Review 'Consider the Oyster' — a Peerless Summer Delicacy June 25, 2007 • Author Kate Christensen says the book "packs a wallop in a small amount of space, satisfies without satiating, and goes down easily, pithy and nutritious and sweetly briny." 'Consider the Oyster' — a Peerless Summer Delicacy Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/11267376/11362282" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Seizing Power from 'The Woman Warrior' June 18, 2007 • Author Diana Abu-Jaber felt empowered by The Woman Warrior: "Hong Kingston's voice edges between poetry and barely controlled rage throughout this work. I found it to be at once compelling, alien and true." Seizing Power from 'The Woman Warrior' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/11163242/11164190" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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'Moby-Dick': Into the Wonder-World, Audaciously June 13, 2007 • British literary historian Rebecca Stott admires Moby-Dick, "a cauldron into which Melville, demented alchemist, tipped everything that fascinated him: whale lore ... meditations on love, friendship, dreams, demonic possession," and much more. 'Moby-Dick': Into the Wonder-World, Audaciously Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/10985606/11026680" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Szymborska's 'View': Small Truths Sharply Etched June 5, 2007 • Adam Gopnik says the Nobel Prize winner isn't merely a poet: She's "a necessary writer, as necessary as toast," adept at delivering "a small truth articulated as a sharp ironic point" — and "an emotion given a shape neither all too familiar nor all too abstract." Szymborska's 'View': Small Truths Sharply Etched Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/10721773/10734503" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Tillie Olsen's Tender Portrait of a Marriage November 7, 2006 • The title novella in Tillie Olsen's Tell Me a Riddle, says Scott Turow, "achieves the shocking brevity and power of the best poems." Turow, the author of Presumed Innocent and other novels, talks about why Olsen's story about an aged couple has become one of his favorite texts. Tillie Olsen's Tender Portrait of a Marriage Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6407142/6449207" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Why Libraries Should Stock 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' October 23, 2006 • When a student showed Alice McDermott a discarded library copy of Katherine Anne Porter's Pale Horse, Pale Rider, stamped "Low Demand," McDermott felt like she'd been punched in the stomach. The title novella in this collection, McDermott says, exhibits "intelligence, wit, heartache, profundity and marvelous prose." Why Libraries Should Stock 'Pale Horse, Pale Rider' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6184364/6369188" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Gwendolyn Brooks' Indispensable 'Maud Martha' October 10, 2006 • Gwendolyn Brooks, the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet who died in 2000, published only one work of fiction for adults: Maud Martha. Author Asali Solomon says Brooks tells this coming-of-age tale with "minimal drama and maximal beauty." Gwendolyn Brooks' Indispensable 'Maud Martha' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6197361/6243136" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Orwell on Writing: 'Clarity Is the Remedy' September 22, 2006 • Most people these days think of George Orwell as the author of high school reading staples Animal Farm and 1984. But author Lawrence Wright says that Orwell's essay "Politics and the English Language," is the piece of writing to which he most often returns. Orwell on Writing: 'Clarity Is the Remedy' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/6124822/6125346" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review 'Middlemarch': Juvenile Pleasure, Grown-Up Insight September 7, 2006 • Don't take Francine Prose's word about George Eliot's novel Middlemarch. Virginia Woolf called it "one of the few English novels written for grown-up people." Eliot's book, says Prose, offers a "dizzying tour past the landmarks of adulthood." 'Middlemarch': Juvenile Pleasure, Grown-Up Insight Listen Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5776481/5782606" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player">
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Review A History Both Global and Personal September 1, 2006 • Eric Hobsbawm's The Age of Extremes completes his four-book study of world history that began with The Age of Revolution in 1962. Author and historian Michael Kazin talks about its significance.
Review 'Fathers and Sons': A Ravishing Knockout of a Book August 23, 2006 • Author Gary Shteyngart says his favorite novel is Fathers and Sons. Ivan Turgenev's story of two young men and their families "explains just about everything you need to know about families, love, heartache, religion, duels and the institution of serfdom in 19th-century Russia." 'Fathers and Sons': A Ravishing Knockout of a Book Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5684676/5696880" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review The Funniest, and Scariest, Book Ever Written August 22, 2006 • Writer Charles Baxter offers praise for Flann O'Brien's The Third Policeman, which can be confusing, comical and harrowing. "Novels like The Third Policeman can sometimes throw readers into a panic," Baxter says. "They ask, 'What on earth is this?"
Review On Learning to Appreciate John Cheever's Stories August 17, 2006 • The California-based novelist T.C. Boyle originally thought John Cheever's short stories were "antiquated," when he read them as a young writer. He soon realized how wrong he was, growing to recognize the enduring beauty of Cheever's writing. On Learning to Appreciate John Cheever's Stories Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5652619/5664251" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review Seeing Flowers in a New Way, Through Loren Eiseley August 17, 2006 • Given his status as a political writer, Michael Lind may seem to come from left field with his must-read recommendation: Loren Eiseley's essay "How Flowers Changed the World," which takes an expansive view of botany's impact on humans. Eiseley, Lind says, is capable of cinematic constructs that are "breathtaking."
Review Hooked on the Most Important Food Writer Alive August 10, 2006 • Heat author Bill Buford finds "his McGee" indispensable — that is, Harold McGee's essential tome On Food and Cooking. "McGee is the most important person alive writing about food," Buford says. Hooked on the Most Important Food Writer Alive Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/5634817/5634834" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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