Otherppl With Brad Listi

Tao Lin is the guest. His new novel, Taipei, is now available from Vintage Contemporaries. The New York Observer says "Tao Lin [is] an excellent writer of avant-garde fiction. His new novel is his most mature work, and follows a young New York writer to Taipei, where he must reconcile his family’s roots with the haze of MDMA, texts and tweets that he’s been living in. Mr. Lin has refined his deadpan prose style here into an icy, cynical, but ultimately thrilling and unique literary voice." And Blake Butler says “The insane level of scrutiny of everyday personal behavior in Taipei feels somewhere between that of Andy Warhol and a young, bored Patrick Bateman. All the strange modernity we’ve come to expect from Tao Lin—alienation, obsession, social confusion, drugs, the internet, sex, food, death—is rendered here with an calm intuition, somehow distant and metaphysical at once, brutally honest and avoidant, touching and monotonic, like getting sewn inside a mask of your own face. And as can also always be expec

Tao Lin is the guest. His new novel, Taipei, is now available in trade paperback from Vintage Contemporaries. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, says "For all its straightforwardness, Lin’s previous work—with its flat, Internet-inspired prose issued by small presses—has presented a stumbling stone for readers who fall outside his North Brooklyn contingent, for whom he is the standard bearer. This will change with the breakout Taipei, a novel about disaffection that’s oddly affecting. . . . Everything about Taipei appears to run contrary to the standard idea of what constitutes art. And yet, the documentary precision captures the sleepwalking malaise of Lin’s generation so completely, it’s scary. . . . Yet for all its emotional reality, Taipei is a book without an ounce of self-pity, melodrama, or posturing, making the glacial Lin (Richard Yates) the perfect poster child for a generation facing—and failing to face—maturity.” And Bret Easton Ellis says “With Taipei Tao Lin becomes the most interesting pros

Melanie Thorne is the guest. Her debut novel, Hand Me Down, is now available in paperback from Plume Books. It was named one of the Best Books of 2012 by Kirkus Reviews. BookPage calls it “Difficult to read, but impossible to put down—this is perhaps the best way to describe Melanie Thorne’s debut, Hand Me Down. Like Janet Finch’s 1999 bestseller White Oleander, this is a raw and all too realistic story about a California teen forced to move from house to house—and often from bad situation to worse—after her well-intentioned but self-centered mother makes a life-changing choice.” And The Associated Press says “Melanie Thorne's debut novel is raw with emotion as she describes Liz's often futile efforts to protect her sister and herself from the predator their mother has invited into their lives. It is often hard to remember that this is, in fact, a novel and not a memoir… Thorne's novel is an eye-opener… she leaves the reader haunted by a nagging question: What happens to the children who are not so lucky?”

Deb Olin Unferth is the guest. She's the author of three books, the most recent of which is a memoir called Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War (Henry Holt). It was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Critics Circle Award. Dave Eggers says "This is a very funny, excoriatingly honest story of being young, semi-idealistic, stupid and in love. If you have ever been any of these things, you'll devour it." And Bookslut calls it “[O]ne of the best memoirs of the past several years. It's a difficult book to stop reading; Unferth is charming, charismatic, and breathtakingly smart… [Revolution is] more than enough to catapult Unferth into the ranks of America's great young writers.” Monologue topics: Memorial Day weekend, Venice Beach, Katy Perry, celebrity sightings, Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, the gym, Paul Rudd. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Masha Hamilton is the guest. She is currently working in Afghanistan as Director of Communications and Public Diplomacy at the US Embassy, and her new novel, What Changes Everything, is now available from Unbridled Books. Caroline Leavitt raves "As real and immediate as a racing pulse, Hamilton’s dark jewel of a novel turns the political into the personal with a blazing tapestry of characters, all grappling with the terrifying cost of war and the unbreakable bonds of love. Thrilling and magnificent." And Jillian Cantor says "Intensely gripping and beautifully written, What Changes Everything shows the lengths we will go to save each other and ourselves. A stunning collage of loss, grief, love, and most of all, survival, Hamilton’s characters—and their stories—are richly drawn and achingly real." Monologue topics: Memorial Day, Frances Ha, personal lives of celebrities intruding on the moviegoing experience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michael Reynolds is the guest. He is the editor-in-chief of Europa Editions. Maureen Corrigan of NPR's Fresh Air says "Europa Editions...has been doing the Lord's work in terms of introducing European literary novels, many of them in translation, to an American readership." And the LA Weekly says “You could consider Europa Editions...as a kind of book club for Americans who thirst after exciting foreign fiction.” Monologue topics:  blurbs, bullshit, Jim Carroll, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, The Pussy Posse, the grandeur of delusions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kendra Grant Malone is the guest. She is the author of two poetry collections, Everything is Quiet (Scrambler Books) and Morocco (Dark Sky Books), the second of which she co-wrote with Matthew Savoca.  Blake Butler says "Kendra Grant Malone contains several hundred people. Likewise, her words seem to protect several hundred other words beneath their giddy, precise calm. Here is a mother and a voyeur and a pervert and a magick-making child, somewhere between them all your brand new old friend, teeming with such heat. Here is language more honest than I could ever be. I suggest you keep it close, warm. I suggest you keep an eye, as if this book had human hands beyond its gorgeous shoulders it would tickle you to death; it would hump your funny tired body, then eat your head for what you’ve seen." And Ben Greenman says "Any book that thanks ‘vodka, cocaine, and Citalopram, for making mood swings bearable and this book possible’ is likely to a strong sense of its own identity, or identities, and Kendra Grant M

