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06-19-09: Agony Column Exclusive — (Around) Three Books With Alan Cheuse

'Every Man Dies Alone'
by Hans Fallada

'The Sleepwalkers'
by Hermann Broch

Recently, we here at The Agony Column have taken to calling Friday Cheuseday, because, well, that's the day we dedicate our podcast to an ever-widening discussion of books and literature with Alan Cheuse. This week, we're going back in time and traveling to Germany, to look at society as an illness.

From "The Disintegration of Values" in Europe in general and Germany in particular, from 1888 through 1918, found in Broch's intense trilogy to the slim volume written in 24 days in 1947 by Ernst Fallada, about dissident Germans in Nazi Germany, today Alan Cheuse and I will talk about how the many affect the few and the few the many. It's always tempting to look at today in terms of "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire," or to see America as an analogue of the post-sunset British Empire. But it's never quite so simple on a personal level. You can hear my conversation with Alan Cheuse about these two harrowing titles by following this link to the MP3 audio file.



06-18-09: Agony Column Podcast News Report — Jeff VanderMeer at Shared Worlds : Speculative Fiction Camp for Teens

"They kind of, without meaning too, learn stuff." So says Jeff VanderMeer, the Assistant director of Shared Worlds, a summer camp where kids learn to create speculative fiction in a variety of formats. This is clearly an idea whose time has come, and I suspect that this could take off like wildfire, or even the swine flu. With more beneficent results of course.

Jeff VanderMeer seems to do just about everything, and now he's working at Shared Worlds, a summer camp where teens (13-18) can spend two weeks creating new worlds then exploring them in prose, art or gaming. This really seems like a brilliant business strategy, because, frankly, I suspect that lots of the kids snapping up the Harry Potter and Eclipse novels would be very interested in spending a couple of weeks leasnring how to create such a beast. Add in the armies of adolescents (this in actual age, not maturity) who play video games based on speculative fiction, and you have enough purchasing power to buy the entire United States, while we're on sale, of course, at bargain prices. The curriculum is such that kids will find themselves enjoying the basics — reading, writing, history, economics, biology, ecology — as they are employed to create new worlds in the first week. In the second week, they explore those world in their chosen arena. You can hear the lowdown direct from aJeff himself by following this link to the audio podcast.



06-17-09: Agony Column Broadcast Radio Show, March 1, 2009: Deborah Grabien, Michael Boatman and Janis Bell

Into the breach once again, with a podcast version of my broadcast show from March 1, 2009; this time featuring some interviews from SF in SF and an edit of my interview with the Grammar Queen, Janis Bell.

We're back in the re-broadcast business for a moment, this time going back to my radio show from March 1st of this year. One of the fun parts of putting these shows together is slicing dicing and matching voices; so today you get to hear two working writers and a writer who will teach you how to write better. All you have to do is follow the link to this MP3 audio file.



06-16-09: A 2009 Interview with Jedediah Berry, Part 2: "It is those characters who are shown to have a real power to change things"

In the second part of my conversation with Jedediah Berry, we talk about nemeses — how they provide a convenient means for self-definition and of the evils ast the heart of his novel, to be found in the Travels-No-More Circus.

Berry has quite bit more up his sleeve than the complicated and cleverly-built world in which you'll find the fictional non-fiction work, 'The Manual of Detection.' It's tempting to think, given the hermetic and almost obsessive construction of the novel, that it might be the first of seventeen already completed works. But as the second part of the interview will reveal, well — I'll let the Talented Mr. Berry speak for himself.



06-15-09: A 2009 Interview with Jedediah Berry, Part 1: "It also has an interest that goes beyond solving mysteries"

Jedediah Berry studied his way into the world of noir. You can almost imagine him as the hero of his own novel, Charles Unwin, with a pile of Chandler and Hammet on this desk as the rain spatters on the windowsill through an open window. By the power of the new ISDN line at KUSP, and with the technical expertise of the fabulous staff at WFCR in Amherst, Massachusetts, I managed to get him on the line to read from and talk about his novel 'The Manual of Detection'. As you might expect, the creation of this novel is nearly as interesting as the novel itself, and just as complex. Thus, I'm splitting the interview in the interests of allowing readers to fully immerse in Berry's compelling story. You can hear the first part of our conversation by following this link to the podcast audio file.



