Otherppl with Brad Listi: Books & Culture

Latest Episodes:

Episode 121 — Lisa Carver Nov 11, 2012

Show notes

Lisa Carver is the guest. Also known as Lisa Suckdog, she is a writer and performance artist whose latest book is called Reaching Out with No Hands: Reconsidering Yoko Ono, now available from Backbeat Books. Zoe Zolbrod, author of Currency, raves "Lisa Carver can reveal surprising depths in Duran Duran lyrics, so imagine what she can do with a subject as rich as Yoko Ono. This book is a searching, brave, weird, great, historically broad, and highly personal interpretation of one of the most confounding artists of the last sixty years." And Rachel Sherman, author of The First Hurt, says "Lisa Carver s prose is the best kind: it reminds you of all the things you know but don t have the words for, and yet still feels completely new. This is a brave work unlike any other I have read." Monologue topics: insomnia, caffeine, Board excerpt.

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Episode 120 — Michael Kimball Nov 07, 2012

Show notes

Michael Kimball is the guest. He is the author of four books, the latest of which is a novel called Big Ray, now available in hardcover from Bloomsbury. The Wall Street Journal calls it "[An] astonishingly moving novel... We're left gasping for air... Danny's emotions unfold as slowly as the carefully dispensed facts of the story, and to mesmerizing effect... Big Ray is an appalling tale told with anger, dark humor and surprising tenderness." And Sam Lipsyte raves "Michael Kimball has been writing innovative, compelling and beautifully felt books for years, but Big Ray seems a break-through and culmination all at once. It's funny and terrifying and it's his masterpiece, at least so far.” Monologue topics: existential questioning, polar bears, the ocean, eating a burrito on the air, Board, fear of finishing.

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Episode 119 — Julie Klam Nov 04, 2012

Show notes

Julie Klam is the guest. She is the author of several books, the most recent of which is called Friendkeeping: A Field Guide to the People You Love, Hate, and Can't Live Without, now available from Riverhead. Kirkus raves "Klam's voice is often flat-out hilarious… [she] never fails to come up with terrific comic vignettes and sharp one-liners… highly entertaining." And the late-great David Rakoff says "Julie Klam is one funny writer.” Monologue topics: salvaging the novel, creative breakthroughs, self-immolation, public freakouts involving nudity, unnecessary trips to Israel, bleak episodes of crushing creative stasis, Board.

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Episode 118 — J. Robert Lennon Oct 31, 2012

Show notes

J. Robert Lennon is today's guest. He is the author of several books, and his latest novel, Familiar, is now available from Graywolf Press. The New York Times Book Review raves “Over the last decade, J. Robert Lennon’s literary imagination has grown increasingly morbid, convoluted and peculiar—just as his books have grown commensurately more surprising, rigorous and fun.” And The Los Angeles Times says "[Lennon} keeps Familiar balanced at a perfect pitch...a literary puzzle, a marvelous trick of the mind." Monologue topics: Hurricane Sandy, disaster guilt, socializing, exhaustion, weeping Buddha, TNB Book Club.

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Episode 117 — Susan Straight Oct 28, 2012

Show notes

Susan Straight is the guest. She is the author of several books and has been a finalist for the National Book Award. Her new novel, Between Heaven and Here, is now available from McSweeney's. Ayelet Waldman raves "It is only the rarest of novels that cry for a sequel, the most unusual of stories that at once satisfies and leaves the reader aching for more. Susan Straight's remarkable Take One Candle Light A Room is such a novel. And she has satisfied our desires in Between Heaven and Here, a magnificent novel, that manages to be at once unflinchingly real and transcendently beautiful. Susan Straight is one of the very best American writers. If you haven't read her, you're in for a delight and an awakening. If you have, then you're probably as thrilled as I am that she has taken us back to Rio Seco." Kirkus, in a starred review, says "Straight employs glorious language and a riveting eye for detail to create a fully realized, totally believable world." Monologue topics: letters, mall tag, Indiana, crisis, novel implosion, melodrama, complete creative collapse.

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Episode 116 — Antoine Wilson Oct 24, 2012

Show notes

Antoine Wilson is today's guest. He's the author of two novels, the most recent of which is called Panorama City, now available from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, says "Wilson’s second novel (after Interloper) is fresh and flawlessly crafted as well as charmingly genuine. Oppen Porter is almost 30, a guileless man who lives in a small central California town with his reclusive father in a house overtaken by nature….Oppen experiments with various roles—dedicated worker, student of religion, thinker—eventually finding his place in the world, framing a classic coming-of-age story in an unexpected way." Monologue topics: Board, literary collage, experimentation, exhaustive cataloging, good news, publication. This podcast now has its own app, available (free!) for the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, and is also availalble (free!) for Android devices. To learn more about the app and how to get access to premium content, please visit http://otherpeoplepod.com/premium-access. Also: You can subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher, free of charge.

