Bookworm

The heroine of Alice Notley's noir epic poem is named Ines. This is short for "inessential," which is what Notley says the poet is, and, really, what we all are.

Knausgaard’s third volume focuses on childhood. He says what he knows of people he knows from books. He continues in this tradition of telling with the written word.

Reflecting on his autobiographical novels, Knausgaard says literature should be about life; in writing, he attempts to find meaning within the banality of the everyday.

An exciting first for Bookworm, recently married literary-couple Michael Carroll and Edmund White join us for a double-interview.

Do we have a need for a connection with heaven and hell? Krasznahorkai's novel is a valuation of human life seen from heaven and hell through the eyes of a Taoist goddess.

Intellectual, accessible, and provocative literary conversations.

Sjón places classic epics side-by-side with Icelandic sagas of past centuries. We discuss how literature comes from literature and one story gives birth to the next.

We are never prepared to discover our parents are fallible; Simpson's protagonist investigates his parents' lives but most of what he uncovers he doesn't wish to know.

VanderMeer's trilogy chronicles expeditions orchestrated by a government agency called the Southern Reach into a dangerous landscape where reality and unreality blur.

For Jeff Jackson, starting a novel is an invocation. There's an idea that telling our stories is cathartic but sometimes what you've really done is turn up the volume.

Emma Donoghue found the San Francisco she uncovered while researching for her novel far more modern than the Dublin she grew up in a century later.

Lorrie Moore's darkly humorous stories follow middle-aged men and women in states of lonely desperation trapped by the absurdities of their everyday lives.

Dustin Long speaks of the disappointment his generation has grown to expect at having prepared for a  life that isn't there.

Love can become a false Eden. Michelle Huneven's protagonist retreats to the Sierras to write her dissertation but upon accepting a lover begins to dwell in their affair.

Irish author John Banville has written a new novel under his crime-fiction pseudonym, Benjamin Black, and in the guise of Raymond Chandler.

Robert Bly and Marion Woodman "The; Maiden King" (Holt) Why do fairy tales, legends and myths continue to transmit wisdom? Poet Bly and analyst Woodman interpret a Russian fairy tale

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (Ballantine)

Northern Lights The playwright discusses, and performs from, his new work.

The Last Station

Originally from Beijing, Yiyun Li thought she would be a scientist. Writing in her non-native English, she addresses the emotional brutality of our time.