Sinopsis
A weekly podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading authors. Hosted by Brad List.
Episodios
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Episode 142 — Richard Chiem
23/01/2013 Duración: 01h15minRichard Chiem is the guest. He is the author of You Private Person, a collection of short stories published by Scrambler Books. Blake Butler says "Richard Chiem's You Private Person is a bustling prism of a thing, full of passages that actually lead somewhere off of the paper. His words have brains that have bodies that wake you up in the way waking can be the best thing, like into a warm room full of good calm remembered things that feel both like relics and new inside the day. Here rings a wise and bravely sculpted book packed full of stunning thankful color." And Kate Zambreno says "Richard Chiem writes of all the weirdness and ooziness and tenderness of young love, with such lucid specificity. Like some beautiful film from the 70s, but also distinctly now. Because I also love how in this book he documents the tremors of contemporary existence, of living and working in a city, measuring days not in coffee spoons but in cigarettes and Simpsons episodes." Monologue topics: email, memes, Tony Danza. Learn
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Episode 141 — Kate Zambreno
20/01/2013 Duración: 02h14minKate Zambreno is the guest. She is the author of two novels, O Fallen Angel and Green Girl, and her latest book is a critical memoir called Heroines, now available from Semiotext(e). The Paris Review raves "It should come as no surprise that her provocative new work, Heroines, published by Semiotext(e)'s Active Agents imprint... challenges easy categorization, this time by poetically swerving in and out of memoir, diary, fiction, literary history, criticism, and theory. With equal parts unabashed pathos and exceptional intelligence, Heroines foregrounds female subjectivity to produce an impressive and original work that examines the suppression of various female modernists in relation to Zambreno's own complicated position as a writer and a wife." And Bitch magazine calls it "A brave, enlightening, and brutally honest historical inquiry that will leave readers with an urgent desire to tell their own stories." Also in this episode: A conversation with Ron Currie, Jr., whose new novel, Flimsy Little Plastic M
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Episode 140 — Rosie Schaap
16/01/2013 Duración: 01h22minRosie Schaap is the guest. She is a contributor to This American Life and npr.org, and she writes the monthly "Drink" column for The New York Times Magazine. Her memoir, Drinking With Men, will be published on January 24, 2013 by Riverhead Books. Kate Christensen raves "This book will be a classic. There is so much joy in this book! It’s a great, comforting, wonderful, funny, inspiring, moving memoir about community and belief and the immense redemptive powers of alcohol drunk properly." And Wendy McClure says "There are bar stories and there are coming-of-age stories. And then there is Rosie Schaap's thoughtful and funny chronicle that reminds us of all the drinks, dives, and deep conversations that helped make us who we are. This is a wise, engaging memoir." Monologue topics: beautiful people, staring, Los Angeles, DNA masterpieces, hand signals, safety words. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 139 — xTx
13/01/2013 Duración: 01h15minxTx is the guest. She is the author of the story collection Normally Special, and her new chapbook, Billie the Bull, has just been published by Nephew, an imprint of Mud Luscious Press. Says Dennis Cooper: “xTx is the complete young literary god. Billie the Bull is mind-bogglingly and intricately superb down to its tiniest punctuation marks. To me, she’s about as great as it can get. Seriously, I’m awestruck." Monologue topics: my unit, my thing, this podcast, hybridized forms, navel-gazing, confusion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 138 — Panio Gianopoulos
09/01/2013 Duración: 01h28minPanio Gianopoulos is the guest. He's the author of the novella A Familiar Beast, now available from Nouvella Books. Jim Lynch, author of Truth Like the Sun, raves “A Familiar Beast is superb. Always engaging and often provocative, it follows the gut-tightening travails of a man hollowed by his own infidelities. With elegant prose, unforgettable scenes and Philip Roth-like psychological insights, Panio Gianopoulos’s debut novella marks the arrival of a bright and gifted writer.” And Adam Langer, author of The Thieves of Manhattan, says “Elegant, erudite and witty, this extremely well-observed and surprisingly suspenseful story offers more insights into love and human relationships than most authors manage in works three times as long.” Monologue topics: mail, Facebook suicide, savage narcissism, Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 137 — Eli Horowitz