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Episode 115 - Jami Attenberg Oct 21, 2012

Show notes

Jami Attenberg is the guest. Her new novel, The Middlesteins, is now available from Grand Central Publishing. Jonathan Franzen raves "The Middlesteins had me from its very first pages, but it wasn't until its final pages that I fully appreciated the range of Attenberg's sympathy and the artistry of her storytelling." Kate Christensen says "The Middlesteins is a truly original American novel, at once topical and universally timeless. Jami Attenberg has created a Midwestern Jewish family who are quintessentially familiar but fiercely, mordantly idiosyncratic. This novel will make you laugh, cry, cringe in recognition, and crave lamb-cumin noodles. This is a stunningly wonderful book." And Kirkus, in a starred review, calls it "Deeply satisfying. . . . A sharp-tongued, sweet-natured masterpiece of Jewish family life." Monologue topics: social anxiety, silent judging, dinners, paranoia, Indiana, tag, shopping malls, faux pas. This podcast now has its own app, available (free!) for the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, and is also availalble (free!) for Android devices. To learn more about the app and how to get access to premium content, please click right here. Also: You can subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher. It's free. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

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Episode 114 — Sean Beaudoin Oct 17, 2012

Show notes

Sean Beaudoin is today's guest. He's the author of several books, the most recent of which is a novel called The Infects, now available from Candlewick Press. Publishers Weekly raves "Horror goes hand in hand with dark comedy in this wickedly unpredictable adventure, as Beaudoin simultaneously skewers the fast food industry and familiar zombie tropes." Monologue topics: ayahuasca, psycho-spiritual breakthroughs, frustration, the Mayan Apocalypse, confronting a mountain lion on a sand dune. This podcast now has its own app, available (free!) for the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, and is also availalble (free!) for Android devices. To learn more about the app and how to get access to premium content, please click right here. Also: You can subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher. It's free. Or just push PLAY below. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

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Episode 113 — Paula Bomer Oct 14, 2012

Show notes

Paula Bomer is today's guest. She's the author of two books, the most recent of which is a novel called Nine Months, which is available now from Soho Press. Library Journal calls it A raw, darkly funny, at times appalling page-turner.... Mommy lit lovers will be horrified, but Bomer’s debut novel will resonate with fans of quirky, character-driven fiction in the vein of Richard Russo, John Updike, and Tiffany Baker. And Marcy Dermansky calls it Deliciously, dangerously rogue. Monologue topics: the Other People app, the app, my feelings on the app, how the app works, what you need to know about the app. Speaking of which: This podcast now has its own app, available (free!) for the iPhone, iPod, or iPad, and also availalble (free!) for Android devices. To learn more about the app and how to get access to premium content, please click right here. Don't forget to subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher. It's free. Or just push PLAY below. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

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Episode 112 — Lorin Stein Oct 10, 2012

Show notes

Lorin Stein is the guest. He is the editor of The Paris Review and the co-editor (with Sadie Stein) of a new anthology called Object Lessons: The Paris Review Presents the Art of the Short Story, now available from Picador Paperback Originals. From the Editors' Note: Some chose classics. Some chose stories that were new even to us. Our hope is that this collection will be useful to young writers, and to others interested in literary technique. Most of all, it is intended for readers who are not (or are no longer) in the habit of reading short stories. We hope these object lessons will remind them how varied the form can be, how vital it remains, and how much pleasure it can give. And Publishers Weekly says: A selection of fiction culled from the influential journal’s archive with a twist: writers often featured in the journal’s pages—Lorrie Moore, David Means, Ann Beattie, Wells Tower, Ali Smith, among others— offer brief critical analyses of their selections, elevating this book from a greatest hits anthology to a kind of mini-M.F.A. Sam Lipsyte’s take on Mary Robison’s “Likely Lake” is as much a demonstration of the economy of powerful writing as the story itself and Ben Marcus’s tribute to Donald Barthelme’s “magician... language” in “Several Garlic Tales” illustrates how learning can occur when one writer inhabits another writer’s mind to geek out over what they both love. Monologue topics: certainty, uncertainty, strong thinkers, certainty about uncertainty, uncertainty about certainty, the articulation of confusion, a posture of cosmic ambivalence. Please remember to subscribe to the show over at iTunes, or at Stitcher. It's free. Or just push PLAY below. Like the podcast? Please take a moment to rate and review it on iTunes. Thank you!

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