"You're asking me to get in the water with sharks?"
—Juliet Eilperin
Listeners to my show have probably heard, at one time or another, the literary events calendar. In theory, I should always already know what's coming up. I get the advance notices and read the emails, but that doesn't mean the information always "takes." Thus I found myself a couple of weeks ago putting together the "litcal" and when I looked at the Bookshop Santa Cruz page, hitting myself on the forehead.
I'd already scheduled an interview on Monday, August 15, and knew that I'd have no bandwidth to interview the writer appearing there, though the book sounded super-appealing and right up my alley. Juliet Eilperin, was appearing to talk about her new book 'Demon Fish: Travels Through the Hidden World of Sharks,' and apparently I was going to miss my chance to speak with her.
The phone rang mid-morning the next day, and the voice on the line said: "Hi, I'm Juliet Eilperin, the national environmental reporter for the Washington Post. Is Rick there?"
"There's always a potential price to pay with any kind of advances."
—Michael Harvey
When you read Michael Harvey's novels, his economy of style is particularly graceful and welcome. He has a real no-nonsense feel to his work that makes it easy to read and immerse yourself in his world. It should come as no surprise then, that when you speak with the man, you'll find he has the same approach.
I called up Harvey to talk to him about his latest novel, 'We All Fall Down,' which incorporates elements of the thriller and even the science fiction genres to help Harvey bring the traditional PI novel into the 21st century. It offers all the pleasures of his previous work and opens up whole new horizons as well; not just for Kelly, Harvey's detective, or Harvey himself, but also for the genre. It's crime fiction gene-spliced with disease fiction.
Harvey and I talked about his research into the "Terror 2000" report, which might have made a bit of a difference had it been read more thoroughly when it was first published. We also talked about smart clothing and black biology, which sounds like the stuff of science fiction, but isn't. It's a perfect case of the way in which William Gibson suggests that "the future has already arrived, only it isn't evenly distributed." This becomes a problem if you're on the receiving end.
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]
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..."
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 : 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
