08-12-12 UPDATE:Podcast Update:Time to Read Episode 58: James P. Blaylock, 'Zeuglodon'
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Here's the fifty-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. I'll be in LA again next week, so expect the next one next Sunday.
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 fifty-eighth episode is a look at James P. Blaylock, ''Zeuglodon.'
08-09-12: John Shirley Reads from 'Everything is Broken' at SF in SF on July 7, 2012
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"..A kind of a Lord of the Flies for the near-future..."
—John Shirley
John Shirley did not mince words as he introduced his latest novel at SF in SF, calling it a political allegory and pointing his finger at the Tea Party and the politics of privatization that in his novel help to make a bad thing worse. Argue if you with his politics, but you can't really argue with his sense of place.
For his reading, Shirley chose what might be called the "big special effects" sequences of his novel, to wit, the scenes in which a tsunami washes through a small town on the coast of Northern California.
Shirley did not write the novel in response to recent tsunami that washed through Santa Cruz, and cause millions of dollars of damage. To give an idea as to how localized these phenomena can be, I was about six miles south of the harbor where the damage was done and I could barely tell that anything was happening.
08-07-12:Alan Cheuse Live at the Capitola Book Café, July 21, 2012
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"...A novel is like a marriage..."
— Alan Cheuse
When I edit the Alan Cheuse live appearances for broadcast on radio, I have to be very careful. In front of an audience at the Capitola Boook Café to discuss his new collection of novellas, 'Paradise, or Eat Your Face,' we get into that include material that is not what you're going to hear on NPR, which is what makes interviews and podcasts like this one so much fun.
First and foremost, don't expect a straightforward, cut and dried "book interview" with this conversation. Those sorts of interviews are generally my remit in any event, but here we just go where the spirit leads us, which some occasional detours back to the subject at hand. But the fun of talking with Alan Cheuse is that we do go afar, and when we get there, surprising things happen. Generally things that you cannot broadcast.
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Mary Robinette Kowal Reads "Evil Robot Monkey" at SF in SF on April 20, 2013 : "...not that there's anything remotely Regency about evil robot monkeys..."
05-06-13: Commentary : Glennon Doyle Melton Suggests 'Carry On, Warrior' : Fighting for Life in the Too Much Information Age
05-04-13: Commentary : Reasons Not to Leave the House, Reality Check : The Truth Hurts Edition: 'Down the Up Escalator' by Barbara Garson, 'The Wolf and the Watchman' by Scott C. Johnson,'The Book of Woe' by Gary Greenberg, 'Confessions of a Sociopath' by M. E. Thomas
05-01-13: Commentary : Mario Guslandi Reviews An Emporium of Automata by DP Watt : "...from the bizarre to the grotesque, from the baroque to the uncanny..."
Agony Column Podcast News Report : : Rick Klaw Reads at SF in SF on April 20, 2013 : "...those are the kind of people that don't get work anymore..."
04-29-13: Commentary : Ben Katchor Catalogues 'Hand Drying in America' : Subversive Cities of the Heart
04-27-13: Commentary : Mark Morris Introduces 'Toady' : A New World of Horror
Agony Column Podcast News Report : : Thomas Frank from The Easy Chair and Harper's Magazine: TV's DC Fantasies : "... basically, everyone is corrupt ..."
04-22-13: Commentary : Danielle Trussoni Maps 'Angelopolis' : The Afterlife of Angels
04-17-13: Commentary : How Not to Leave the House : Reach for the Recycling
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Matt Richtel, Sophie Littlefield and Terry Bisson at SF in SF on February 9, 2013 : "You cannot do this all day long." Sophie Littlefield
04-16-13: Commentary : Stephen Kessler 'Scratch Pegasus' : Lens of Language
04-08-13: Commentary : Ruth Ozeki Clocks 'A Tale for the Time Being' : Reading is the Future
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2013 Interview with Ruth Ozeki : "...through the act of writing, she would somehow conjure the reader into being..."
