Julia Angwin (BSS #537)

March 11, 2014 2 comments Article

Why are we so consumed with providing every moment of our lives to a faceless corporation who will share this data with other companies without our consent? What makes the NSA worse than the Stasi? And to what extent are we determined to become enslaved by convenience? We talk with journalist Julia Angwin, author of DRAGNET NATION, about these dilemmas, the inevitability of mutually assured disinformation, and why the black helicopter lifestyle is becoming more legitimate.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 42:31 — 39.0MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Dave Itzkoff and Translated Literature: Mad as Hell (BSS #536)

February 18, 2014 1 comment Article

This one hour program looks into two “mad as hell” scenarios. We talk with journalist Dave Itzkoff about MAD AS HELL, the making of NETWORK, Paddy Chayefsky’s colorful personality, and why something that seemed so absurd forty years ago became so real. We also investigate a controversy at Open Letter Books which may reveal an emerging ecosystem of smaller publishers being abused by agents on the make. That segment features Open Letter’s publisher Chad Post, Scott Esposito, and Michael Orthofer.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 58:53 — 54.1MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Sarah Churchwell (BSS #535)

February 17, 2014 No comments Article

Nearly ninety years after its publication, THE GREAT GATSBY remains a fluid and endurable masterpiece. In CARELESS PEOPLE, Sarah Churchwell tackles F. Scott Fitzgerald’s great novel with an approach somewhere between an avid reader and a obsessive scholar. This vivacious and jampacked conversation, which covers everything from old menus to famous murders to the interplay between Scott and Zelda, reveals that GATSBY is so rich that just about any literary interpretation is possible.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:03:18 — 58.0MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Jenny Offill (BSS #534)

February 13, 2014 No comments Article

If we leave out a few words, how does the story change? How are human instincts for speculation encouraged by a minor elision? Who really knows the story? Jenny Offill explores these ideas and more in her new novel, DEPT. OF SPECULATION. We discuss the virtues of twisted quotes, the narrative frameworks that can be extracted from poetry, the risks of self-consciousness, and the importance of a contrarian impulse.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 44:38 — 41.1MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Diane Johnson (BSS #533)

February 5, 2014 No comments Article

Diane Johnson is best known for her comic novels centered around France: LE MARIAGE and LE DIVORCE. But before all this, many years before, she wrote a darker novel called THE SHADOW KNOWS that attracted Stanley Kubrick’s notice. Johnson has published a new memoir, FLYOVER LIVES, that details her thoughts on her ancestors, growing up in the Midwest, her life, and her work. Our vivacious and variegated chat gets into the current state of Franco-American relations, forgotten writers, the Methodist practice of being frightened into being good, America’s migratory impulse, the demise of the American rail system, foodies, California history, and the considerable references and ideas that Johnson and Kubrick consulted for their work on THE SHINING.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 54:27 — 50.0MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Okey Ndibe (BSS #532)

January 21, 2014 No comments Article

Nigerian fiction writing is stronger than ever. But how does Nigeria’s protean identity, often described as “stranger than fiction,” affect contemporary fiction? In this one hour conversation, we hash out these questions with Okey Ndibe, author of FOREIGN GODS, INC., discussing Nigeria’s census problems, its many religions and languages, and how all of these fascinating complexities are often overlooked by Americans.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:03:02 — 57.8MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Victoria Wilson (BSS #531)

December 20, 2013 No comments Article

Barbara Stanwyck was one of the most legendary Hollywood stars that the 20th century has ever known. Veteran editor Victoria Wilson, author of a very large biography on Stanwyck, reveals Stanwyck’s remarkable work ethic, her toughness, her shyness, how Zeppo Marx encouraged her to go into comedy, the moralistic assault on unmarried couples living together, and nude appearances at surprise birthday parties.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:10:02 — 64.4MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Blake Bailey II (BSS #530)

December 20, 2013 1 comment Article

Literary biographer Blake Bailey and Our Correspondent may be the only two people in the United States who have read everything Charles Jackson has published. Who was he? Well, in 1944, Jackson wrote THE LOST WEEKEND — a pioneering masterpiece that was among the first to depict the devastating effects of alcoholism. But seven decades later, Jackson has been largely forgotten, outshadowed by the Billy Wilder movie. We spend 73 minutes pinpointing Jackson’s forgotten legacy and considering the risks of waning literary posterity. We also talk about Bailey’s work on the Philip Roth bio, as well as his forthcoming memoir, THE SPLENDID THINGS WE PLANNED.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:13:36 — 67.5MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Alissa Nutting (BSS #529)

November 27, 2013 No comments Article

Alissa Nutting’s TAMPA was one of the most controversial books of 2013. It is also one of the best books of the year. In this bold and variegated 76 minute conversation, we reveal how Celeste Price was created, the torment it brought Nutting in life and after publication, and why America remains needlessly hostile to fictitious viewpoints which dare to reveal the truth about human aberration.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 1:15:58 — 69.7MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Elissa Wald (BSS #528)

November 27, 2013 No comments Article

What happens when you meet somebody and all of your assumptions proved to be wrong? That’s precisely what happened with this conversation with Elissa Wald, author of THE SECRET LIVES OF MARRIED WOMEN. She’s a novelist who wrote a noir novel without reading any noir and who depicted class violence without being conscious of it. The result is one of the strangest conversations we’ve ever aired, a chat that absolutely fails (which is entirely our fault) before hobbling back to an unanticipated grace.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 51:21 — 47.3MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

simon-winchester-photo-credit-setsuko-winchester-

Simon Winchester II (BSS #527)

November 26, 2013 No comments Article

In 2007, we aired an infamous program with Simon Winchester, in which he argued with us over the finer points of local history. His new book, THE MEN WHO UNITED THE STATES, shifts the action to a bigger stage, taking on the entire United States. With greater historical stakes, the affable Englishman returns for a conversational rematch six years later. This program features an affably argumentative and cheerfully divergent chat between two wildly energized men united by the common belief that history is always worth returning to.

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 50:43 — 46.7MB)

Be Sociable, Share!

Wendy Lower (BSS #526)

November 18, 2013 No comments Article

More than seven decades after World War II, we’re still deeply uncomfortable about the idea that women under the Nazi regime committed barbaric acts. We talk with Holocaust scholar (and National Book Award finalist) Wendy Lower about the realities she confronts in her new book, HITLER’S FURIES. How much are the women who were socialized under Nazi policies to blame? Why did the postwar courts allow these women, some of whom massacred children, to return to society without consequence?

Listen: Play in new window | Download (Running Time: 58:23 — 53.7MB)

Be Sociable, Share!