Longtime friend and editor of Bookworm, Alan Howard, returns to host this episode, the last of 10 shows to journey through Bookworm’s 33 years and offer a retrospective look at Michael’s accomplishments on behalf of writers and readers. For decades Michael has read almost all of a writer’s work, not just the book which has been most recently published. Howard has watched writers glow as they realize that they’ve been seriously witnessed by the ultimate Bookworm. All of the writers on today’s show have become friends of Michael’s and of Bookworm. We’ll hear from rock band Sparks (brothers Ron and Russell Mael), Art Spiegelman, Françoise Mouly, Ann Beattie, Susan Sontag, and Dennis Cooper.

Close friend of Michael Silverblatt’s and Bookworm editor for 30 years, Alan Howard guest hosts this episode on grief and loss. When the two met more than 33 years ago, Michael’s first words were, “What are you reading?” It was a question that brought Howard back to literature. Over the years, Michael did the same for thousands of listeners. With Bookworm, he was determined to return literary fiction and poetry to the center of the zeitgeist. In the process, he faced the realities of loss and grief. In conversation after conversation with writers he was forging collegial friendships with, loss itself was a frequent topic of those friendships and conversations. We’ll hear from Marilynne Robinson, Joan Didion, Jim Krusoe, Steve Erickson, Dave Eggers, and Mary Ruefle.

Prolific author Dave Eggers, founder of McSweeney's, co-founder of 826 National, and other significant projects, first met Micheal Silverblatt in 2000, upon the publication of his first book –– a critically acclaimed memoir whose title he calls, "obnoxious." They formed a friendship over 22 years of conversation. This episode, the third in a series to examine what novelist Russell Banks called the Story of America, is guest-hosted by Eggers. We’ll hear excerpts of Bookworm shows that discuss this story from E.L. Doctorow, Valeria Luiselli, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Gore Vidal.

Prolific author Dave Eggers, founder of McSweeney's, co-founder of 826 National, and other significant projects, first met Micheal Silverblatt in 2000, upon the publication of his first book –– a critically acclaimed memoir whose title he calls, "obnoxious." They formed a friendship over 22 years of conversation. In this episode, Eggers picks up the thread through what novelist Russell Banks called the Story of America. We’ll hear from Edward P. Jones, Honorée Fanonne Jeffers, and Marilynne Robinson as they speak about slavery, race, and history.

Claudia Rankine, award-winning poet and author of Citizen: An American Lyric, a book-length poem about the pernicious racism of American daily life, hosts the first of a three-part episode on the story of America, as told through literary fiction. Over the decades Michael Silverblatt spoke with hundreds of writers about America — its foundation, its history, its challenges, and its culture. This episode reveals the story of America as the story of race. We’ll hear from David Foster Wallace, Russell Banks, Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, William H. Gass, Joan Didion, and Claudia Rankine herself.

Guest host Mary Corey, teacher of American history at UCLA and author of "The World Through a Monocle" about The New Yorker Magazine, teaches a course on American popular culture that explores the blurry lines between perceived high culture and what we think of as popular culture. In this episode, Corey takes us through excerpts of Bookworm conversations with lauded boho rocker Patti Smith, writer and brilliant wit Fran Lebowitz, and outré filmmaker John Waters. Each of these rebel artists has left a mark on our national culture and all of them are serious readers, making up a confederacy of Bookworms.

Poet, author, and co-founder of The Song Cave, Alan Felsenthal guest hosts this episode’s focus on poetry. As a close friend and mentee of Michael Silverblatt’s, Felsenthal recalls Michael’s revelation that he had trouble finding his way into poetry until he had several formative experiences, including one he described in 2019 during a Walt Whitman tribute. We’ll hear from that tribute with poet Pattiann Rogers reading Whitman. We’ll also hear from poets John Ashbery, Coral Bracho, Forrest Gander, and Lucille Clifton.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, “In the field of literature produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction.” Michael Silverblatt spoke with eight Nobel Prize laureates. In part 1 of the Laureates show, we heard from four of them. In this second part, we’ll be hearing excerpts from: Kazuo Ishiguro, Mario Vargas Llosa, Doris Lessing, Czesław Miłosz, and Robert Hass speaking about Milosz.

