Tell Me What You’re Reading

Tell Me What You’re Reading

By Howard AltarescuSociety & Culture
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Tell Me What You’re Reading episodes

  • Ep. #50 Amy Shearn and Hannah Oberman-Breindel - To the Lighthouse
    I enjoyed talking with Amy Shearn and Hannah Oberman-Breindel this summer when they were in the Artist-in-Residence writing program at Woodstock’s Byrdcliffe Arts Colony, and even more so on our recent podcast discussion of Virginia Woolf’s To The Lighthouse, which is considered to be one of the great literary masterpieces of the twentieth century. 
    I had not previously read any Virginia Woolf and I had not studied literary modernism. Despite being uninitiated, I was struck by the way Woolf captured the human condition and, in a realistic way, the unstructured non-linear thought processes of her characters.
    Written in 1927, the novel spans the time from just before to just after World War I
    The story itself, which has numerous autobiographical overlaps, revolves around the Ramsey family and their guests at their summer home by the sea in the Scottish Hebrides. Lots goes on, but only in the sense that life goes on, and it’s all really great. 
    Our podcast discussion was very much in the vein of Woolf’s stream of consciousness narrative style, depicting “the multitudinous thoughts and feelings which pass through the mind" of a narrator, “an overlapping of images and ideas”.
    Virginia Woolf wrote in her diary, 
    “The method of writing smooth narrative can’t be right. Things don’t happen in one’s mind like that, we experience, all the time, an overlapping of images and ideas, and modern novels should convey our mental confusion instead of neatly rearranging it. The reader must sort it out”.
    And we did try to sort it out!
    51 min
  • Ep. # 49 Carol Graham: Passion! In Park Slope, a “cozy” murder mystery
    Our Woodstock friend Carol Graham recently told me that her new book was just about to be published. She said something like, “Howard, this is not like one of the big, great fiction books you read, this is a ‘cozy’“. I had no idea at the time what a “cozy” was. but I do now.
    British crime novelist and detective fiction writer, P. D. James has been credited with saying that “All fiction is largely autobiographical”
    Carol is a Texan but has lived in Brooklyn and Woodstock for the last 21 years, and is now a real estate agent in both areas. Carol is also a member of the Woodstock Writers Group and a two-time winner of the Woodstock BookFest Story Slam!
    Carol’s newly published book, Passion! In Park Slope features a Texas born Brooklyn real estate agent who has not lost her drawl. Coincidental or autobiographical?
    We discussed Carol’s new book as well as “cozy” mysteries generally on our recent podcast discussion..
    Carol’s website Brooklynmurdermysteries.com
    22 min
  • Ep. #48 David Gordon commemorates Cormac McCarthy and The Road
    On an Upper Byrdcliffe Road walk in Woodstock this past summer, I noted to my friends, Perry Beekman and David Gordon, the recent death of Robert Gottlieb, the most acclaimed book editor of the last 50+ years. I’ve previously mentioned on the podcast, Gottlieb’s really great memoir, Avid Reader.
    David noted that writer Cormac McCarthy had also then recently died. David expressed enthusiasm for McCarthy’s great works over the years. I had read McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning masterpiece, The Road, many years prior and I still get a chill in my bones when I think about it.
    I asked David whether he would like to come on the podcast to commemorate Cormac McCarthy and to talk about The Road, and the rest of McCarthys great works. And here we are.
    Published in 2006, The Road is a dystopian, post-apocalyptic and frightening warning, but it’s also a story of the love between a father and a son and of the lengths to which a father might travel for his son, literally and figuratively. It’s emotional, chilling and also beautifully written.
    31 min
  • Ep. #47 An Ecotopia Conversation with Artist Kelly M O’Brien
    Carol and I walked up the road in early September to visit the Open Studios of the Artists-in-Residence Program at Woodstock’s Byrdcliffe Arts Colony. The Byrdcliffe Arts Colony was founded in 1903 by Ralph Whitehead, the son of a wealthy mill owner from Yorkshire, England. Whitehead was influenced by utopian ideas when he studied at Oxford, and he developed an enduring vision to found his own “brotherhood of artists” community. The Artists-in-Residence program is one of the many Byrdcliffe programs today that carry on Whitehead’s legacy.
    Carol and I saw some really interesting works at the Open Studios and were really struck by an outdoor installation by my guest, artist Kelly M O’Brien.
    On the podcast, Kelly and I discussed her installation, which is called “Ecotopia Conversation”, and its relationship to the 1975 novel Ecotopia: The Notebooks and Reports of William Weston, by Ernest Callenbac. “Ecotopia” describes a utopian world created by the secession in 1980 of Oregon, Washington and Northern California from the United States. It was a cult novel at the outset, and over the years became required reading as environmental studies took off. We truly had an Ecotopia Conversation.
    43 min
  • Ep. #46 Steph Kent: Hamnet - A Novel of the Plague + The Call Me Ishmael Project

