Everything by Kevin Canty, The Best of Kim Stanley Robinson by Kim Stanley Robinson, and Glorious by Bernice McFadden
It's summer, and Alan Cheuse happens to be in town for a spell, so this week's edition of Three Books with Alan Cheuse is live, from a nice house in Santa Cruz, though the weather was not so nice. But the books, on the other hand, were all excellent, and that's what I presume my listeners are interested in. Moreover, we got to discuss the new Kim Stanley Robinson collection. Any reason to read KSR is always welcome and his latest from Night Shade Books — which received an NPR review is no exception.
For the record, my preface to our discussion of 'Everything' is one hundred percent true. I would not have given this novel the time of day had I not read his short story collection. But given the high quality of his short fiction, I was willing to give his novel of mid-American angst a shot, and I'm glad I did. It generated the kind of discussion with Cheuse that I hope makes these podcasts more than product buying guides, though I hope they work in this mode as well.
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For me, Kim Stanley Robinson is such an interesting figure. My first readings of his work were The Mars trilogy, and from them I had the impression that he was an engineering-based writer. But of course, nothing could be farther from the truth; he simplyh an incredibly intelligent and astute observer of humans and their technology that he gets both utterly right. This collection of short stories offers ample evidence of that, and that the science fiction short story — also discussed in today's commentary — is going to in the long run, prove to be a vital part of the American literary continuum.
07-07-10:The Agony Column Live, June 26, 2010 : Mollie Katzen and Anna Thomas, Part Two
"'You should really write a cookbook,' and I thought, 'Yeah, that's a good idea...'"
— Anna Thomas
Of course, how many good ideas are brought to fruition, moreover with the sort of verve that we find in Anna Thomas' 'The New Vegetarian Epicure' and Mollie Katzen's 'Get Cooking'? Not so many, and not with so much success as these two writers. One of the things that was interesting to hear about was the process of writing cookbooks. Both Katzen and Thomas weighed in on this subject, with fascinating results.
Part two of the show includes lots of insights into the writing of cookbook and some great answers to questions. As a presenter of writers, one of my hopes is to stimulate conversation between the writers I bring together and between the audience and writers. And here's one more thing I hope to do; to stimulate sales of the books, that will keep the bookstore open, the writers writing, and give the readers who buy the books a signed copy to accompany their memories of both reading the book, and in this case cooking from the book!
07-06-10:The Agony Column Live, June 26, 2010 : Mollie Katzen and Anna Thomas, Part One : Time to Get Cooking Because You Love Soup
"It makes a huge difference really, really, it does, to completely clean up when you're done."
— Mollie Katzen
It was almost too easy. But I did have to change my ways, to be flexible. I had to in fact, so far as I was concerned, be revolutionary, or at least, willing to learn. So I changed the seating at the second iteration of The Agony Column Live. This time, I was not going to be a ping-pong ball, turning my head like a referee at a tennis match. I sat stage left, and let Anna Thomas and Mollie Katzen sit next to each other. But once we got started, I could have been hanging out in the audience. Mollie and Anna were really ready to roll.
I will say this about my first two live shows. Getting people to the show is a lot harder than I'd like. I had two of America's top cookbook writers, real stars. I almost think I could get more people were I to rent a hall and charge for the damn thing, but I'm averse to such tactics. If I were in this make a lot of money, then I'd have this website peppered with flashing ads, I'd be working Facebook full-time and collecting friends and user data that I could sell to whoever and however. I'd have almost all advertising, lots of uncurated user contributions and just a nubbin of content to hang it all on. But that's not the recipe I am comfortable with. I prefer, fresh smart writers, great books and free-flowing discussions with the writers to get to the heart of their, in this case, cookbooks.
I made a lot of changes this time around, so we just had Anna and Mollie read their manifestos and went directly into discussion. Mollie, who writes one hell of a manifesto, was so charmingly modest about her writing that I admit I had to intercede. Anna and Mollie both were made for the microphone, because once they got going, frankly, I could just sit back and listen.
"Literature has a wonderful ability to restore your imagination for the suffering of others."
