05-15-12:The Agony Column Live with T. M. Luhrman, Capitola Book Café, May 5 2012
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"It's a real experience."
—Tanya Luhrman
There was already a crowd (and not without problems) when Tanya Luhrman arrived for the Agony Column Live show at the Capitola Book Café on Saturday, May 5. She was there to discuss her book 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God,' with an audience of both skeptics and believers. That makes for a lively, if sometimes contentious show.
Happily, I had time to sit down speak with her before the show, to chat about her work in a more general manner. It was nice to speak with her outside the boundaries of an interview, where I tend to focus on the latest specific written work. Luhrman works in a number of areas that I find interesting.
When we sat down to talk in front of the audience, the conversation went easily, with new questions that I'd not had a chance to ask the first time around. When it came time for the audience Q&A things did get a bit contentious. With perfect hindsight, I now have in my arsenal a means to make sure that these Q&A's don’t go south in the future. In the interim, I used my discretion as an editor to clean up and tone down some of the more digressive questions. I tried to cut to the chase.
05-15-12 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 44: David Vann, 'Dirt'
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Here's the forty-fourth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.
My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.
The forty-fourth episode is a look at David Vann, 'Dirt.'
Some interviews are almost too easy, and talking to Marika Blossfeldt about 'Essential Nutrition' was really just fun. We managed to meet at the Capitola Book Café and talk in the back office. The hour flew by, and as we spoke, I was thinking that I could easily have prepared any two of the dishes I cooked in prep for the interview we spoke in that hour.
It was nice to talk with Marika about her background, to hear her story about the Estonian farm and art colony that inspired the book. As ever, I was reminded of the importance of hearing the author actually speak, to hear her voice saying the words. It provides a critical perspective on the work itself. The shading and inflections of how Marika speaks will help you understand just why her recipes work so well, and to my mind, inform your preparation.
We spoke at length about the lifestyle aspects that begin the book, and I asked her about her background in cooking. She talked of the New York School where she went to learn about nutrition, and her family background. We also talked about the recipes, but did not, alas, just list out the ingredients and prep. Still, her suggestions and thoughts were helpful when I went back and tried some more after the interview. You can hear our delicious conversation by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
04-12-12: Commentary : Excess of Excellence : Short Story Edition
Agony Column Podcast News Report: Three Books with Alan Cheuse : 'The Wolf Gift' by Anne Rice, 'Arctic Rising' by Tobias Buckell and 'The Third Gate' by Lincoln Child
