05-22-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 98: John Langan 'The Wide Carnivorous Sky and Other Monstrous Geographies'
Here's the ninety-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.
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.
Mary Roach knows how to have fun on the printed page, and you'll find evidence on every page of 'Gulp.' her latest work of science and humor. Here's the only book you're likely to read that will not only make you snort milk out through your nose while reading the book – it'll explain why that happens.
I was fortunate enough to speak with Mary in her home, in the cozy confines of a room full of books. I was more than a little daunted by the fact that I'd already heard her on three different NPR shows, and had been told she'd been on various TV shows as well. But once you sit down to speak with her, her enthusiasm for her subject takes over and everything she says is informed by the fun she clearly had writing the book.
I did spend a bit of time talking to her about how she wrote the book, as oppsoedf to having her tell the best stories from the book, though there are a few that I had to ask about. Roach writes about mealworms in 'Gulp.', and their reported propensity for eating their way out of the stomachs of your pets. As the one-time caretaker for a rather large leopard gecko, I had to know if the rumors were true and she talked about the experiment she conducted to dig up the facts.
We also spent a little time on the sense of smell, which has long been an interest of mine. Smell plays a part in a variety of places in the book, from our initial experience of taste to the smells engineered into pet food to bring our dogs to the bowl.
Roach also spoke about her sense of taboo, and how it informs not just this book, but all of them. Taboos give her an easy source of subjects, or at least, subjects that are less likely to fall under the gaze of another writer. She goes to places like the state prison, where she finds herself face to face with a most unsavory gentleman, to learn about hooping.
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