New to the Agony Column

04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 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 UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 202: Kazuo Ishiguro : The Buried Giant

04-17-15: Commentary : Erik Larson Follows a 'Dead Wake' : Countdown to Destiny

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Erik Larson : " "...said to have been found in the arms of a dead German sailor..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 201: Erik Larson : Dead Wake

04-15-15: Commentary : Peter Bell Reflects 'A Certain Slant of Light' : Strange Stories of Modern Scholars

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Peter Bell : "...I looked up some of the old books..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 200: Peter Bell : Strange Epiphanies and A Certain Slant of Light

03-14-15: Commentary : Marc Goodman Foresees 'Future Crimes' : Exponential Potential

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

03-01-15: Commentary : William Ury on Getting to Yes with Yourself: And Other Worthy Opponents : To the BATNA, Robin!

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William Ury : ...he proceeded to shout at me for approximately 30 minutes..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 198: William Ury : Getting to Yes with Yourself: And Other Worthy Opponents

02-22-15: Commentary : Jennifer Senior Experiences 'All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood' : Reading Fun for the Whole Fambly!

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Jennifer Senior : "...it becomes a source of enormous tension once a baby comes along..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 197: Jennifer Senior : All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood

02-09-15: Commentary : Stewart O'Nan Looks 'West of Sunset' : Twilight of the Great

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Stewart O'Nan : "...we see him as a tragedian because is life is a tragedy..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 196: Stewart O'Nan : West of Sunset

02-04-15: Commentary : Armistead Maupin Maps 'The Days of Anna Madrigal' : Swiftly Flow the Years

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Armistead Maupin : "I could see what silliness was going on while it was happening..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 195: Armistead Maupin : The Days of Anna Madrigal

01-31-15: Commentary : Christine Carter's Path to 'The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work' : Neurohabits

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Christine Carter, Ph.D. : "...a real tipping point..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 194: Christine Carter, Ph.D. : The Sweet Spot: How to Find Your Groove at Home and Work

01-23-15: Commentary : Jake Halpern Pushes 'Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld' : Non-Fiction 21st Century Noir

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Jake Halpern : "...he goes to Las Vegas to this debt-buyers' convention..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 193: Jake Halpern : Bad Paper: Chasing Debt from Wall Street to the Underworld

01-19-15: Commentary : David Shields and Caleb Powell Assert 'I Think You're Totally Wrong' : The Power to Bicker

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with David Shields and Caleb Powell : "I read no book reviews any more; the level of discussion is really pedestrian." David Shields "I'm just saying it's a conflict of interest!" Caleb Powell

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 192: David Shields and Caleb Powell : I Think You're Totally Wrong

01-17-15: Commentary : Charles Todd Expects 'A Fine Summer's Day' : We Interrupt This Program...

Commentary : Charles Todd Engages In 'A Test of Wills' : The Politics of Passion and Policing

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Charles and Caroline Todd : "...let them be themselves and sort it out..." Caroline Todd "...it's more on a personal level..." Charles Todd

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 191: Charles Todd : A Fine Summer's Day

01-13-15: Commentary : Rosalie Parker Unearths 'The Old Knowledge' : The New Old World

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Ray Russell and Rosalie Parker : "I thought I'd write something for fun.." Ray Russell "..there was a side of me of that was interested in the strangeness..." Ros Parker

01-12-15: Commentary : Richard Ford 'Let Me Be Frank with You' : The Default Years

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Richard Ford : "...most of our politicians are morons..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 190: Richard Ford : Let Me Be Frank with You

01-06-15: Commentary : Bessel van der Kolk 'The Body Keeps the Score' : Human Trauma

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Bessel van der Kolk : "...being able to see what happens in the brain really helps us to understand certain things..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 189: Bessel van der Kolk : The Body Keeps the Score

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