Book Book Book Book
Commentary Commentary RSS Reviews Podcasts_Audio Podcasts RSS Blog Links Archives Indexes
09-08-10: Mary Robinette Kowal Reads and Gives a Puppet Show at SF in SF on August 21, 2010


"Jane Austen was kind of British."

—Mary Robinette Kowal

Yes, You read that right. Puppet show podcast, right here on The Agony Column. I think it is a first, but I'm not so concerned about first as I am about Mary Robinette Kowal's spot-on British accent. You'll hear her talk in the introduction she gives, and then when she starts the reading, prepare to have your world disappear. She's really quite good at the accent.

For this podcast from SF in SF, you'll hear Rina Weisman's introduction to the show itself, as well as Terry Bisson's introduction of the readers and Mary Robinette Kowal. She gives a longish introduction to her novel, 'Shades of Milk and Honey,' taking care to set up the story. Then, you're off into a nice solid 20-minute reading that will give flavor of her writing and her story.


Kowal is a great reader with a great British accent, and you can see this when you're editing the sound file, the perfect clipped pace and the even volume. What I heard was more than enough to interest me, but I like these sort of novels anyway. While I understand that Austen herself would have been loathe to read, write or appear in one, the vibe just seems perfect. Kowal gets this and handles the writing well.

But when the reading ends, the fun begins. I'm not sure how the listening experience of the puppet show will strike the podcast audience. You'll certainly hear Kowal address you an apology. But once she gets going, back in accent, it is pretty wild. And, as Terry Bisson observes, a hard act to follow.

'Shades of Milk and Honey' is a Jane-with-magic novel, a subgenre that you can expect to show solid growth over the coming years, if I judge the reaction of a friend who cannot get enough correctly. It is also something else, which I shall let the author explain to you directly when you follow this link to the MP3 audio file.



09-07-10: Two Books With Alan Cheuse


'Freedom' by Jonathan Franzen and 'The Fall' by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan

There is an unfortunate dearth of novels featuring harried, unpleasant suburbanites with complex inner lives and prehensile, blood-sucking stingers in their throats. After all, it's fiction isn't it? It's not like you have to stick to the sort of stories you'll find in the Everytown Mundane Daily Gazette. It's not as if the only fodder for the imagination has to be pre-formatted to fit the imaginations of fourteen-year old girls. Remember, we want to read fiction not lingerie catalogues.

For those who want their fiction fictional, involving, and, now and again enjoy a prehensile, blood-sucking stinger, your intrepid reviewers, myself and NPR's Alan Cheuse, have once again dared to turn the pages of books that will be pitched at you faster than hardballs from a Major-league baseball cannon. Look out, he's on the front cover of a national news magazine! Duck, one of these guys has a new movie out based on his novel, the other is the subject of more speculation than the indigenous population of Mars. When you can't get away from them, it helps to hear some words from those who never get away.

Insomnia is my excuse, and Alan Cheuse needs no excuse since he's a National Institution. I think they ought to put him up on Rushmore before they add any late-twentieth-century astrology fans. And that's why when we need the big guns to go up against the big gun, we have Alan Cheuse.

Alan and I have been talking about both these books for quite some time, and we don't see exactly eye-to-eye on at least one of them. But that is precisely the joy of these conversations, and the point of having a conversation. It's not so much the words that each of us speaks, but the how the spaces in-between what we say get filled in. It's easy to forget that you need two eyes to perceive depth.

In this month's installment, Alan and I begin a discussion about books that we'll be carrying on in our next conversation as well. And we have a great deal of fun discussing two books that seem to operate on opposite ends of the spectrum. You cannot get a more important event novel than Jonathan Franzen's 'Freedom.' He's always brilliant, and nobody can dispute that. But a reading experience is always personal as well.

On what might seem to be the opposite end of the scale, we have two movie-related authors, Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan, with the second book in a vampire trilogy. If I left out their names, I swear my eyes would glaze over at the prospect of reading this novel. But their first novel together, 'The Strain,' was utterly superb — haunting and page-turning. The real question was how they would confront the deadly middle-book problem (no beginning, no end). The answer is 'The Fall.' You can hear my conversation with Alan Cheuse about these two novels by following this link to the MP3 audio file.



09-06-10: A 2010 Interview with Guy Gavriel Kay


"I'm telling myself you bloody well better figure out where this is going because you have to start heading there sometime around now."