06/01/2013 Duración: 01h19minEli Horowitz is the guest. He was the managing editor and then publisher of McSweeney’s for eight years, where he worked closely with a variety of notable authors, including Michael Chabon, Joyce Carol Oates, and William Vollmann. His latest project is called The Silent History, a serialized novel designed for the iPad and iPhone. Wired magazine calls it "Entirely revolutionary." The New York Times calls it "One of the most talked-about new experiments [in publishing]." And The Los Angeles Times calls it “A landmark project that illuminates a possible future for e-book novels." Monologue topics: blood pressure, heart rate, Tweets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 136 — Christine Schutt
02/01/2013 Duración: 01h17minChristine Schutt is today's guest. She's the award-winning author of several books. Her first novel, Florida, was a National Book Award finalist, and her second novel, All Souls, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her latest novel, Prosperous Friends, is now available from Grove Press. Sam Lipsyte raves "Prosperous Friends is masterful, a comic-tragic astonishment. Christine Schutt continues to write some of the most original and rewarding prose I've ever read." And Gary Lutz says “It is no longer a secret that Christine Schutt is the finest writer among us, and Prosperous Friends is her finest work yet. There isn't a corner in any of her sentences left ungraced by her lyrical genius, her heart-fathoming wisdom. A few pages in, you'll know you have a classic in your hands." Monologue topics: New Year's resolutions, killing my Facebook account, purging, getting rid of things, newspapers, radios. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 135 — Brian Allen Carr
30/12/2012 Duración: 01h24minBrian Allen Carr is today's guest. He is the award-winning author of the story collection Short Bus, and his latest collection, Vampire Conditions, is now available from Holler Presents. Harrold Jaffe says "Vampire Conditions melds a precise Texas regional with gothic, recalling Flannery O'Connor, who wrote out of Georgia. But Carr's intricate narrative patterns, jump cuts and unanticipated segueshave a distinctly postmodern feel. Any way you cut it, Brian Allen Carr is a potently eccentric writer." And Robert Lopez raves "At turns dark and brutal and wickedly funny, Brian Allen Carr's Vampire Conditions will put you in mind of Hannah, Pancake, Powell. This book will grab you by the throat and knock the wind out of you, will make you want to drive south, raise hell, hide out, call home, tell your friends." Monologue topics: dreams, childbirth, salad bars, fetuses, Christmas, doll houses, emasculation, 2012, passage of time. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 134 — Robert Kloss
26/12/2012 Duración: 01h13minRobert Kloss is the guest. His latest novel, The Alligators of Abraham, is now available from Mud Luscious Press. David Ohle raves "In this amazing, collapsed-time text, I’m led along dark alleys of American history by an all-seeing voice-over narrative that reports on things from a great height and in an ultra-factual way. Familiar events of war, sorrow and struggle are seen anew, as if on a slide under a microscope.” And Adam Braver says “In The Alligators of Abraham, Robert Kloss drops us into the darkness of the Civil War, showing a culture perpetually on the edge of extinction. Yet out of that murky world, hazed and fogged, rise the clear and distinct shapes of a people not ready to surrender to their own haunting. A novel as lyrical as it is precise in its depiction of the struggle to maintain dignity.” Monologue topics: burnout, empty-headedness, children's books, subversive kid poems, the power of one, ripple effects. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 133 — Mira Gonzalez
23/12/2012 Duración: 01h24minMira Gonzalez is today's guest. Her debut poetry collection is called I Will Never Be Beautiful Enough to Make Us Beautiful Together. It is due out from Sorry House in late January 2013. Blake Butler says "Mira Gonzalez’s brain spans the weird space between bodies stuffed with Ambien and food and light from porn on laptops in an anxious, calming kind of way, one concerned more with what blood tastes like than how the blood got out. It’s messed up and feels honest, open, like lying naked on the floor with your arms chopped off." And Victor 'Kool A.D.' Vasquez says "Mira Gonzalez is doing her thing. I fuck with these poems. I felt bad for her when she talked about how that dude said 'I’m gonna come on your stomach' like 15-20 times and then didn’t." Monologue topics: Christmas, travel, my daughter, Best Parts / Worst Parts, sobbing fits, losing it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 132 — Diana Wagman
