice who she is and what and whom she cares about most. Reading these essays, I laughed out loud and also found myself on the verge of tears so many times. This book should be read by anyone who's been in love, had a child or thought about having a child. So, probably, that's everyone."
Monologue: humans, friendships, community, the fragility of human relationships, loneliness, complexity, simplicity.
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Episode 275 — Leslie Jamison
7 mei 2014 · 1 uur 24 min
Leslie Jamison is the guest. Her new collection of essays, entitled The Empathy Exams, is now available from Graywolf Press.
The New York Times Book Review calls it
"Extraordinary and exacting....This capacity for critical thinking, for a kind of cool skepticism that never gives way to the chilly blandishments of irony, is very rare. It's not surprising that Jamison is drawing comparisons to Sontag....There is a glory to this kind of writing that derives as much from its ethical generosity, the palpable sense of stretch and reach, as it does from the lovely vividness of the language itself....It's hard to imagine a stronger, more thoughtful voice emerging this year."
And Phillip Lopate, writing for The San Francisco Chronicle, says
"[Jamison] writes consistently with passion and panache; her sentences are elegantly formed, her voice on the page intimate and insistent. Always intelligent, self-questioning, willing to experiment with form, daring to engage with the weird and thrust herself into danger spots, a patient researcher and voracious processor of literature and critical theory, she is the complete package: state-of-the-art nonfiction."
Monologue topics: mail, cheering up, the struggle, expressing the subterranean.
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Episode 274 — Kathleen Rooney
4 mei 2014 · 1 uur 24 min
Kathleen Rooney is the guest. Her new novel, O, Democracy!, is now available from Fifth Star Press.
Jonathan Evison raves
“O, Democracy! infuriates and inspires. Rooney has written a brilliant and fiercely readable novel of politics and ideals, both an indictment and a celebration of the American Experiment, which will leave you breathless.”
And Elizabeth Crane says
“With O, Democracy!, Kathleen Rooney makes a swift and seamless transition from poetry to fiction, pairing her skill for image with a fresh voice, humor, and a keen eye for the political world she navigates here. An exciting debut.”
Monologue topics: panicking, whining, suffering publicly, ratings, E.T., money, picking up the tab, emotionally needy social behavior.
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Episode 273 — Juliet Escoria
30 april 2014 · 1 uur 19 min
Juliet Escoria is the guest. Her new story collection, Black Cloud, is now available from Civil Coping Mechanisms.
Adam Wilson says
"Juliet Escoria is like a gutter-punk Grace Paley."
And Benjamin Samuel, co-editor of Electric Literature, says
"Reading the stories in Black Cloud is like getting punched in the throat; Juliet Escoria leaves you speechless. Her honesty teaches us that beauty can be found in violence, truth in pain, and life where we've always been afraid to look."
Monologue: travel, American Airlines, family, fatigue, weddings.
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Episode 272 — Sommer Browning
27 april 2014 · 1 uur 13 min
Sommer Browning is the guest. Her new poetry collection, Backup Singers, is now available from Birds Publishing.
Mathias Svalina says
"Sometimes I think Sommer Browning is a James Wright for the basic cable generation, at others the gorgeously deformed lovechild of H.D. and Groucho Marx. What I mean is I cannot categorize these poems, and that's the highest compliment I can give any poetry."
Monologue topics: Birds, Bird, Charlie Parker, being pressed for time.
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Episode 271 — Josh Raab
23 april 2014 · 1 uur 20 min
Josh Raab is the guest. He is the founder of The Newer York Press, an experimental literary publisher based in Los Angeles. Its latest title, The Inevitable June, by Bob Schofield, is now available for pre-order.
Monologue topics: the desert, Coachella, fish tacos, sunlight, curmudgeonliness.
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Episode 270 — Justin Hocking
20 april 2014 · 1 uur 30 min
Justin Hocking is the guest. His new memoir, The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld, is now available from Graywolf Press. It is the official April selection of the TNB Book Club.
Cheryl Strayed says
"As generous as it is smart, as intimate as it is grand, as illuminating as it is dark. With grace and guts, Justin Hocking dares to go where few men have gone before: not only out to sea, but also into the depths of the human heart."
And Junot Díaz says
“This beautiful memoir is beyond cool. A voyage both erudite and affecting.”
Monologue topics: TNB Book Club, mail, miscarriage, fatherhood, privilege, sadsploitation.
