06-29-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 169: Alan Furst, 'Midnight in Europe'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred sixty-ninth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the three-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I seem to be on top of the game, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to stay back up and stumbling.
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 one-hundred sixty-ninth episode is a look at Alan Furst and 'Midnight in Europe.' It's a live perforemance version.
Sarah Lotz is something of a contradiction in terms. Here's her first novel, by my reckoning, 'The Three.' Bu there are three in the "Also By" list, and I come to understand she's part of three other "writers," that is single names on the cover that prove to be collaborations, including one with her daughter.
To be honest, she looks far too young to have a daughter with whom she could collaborate, but she tells me that this is the case. The point being, if 'The Three' seems like a remarkably accomplished first novel, then that's because like most "first" novels, it's actually, well, pretty far down the line.
As a reader, I tend to confabulate, that is, to see things in novels that are not, I am later told, put there deliberately. So as I read 'The Three,' it seemed clear to me that Lotz is really interested in doppelgangers and doubles and simulacra a la Philip K. Dick. In hindsight, the author agreed, but she didn't put them there on purpose. But the name Philip K. Dick is an important one for readers to remember, because this book has that vibe in spades.
We talked quite a bit about Android Man, a fellow who speaks through a version of himself he built. Lotz had to do a lot of research for this novel, and talking about that was almost as fun as the novel.
06-25-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 168: Sarah Lotz, 'The Three'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred sixty-eighth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two(three[?])-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I'm way behind, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to get back up and stumbling. I have lots of great books in the hopper to review and lots of great interviews to podcast.
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 one-hundred sixty-eighth episode is a look at Sarah Lotz and 'The Three.'
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