Benjamin Percy is the guest. His new novel, Red Moon, is now available from Grand Central Publishing. It is the May selection of the TNB Book Club. John Irving says "Red Moon is a serious, politically symbolic novel—a literary novel about lycanthropes. If George Orwell had imagined a future where the werewolf population had grown to the degree that they were colonized and drugged, this terrifying novel might be it." And Library Journal, in a starred review, raves "This literary thriller by an award-winning young writer will excite fans of modern horror who enjoy a large canvas and a history to go with their bloody action. . . . Fans of Max Brooks's zombies and Justin Cronin's vampires will enjoy the dramatic breadth of Percy's tale of werewolves." Monologue topics: the Internet, blackouts, addiction, meditation, masturbation, my mother. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Anna Stothard is the guest. Her novel The Pink Hotel is now available in the United States from Picador. And her latest effort, a novel called The Art of Leaving, is just out in the UK from Alma Books. The New York Times calls The Pink Hotel “Stylish… captures an outsider’s gape at sun-drenched Los Angeles.” And Davy Rothbart raves "The Pink Hotel is mysterious, lyrical, and utterly absorbing, by turns funny and forlorn. [Stothard's] writing bristles with sexiness and suspense, love, loss, and longing. This is the best book I’ve read in years.” Monologue topics: stopping, vistas, nature, personal space, park benches, eating on airplanes, Reese Witherspoon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ken Baumann is the guest. He is an actor, writer, and publisher. His new novel, Solip, is now available from Tyrant Books. HTML Giant says: "There is nothing on the back cover. A wall of black staring at you. No pull quotes or blurbs, and by the second page you realize why: because the book speaks for itself....I read this tiny book in one sitting in a coffee shop amazed by its power and had to go indoors to drown out the outside world to reread it and devour it properly....Early frontrunner for best book I’ve read this year, certainly the most memorable. I can’t remember reading anything quite like Solip....Solip is a twitter account from hell, a deranged patient babbling on a shrink’s couch....Concise yet brimming with ideas and thoughts and lists and fragments and run-ons and then it’s over and you’re left wondering what the fuck happened." Monologue topics:  fiction, nonfiction, my novel, paralysis, creative quandaries, Errol Morris, Baltimore, The Black Guerilla Family, prison corruption. Learn more abou

Matt Nelson is the guest.  Along with Jacob Perkins, he is the co-founder of the Mellow Pages Library in Brooklyn, New York.  The library was recently featured in the New York Times: "Matt Nelson, a graduate student in creative writing at Queens College and one of the library’s two founders, explained the origins of the place, which is meant to serve as a reading room and gathering spot in addition to book lender. Mr. Nelson and Jacob Perkins, both 26, started the library in February, inspired in part by Pilot Books, a bookstore in Mr. Nelson’s hometown, Seattle, that carried volumes by independent publishers, and which closed in 2011. "Mellow Pages also specializes in those more arcane titles. Without the advertising budgets of major houses, the smaller presses have more difficulty finding readers, Mr. Nelson said, and the idea behind the library was to form a community of people who could share books that were not easy to find elsewhere." Monologue topics:  voicemails, Spencer Madsen, Skype, my voice, che

