Review A Tenuous Transition to Paradise Lost July 31, 2007 • Giorgio Bassani's tragic The Garden of the Finzi-Continis chronicles a wealthy Jewish family's struggle to keep change — and destruction — at bay in Mussolini's Italy. A Tenuous Transition to Paradise Lost Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/12349776/12386403" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review A Summer in Suspension, Waiting for Life's Start July 23, 2007 • Augusten Burroughs says The Member of the Wedding captures the magic of summer: "The pages themselves nearly sweat, and there is humidity between the lines." A Summer in Suspension, Waiting for Life's Start Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/12166764/12174618" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review An Emotional Journey Down 'Revolutionary Road' July 17, 2007 • Writer Anthony Giardina says Richard Yates' novel — about an ordinary suburban couple and their vague yearning for something more — is "an essential testament about mid-20th century America." An Emotional Journey Down 'Revolutionary Road' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/11913039/12039619" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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Review A Writer's 'Mysterious Secret': Style Plus Empathy July 12, 2007 • In his sterling short-story collection, Jack Pendarvis writes about life's losers but never condescends to them, no matter how stunted or strange they are. The result is funny and sad: You laugh at what's on the page; you're haunted by what's not.
Review Writer Finds a Fated Friend in 'Jesus' Son' July 5, 2007 • If you're only going to read one book this year about getting stabbed in the eye and crushing tiny, helpless bunnies, then run right out and get Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son. Writer Finds a Fated Friend in 'Jesus' Son' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/11531765/11759981" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
Writer Finds a Fated Friend in 'Jesus' Son' Listen Transcript Toggle more options Download Embed Embed <iframe src="https://www.npr.org/player/embed/11531765/11759981" width="100%" height="290" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" title="NPR embedded audio player"> Transcript
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
'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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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.
