Soundings From The New York Review

Adam Hochschild talks to Hugh Eakin about the epidemic of violence against women in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ronald Dworkin talks to Hugh Eakin about Judge Sonia Sotomayor's confirmation hearings, the growing conservatism of the Roberts Court, and the myth that judges can decide cases simply by fidelity to the law.

Timothy Snyder talks to Sasha Weiss about how we can best understand the Holocaust and the mass killings under Stalin as a particularly Eastern European phenomenon.

Roger Cohen speaks to Hugh Eakin about the protests that followed Iran's June 12 election, the crackdown, and the consequences for the future of the Iranian regime.

Novelist and critic Claire Messud, author most recently of the novel The Emperor's Children, reads her new story "Land Divers," from the Review's Summer Fiction issue.

Michael Tomasky speaks with Hugh Eakin about public perception of the President and his policies, the thinking behind the administration's ceding of authority to Congress, and the sheer pace of Obama's Washington.

David Cole talks to Michael Shae about the history of the legal battle over same-sex marriage, the changing demographics that favor nationwide support, and the legal and political tactics advocates and activists might use to ensure a just future for the institution.

Nicholas Kristof speaks with Sasha Weiss about his experiences reporting in Darfur, the International Criminal Court's indictment of Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir on counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and what the Obama administration can do to prevent further escalation of the conflict.

Ahmed Rashid speaks with Hugh Eakin about the continuing conflict between the Pakistani government and the Taliban, the humanitarian crisis in Swat, and the violence that has spread from the border with Afghanistan to within sixty miles of the capital, Islamabad.

Helen Epstein talks with Eve Bowen about lawyer Sunny Schwartz's work in the San Francisco county jail system, and her program's potential for transforming the treatment of prisoners nationwide.

Christopher Ricks speaks with Giles Harvey about Posthumous Keats, Stanley Plumly's recent biography of John Keats, and about the poet's death and the idealized image that emerged during his "immediate afterlife.

Andrew Delbanco, director of American Studies at Columbia University, speaks with Michael Shae about the financial crisis facing American higher education.

Playwright David Hare reads his monologue Wall, an exploration of the impact—on both Israelis and Palestinians—of the barrier built to divide Israel from the West Bank.

Novelist Tim Parks speaks with Andrew Palmer about Geoffrey Brock's new English translation of Carlo Collodi's children's classic Pinocchio, and the book's origins in the political and cultural tumult of 1880s Italy.

Economist and Nobel laureate Robert M. Solow speaks with Hugh Eakin about the causes of the current crisis, the importance of credit in the functioning of the world financial system, and how new regulation might prevent future disasters.

Historian Orlando Figes speaks with Sasha Weiss about his latest book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia; the recent prosecutor's office raid on the Memorial Society, a human rights organization working to preserve memories and documentary evidence of Stalin's repression; and the dangers posed by resurgent Stalinism to the accurate telling of Russian history.

Drawing on his long personal relationship with the Dalai Lama, Pico Iyer speaks with Hugh Eakin about the Tibetan leader's stark new view of the Chinese regime and the future of Tibet.

John Ashbery reads sixteen of his own selections from among the more than forty poems he has published in the Review since the 1970s, and comments on a few of his most obscure film and literary references. © 2009 John Ashbery. All rights to this recorded material belong to the author. Used with gracious permission of John Ashbery.

Poet and critic Dan Chiasson speaks with Giles Harvey about John Ashbery's life and work, and reflects on the demanding pleasures of reading Ashbery's poetry.

Jonathan Raban speaks with Charles Petersen about Kelly Reichardt's film Wendy and Lucy and the stories of Jon Raymond, and about how these works illuminate—and are illuminated by—the socioeconomic realities of the Pacific Northwest.