06-25-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 105: Joe Hill, 'NOS4A2'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one hundred and fifth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the one-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning.
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 one hundred and fifth episode is a look at Joe Hill and 'NOS4A2.'
"...he told me about this new job in high-level catastrophe risk consulting."
— Nathaniel Rich
The first thing you might well think when you meet (or hear) Nathaniel Rich is that in creating Mitchell Zukor for 'Odds Against Tomorrow,' he was just writing what he knew. Here's a man who is at ease with unease, a man who is perfectly at home looking Apocalypse in the eye and calculating just what happens afterward.
I first spoke with Rich back in 2008 (Part one ; Part Two) after the publication of his first novel, 'The Mayor's Tongue,' at KQED. This time around we spoke in the apartment of a friend of his who happens to live pretty much around the corner from KQED. Rich's friend had an excellent selection of books lining the walls, which made for a convivial place for us to chat.
Both Rich and I are fans of Stanislaw Lem, and there's certainly quite a bit of Lem in 'Odds Against Tomorrow,' with its absurdist perspective and the interest in the laws of probability. As Rich and I talked about the genesis of this book and his writing process, we ended up journeying through five years of his life. 'Odds Against Tomorrow' is very crisp and clean. It's a quick read that'll make you laugh, with lots of parts you'll want to read again. All that ease of reading comes at the price of Rich's long work extracting every word out of the novel that did not need to be there.
As the time for publication approached, Rich found himself increasingly worried by the events he described in the book. They were not out of the bounds of possibility, which is a plus because the book reads like tomorrow's newspaper, but could be a minus if it reads, well wrong. Rich did have a close brush with this book, but to m mind at last, it was the quality of the writing that made it seem relevant and intense, not the timing of the publication. That didn't hurt though.
As Rich and I sat in that apartment, we looked out over the city of San Francisco, where, statistics tell us, a disaster is certain. It's hard to imagine and it is easy to imagine. It is a disaster we live with every day. To find out how to between dueling disasters, follow this link to the MP3 audio file of my conversation with Nathaniel Rich.
06-25-13 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 104: Nathaniel Rich, 'Odds Against Tomorrow'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one hundred and fourth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning.
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 one hundred and fourth episode is a look at Nathaniel Rich and 'Odds Against Tomorrow.'
"...what helped most of all was thinking about really good science fiction..."
— Annalee Newitz
Annalee Newitz has been to KQED twice in the past two days when I arrive to speak to her about 'Scatter, Adapt, and Remember.' As I wait for her downstairs in the lobby, she's upstairs, recovering from her first interview of the day. Her cheerful, forthcoming mood is pretty surprising.
In retrospect, given that her subject is the end of the world and in contrast, she seems very much at the beginning of a great career, I guess it makes sense. For me it's interesting, even vital to see and hear the author behind the words. It adds a dimension to the reading experience, which I try to share and evoke in my conversations.
Understanding the approach and tools an author brings to the book helps me revisit the memory of reading the work. It's clear that Annalee Newitz was on a journey of discovery as she wrote 'Scatter.' Right of the bat, she told me that she expected to write a darker book. Her surprise at what came out carries over as enthusiasm for her writing and the book itself. I can hear echoes of her prose voice in her speaking voice. Annalee Newitz is having a lot of fun.
While it is clear that Newitz did a lot of research and interviews for the book, there's a sort of gung-ho feel here – again clearly heard in the interview – that recasts all the raw data input into a whole greater than the sum of the parts. To my mind, it's down to a lot of writing skills; eliding the stuff that doesn't work, no matter how much she loved it, writing with just the right level of humor – that is, prose style – and the stuff she does cherry pick to put in the book.
While 'Scatter' feels like a perfect, organic whole, a moment's thought suggests there are a lot of books out there about the end of the world already. Any means by which we may exterminate ourselves (and everything else on the planet, for that matter) has probably resulted in at least one work of non-fiction and ten works of fiction. Newitz makes you forget about all that and learn to love the end. There's a sort of Strangelovian vibe at work here.
We talked both about what was in the book, just enough to give listeners a sense of what's inside without making your feel as if you've read it, and how she put it together. You may or may not be ready for mass extinction, but you'll certainly be more informed about what it is and how Newitz managed to write about it by following this link to the MP3 audio file.
New to the Agony Column
09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."
09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."
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
