In my wanderings through the audio landscape, I've spent a fair amount of time at KQED in San Francisco, where I revently had the privilege of meeting the one and only Ian Shoales.
John Weisman, 'Kill Bin Laden' ;Ryu Mitsuse,'10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights' ;Michael Crichton and Richard Preston, 'Micro'
If you're looking for something for everyone, you're likely to find it in one of these three books that I had the pleasure of discussing with Alan Cheuse in our latest look at books worth your valuable reading time. This time around, we looked at books that I might not have given a second glance, but on Cheuse's recommendation, I found entertainment that might otherwise have passed me by.
John Weisman's 'Kill Bin Laden' is exactly the sort of book I would not look twice at, but it was engrossing and offered a well-written fictionalization of actual events. It avoids the sort of jingoism that can taint these kinds of efforts but the fictional format lets the author do more than non-fiction. If you think you might like a tight novel about counter-terrorism at its highest level, here's the place to go.
Ryu Mitsuse's '10 Billion Days and 100 Billion Nights' is the polar opposite, a novel so fantastic and far-flung that it is almost beyond science fiction. Originally written in the 1960s, then updated in the 1970's Mistuse tackles the biggest issues with gods and human demi-gods. The dust jacket for the hardcover glows in the dark. Fortunately, Mitsuse has the literary and philosophical chops to handle wide-screen science fiction.
As Michael Crichton still seems to sell, even when his work is fully and pretty much seamless completed by Richard Preston, as in 'Micro,' it's quite likely we'll see more. Crichton is his own brand and his own genre; at least we can be thankful for the monsters in this one.
But what you will hear in this discussion is two readers who enjoy reading talking about the joys of reading books that are anything but literary, and that's an important point. Reading can and should be fun. Just how fun? Follow this link to the MP3 audio file to find out!
12-20-11 UPDATE:Podcast Update: Time to Read, Episode 23: David Vann, 'Last Day on Earth: A Portrait of the NIU School Shooter'
Click image for audio link.
Here's the twenty-third 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.
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.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Robert K. Massie is talking about Catherine the Great of course, the Empress of Russia in the 18th century, when the ideal of government was seen to be what we would today call a benign dictatorship. That she actually managed to live up to that description is astonishing here in the 21st, where we have yet to catch up with some of the advances she brought to her world.
Robert K. Massie has made his own advances with regards to writing biographies, having covered much of Russian history over the course of four huge books, including this one. For one thing, in spire of the page count and the scholarship involved, his books are page-turners of the first degree. You might think that he'd be taking advantage of some of our technological advances, plotting out his timelines and setting up a database of characters and events. Instead, he keeps it all in his own mind. That's astonishing.
Masssie also has a rather golden voice that is reminiscent of a famous actor whom I cannot quite name. Give the man a great character, with a great story, and you have a fantastic work to read and a great listening experience as he talks about her life and how we wrote the book. Here's a link to the MP3 audio file of our conversation at KQED.
New to the Agony Column
05-16-12: Commentary : Mark Sundeen Pays Out 'The Man Who Quit Money' : Over the Edges
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Interview with Mark Sundeen and Daniel Suelo : "What would happen if we actually practiced this stuff?"-Daniel Suelo
05-15-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War' : Impure Life
05-08-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Clive Barker 'Abarat' : Reading in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2012 Phone Interview with Mark Sundeen : "...over the years, I had heard through my friends that he had stopped using money and was living in a cave..."
04-30-12: Commentary : Christopher Moore Follows 'Sacré Bleu' : A Story in Color
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Christopher Moore : "...it often isn't efficient to tell a story in chronological order..."
04-27-12: Commentary : Lisa Lutz on 'Trail of the Spellmans' : Meta-Fiction is Fun
Agony Column Podcast News Report: SF in SF from February 11, 2012 : Panel Discussion Moderated by Terry Bisson and Interviews with Rudy Rucker, K. W. Jeter, and Jay Lake
04-26-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Emmanuel Carrere 'The Adversary' : The Enemy Within
04-23-12: Commentary : T. M. Luhrman Listens 'When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship With God' : Science and the Supernaturaly
04-18-12: Commentary : Gregg Jones Stirs Through 'Honor in the Dust: Theodore Roosevelt, War in the Philippines and the Rise and Fall of America's Imperial Dreams' : A Dream Of Today From Yesterday
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Gregg Jones : "The Philippinos would welcome us with open arms and greet us as liberators."
04-17-12: Commentary : Archive Review: Caleb Carr 'The Alienist' : Subterranean History
04-16-12: Commentary : Richard Zacks Visits 'Island of Vice: Theodore Roosevelt's Doomed Quest to Clean Up Sin-Loving New York' :The Wild, Wild East
Agony Column Podcast News Report: A 2012 Interview with Richard Zacks : "Roosevelt and Riis were out looking, and if they did find a cop, he was talking to a streetwalker."