— Abraham Verghese
Books — and authors — come to us from a variety of directions. If I were the destiny type, I'd say that destiny intervened to put me in Abraham Verghese's office in the summer of 2010. It all sounds so futuristic now. But, perhaps appropriately, the threads that led me there came from a variety of sources.
As a host for my own show on KUSP, I arrive while the previous host is still on-air. The hosts for KUSP's It Takes All Kinds — Jeff Grubb and Bruce Larsen — are both well aware that I interview authors. A few months back, as I prepared and Jeff Grubb packed up, he asked if I'd ever read a book called 'Cutting for Stone.' At the time, I hadn't, though I knew about the book, by title only, and that it had received good notices. I filed the name away in the to-be-read list, and went about my duties.
The next notice came when I was interviewing Blake Charlton at SF in SF. He mentioned that he was being mentored in Med School by Verghese, the author of two non-fiction works and a novel titled 'Cutting for Stone.' I added another star to the to-be-read entry, and notched the book further up the queue.
When Tamera, the events coordinator at Capitola Book Café asked if I could do an interview with this guy named Abraham Verghese, author of 'Cutting for Stone,' in advance of his appearance there, I jumped at the chance. Now I had two stars and an excuse to speak to Verghese. Now, the fun part began, and I ordered up the book. It's an exciting, immersive novel to read and lose yourself in, something I managed to do in short order. And fortunately, Stanford is closer than San Francisco. More fortunately, Verghese's colleagues were able to easily help me navigate my way to a payable parking place, just a short schlep from his office. And finally, there were enough books in the office (including some highly-desirable first editions of 'Cutting for Stone'), to ensure great sound. Verghese's just as talented in conversation as he is in his writing; for enough proof to send you out in search of your own first edition of 'Cutting for Stone,' you can follow this link to the MP3 file of our conversation.
New to the Agony Column
02-01-12: Commentary : Stan Lee Splashes 'Stan Lee's How to Write Comics' and 'Stan Lee's How to Draw Comics' : Lessons in the Form, From the Master
01-23-12: Commentary : Sara Paretsky Nails 'Breakdown' : The Machine Stops
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Sara Paretsky : "Everything in a courtroom is a story; it's not justice, it's combating narratives."
01-18-12: Commentary : Téa Obreht Conjures 'The Tiger's Wife' : The Grammar of Vision
01-13-12: Commentary : Hard Case Subterranean Block : Not from Bob's Basement Tapes
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Lisa Randall : "...there seems to be some evidence, especially from one of the experiments."
01-10-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Terry D'Auray Catches Lawrence Block and 'The Burglar on the Prowl' : "A show well worth the price of a ticket."
12-29-11: Commentary : My Life in the Bush of Books : Island of Vice by Richard Zacks, Iago by David Snodin, The Coincidence Engine by Sam Leith and The Dipatcher by Ryan David Jahn
12-21-11: Commentary : Cold Hand in Mine by Robert Aickman : From the Seedy to the Sublime
Agony Column Podcast News Report : Three Books with Alan Cheuse : 'Kill Bin Laden' ; Ryu Mitsuse, '10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights' ; Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, 'Micro'
12-20-11: Commentary : David Blackbourn Visits 'Marpingen: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in a Nineteenth-Century German Village' : Externalizing a Culture Clash
12-15-11: Commentary : Ayize Jama-Everett Reveals 'The Liminal People' : The Powers That Be
Agony Column Podcast News Report : The Agony Column Live with Lisa Goldstein and Ayize Jama-Everett, and music by Fenyang Smith, December 10, 2011 : "... let's look at what happens if people have abilities that other people don't have ..."
11-28-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Scott Wallace : "Within months of first contact, these groups experience a huge die-off."
11-22-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Charles Frazier, Part Two : "It's not me telling you, there's this storyteller voice."
11-21-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Charles Frazier : "If we're going in the wrong direction, we could turn around and go back."
11-17-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Gianni Mola : "The only way you can learn, I told them, is to watch me cook it."
11-11-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Karl Marlantes : "...the way I "think" about things, with quotes around think, is I tend to write them down..."
10-31-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Colson Whitehead : "In the Apocalypse, somebody's gonna have to do the grunt work..."
10-17-11: Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2011 Interview with Russell Banks : "They are in a sense, permanently marked and thrown into this darkness..."
