03-10-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 88: Karen Russell 'Vampires in the Lemon Grove'
Here's the eighty-eighth episode of my new series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.
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.
Gene Kerrigan, 'Rage' ; Stephen Dobyns, 'The Burn Palace' ; Yoko Ogawa, 'Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales'
One of the most powerful aspects of reading is to discuss what you've read with like-minded readers. Alan Cheuse and I have a very nice intersection, in that we come at the same books from rather different directions. This time around, we took a look at three rather dark books, and had, oddly enough, a great time talking about them.
Our first book was Gene Kerrigan's 'Rage,' a police procedural set in Dublin. For me, the pleasure of these books comes in what (as I write this) I realize is their similarity to hard science fiction. There are rules, and we march through them at a measured pace, following a chain of logic. Of course, it helps to have great characters and a great setting.
We also took a look at 'The Burn Palace' by Stephen Dobyns. For me, this book was a great exercise in immersive naturalistic horror; it has all the feel of a novel of the supernatural without an excess of what I can only call the "actual" supernatural.
And finally, we took a turn into the more literary, but darker and weirder real of Yoko Ogawa's 'Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales,' which approaches the fantastic from a more literary direction, but with a thirst for the disturbing, in every aspect, that will chill and upset readers.
Given this palette of choice, we got to talk about a lot of other authors who work in the same vein, and this is where it is really fun to have these conversations. As Alan and I talk about these latest books, we can reminisce about the foundations of our reading and the books themselves. It's clear that these books were inspired by books and authors that Alan and I have both read. It's my hope that should you give this chat a listen, you'll find some books in here, either these, or some authors that we discuss as background, and add them to your reading queue.
"When I was a kid, I remember reading a book, and when it ended, it was sad to me..."
— Robert R. McCammon
Robert R. McCammon is a living legend to me; and for all that he says in our interview that mass-market paperbacks are not meant to last, those of his I have are some of the oldest books I have. But his latest novella from Subterranean Press, 'I Travel By Night' really captures the glory days perfectly. I can easily imagine having a slim battered and yellowed Sphere edition on my shelves.
As it stands, I know that I have the Sphere versions of 'Baal,' 'They Thirst' and 'Bethany's Sin,' all bought at the same drug store in Monterey Park where I found the green paperback version of 'The Books of Blood.' There's something about memories of buying books at grocery stores and drug stores that makes them special, a hint of the verboten. I must admit that I was lured by the lurid covers and happily surprised by McCammon's novels, which were and still are engrossing, immersive and entertaining as hell.
It was almost disconcerting to speak with McCammon on the phone, and it was interesting to hear him talk about how much memory is involved in writing his novels, as I have so many memories dedicated to reading them. I used to chase my oldest son around the room when he was much, much younger with the cover of 'Stinger,' McCammon's alien-on-earth novel. And as I talked to McCammon, he revealed to me some of the deep memories that inspired novels like 'Mystery Walk,' and the Mathew Corbett series.
As much as I approach every interview completely differently, my conversation with McCammon was yet another leap into the unknown. My history of reading his work is so deep and so embedded that much of how I read now is informed by what I read then. And Rick McCammon is the sort of writer who in conversation is able to evoke much of the feeling of poignancy that pervades his book, and all of the fun.
I was glad to hear that fun is an important ingredient for McCammon, and in praticular to hear the surprising influence for some of my favorite works of his, 'The Wolf's Hour' and 'The Hunter in the Woods.' I really wish that someone would make these into movies or a television series; if done right, they would be a real blast.
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
