By KCRW
Intellectual, accessible, and provocative literary conversations.
4.5
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Jack Skelley speaks about his new book, “Dennis Wilson and Charlie Manson,” and the bad Beach Boy’s intersection with a serial killer.
Editor/poet Emily Skillings and poet/critic John Yau speak about an iconic poet of the 21st century, John Ashbery, and his posthumous book, “Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works.”
Amy Gerstler's new book of poetry, “Index of Women,” is the product of a heart the world broke.
Joshua Cohen speaks about “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor And Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family,” his new book that’s funny and tragic at the same time.
Joan Silber writes about life's strange surprises in her new book, “Secrets of Happiness."
Not a comicbook, but literally illustrated text, “Street Cop,” written by Robert Coover and inhabited by Art Spiegelman.
Edward St. Aubyn discusses his new book, “Double Blind,” and writing about the problems with consciousness that have long fascinated his consciousness.
Domenico Ingenito speaks about his book, “Beholding Beauty: Saʿdi of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry.”
Biographer Brad Gooch reveals that he traveled 2500 miles to trace Rumi's footsteps, learned Persian and spent eight years to write “Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love.”
Sandi Tan speaks about writing “Lurkers” with a gut feeling, and following an emotional momentum.
Rachel Cusk’s “Second Place” wants to render the sensations and apprehensions of living that are pretty much beyond language.
“Status Update,” the mini-narratives of George Toles, accompanied by magnificent art responses from Cliff Eyland.
Rachel Kushner’s “The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020” is a career-spanning collection of nineteen essays.
Wayne Koestenbaum’s first book of short fiction, “The Cheerful Scapegoat,” is a spectacularly odd and original collection of whimsical, surreal, baroque, ribald, and heartbreaking fables.
Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun” is a novel focused on a small group of people in a robot future.
A retrospective of Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel laureate in literature.
The debut novel of Robert Jones, Jr., “The Prophets,” is lyrical prose about the dimensionality and interiority of people.
Carol Edgarian’s “Vera” is the story of a strong, capable, and independent girl whose voice is the voice of the book.
A tribute to the co-founder of the highly influential independent bookstore and publisher City Lights, renowned poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his new novel, “The Committed,” the follow-up to his Pulitzer-winning “The Sympathizer,” and the second entry in a planned trilogy. It brings Nguyen’s storytelling further into the philosophy of refugees, feminism, communism, anti-communism and more—the terror...
Ben’s life falls down around him, and he’s the protagonist, in A Wonderful Stroke of Luck , by master writer Ann Beattie.
David Duchovny speaks about his new novel, “Truly Like Lightning,” and its plot that matters.
Part two of two: George Saunders speaks about his new book, “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life."
The first in a two-parter with George Saunders discussing his new book, "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life."
Rebecca Sacks discusses her novel, “City of a Thousand Gates,” which explores the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by testing its boundaries.
Those who read to write will want to hear Eileen Myles talk about “For Now,” which is part of the "Why I Write" series from Yale University Press.
Venerated critic Harold Bloom’s final book “Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Power of the Reader’s Mind over a Universe of Death” is discussed by the poets Alan Felsenthal and Peter Cole.
David Rieff discusses “Divorcing” by Susan Taubes: the reimagined end of an autobiographical marriage.
Garth Greenwell discusses seeking human truths by writing into an abyss, and his new novel Cleanness .
Brit Bennett pushes questions of race and color to their extremes in her new novel, The Vanishing Half.
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s new book “The Freezer Door” explores the idea of radical visions not predicated on dominant forms.
Jen Craig discusses writing “Panthers and the Museum of Fire,” a short and expansive book that feels immense, rich and complex.
Dunce, by Mary Ruefle, finds meaning everywhere.
Douglas Stuart’s “Shuggie Bain” is not a book to miss.
The eerie realism of Charles Baxter reaches an apotheosis in his new novel, “The Sun Collective.”
Nicole Krauss speaks about subconscious magic and realism combining through the art of writing, and her new book of short stories, “To Be a Man.”
Mauro Javier Cárdenas discusses reimagining narrative possibilities with his new book, “Aphasia."
Charles Yu’s "Interior Chinatown" is a contemporary novel about dealing with the difficulty of being whoever you are.
Marilynne Robinson’s “Jack” is a book that Bookworms have been eager to read: the fourth volume of her multi-award-winning Gilead novels.
Walter Mosley’s “The Awkward Black Man” is a new book of short stories that brings readers into the middle of the experience of people today.
Barbara Kingsolver discusses crossing genres of writing and her second book of poetry, “How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons).”
Seventy-one-year-old Jorge Luis Borges as seen through the eyes of twenty-one-year-old Jay Parini in “Borges and Me: An Encounter.”
“How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton,” edited by Aracelis Girmay, is a literary special treat.
Mitch Sisskind discusses writing humorous poetry and his new book, “Collected Poems 2005-2020."
Henri Cole is a really sensational poet even for people who may not think poetry can be sensational. He works for the universe and he discusses his new book of poems “Blizzard” on Bookworm.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s “Likes” is a layered book of nine short stories.
Several kinds of novels in one, Edmund White’s “A Saint from Texas” is so good you might forget a novel can be this good.
Elizabeth Wetmore’s “Valentine” is an impressive demonstration of the power of the voices of women.
Elizabeth Wetmore discusses her debut novel, “Valentine,” and Southern conservatism that wants to steer clear of the uglier parts of life.