—Guy Gavriel Kay

It's getting far enough into the year now that I can look back on the books that really stood out for me. I'm no longer interested in making lists, but I can say that for me, Guy Gavriel Kay's 'Under Heaven' was a wonderful, superb reading experience, and were I a list-maker, it would be on a list.

Kay's novel offers a sense of wonder, characters who strike a deep emotional chord in the reader, and simple storytelling bravura that sweeps you away. If you've not brought and read 'Under Heaven,' now is a great time to do so. If you already have, then you know why I write this, and why I am happy to podcast our conversation from his visit here in May.

For me, this is clearly Kay's most mature and compelling work. And in our conversation at KQED, he made the reasons clear. 'Under Heaven' seems inspired, and it is. As Kay and I spoke of how he came to create his latest novel, it became clear to me that the sense of wonder and fresh feeling in his work is the result of his writing process. Kay writes from the heart, which explains why his work is so affecting to the heart.

For all the inspiration, improvisation and imagination that goes into Kay's work, there is an equal amount of knowledge-driven research. He reads for his subject voraciously and internalizes a time, so that he can transform it in his fiction. In the case of 'Under Heaven,' Kay told me about his discovery of the Tang Dynasty and his chosen method of fictionalizing history as opposed to writing historical fiction. He used the word "filibuster" when I brought this up, because he's really quite passionate about what he does. And that translates into the fiction.

We also talked about prose, and here too Kay is quite emphatic. To my mind, the prose in 'Under Heaven' strikes the right balance between poetic and practical, between sparse and lush. He knows when to swing one way, when to swerve the other. We also talked about the poet who nearly runs away with the book, and the poetry Kay included. That said, this book trends more towards page-turning and never into naval-gazing. Gripping characters find themselves in the midst of gripping, "interesting times." Same as it ever was. And, same as it ever shall be, you can hear our conversation about the art of transmuting history by following this link to the MP3 audio file.



New to the Agony Column

09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."

09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 213: Susan Casey : Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins

08-24-15: Commentary : Felicia Day Knows 'You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)' : Transformative Technology

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Felicia Day : "I think you have to be attention curators for audience in every way."

08-22-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 212: Felicia Day : You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]

Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]

08-10-15:Agony Column Podcast News Report : In Memory of Alan Cheuse : Thank you Alan, and Your Family, for Everything

07-11-15: Commentary : Robert Repino Morphs 'Mort(e)' : Housecat to Harbinger of the Apocalypse

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Robert Repino : "...an even bigger threat. which is us, the humans..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 208: Robert Repino : Mort(e)

07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 208: Michael Gazzaniga : Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience

06-26-15: Commentary : Neal Stephenson Crafts an Eden for 'Seveneves' : Blow It Up and Start All Over Again

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Neal Stephenson : "...and know that you're never going to se a tree again..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 207: Neal Stephenson : Seveneves

06-03-15: Commentary : Dan Simmons Opens 'The Fifth Heart' : Having it Every Way

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Dan Simmons : "...yes, they really did bring those bombs..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 206: Dan Simmons : The Fifth Heart

05-23-15: Commentary : John Waters Gets 'Carsick' : Going His Way

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with John Waters : "...you change how you would be in real life...”

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 205: John Waters : Carsick

05-09-15: Commentary : Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD and 'Shrinks' : A Most Fashionable Take on the Human Mind

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD : "..its influence to be as hegemonic as it was..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 204: Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD : Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry

04-29-15: Commentary : Barney Frank is 'Frank' : Interpersonally Ours

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Barney Frank : "...while you're trying to change it, don't ignore it..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 203: Barney Frank : Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage

04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 202: Kazuo Ishiguro : The Buried Giant

04-17-15: Commentary : Erik Larson Follows a 'Dead Wake' : Countdown to Destiny

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Erik Larson : "...said to have been found in the arms of a dead German sailor..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 201: Erik Larson : Dead Wake

04-15-15: Commentary : Peter Bell Reflects 'A Certain Slant of Light' : Strange Stories of Modern Scholars

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Peter Bell : "...I looked up some of the old books..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 200: Peter Bell : Strange Epiphanies and A Certain Slant of Light

03-14-15: Commentary : Marc Goodman Foresees 'Future Crimes' : Exponential Potential

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It

Commentary & Podcast Archive
Archives Indexes How to use the Agony Column Contact Us About Us