Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Elizabeth Berg, author of The Story of Arthur Truluv, published in November by Random House.

Elizabeth was a registered nurse for over ten years before publishing her first novel, Durable Goods. She has since written maybe 25 books (neither of us can probably remember the exact count!) She’s been translated into almost 30 languages, has long been on Bestseller lists. She has won numerous awards and has also published a lot of non-fiction work.

Arthur Truluv is a widower, a widower who is still very much in love with his wife. In fact her sees her every day, at the cemetery where he brings a folding chair and lunch and sits and talks. Not only that--he visits graves surrounding his wife’s and talks to their occupants as well. He imagines their lives and in an almost magical way, his description of their day-to-day activities and personalities ring as true as any other part of this novel.

One day Arthur spies Maddy, an intelligent and lovely young teen, who is spurned by her classmates, ignored (for the most part) by her father who is also widowed. Maddy’s mother died when she was just an infant.

The third main character in this novel is Lucille, who is about Arthur’s age but is more gossipy, ascerbic and certainly more nosy.

This triad forms an unlikely but very likable group and they forge a friendship, seamlessly and bonding.
How Elizabeth does all this is both touching and natural, without being at all cloyingly sweet or manipulative of the reader.
We fall for the characters and remember their names, even the minor ones including Gordon, Arthur’s cat. In all, this is a book that takes you out of this very disruptive daily world and brings you to a place where love, lost and then reborn, allows you to take a fresher look at the world in a much less cynical way (if you tend to be cynical, as I do).

Good Afternoon and welcome to another edition of the Avid Reader. Today our guest is Richard Thomas, author of Why Bob Dylan Matters, published by Dey Street Books in November of this year. Dr. Thomas is a professor of the classics at Harvard. He is also, curiously, a preeminent Dylan scholar who has published extensively about him and the literary tradition that surrounds him and in most cases predates him. He teaches a seminar at Harvard titled “Bob Dylan”.

Bob Dylan has been a part of my life since I was 12 years old and first heard Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright.

That’s over half a century ago. I have followed somewhat faithfully Dylan’s career since, most closed tied to his earlier work up to and including The Rolling Thunder Revue which I saw at Florida Field in 1970 something, along with Kinky Friedman Mick Ronson and Joan Baez, who at the end of the concert rather archly announced “There will be no encore!” I thought that was mean and unnecessary, but be that as it may.

Dr. Thomas’s book explores Dylan’s past extensively as well as the massive oeuvre of his work and how cleverly and stealthily Dylan has borrow from the truly classical works of Virgil, Catullus (ca toll us), Rimbaud and many others.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Michael Meyer author of The Road to Sleeping Dragon: Learning China From The Ground Up, published in October by Bloomsbury. The book is the third in a trilogy of works by Mr. Meyer. The first two being The Last Days of Old Beijing and the second, In Manchuria. Michael’s writing has also appeared in the NYT, Time, The Financial Times, The WSJ and many other periodicals and publications. He is a former Peace Corps volunteer to China. He is also the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and many other honors and awards.

The Road To Sleeping Dragon: Learning China From The Ground Up is a story of a young man who by sheer chance gets thrown into a country that is bigger than ours with more ethnicities and cultures and dialects than our county---by a lot. The book follows Michael’s journey, sometimes perilous, sometimes humorous but always gripping as he begins to assimilate the language and manners of his new country and he has continued to do so now for over 20 years. Most of the book was in reality “new” to me, and as Michael has said, you know you need to write a book when the book you want to read doesn’t exist. So with that welcome Michael and thanks for joining us today.

Mark Helprin is a man without a genre. He belongs to no literary school or movement. His books are not adventure stories or mysteries or thrillers or science fiction or fantasy or magical realism, yet elements of each of those can be found between the pages of his many novels.

Which include A Dove of the East & Other Stories, Refiners Fire, Winters Tale (a classic), A Soldier of the Great War and the marvelous trilogy Swan Lake, A City in Winter and the Veil of Snows, collected in one beautiful volume A Kingdom Far and Clear and many others.

