09-28-14 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 175: Rebecca Alexander, 'Not Fade Away: A Memoir of Senses Lost and Found'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred seventy-fifth 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. This week, I seem to be on top opf the game, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to stay back up and stumbling.
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.
Lauren Beukes with helper, K.
Click image for audio link.
"...fiction allows you to step into someone's head..."
—Lauren Beukes
Lauren Beukes arrived in town not to promote her new book, but to visit with family friends. She very kindly agreed to speak with me about 'Broken Monsters' and 'The Shining Girls' at KQED, and arrived with a helper. It's clear that she's working in advance with the mother-daughter relationships in her fiction.
I enjoyed the heck out of both her books I've read (and have the other two in queue for a rainy day). We started out talking about cities first, since she lives in Capetown, where she presumably spends some time with fellow Capetown writer Sarah Lotz. But Beukes most recent novels are set in Chicago and Detroit respectively. She'd lived in Chicago, which made the writing of 'The Shining Girls' less challenging. But Detroit was new territory, which meant travel and adventure as one can only find in Detroit.
We talked a bit about the Internet in recent fiction. Some writers are writing recent historical novels (essentially, pre-search engine and pre-cell phone) because it makes plotting a bit simpler. And that, to a degree was true about 'The Shining Girls.' But it's not the case in "Broken Monsters,' which embraces the Internet and uses it for a variety of plot points.
Oddly enough, some have suggested that 'Broken Monsters' is "anti-Internet." I must admit, I don't get that at all. Beukes merely admits that the Internet exists and that we use in the way that we use it. It is neither good nor evil; its simply human.
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
