KCRW's Bookworm

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie: Americanah

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 19:50:43 EDT

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie prefers thorny, resistant characters to likeable ones. She talks about why readers shouldn't settle for characters that are less than difficult.

Marisa Silver: Mary Coin

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 17:33:59 EDT

Inspired by an iconic American image, Marisa Silver's Mary Coin imagines the fabric of life behind Dorothea Lange's depression-era photograph, "Migrant Mother."

Alice Fulton: Cascade Experiment

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 18:07:05 EDT

Alice Fulton wants to "dirty" lyric poetry by making it bear witness to the grievous geo-politics of the present.

Rae Armantrout: Just Saying

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 29 May 2013 18:02:49 EDT

Rae Armantrout's poems apprehend the world as a place charged by the nonexistent supernatural. For her, the eerie thing is that ghosts don't exist.

Pura Lopez-Colome and Forrest Gander: Watchword

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 22 May 2013 19:37:16 EDT

Pura Lopez-Colomé's poetry, translated by Forrest Gander, envisions the body as a mystically rich reservoir of experience and language.

Aleksandar Hemon: The Book of My Lives

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 15 May 2013 16:22:19 EDT

Aleksandar Hemon takes us though his life from his childhood in Sarajevo -- from the public tragedy of warfare to the private catastrophe of the loss of his child.

Margaret Atwood on Innovation

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 08 May 2013 19:42:54 EDT

Margaret Atwood has embraced the frontiers of online literary culture. She reflects on her exploration of literary innovation and why Hermes is the patron of the new(s).

Rachel Kushner: The Flamethrowers

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:07:06 EDT

A novel of multiple voices, motorcycles, and swift zigzags between separate times and places.

David Shields: How Literature Saved My Life

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 16:06:49 EDT

David Shields explores the power of the written word in his new book of essays.

Mohsin Hamid: How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:21:43 EDT

Mohsin Hamid mocks the self-help genre in his new novel.

Sam Lipsyte:The Fun Parts

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 15:53:57 EDT

The brazen, satirical stories in Sam Lipsyte's latest book incite reactions that run the gamut from anger to outrage to sheer hilarity.

Joyce Carol Oates: The Accursed

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 17:49:46 EDT

Set on the Princeton campus in 1905, a penetrating social commentary masquerades as a classic American Gothic.

Michael Ondaatje: The Cat's Table

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:56:21 EDT

Ondaatje discusses his turn from concealment to revelation and reflects on the magic of youth.

Jess Walter: We Live in Water

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 20 Mar 2013 16:24:43 EDT

How did Jess Walter make the leap between his romantic novel, "Beautiful Ruins," and the end-of-the-world sadness of his stories in "We Live in Water?"

Eloise Klein Healy: A Wild Surmise

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 20:31:35 EDT

The recently named the first poet laureate of the City of Los Angeles reads selections from her new collection and reflects on what it means to be a poet of place today.

Luis Alberto Urrea, Part Two

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 19:43:20 EDT

Luis Alberto Urrea ("The Hummingbird's Daughter" and "Queen of America") continues to discuss his saga inspired by the life of Teresita Urrea, "the Mexican Joan of Arc."

Luis Alberto Urrea: The Hummingbird's Daughter and Queen of America

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 19:59:08 EDT

Luis Alberto Urrea's "Queen of America," completes the two-volume saga that began with "The Hummingbird's Daughter." Both follow the journey of a Mexican curandera...

George Saunders: Tenth of December, Part Two

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:48:06 EDT

In this second interview, George Saunders delves further into the dark-comic twists and turns of his recent short story collection. (Part 2 of 2)

Nick Flynn: The Reenactments

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:39:32 EDT

Nick Flynn on the strange days on the set of Being Flynn, a film adapted from his personal memoir, and starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano.

Jamaica Kincaid: See Now Then

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 17:36:38 EDT

Jamaica Kincaid's first novel in ten years is an emotionally bare story about the erosion of a marriage.

George Saunders: Tenth of December, Part One

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 18:15:35 EDT

George Saunders reflects on writing, "infinitely" revising, and how he finds the voices for his luminous but smudged characters. (Part 1 of 2)

Ange Mlinko: Shoulder Season; Marvelous Things Overheard

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 19:56:49 EDT

Poet Ange Mlinko reads poems from her forthcoming collection and talks about the way that poetry braids difficulty and pleasure.

Lydia Millet: Magnificence

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 18:23:56 EDT

In Lydia Millet's novels, characters pass from the comedy of daily life to the beauty of visionary experience.

Amy Wilentz: Farewell, Fred Voodoo: A Letter from Haiti

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:31:35 EDT

Journalist Amy Wilentz's admiring and sober portrait of post-earthquake Haiti...

Antoine Wilson: Panorama City

webmaster@kcrw.org (KCRW.com) — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 17:09:21 EDT

The aimless hero of Antoine Wilson's second novel takes the world at face value and wishes to impart wisdom to his unborn son, after a life of suspended childhood himself.