KCRW's Bookworm

Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 18:03:12 EST

The TOON Treasury of Classic Children's Comics (Abrams ComicArts)

TOON Books and Raw Books co-editors Spiegelman and Mouly tunneled through archives and private collections to create this perfect anthology of classic children's comics, the spunky kids and sassy animals you may envision at the edges of your memory. Walk down memory's backs streets with us when we explore the golden age of someone else's childhood.

Jonathan Lethem

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 17:30:00 EST

Chronic City (Doubleday)

Jonathan Lethem began his career with Philip K. Dick-inspired science fiction, then he turned to writing the more realistic books that brought him to prominence. Here, we discuss the fusion of the two...

Rudolph Wurlitzer, Part II

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:01:44 EST

Nog (Two Dollar Radio); Flats / Quake (Two Dollar Radio)

When Flats and Quake were published, the sixties were ending, and these novels can be said to chronicle the death of a dream. (Part I airs January 14)

Rudolph Wurlitzer, Part I

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:08:48 EST

Nog (Two Dollar Radio); Flats / Quake (Two Dollar Radio)

In this first of two interviews, Wurlitzer takes us time-traveling back to the late 1960's when Nog was published and his first screen plays (Two Lane Blacktop, Glen and Randa) found their way onto the screen... (Part II airs January 21)

Barbara Kingsolver

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:38:44 EST

The Lacuna (Harper)

What do Leon Trotsky, Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera have to do with an invented author of Mayan and Incan historical romances?

Wallace Shawn

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST

Essays (Haymarket Books) and a play, Grasses of a Thousand Colors (Theatre Communicatons Group)
Wallace Shawn?s newest play intermingles fact and fantasy in such a bizarre and original way that one would have to see (or even read) the play two or three times to get things (relatively) straight. Shawn discusses innovative theater in relation to his political beliefs as expressed in his new collection of essays.

Orhan Pamuk, Part II

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST

The Museum of Innocence (Knopf)
The Nobel Prize helped to set the fiction of Orhan Pamuk (and Turkish literature in general) in a contemporary global frame. Our conversation centers on the problem of national versus global literatures...

Orhan Pamuk, Part I

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 17:56:42 EST

The Museum of Innocence (Knopf)
Infidelity and adultery are two of the great subjects of the novel tradition ? think of Anna Karenina or Madam Bovary. In this conversation, Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk discusses his own stunning contribution to this tradition.

A.S. Byatt

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 17:30:00 EST

The Children's Book (Knopf)
As the vast array of subjects presented in A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book parades past ? puppetry, women's rights, Fabianism, Peter Pan, education, children's fiction, the history of pottery glazes ? one can't help but wonder: how does it all hold together?

Tao Lin

podmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 17:59:27 EST

Shoplifting from American Apparel (Melville House)

Although he has had five books published--two novels, a book of stories and two books of poems, Tao Lin is not yet thirty. Yet, for all his industriousness, his work expresses the apathy and emptiness felt by many members of his generation...