19/12/2012 Duración: 01h15minDiana Wagman is the guest. She is the author of four novels and a past recipient of the PEN West Award for Fiction. Her latest novel, The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets, is now available from Ig Publishing. It is the December selection of The TNB Book Club. Publishers Weekly raves “Wagman’s talent for imagery is well served by the subject matter, and the story is perfectly paced, with humorous breaks in the tension. A PEN Center USA Award winner (for Spontaneous), Wagman has crafted an unusual thriller for psychological crime devotees and fans of the peculiar.” And Book Page calls it "...a dark, funny and sensitive thriller that might be the first of its kind: the Oedipal abduction tale.” Monologue topics: holidays, heaviness, Sandy Hook, humanity, self-loathing, anger, depression, compassion. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 131 — Ned Vizzini
16/12/2012 Duración: 01h33minNed Vizzini is today's guest. He is the award-winning author of It's Kind of a Funny Story (also a major motion picture), Be More Chill, and Teen Angst? Naaah.... In television, he has written for MTV and ABC. His essays and criticism have appeared in The New York Times, The Daily Beast, and Salon. He is the co-author, with Chris Columbus, of the fantasy-adventure series House of Secrets, due out in April 2013. And his latest novel, The Other Normals, is now availalbe from Balzer & Bray. Lev Grossman raves "The Other Normals is wildly imaginative, incredibly funny, and weirdly wise. I don’t know where Vizzini gets this stuff —it’s like he’s tapped into the collective unconscious of alienated adolescents everywhere." And Kirkus says "With a deft sense of humor and a keen ear for funny and realistic teen dialogue, Vizzini explores one teen everyman’s quest to become a hero, one roll of the six-sided die at a time …. Great geeky fun." Monologue topics: flu, mail, doubt, self-sabotage, cannabis. Learn more ab
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Episode 130 — Zena el Khalil
12/12/2012 Duración: 01h20minZena el Khalil is the guest. She is an installation artist, curator, cultural activist, and author. During the July 2006 attacks on Lebanon, her blog, beirutupdate.blogspot.co/uk, was published on CNN and the BCC. In 2008, she was invited to speak at the Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, and earlier this year she was named a TED fellow. Her memoir, Beirut, I Love You, is now available in the United States in e-book format from NYRB Lit. Gwyneth Paltrow raves "Zena El Khalil brings the city and its current events to life through personal anecdotes about loss, tragedy, friendship, life as a young woman in a polarized city, and love for this conflicted, beautiful place she calls home." And Publishers Weekly says "Part love letter and part memoir, el Khalil’s work employs her artist’s eye and ear to depict Beirut during and after the Israeli attacks on the country’s south and the Lebanese civil war. No simple chronological narration, this is rather a highly personal, impressionistic depiction of events and emotion
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Episode 129 — Salvatore Pane
09/12/2012 Duración: 01h14minSalvatore Pane is the guest. His chapbook, #KanyeWestSavedFromDrowning, was published by NAP in October, and his debut novel, Last Call in the City of Bridges, is now available from Braddock Avenue Books. Stewart O'Nan raves “Like his post po-mo Facebook generation, Michael Bishop, the manic narrator of Last Call in the City of Bridges, has reached the end of his irresponsible youth. Stuck and unsure, he looks back at those eight-bit Nintendo years with tender nostalgia while trying to feel his way forward. Like The Moviegoer, Salvatore Pane’s debut novel is a romantic ironist’s plea for authenticity in a fantastic age. It’s telling–and hilarious–that his hero’s model for male adulthood isn’t William Holden but Super Mario.” And Tom Bissell says “Quite obviously, Salvatore Pane’s mind has been dunked in video games, social media, comic books, the WebNet, and everything else our august literary authorities believe promote illiteracy. I’d like to hand the authorities Pane’s novel–a funny, moving, melanchol
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Episode 128 — Lydia Millet
05/12/2012 Duración: 01h17minLydia Millet is the guest. She is a Guggenheim fellow, a past recipient of the PEN-USA Award for Fiction, and her story collection, Love in Infant Monkeys (2009), was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. Her latest novel, Magnificence, is now available in hardcover from W.W. Norton and Company. Jonathan Lethem raves “[Magnificence is] elegant, darkly comic. . . with overtones variously of Muriel Spark, Edward Gorey and JG Ballard, full of contemporary wit and devilish fateful turns for her characters, and then also to knit together into a tapestry of vast implication and ethical urgency, something as large as any writer could attempt: a kind of allegorical elegy for life on a dying planet. Ours, that is.” And Salon calls it "Flawlessly beautiful." Monologue topics: chest colds, tuberculosis, the consumption, agent, manuscript, uncertainty, reading, the concept of "good" art, self-perception. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 127 — Eric Raymond