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Episode 269 — Labor Day Special
16 april 2014 · 1 uur 54 min
Today's show features conversations with multiple authors, all of whom have contributed to a new anthology entitled Labor Day: True Birth Stories by Today's Best Women Writers. Guests include the anthology's editors, Eleanor Henderson and Anna Solomon, as well as Amy Brill, Arielle Greenberg, Cristina Henriquez, Heidi Julavits, Jane Roper, Rachel Jamison Webster, Sarah Jefferis, and Sarah Strickley.
Booklist says
"This isn’t a how-to book, nor does it present a case for the ‘perfect birth,’ which sets it apart from the plethora of childbirth manuals and lends it broader appeal and a very different type of resonance."
And Emma Straub says
"Pregnancy made my body ravenous for food and my brain ravenous for stories like this, stories of how other women had crossed the great divide. In delivery rooms, in the backseats of cars, and at home, these women tell their birth stories so clearly that they must have had stenographers present on the scene. I loved reading this book with my baby asleep in the next room, and will give it to every pregnant woman I know from here on out, forever."
Monologue topics: Labor Day, hard work, parenthood.
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Episode 268 — Douglas Coupland
13 april 2014 · 1 uur 22 min
Douglas Coupland is the guest. His new novel is called Worst. Person. Ever. and it is available now from Blue Rider Press.
The Globe and Mail says
“A satirical, misanthropic romp through reality television, environmental disaster and apocalyptic possibilities. Once again, Coupland...has asserted himself as a documenter of our times and anticipator of societal threats.... The plugged-in consumer-culture philosopher has created a brand of his own, becoming—and, over the long haul, remaining—a thinky superstar for a distracted era. More than 20 years after he became a pop-culture darling with Generation X, Coupland is still innovating—not simply cranking out words and sculptures, but making a significant contribution with astute observations.... As the country’s go-to guy for art, design, and contemporary social commentary, could Coupland be Canada’s Biggest. (Cultural). Brain. Ever?”
And The Independent calls it
"...a scatological bun-fight of excess and debauchery, of juvenile humour peppered with bilious rage at the state of the world...It’s riotous, frequently very funny...I can’t locate very much seriousness, but I certainly enjoyed trying.”
Monologue topics: mail, age, generations, Spencer and Mira.
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Episode 267 — T. Greenwood
9 april 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
T. Greenwood is the guest. Her latest novel, Bodies of Water, is now available from Kensington Books.
Publishers Weekly says
"Greenwood is a writer of subtle strength...finding light in the darkest of stories."
And Library Journal calls it
"...intricate and tragic...This compassionate, insightful look at hope and redemption is a richly textured portrait."
Monologue topics: Otherppl Premium, writing, worrying about the quality of my content. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 266 — Scott O'Connor
6 april 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
Scott O'Connor is the guest. His new novel, Half World, is now available from Simon & Schuster.
The Daily Beast calls it
"Gripping...The perfect book for our present moment."
And Kirkus Reviews calls it
"An invigorating historical thriller... Intimately gripping... O'Connor writes with fire."
Monologue topics: company, family, being too busy, wanting to live in utopia, mail.
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Episode 265 — Rene Denfeld
2 april 2014 · 1 uur 21 min
Rene Denfeld is the guest. She is an accomplished journalist who has written for The New York Times Magazine, The Oregonian, and other publications. She is also a licensed investigator who specializes in death penalty work. Her debut novel, The Enchanted, is now available from Harper.
Publishers Weekly calls it
“A striking one-of-a-kind prison novel....[with] rich, haunting prose...A stunning first novel from an already accomplished writer.”
And Donald Ray Pollock says
“Rene Denfeld is a genius. In The Enchanted, she has imagined one of the grimmest settings in the world--a dank and filthy death row in a corrupt prison--and given us one of the most beautiful, heart-rending, and riveting novels I have ever read.”
Monologue topics: Melissa Broder, public bathrooms, darkened anterooms, tall strangers, misunderstandings, micro-paranoia.
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Episode 264 — Jacinda Townsend
30 maart 2014 · 1 uur 20 min
Jacinda Townsend is the guest. Her new novel Saint Monkey is now available from W.W. Norton & Co.
Roxane Gay says
“Saint Monkey is an absolute marvel of a book. Jacinda Townsend is dazzling as she transports the reader to a different time and place—the 1950s, rural Kentucky, and Harlem at the height of the jazz era. Two young girls, Audrey and Caroline, fight for a place in the world and, though their paths at times diverge, their journeys and this writer will utterly captivate you.”
And Booklist, in a starred review, raves
“This is a breathtakingly insightful, suspenseful, and gorgeously realized novel of cruelty and sorrow, anger and forgiveness, improvisation and survival, and the transcendent beauty of nature and art.”
Monologue topics: teaching my 3-year-old about death.
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Episode 263 — D. Foy
26 maart 2014 · 1 uur 14 min
D. Foy is the guest. His debut novel, Made to Break, is now available from Two Dollar Radio.
Anthony Swofford says
"Reading D. Foy's prose is like watching Robert Stone and Wallace Stevens drag race across a frozen lake at midnight."
And Matthew Specktor says
“D. Foy’s writing is so rich, so saturated in both life and literature, that one is tempted to strain for comparison, to find whatever madcap equivalencies (“It’s X meets Y!”) might begin to describe it accurately. Yet its whorl and grain, the fantastical strangeness of Foy’s sentences and the astonishing accuracy of his perception, amounts to something I can only call new. Made To Break is that rare thing: a truly original, and ferociously necessary, book.”
Monologue topics: news, new written content, upcoming event. Lees meerLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 262 — Mary Beth Keane
23 maart 2014 · 1 uur 18 min
Mary Beth Keane is the guest. Her latest novel, Fever, is now available from Scribner.
The New York Times Book Review calls it
“[A] tender, detailed portrayal of willed ignorance collapsing in the face of truth…A fine novel.”
And USA Today says
“[Keane] is a talented storyteller, her style plain and steady, not unlike Mary’s demeanor. What’s most remarkable about this novel is its brilliantly visceral vision of everyday life in early-1900s New York City, a rich and detailed working-class backdrop filled with the sights, sounds and smells of tenement squalor, overcrowded apartments, unsanitary conditions, sweatshops, and streets teaming with people trying to survive…If you have an appetite for historical fiction, this novel could be infectious.”
Monologue topics: new website reminder, rebranding reminder, mail.
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Episode 261 — Antonia Crane
19 maart 2014 · 1 uur 22 min
Antonia Crane is the guest. Her new memoir, Spent, is now available from Rare Bird Lit / A Barnacle Book.
Kirkus calls it
"...revelatory, [an] unapologetic life story of a San Francisco stripper and sex worker. A raw, searing self-portrait."
And Stephen Elliott says
“Antonia Crane is a gift. Her writing will change how you look at the world.”
Monologue topics: new website, re-branding, Mira Gonzalez and Spencer Madsen.
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Episode 260 — Heather Christle
16 maart 2014 · 1 uur 19 min
Heather Christle is the guest. She was the recipient of the 2012 Believer Magazine Poetry Award for her collection entitled The Trees, The Trees (Octopus Books). Her other collections include The Difficult Farm and What is Amazing (Wesleyan University Press).
John Darnielle of The Mountain Goats says
"If you’re thinking about a new tattoo, may I recommend dropping your finger onto any random phrase in Heather Christle’s new book? That’s how keen her ear for the off-the-cuff aphorism is, how neatly her lines break into glistening parts. You get the impression of the oracle at Delphi trying her hand at stand-up or jamming the broadcast of the nightly news: Christle’s gift for welding surreal visions to living speech rhythms keeps unlocking new surprises, page after page. At least once per poem, you feel like the triple-bars just lined up in the slot-machine window, and you laugh or cry out."
Monologue topics: screenplay excerpts, Man of Letters, poetry, tragedy.
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Episode 259 — Catherine Lacey
12 maart 2014 · 1 uur 22 min
Catherine Lacey is the guest. Her debut novel, Nobody Is Ever Missing, is due out from FSG Originals in July 2014.
David Shields says
"At the center of this artfully recursive narrative is an unspeakable abyss, from which the narrator has been unable to turn since her sister’s suicide. Elyria is astounded that other people can conduct their lives as though this abyss isn’t there; she’s wavering on the edge, and the effect is often genuinely terrifying. A dense, subtle series of meditations on domestication, estrangement, wildness, above all loss and absence."
And Laura van den Berg raves
“In Catherine Lacey’s virtuosic debut, a young woman hurls herself into the landscape of New Zealand in search of a way to break the frozen sea within. The story that follows is a gutsy, lyric meditation on identity, love, transformation, and what it means to be free. Nobody Is Ever Missing is a breathtakingly accomplished novel, and it establishes Catherine Lacey as a riveting new voice in contemporary fiction.”
Monologue topics: traffic, the dentist, road rage, A-Ha, "Take On Me," emotional confusion.
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