03-24-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 89: Hugh Howey 'Wool'
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.
The eighty-eighth episode is a look at Hugh Howey, 'Wool'.
03-21-13: A 2008 Interview With Nathaniel Rich & NPR First Books Report on 'The Mayor's Tongue'
Click image for audio link.
"I spent a long time reducing the craziness factor..."
—Nathaniel Rich
I guess it was not that long ago that I was doing the First Book series for NPR, and sitting down to talk to Nathaniel Rich about his second first book, 'The Mayor's Tongue.' It seems like a different era — and it was.
That was merely five years ago. And the publishing world has changed drastically. At the time, and I still think this is true, it seemed to me that there were a lot of people who were interested in writing books, and getting them published via what was then the only real way to get published — the big or small American publishers of hardcover books.
That business model is in the process is of sinking into the Internet Ocean, even as the publishers try to keep afloat by hopping from e-reader to e-reader. All that gloom and doom aside, I am still primarily a hardcover book reader, and I don't see hardcovers going the way of the vinyl record, not for a long time. They're a very viable technology; portable and durable, as my thirty and forty year-old paperbacks will attest.
Rich's story is particularly interesting, since he wrote his novel at night while he worked during the day on 'San Francisco Noir.' While this book was his first published, it was the second book he finished. Not surprisingly, non-fiction is an easier sell than a hallucinatory novel. There was actually a lot to talk about in 'San Francisco Noir,' including Philip Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which he considers as one the great SF (as in San Francisco, not science fiction) noir films. As it happens, Invasion has been playing on the cable channels recently, and I must say that it is every bit as chilling now as it was when it came out in 1978.
It's clear that his night work on 'The Mayor's Tongue' contributed to the dream-like feel of the novel. We also talked about Italo Svevo, and how his work informed 'The Mayor's Tongue.' But Rich has read widely, and it's always fun to hear someone talk about how they read through xx (double digits) of Stephen King's work.
Rich and I talked for along time; I originally split the interview into two parts. Today I am running as one piece; about half an hour in, you'll hear a second reading from the text by Rich. I'm also podcasting the piece I did for NPR about him, which is a sort of prototype for the Time to Read work I'm doing now.
"...there's a psychic wound that couldn't heal..."
— Lawrence Wright
For a man who has just come out of one interview, and has himself performed thousands of hours of interviews in order to write 'Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood, and the Prison of Belief,' Lawrence Wright is amazing fresh and energetic as we sit down to talk.
I spoke with Wright at KQED in San Francisco and the interview itself was much on my mind. Wright is much more than an author of non-fiction, though his non-fiction is so significant it's hard to imagine him having time for anything else. He has a novel, 'God's Favorite,' and numerous plays, many of which he has performed himself. His latest play, opening a few days after our interview is Fallaci, the story of Oriana Fallaci, an interviewer who inspired his work as a journalist. In the play, Fallaci is herself interviewed by a young woman who is hoping to supplant her.
The feeling then is that I am in a sort of hall of mirrors of interviewing, a faded image so far down the row as to be almost indistinguishable. My hope was to at least be competent; I'd read the book and enjoyed the hell out of it. It reminded me most of Philip K. Dick's 'The Transmigration of Timothy Archer' and 'VALIS,' with the combination of gritty, real-life insanity, edgy religious fundamentalism and pulp science fiction tropes. But it is also a great series of character studies and simply, lots of fun to read.
Wright is obviously a great interviewer, but he is equally adept at being interviewed. We talked about his research, the interviews he did for this book, and exactly why he decided to take on this story. The Church of Scientology is notoriously litigious, though he told me in the interview that he has not been sued for this book — yet.
I must admit that seeing the word "Hollywood" in the title made me hesitate momentarily when picking up the book, but Wright is simply following the facts, and the fact is that Scientology sort of grew up in Hollywood. Hubbard was really quite prescient in his investments there, in people and in real estate.
I also had to ask Wright about the Heinlein connection and Hubbard's years in the SF pulps. This book is certainly an essential work for those interested in the early history of science fiction. This was an opportunity to find the answer to a question that has long haunted me with regards to Hubbard, Heinlein and Scientology; was there a bet between the two that launched both 'Stranger in a Strange Land' and Scientology?
It was also interesting to talk to Wright about Fallaci. It's clear that this interviewer was an inspiration to him. The contrast in form is what caught my attention. His works of non-fiction are sprawling histories covering decades of life. His play is focused on two people in a single sitting. That's a disparity worth noting.
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