02/12/2012 Duración: 01h14minEric Raymond is today's guest. His debut novel, Confessions from a Dark Wood, is now available from Sator Press. Sam Lipsyte raves "The world of Eric Raymond's winning novel may be the 'post-idea economy,' but rest assured, the book is never post-smart, or post-funny. It's a rollicking and inventive corporate (and cultural) satire—get in now at the ground floor, people." And Blake Butler says "In a world where cash has become language, Eric Raymond's Confessions from a Dark Wood wastes no syllable in converting cultural mechanisms into a well-oiled, wise-cracking machine. Smart as Saunders, tight as Ellis, but banking waters of its own, after this one we'll no longer 'forget they built the Magic Kingdom on swamps.'" Monologue topics: December, The Piñatas, the waiting game, seasonal affective disorder, the holidays, gift ideas, TNB Books. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 126 — Erika Rae
28/11/2012 Duración: 01h12minErika Rae is today's guest. Her debut memoir, Devangelical, will be published by Emergency Press on December 11, 2012. Laurie Notaro, author of The Idiot Girl's Action-Adventure Club, raves “I'm a believer that Erika Rae will make you cackle with heathen-like delight throughout Devangelical.” And Frank Schaeffer, author of Crazy for God, says "Devangelical strikes a darkly funny blow at the central nervous system of evangelical Christianity delivered by a former insider.” Monologue topics: chest colds, worries, can you imagine me?, bad music, Jack Wagner, cultural tornados. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 125 — Michael Kardos
25/11/2012 Duración: 01h17minMichael Kardos is the guest. His debut novel, The Three-Day Affair, is now available from Mysterious Press. The New York Times says Michael Kardos’s first novel, THE THREE-DAY AFFAIR (Mysterious Press, $24), is so disturbing it makes you wonder what he might have in mind for his second book. The plot is original, if distinctly bizarre: three friends who met at Princeton have left their wives at home and are headed for a golf club to celebrate their annual reunion when one of them — the self-made millionaire who lost his fortune in the dot-com crash — impulsively robs a convenience store and kidnaps the cashier. In a panic, Will Walker, who narrates this nightmare, drives them all to the independent recording studio where he works. What follows is a carefully calibrated study of how even the most highly evolved members of our species can become feral under pressure. (“I was an animal in the woods and I was making this other animal go away” is how one of them describes it.) Surprisingly, the violence proves le
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Episode 124 — Karen Engelmann
21/11/2012 Duración: 01h13minKaren Engelmann is the guest. Her debut novel, The Stockholm Octavo, is now available from Ecco. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, says "Neatly mixing revolutionary politics with the erotic tension and cutthroat rivalry of the female conspirators...Engelmann has crafted a magnificent, suspenseful story set against the vibrant society of Sweden’s zenith, with a cast of colorful characters balanced at a crux of history.” And Library Journal, in a starred review, calls it “Fantastic . . . This rollicking adventure story reads at times like a fairy tale, with Good Guys and Bad Guys and obstacles to be recognized and overcome. It’s all quite fun. As either historical novel or adventure story, this clever first novel should appeal to a broad range of readers." Monologue topics: mail, Sam Pink, Disneyland, Thanksgiving, exhaustion, The TNB Book Club. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Episode 123 — Sam Pink
18/11/2012 Duración: 01h11minSam Pink is the guest. He is the author of several books, including the novel Person. And his latest novel, Rontel, is due out from Lazy Fascist Press in February 2013. Electric Literature raves "Reading Sam Pink may make you a danger to society. The voice here in Rontel, as it was in Pink’s previous novel Person, is invasive. It will burrow its way deep into your brain and then echo through your gray matter. You will find yourself thinking the way his narrators think, and will then wonder if those fucked up thoughts tunneled in recently or if they were always there just waiting to be dug up." Monologue topics: email from a listener, elevator theater, reality television, Board. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices