Otherppl with Brad Listi: Books & Culture

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Episode 190 — Sean Carswell Jul 14, 2013

Show notes

Sean Carswell is the guest. His new novel is called Madhouse Fog. Patricia Geary says “I’m a huge fan of Carswell’s fiction: he’s intelligent, hilarious, incisive, and his ear for dialogue is extraordinary. Nevertheless, I found Madhouse Fog to be a geometric progression of his talent—besides being compelling and wonderfully strange (I lost sleep over it; it’s a damn hard book to put down), it is the epitome of literary sophistication. I loved this novel!” And Scott O'Connor says “Sean Carswell is full of surprises. He’s funny, frightening, madcap, philosophical. His writing has a real warmth of spirit, and the kind of deft observation that changes the way you see things long after you leave the page.” Monologue topics: Amazon, Apple, Big 5 publishers, the future of publishing, the business of publishing, paranoia.

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Episode 189 — Alina Simone Jul 10, 2013

Show notes

Alina Simone is the guest. Her debut novel, Note to Self, is now available from Faber & Faber. Sam Lipsyte says “People as multi-talented and skilled as Alina Simone, who sings beautifully, writes essays, and now foists upon us a truly funny and poignant novel, need to be stopped. And maybe they will be, but in the meantime, there is no harm in falling into the soulful voice of Simone's narrator, Anna, as she struggles with the end of numb, cubicled youth and the awkward beginnings of new life.” And Kirkus calls it “A remarkably assured debut . . . Wicked, witty.” Monologue topics: Fourth of July, the weird story of how my bad back was finally healed.

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Episode 188 — Lee Boudreaux Jul 03, 2013

Show notes

Lee Boudreaux is the guest. She is the editorial director at Ecco Press and has worked with a long list of notable authors, including Stephen King, David Wroblewski, Alissa Nutting, Patrick DeWitt, and Ben Fountain. Monologue topics: mail, strange mail, Whole Foods, marriage, parenthood, using your words.

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Episode 187 — Domenica Ruta Jun 30, 2013

Show notes

Domenica Ruta is the guest. Her new memoir, With or Without You, is now available from Spiegel & Grau. Entertainment Weekly calls it “Stunning . . . comes across as a bleaker, funnier, R-rated version of The Glass Castle and marks the arrival of a blazing new voice in literature.” And The New York Times Book Review calls it “A luminous, layered accomplishment.” Also this episode: a brief conversation with Jessica Anya Blau, whose new novel, The Wonder Bread Summer, is now available from Harper Perennial. Monologue topics: the sun's lethal nature, worrying about people not being worried about me.

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Episode 186 — Erika Kleinman Jun 26, 2013

Show notes

Erika Kleinman is the guest. Her new mini-memoir, My Life as a Dyke, is now available as an ebook exclusive from Thought Catalog. From the publisher: "Being a lesbian doesn’t come natural to everyone. That’s what Erika Kleinman learned during her sexual awakening in 1990s Seattle, when she began dating a host of butch women who were all too willing to show her the ropes. My Life as a Dyke recounts Kleinmans’ relationships with candor and humor while making one thing clear: no matter who you’re interested in, dating can be a nightmare." Monologue topics: people smiling at me, cosmic energy, narcissism, walking meditation, Los Angeles.

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185. Maggie Nelson Jun 23, 2013

Show notes

Maggie Nelson is the guest. She is the critically acclaimed author of books like The Red Parts, Bluets, and The Art of Cruelty. The New York Times Book Review calls The Art of Cruelty "An important and frequently surprising book . . . could be read as the foundation for a post-avant-garde aesthetics. . . . Nelson, who is also a poet, is such a graceful writer that I . . . just sat back and enjoyed the show.” And BOMB Magazine says of Bluets "From blue factoids like Benedict de Saussure’s 1789 invention of 'cyanometer, with which he hoped to measure the blue of the sky,' to her own struggles with depression, Nelson gifts us with what seems like a lifetime study of blue while somehow slyly avoiding any of the obvious 'blue' clichés. Maggie Nelson continues to raise the bar higher in what a reader can expect from a book. Bluets is smart yet intimate, quiet yet provocative, and a welcome addition to the poetic non-fiction discourse." Monologue topics: mortality, memory, writing, childhood, wiping, O.J. Simpson, major cultural moments.

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Episode 184 — Julie Sarkissian Jun 19, 2013

Show notes

Julie Sarkissian is the guest. Her debut novel, Dear Lucy, is now available from Simon & Schuster. Joyce Carol Oates says "Dear Lucy introduces a young writer with a most original voice and a tenderly eccentric vision. Julie Sarkissian has created a boldly lyrical, suspenseful, and mysterious fictional world in this striking debut novel." And Ron Rash raves "In Dear Lucy, Julie Sarkissian has accomplished what many veteran novelists never achieve: a startlingly original work that is also profound and wise in the vagaries of the heart. What an amazing debut." Monologue topics: mail, listener reactions to the Tao Lin episodes, Alt-Lit.

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Episode 183 — Matthew Savoca Jun 16, 2013

Show notes

Matthew Savoca is the guest. His new novel is called I Don't Know I Said, and it's available now from Publishing Genius Press. Michael Kimball says "There’s a hell of a lot more charm in Savoca’s book than a novel about sad and smart twenty-somethings should ever have." And Scott McClanahan says “Man, this book gets in you. It’s like baby food. You could go to the store and buy a jar and eat it with your hands, but it’d be better to have someone who shares your last name spoon it out on your tongue. After reading it, you will say, ‘Give me more, Momma.’ I want more. MORE. MORE. GIVE US MORE MATTHEW.” Monologue topics: writing, superstition, childhood, memory, punting the ball at the new girl, shooting my little sister with a slingshot.

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Episode 182 — Emily Gould Jun 12, 2013

Show notes

Emily Gould is the guest. She is the author of the memoir And the Heart Says Whatever (Free Press, 2010), and her novel entitled Friendship is due out from FSG in 2014. A former co-editor at Gawker, she now runs her own publishing venture called Emily Books, with Ruth Curry. Curtis Sittenfield says of And the Heart Says Whatever: "These smart, poignant essays about being young and literary in New York City are like a twenty-first century version of The Bell Jar but with more pot, sex, technology, and (thank goodness) a different ending." Monologue topics: moaning, humming, Starbucks, Miles Davis, elevators, neighbors, styrofoam, avoidance, existential pain.

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181. Tao Lin (Part 2) Jun 09, 2013

Show notes

Tao Lin is the guest. His new novel, Taipei, is now available from Vintage Contemporaries. The New York Observer says "Tao Lin [is] an excellent writer of avant-garde fiction. His new novel is his most mature work, and follows a young New York writer to Taipei, where he must reconcile his family’s roots with the haze of MDMA, texts and tweets that he’s been living in. Mr. Lin has refined his deadpan prose style here into an icy, cynical, but ultimately thrilling and unique literary voice." And Blake Butler says “The insane level of scrutiny of everyday personal behavior in Taipei feels somewhere between that of Andy Warhol and a young, bored Patrick Bateman. All the strange modernity we’ve come to expect from Tao Lin—alienation, obsession, social confusion, drugs, the internet, sex, food, death—is rendered here with an calm intuition, somehow distant and metaphysical at once, brutally honest and avoidant, touching and monotonic, like getting sewn inside a mask of your own face. And as can also always be expected of the author, it is mesmerizing, sharp, singularly him, a work of vision so relentless it forces most any reader to respond.” Monologue topics: tweets, Denver, water, Matt Bell, TNB Book Club, In the House Upon the Dirt between the Lake and the Woods.

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