Bookworm

Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) Wells Tower is the most talked-about new story writer to emerge on the literary scene. This conversation focuses on the weird details he uses to illuminate a mostly conventional narrative arc...

Modern Life (Graywolf Press) Like dangerous toys or perilous amusement park rides, Matthea Harvey's poems careen into the unknown...

While we take a mini-tour of Flannery O'Connor's life and writing, biographer Brad Gooch describes his difficulties in gaining access to the author's inner life.

All-American Poem (American Poetry Review)Kate Tufts Discovery Award-winner Matthew Dickman writes emotional and accessible poetry...

Geoff Dyer on the secrets that structure his new novel (which might, on the surface, seem like two novellas)....

Don’t Cry (Pantheon)The extraordinary levels of empathy and sadness in Mary Gaitskill’s new stories provide the basis for this intense discussion of the emotional subtexts of her fiction.

Jacques Roubaud, Ian Monk, Daniel Levin Becker, Marcel Bénabou, Anne F. Garréta and Hervé Le Tellier      When members of the Oulipo convened in New York, Bookworm was there to record this mini-anthology of the transcendentally witty, sometimes hilarious goings-on.

The Loop (Dalkey Archive) Jacques Roubaud describes the mesh of image and memory that makes up his fascinating, newly translated, unclassifiable book.

...on his translation of Pierre Martory's The Landscapist (The Sheep Meadow Press) As John Ashbery remembers his early years in Paris, he reflects on French poetry and about the very special case of his long-time friend, Pierre Martory.

Out of fantasias of the past (Fu Manchu novels, exotic Hollywood films, documents of "friendly" imperialism from the twenties to the forties), Gary Indiana concocts the nightmare present of The Shanghai Gesture..

Praise Song for the Day: A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration (Graywolf); American Sublime (Graywolf) When Elizabeth Alexander presented Barack Obama's inaugural poem, few of us had considered that in the history of the United States there had been only three previous inaugural poets...

Warhorses: Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)The extraordinary part of this interview is the opportunity to hear Komunyakaa's voice as he reads his poetry. These poems are about love and war simultaneously, traumatic upheavals that may often be conjoined in this poet's vision of life.

Follow Me (Little, Brown)It has been said that life is like a river, and the river in this novel twists and turns, changes direction and may even be inhabited by river fairies...

Salvation Army (Semiotext(e)) In Abdellah Taïa's family and in his native country, homosexuality is surrounded by silence. All sorts of behaviors are tolerated if they are not spoken of, an intolerable circumstance for a writer...

The Women (Viking)This richly layered conversation with T.C. Boyle centers on the subjects of art and arrogance. The Women is a biographical novel, a fiction derived from the life of Frank Lloyd Wright, focused particularly on Wright's up-and-down experiences with women.

Eamon Grennan: Matter of Fact (Graywolf)Major Jackson: Hoops (Norton)Pattiann Rogers: Wayfare (Penguin) Three poets join us on Bookworm to celebrate Walt Whitman. They read from Leaves of Grass, describe Whitman's influence on their work, read their own poems, and, in general, paint a raucous, friendly, informal portrait of the Good Gray Poet — America's greatest.

The Mercy Papers: A Memoir of Three Weeks (Scribner) Fact and fiction. Robin Romm has written a book of short stories and now a memoir arising from one central event: her mother’s gradual death by cancer...

Watching the Spring Festival: Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) For Frank Bidart, the act of reading poetry aloud involves the entire body... (Part I of this interview aired March 12.)

Watching the Spring Festival: Poems (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) The word most frequently used to describe Frank Bidart’s poetry is “intense.” (Part II of this interview airs on March 19.)

Out of My Skin (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) An existential novel (think Camus’ The Stranger) LA-style. When a celebrity impersonator trains the hero in the art of impersonation, identity confusion ensues...