    Steph Kent, co-founder, with her husband Logan Smalley, of the Call Me Ishmael project joined me to discuss Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell, the book I have recommended more than any other over the last few years. 

    Hamnet is a work of fiction, but it’s based in part on certain core facts on which O’Farrell builds this beautiful, devastatingly sad story, albeit with a sweet ending, of the impact of Hamnet’s death on his family, and its relationship to the writing of Hamlet.

    The book is a master class in the use of detail to tell a story, and the production of Hamlet produces a beautiful, poetic and moving conclusion. I frequently describe Hamnet as one of the best books I have ever read.

    Shakespeare is never mentioned by name in the book. I realized who Hamnet’s father was when I read of his letters home reporting on rival playhouse owners, crowds and costumes. Leaving Shakepere’s name out of the narrative is a useful tool to avoid Shakespeare stealing the limelight, which is left to his wife Agnes, who is a strong, mystical and intriguing presence throughout the book. I greatly admired Agnes, and I also was deeply moved by the grief of both Agnes and Shakespeare over the loss of their son. 

    Steph and Logan’s Call Me Ishmael project invites readers to celebrate the books they love. Anyone can call Ishmael at 774.325.0503 and leave an anonymous voicemail message about their favorite book. Thousands of readers have called and over a million readers have listened to this library of stories. 

    Steph and Logan joined me on the podcast in November 2019: Ep. 20: The Call Me Ismael Project; Steph Kent and Logan Smalley

    32 min
  • Ep. #45 Tony Wolf: “Tales From The Wolf”
    My friend Tony Wolf and I discussed “Tales From The Wolf”, Tony’s memoir about his years living in Greenpoint, and including a compilation of his  New York Times “food cartoon” features, his superhero stories, a moving 9/11 tribute, and Trump era political cartoons. “Tales From The Wolf” can be purchased here. Tony is a cartoonist, an actor (including on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel), a singer, film director, and illustrator. He’s essentially a storyteller, a journalist at heart. Tony’s website.
    We discussed Tony’s cartooning journey from the time he was a young child, his cartoonist role models, and how he “unwittingly created a new genre in the New York Times food section … a whole new world of visual comics about food.”
    This is one wide ranging discussion, longer than my usual but great fun. Hope you enjoy it. “Tell Me  What You’re Reading”, wherever you listen to podcasts. #bookwormsinthewild
    1 hr 12 min
  • Ep. #44: Erica Obey - The Brooklyn North Murder

    Our discussion about Erica Obey’s mystery novel, the Brooklyn North Murder, turned into a discussion of The Typology of Detective Fiction, by Bulgarian-French historian, philosopher, and literary theorist Tzvetan Todorov, a discussion about AI bots, their invasion into the publishing industry, plagiarism charges, and what it means for a book to be ghost written. We discussed Mountweazels, the dark web, The Chronicles of Narnia, early 19th century English aristocrat, publisher and linguist, Lady Charlotte Guest, locked-room murder mysteries, plotters and pantsers, and Erica’s “chaotic” writing style. We also conducted a ChatGPT experiment. Rabbit holes abound.

    Erica is a graduate from Yale University and has an MA in creative writing from City College of New York and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the City University of New York, where she published articles and a book about female folklorists of the nineteenth century. In addition to The Brooklyn North Murder, Erica is the author of six other mysteries, most set in the Hudson Valley. Erica is also the past president of the New York chapter of Mystery Writers of America.


