08-12-12 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 58: James P. Blaylock, 'Zeuglodon'
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Here's the fifty-eighth 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. I'll be in LA again next week, so expect the next one next Sunday.
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 fifty-eighth episode is a look at James P. Blaylock, ''Zeuglodon.'
08-09-12: John Shirley Reads from 'Everything is Broken' at SF in SF on July 7, 2012
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"..A kind of a Lord of the Flies for the near-future..."
—John Shirley
John Shirley did not mince words as he introduced his latest novel at SF in SF, calling it a political allegory and pointing his finger at the Tea Party and the politics of privatization that in his novel help to make a bad thing worse. Argue if you with his politics, but you can't really argue with his sense of place.
For his reading, Shirley chose what might be called the "big special effects" sequences of his novel, to wit, the scenes in which a tsunami washes through a small town on the coast of Northern California.
Shirley did not write the novel in response to recent tsunami that washed through Santa Cruz, and cause millions of dollars of damage. To give an idea as to how localized these phenomena can be, I was about six miles south of the harbor where the damage was done and I could barely tell that anything was happening.
08-07-12:Alan Cheuse Live at the Capitola Book Café, July 21, 2012
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"...A novel is like a marriage..."
— Alan Cheuse
When I edit the Alan Cheuse live appearances for broadcast on radio, I have to be very careful. In front of an audience at the Capitola Boook Café to discuss his new collection of novellas, 'Paradise, or Eat Your Face,' we get into that include material that is not what you're going to hear on NPR, which is what makes interviews and podcasts like this one so much fun.
First and foremost, don't expect a straightforward, cut and dried "book interview" with this conversation. Those sorts of interviews are generally my remit in any event, but here we just go where the spirit leads us, which some occasional detours back to the subject at hand. But the fun of talking with Alan Cheuse is that we do go afar, and when we get there, surprising things happen. Generally things that you cannot broadcast.
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