He has been published in The New Yorker for a quarter of a century, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The National Review among many other journals and periodicals.

His honors and awards are to numerous to mention during this interview.

Paris in the Present Tense. Once again, as in Winter’s Tale, In Sunlight and in Shadow, A Kingdom Far and Clear Mark has written a book in which the city is as much a protagonist as any other character.

Jules Lacour is a Frenchman, a cellist, a holocaust survivor and a man who agonizes over the loss of his wife Jacqueline. In fact he agonizes over the deaths of almost every deceased friend or acquaintance he has encountered. The book is framed by an epigraph which states this as a kind of credo.

Jules wants to die and he wants to die for a couple of reasons. One is because of the loss of his wife, the other is part of a scheme, a scheme that at times is both poignant and downright funny. I mean laugh out loud funny. Another thing that is funny is Jules meeting with his one-time psychiatrist. (At least I think it is one time)

Jules, in his mid-seventies is in terrific physical shape. He runs, he rows in the Seine. He attracts younger women and falls in love regularly. Like many of us do.

One such paramour is Elodi, 50 years Jules’ junior and a student, Jules’ student, of the cello.

Another story line involves two semi-bumbling detectives who afford some more comedy.

The novel celebrates Paris in The Present Tense and we’re all the better for it.

Welcome Mark and thanks for joining us today.

Mark Helprin is a man without a genre. He belongs to no literary school or movement. His books are not adventure stories or mysteries or thrillers or science fiction or fantasy or magical realism, yet elements of each of those can be found between the pages of his many novels.

Which include A Dove of the East & Other Stories, Refiners Fire, Winters Tale (a classic), A Soldier of the Great War and the marvelous trilogy Swan Lake, A City in Winter and the Veil of Snows, collected in one beautiful volume A Kingdom Far and Clear and many others.

He has been published in The New Yorker for a quarter of a century, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The National Review among many other journals and periodicals.

His honors and awards are to numerous to mention during this interview.

Paris in the Present Tense. Once again, as in Winter’s Tale, In Sunlight and in Shadow, A Kingdom Far and Clear Mark has written a book in which the city is as much a protagonist as any other character.

Jules Lacour is a Frenchman, a cellist, a holocaust survivor and a man who agonizes over the loss of his wife Jacqueline. In fact he agonizes over the deaths of almost every deceased friend or acquaintance he has encountered. The book is framed by an epigraph which states this as a kind of credo.

Jules wants to die and he wants to die for a couple of reasons. One is because of the loss of his wife, the other is part of a scheme, a scheme that at times is both poignant and downright funny. I mean laugh out loud funny. Another thing that is funny is Jules meeting with his one-time psychiatrist. (At least I think it is one time)

Jules, in his mid-seventies is in terrific physical shape. He runs, he rows in the Seine. He attracts younger women and falls in love regularly. Like many of us do.

One such paramour is Elodi, 50 years Jules’ junior and a student, Jules’ student, of the cello.

Another story line involves two semi-bumbling detectives who afford some more comedy.

The novel celebrates Paris in The Present Tense and we’re all the better for it.

Welcome Mark and thanks for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Annalee Newitz author of her first novel Autonomous published September 19th by Tor (tomorrow). Annalee’s career started 15 years back in San Francisco at the Guardian. Later she worked at Wired and then founded the super cool io9 at Gawker. She edited io9 for 7 years then became the editor in chief at Gizmodo. Since last year she has been an editor at Ars Technica. She’s ben published in the New Yorker, The Washington Post The Times The Atlantic and many other publications.

She also writes about movies, TV and books in the sci-fi fantasy genre. Which ties in nicely wit this her first venture into novel writing with Autonomous.

Autonomous is about free will, love, corporate greed and deceit and loyalty. It follows the path of Jack (Judith) Chen, a modern day pirate who reverse engineers drugs and supplies them to the market in spite of the inherent but ill-gotten rights of major drug companies with semi-familiar names.