Emily Rapp is the guest. Her new memoir, The Still Point of the Turning World, is now available from Penguin. Cheryl Strayed says "The Still Point of the Turning World is about the smallest things and the biggest things, the ugliest things and the most beautiful things, the darkest things and the brightest things, but most of all it’s about one very important thing: the way a woman loves a boy who will soon die. Emily Rapp didn’t want to tell us this story. She had to. That necessity is evident in every word of this intelligent, ferocious, grace-filled, gritty, astonishing starlight of a book." And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it "A beautiful, searing exploration of the landscape of grief and a profound meditation on the meaning of life." Monologue topics:  wedding, Chicago, sobriety, alcohol, 5-Hour Energy, Tay-Sachs, NTSAD.org Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Fiona Maazel is the guest. Her new novel, Woke Up Lonely, is now available from Graywolf Press. The Daily Beast says "[Maazel] has a real talent for taking these existential millstones of modern life—fear of death, failure, being alone, everything—and filtering them into morbidly funny, troublingly familiar forms. . . . Woke Up Lonely easily refutes the idea that the novel is a staid, obsolete form of writing. The stakes in Maazel's book are at least as real as any work of nonfiction, and it's a good deal more fun to read than any manifesto." And Bookforum raves "Woke Up Lonely is another wunderkammer, a deeply felt and wildly original novel that repays the attention it demands, and once read won't be soon forgotten." Monologue topics: having nothing to say, saying something anyway, to-do lists, talking about writing, my dogs, dog baths. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Scott Nadelson is the guest. His new memoir, The Next Scott Nadelson: A Life in Progress, is now available from Hawthorne Books. Kirkus calls it "Eloquent and universal." And The Portland Mercury says "It’s unusual to read a memoir built of short stories, but it works—instead of forcing a narrative arc onto his own life, as so many memoir writers do, Nadelson simply places these stories next to one another, allowing their edges to overlap, tugging the reader forward and backward in time. The results are funny, quietly compelling, and unflinchingly frank. Nadelson has built a golem out of paper and typeface." Monologue topics: my little sister's wedding, peer pressure, alcohol, the Cajun element.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Tupelo Hassman is the guest. Her debut novel, Girlchild, has just been published in paperback by Picador.  The New York Times raves "A voice as fresh as hers is so rare that at times I caught myself cheering. . . .I’d go anywhere with this writer." And The Boston Globe says "So fresh, original, and funny you’ll be in awe… Tupelo Hassman has created a character you’ll never forget. Rory Dawn Hendrix of the Calle has as precocious and endearing a voice as Holden Caulfield of Central Park.” Monologue topics: the Internet, Fiona Apple, going crazy, the world is bullshit.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rob Roberge is the guest. His new novel, The Cost of Living, is now available from Other Voices Books. It is the April selection of the TNB Book Club. Cheryl Strayed says "Roberge’s writing is both drop-dead gorgeous and mindbendingly smart. The Cost of Living is an intimate, original, important novel that I’ll be recommending for years to come." And Scott Shriner, bass player for Weezer, says "This is a guy who clearly knows his way around a tour bus. And around a massive drug habit. A dark, funny, frightening, and above all authentic book about the toll the rock and roll lifestyle can take." Monologue topics: Boston, terrorism, tragedy, talking about speechlessness, confusion, darkness, realism, pragmatism, idealism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Michelle Orange is the guest. Her new essay collection, This is Running for Your Life, is now available from Farrar, Straus, & Giroux. The Daily Beast calls it "A brilliant collection of essays on modern life, and ways that technology and connectivity are changing how we interact with the world....As Orange brilliantly breaks down the state of modern life and how it stands in relation to technology and the commoditized image, she tells us much of what we already have intuited, but might have been afraid to admit to ourselves...." And Publishers Weekly raves "In this whip-smart, achingly funny collection, film critic Orange (The Sicily Papers) trains her lens on aging, self-image, and the ascendancy of the marketing demographic, among other puzzles of the Facebook generation....[this is] a collection whose voice feels at once fresh and inevitable." Monologue topics: TNB Literary Experience, tweets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Jennifer Spiegel is the guest. In 2012, she published two books:  The Freak Chronicles, a story collection, now available from Dzanc Books; and Love Slave, a novel out from Unbridled Books. About The Freak Chronicles, bestselling author Lauren Groff says "The Freak Chronicles is a miracle of a story collection: passionately political and a shout of ambivalence about political passion, intensely personal and furiously global. We readers are lucky to find Jennifer Spiegel, a writer who is self-satirizing and vulnerable and elegant as hell." About Love Slave, Publishers Weekly says "Spiegel's novel evokes the psychic angst of Manhattanites presumptuous enough to describe themselves as struggling artistes, yet entitled enough to melt down when they can't order breakfast in a diner after 11am...the writing is fresh and witty, and Sybil is a sympathetic character worthy of rooting for as she searches for something to believe in." Monologue topics:  the gym, stress, running, the woman with magazines, stopping,

Owen King is the guest. His new novel, Double Feature, is now available from Scribner. Karen Russell raves “What a kinetic, joyful, gonzo ride—Double Feature made me laugh so loudly on a plane that I had to describe the plot of Sam's Spruce Moose of a debut film (it stars a satyr) to my seatmate by way of explanation. Booth and Sam are an unforgettable Oedipal duo. A book that delivers walloping pleasures to its lucky readers.” And Larry McMurtry says “Double Feature is a beautiful, wrenching beginning, and Owen King is a young writer of immense promise.” Monologue topics: listener feedback, overdoing gender politics, Bad Sex in Fiction Award. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amity Gaige is the guest. Her new novel, Schroder, has just been published by Twelve, an imprint of Grand Central Publishing. Jennifer Egan says "In Schroder, Amity Gaige explores the rich, murky realm where parental devotion edges into mania, and logic crabwalks into crime. This offbeat, exquisitely written novel showcases a fresh, forceful young voice in American letters." And Jonathan Franzen raves "The measure of Gaige's great gifts as a storyteller is that she persuades you to believe in a situation that shouldn't be believable, and to love a narrator who shouldn’t be lovable. Seldom has such a daring concept for a novel been grounded in such an appealing character." Monologue topics: Amazon, Goodreads, indepenent presses, small furry animals, extinction, predators, apathy, confusion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices