10-26-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 180: Brian J. Showers, 'Dreams of Shadow and Smoke: Stories for J.S. Le Fanu'
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Here's the one-hundred eightyth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two-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 opf the game, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to stay back up and stumbling.
Stumbling is obviously the key word here, but I am trying to keep up with projects in the future as well as catch up with projects in the past. My apologies to Brian and the other Europe interviews that are taking so long to edit and get posted. I'm trying folks!
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.
"..trying to create a reality which had not existed before..."
—Azar Nafisi
I took a few minutes today to speak with Azar Nafisi about her remarkable book, 'Republic of the Imagination: America in Three Books,' in advance of her arrival here next week to speak at Bookshop Santa Cruz.
This is a truly wonderful book for readers. It seems that this is the season of re-reading, and in this case, a rabble-rousing call to arms for readers. It does not matter what genre you think you do o0r do not read, this book gets right to the point about reading, and any reader cannot help but find it heartening and invigorating.
10-20-14:A 2014 Interview with William T. Vollmann
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"...that's the choice we make with death..."
—William T. Vollmann
I had about 40 pounds of thick, award-winning books with me when I went to speak to William T. Vollmann. I must admit to being nervous. He was a man who pulled prestigious honors from the air, and I was here to talk to him about 'Last Stories and Other Stories,' a collection of work that could only be described as macabre fiction.
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Of course, he actually name-checks Lovecraft not once, but twice in the collection, so I might have had a clue that he and I were more on the same page than I expected. Then he answered a question I asked with a description of a Lord Dunsany story. What? Lord Dunsany? National Book Awarx Winner knows Lord Dunsany?
Here's where the interview took a turn for strange. I'm not used, and not really comfortable being asked questions by an interviewee, but Vollman put me on the spot and asked my favorite fantasy author. To be honest, I was stumped. I don't like "fantasy," and I know it's a big deal now with the motion picture and TV adaptations. I've seen enough medieval alternates. I thought about it a bit and finally choked out "Clark Ashton Smith." (And eventually Edward R. Whittemore.) But the latter led us down a path of no return.
I was in the presence of another who had been irrevocably changed by an early exposure to the Ballantine Adult Fantasy paperback line of the 1970's.
From then on, Vollmann and I had more and more fun as he talked about his love for David Lindsay ('A Voyage to Arcturus') and William Hope Hodgson, and how those works informed his work in this collection. "Being irrelevant is actually a great thing," he told me. "Then you can sort of float around, no one pays any attention to you, and you can watch the workings-out of life."
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