Hot on Jack’s trail are two corporate cops, one human and one robotic, Eliasz (Elias) and Palladin. Who have their own unusual and unique relationship with each other.

Jack seeks help along the way and finds it from some likely and unlikely sources.

But the high concept that runs through the book is this concept of autonomy and what it means. And we can talk about that a little today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Annalee Newitz author of her first novel Autonomous published September 19th by Tor (tomorrow). Annalee’s career started 15 years back in San Francisco at the Guardian. Later she worked at Wired and then founded the super cool io9 at Gawker. She edited io9 for 7 years then became the editor in chief at Gizmodo. Since last year she has been an editor at Ars Technica. She’s ben published in the New Yorker, The Washington Post The Times The Atlantic and many other publications.

She also writes about movies, TV and books in the sci-fi fantasy genre. Which ties in nicely wit this her first venture into novel writing with Autonomous.

Autonomous is about free will, love, corporate greed and deceit and loyalty. It follows the path of Jack (Judith) Chen, a modern day pirate who reverse engineers drugs and supplies them to the market in spite of the inherent but ill-gotten rights of major drug companies with semi-familiar names.

Hot on Jack’s trail are two corporate cops, one human and one robotic, Eliasz (Elias) and Palladin. Who have their own unusual and unique relationship with each other.

Jack seeks help along the way and finds it from some likely and unlikely sources.

But the high concept that runs through the book is this concept of autonomy and what it means. And we can talk about that a little today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Gabriel Tallent, whose debut novel My Absolute Darling will be released tomorrow by Riverhead. Gabriel Received his BA from Williamette University. His stories have been published in Narrative and in the St. Petersburg Review. His thesis at Willamette was on the discursive construction of Pleasure in Samuel Richardson’s Pamela. But he also was a checker at Target, so that gives you a little bit of an idea of how this story could have emerged from his head.

My Absolute Darling plumbs the depths of moral depravity and soars to places where a girl’s reach exceeds her grasp and yet she is able to accomplish things that are impossible to imagine.

Julia (Turtle) is the 14 year old daughter of Martin. Martin is a very intelligent survivivalist with tons of weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition and the ability and the desire to use them all. He is also dangerous and depraved but there is a certain part of us and this is a danger to the reader of the novel, a certain part of us that almost has the capability to comprehend his motives. It’s scary that we have the capability to do so. That is why this book has gotten so much buzz and is such a riveting read. Some reviews suggest that it is not for the faint of heart. Others say read the book with friends and then fight over it..

Trust me--as a book club selection, you will find yourself in fight club rather than the usual casual night out at the book store.

It’s not a book to make light of. It’s a book to ponder and one which makes you question your understanding of family relationships and how that can go so wrong and also ponder the strength of someone whose strength was obtained from the very man who is her sworn nemesis and father.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Jill Bialosky author of Poetry Will Save Your Life published this month by Atria. Jill is the author of four acclaimed collections of poetry most recently The Players. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Atlantic and Best American Poetry. She is also the author of three novels and a NYT best selling memoir, History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life. Jill is an executive editor at Norton and Company.

Poetry Will Change Your Life is a memoir of a life lived in stages and one which develops in great part because of Jill’s affinity with our greatest poets and their work. She has the ability to apply the lessons, the morals, the meanings of poems to her own backstory if you will and more importantly for us she then has the capability of showing us how we can do the same.

Each named chapter, having to do with Jill’s life, is then coupled with one, or two or sometimes several poems which underscore an experience, bring insight and clarity to a change in life or emphasize the importance of what has just happened to Jill.

All in all, some of your favorite poems--- whether Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, The Road Not Taken, I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud or even the 23rd Psalm are given new meaning and nuance and help us to understand more about Jill but more importantly more about ourselves.

Sam Hankin of the Avid Reader discussed "Eastman was Here" on the Avid Reader radio show. Alex will be appearing at the Wellington Square Bookshop for a reading, Q&A and signing on Monday, September 11th at 7:00pm.