    33 min
  • Ep. #43: Tom Vartanian: The Unhackable Internet: How Rebuilding Cyberspace Can Build Real Security and Prevent Financial Collapse
    Tom pulls no punches in his new book as he vividly and colorfully, and also convincingly, describes our cyber security vulnerabilities. As he explains, we are living on the razor’s edge between prosperity and devastation; the possibility of a digital Pearl Harbor, of a geopolitical D-day, of a technological and geopolitical tsunami, and of systemic vulnerabilities, including to our entire financial system, with the risk of a financial meltdown and economic annihilation, and also, among other things, vulnerability to the world’s food supply.
    He refers to unprecedented threats and describes the cyber security risk as one huge virtual improvised explosive device, a quintessential existential threat, the greatest threat to the future of humanity.
    He also refers to the “technological euphoria“ in the market, as  we all “mindlessly” click “yes” to accept terms of service, whatever they may be, and as tech start ups “move fast and break things”,  get to market first and worry about security later; and he refers to all of this as the twenty-first century version of the tulip bulb mania.
    He concludes that there has been for the most part short term thinking, an absence of any sense of urgency, a failure of vision, will and leadership, lack of technological expertise within the regulatory agencies, a pedestrian approach; which he describes as penetrating insights into the obvious and rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. That’s a pretty damning conclusion.
    As a result of what Tom refers to as the norm of inaction and rudimentary analysis, we have today a “kindergarten level” cyber defenses, a practice of apologize, rinse and repeat, an attitude of defeatism in the face of a three-alarm fire. At the same time, we have no cyber police or virtual firefighters, no internet police.
    50 min
  • Ep. #42: Katharine L. McKenna - The Paleontologist's Daughter
    Carol and I recently attended a lovely dinner party hosted by Abigail Sturges and other supporters of the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild. On its website, the Guild describes itself as “a vibrant center for arts and crafts in the beautiful and unique rural community of Woodstock, New York, while preserving the historic and natural environment of one of the earliest utopian arts colonies in America.”  Carol and I live in the Woodstock Byrdcliffe community and the beauty abounds whichever way you turn.
    I had the good fortune of being seated next to Katherine McKenna at Abigail's dinner party. Katherine is on the Board of the Guild and was Carol’s painting and color Instructor at the Woodstock School of Art, which is a sweet coincidence. Katherine and her brothers Douglas, Andrew and Bruce grew up in Englewood New Jersey, and Carol was Bruce McKenna’s 8th grade elementary school teacher. Small world.
    Katherine now divides her time between the Hudson Valley and the American West. Her landscape paintings of Wyoming, Colorado, Montana, Utah, and Arizona reveal an attachment to the natural geology and essence of place that she was first exposed to on the childhood trips she writes of in her memoir.
    Katherine has exhibited widely, and her paintings reside in permanent collections of the Rockwell Museum, the Museum of Northern Arizona, the Booth Museum, the Woodstock Artists Association & Museum, and the Desert Caballeros Museum in Wickenburg, Arizona
    Katherine also serves on the boards of Pratt Institute, the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and the Arts Society of Kingston.
    Over dinner, Katherine told me of her father’s work as a paleontologist, including at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, and of her own field work out West with her father when she was very young. I was fascinated that her artistic journey started with what she was exposed to at a very young age, and what she learned at the side of her father.
    Katherine mentioned that she had written a memoir, which I then ordered from the Woodstock Byrdcliffe Guild, and that we discussed on the podcast
    43 min
  • Ep. #41: Alison Gaylin/ Wendy Corsi Staub - domestic psychological thrillers, etc.

    My podcast guests are Alison Gaylin , a bestselling mystery writer who has been nominated for the Edgar Award four times, and has won the award in the category of Best Paperback Original for If I Die Tonight, and New York Times bestseller, and Wendy Corsi Staub, the award-winning author of more than ninety novels, best known for her psychological suspense novels. We discussed The Collective  – No Killer Goes Unpunished (by Alison) and The Other Family (by Wendy), both compelling, chilling page turners. We also discussed psychological suspense thrillers generally in which the perpetrator is coming from inside the house, or from inside the mind.

    20 min

About Tell Me What You’re Reading

From the publisher's feed

Talking about books on the streets of New York, in the mountains of the Catskills and on the road. I find that when I ask people about what they’re reading, they tend to start talking about books generally and then start talking to others about books. Encouraging the discussion of books cannot be a bad thing!