Bookworm

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**Bookworm**

Intellectual, accessible, and provocative literary conversations.

Latest Episodes:

Rachel Kushner: “The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020” Apr 22, 2021

Show notes

Rachel Kushner’s “The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020” is a career-spanning collection of nineteen essays.

Rita Dove: “Playlist for the Apocalypse” Apr 21, 2021

Show notes

Rita Dove’s new book of poetry, “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” goes in many different historical and personal directions.

Wayne Koestenbaum: “The Cheerful Scapegoat” Apr 15, 2021

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Wayne Koestenbaum’s first book of short fiction, “The Cheerful Scapegoat,” is a spectacularly odd and original collection of whimsical, surreal, baroque, ribald, and heartbreaking fables.

Kazuo Ishiguro: “Klara and the Sun” Apr 08, 2021

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Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun” is a novel focused on a small group of people in a robot future.

A Kazuo Ishiguro Retrospective Apr 01, 2021

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A retrospective of Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel laureate in literature.

Robert Jones, Jr.: “The Prophets” Mar 25, 2021

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The debut novel of Robert Jones, Jr., “The Prophets,” is lyrical prose about the dimensionality and interiority of people.

Carol Edgarian: “Vera” Mar 18, 2021

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Carol Edgarian’s “Vera” is the story of a strong, capable, and independent girl whose voice is the voice of the book.

A Tribute to Lawrence Ferlinghetti: “Time of Useful Consciousness” Mar 11, 2021

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A tribute to the co-founder of the highly influential independent bookstore and publisher City Lights, renowned poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Viet Thanh Nguyen: “The Committed” Mar 04, 2021

Show notes

Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his new novel, “The Committed,” the follow-up to his Pulitzer-winning “The Sympathizer,” and the second entry in a planned trilogy. It brings Nguyen’s storytelling further into the philosophy of refugees, feminism, communism, anti-communism and more—the terror of both the American war in Vietnam and the French presence in Vietnam, along with the Vietnamese presence in America andFrance. This is duality enacted as a writing method; this is a union between theory and fiction. A novel of ideas and politics and history and theory, but also a crime novel. A novel you’re not born knowing how to read, and you might have to reread it, this is exciting contemporary literature.

Ann Beattie: A Wonderful Stroke of Luck Feb 25, 2021

Show notes

Ben’s life falls down around him, and he’s the protagonist, in A Wonderful Stroke of Luck, by master writer Ann Beattie.