The Nobel Prize in Literature has been awarded annually since 1901 to an author from any country who has, in the words of the will of Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, “In the field of literature produced the most outstanding work in an idealistic direction.” Michael Silverblatt spoke with eight Nobel Prize laureates. In part 1 of The Nobel Laureates, we’ll be hearing from four of them: Toni Morrison, Wole Soyinka, Orhan Pamuk, and Seamus Heaney.

This episode takes us through the arc of Bookworm’s existence: Michael started the program with worries about the future of literature, found hope in the up-and-coming new writers, and proceeded to highlight authors of diverse backgrounds, cultures, and geographies.

Los Angeles-based author Michelle Huneven joins Evan Kleiman to discuss her latest book, “Search.” In this engaging and funny literary fiction novel, main character Dana Potowski writes a memoir that describes the steps of her Unitarian Universalist Church congregation’s year-long search for its new minister and the challenges they encounter.

Natalia Molina tells the story of Nayarit, her grandmother’s Mexican restaurant, a space that became a cherished hub for immigrants and the LGBTQ community in Echo Park. 

Editor/poet Emily Skillings and poet/critic John Yau speak about an iconic poet of the 21st century, John Ashbery, and his posthumous book, “Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works.”

Rita Dove’s new book of poetry, “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” goes in many different historical and personal directions.

The debut novel of Robert Jones, Jr., “The Prophets,” is lyrical prose about the dimensionality and interiority of people.

Paul Tran says that poetry can live on a page. This show discusses the abundant life in their debut poetry book, “All the Flowers Kneeling.” Tran joins guest host Shawn Sullivan to explore the book’s four sections as well as its notes.

Writer Tobias Wolff speaks about a dark book that remains loving, Harry Crews 1978 classic “A Childhood: The Biography of a Place.” Wolff wrote the foreword to its Penguin Classics re-release, which joins a number of Crews’ works in the series. 

Acclaimed novelist, poet, and essayist Tao Lin (“Taipei,” “Shoplifting from American Apparel”) speaks about growing as a writer, and growing his idea of himself in a book, including his latest, “Leave Society,” about the blurred lines between life and fiction. 

Author Zac Smith speaks about the extreme juxtaposition of the very short, dense, and clipped stories in his new book, “Everything is Totally Fine.” He says that by removing a lot of exposition, he was able to create intense emotions in a small space. His energetic and thoughtful stories of absurdity and minutiae are things that could not be said any other way, and usually don’t get said. Plus, special guest Tao Lin explains why “Everything is Totally Fine” inspired him to reopen his Muumuu House imprint after it was closed for more than ten years.

Brit Bennett pushes questions of race and color to their extremes in her new novel, The Vanishing Half.

A distinguished writer of books in various forms — poetry, essay, memoir — Sarah Manguso embarks on her first novel with “Very Cold People,” a striking work about what it means to be human. She discusses how she came to be the person and writer she seems to be now, and why it was necessary to write fiction to make the kind of book about Massachusetts she wanted to make. This deeply moving novel portrays being overwhelmed by the small moments of life, and documents the experience of being a criticized child.

At the beginning of Sheila Heti’s new book, “Pure Colour,” God looks at a first-draft world he should get around to changing. The reader meets protagonist Mira, who bonds with a woman named Annie. Then Mira’s father dies, and his soul enters her; astonishingly, their combined selves become a leaf on a tree. Annie longs to bring Mira out of leaf form. Annie is what Mira calls a fixer. “Pure Colour” is a singular book that needs to be accepted rather than interpreted. Sheila Heti speaks about how she couldn’t think or write in the same way she did before the death of her own father.  

Journalist and author Tom Bissell’s new short fiction collection, “Creative Types: and Other Stories,” is about people trying to solve the problem of being themselves. Seven short stories describe the kinds of lives lived in Los Angeles with thoroughness, audacity, and complexity. 

Tessa Hadley’s new book, “Free Love” (Harper), is set in 1967 London at the beginning of the counterculture movement that swept the world. The protagonist, Phyllis, steps out of one sense of herself into another. She is a conservative mother of two until she crosses paths with the younger Nicky. 

Canadian-American author Antoine Wilson discusses the work he put into writing entertaining pages for his new short book, “Mouth to Mouth” (Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster), and the propulsive story is not finished until the very last sentence. 

“Punks: New & Selected Poems” is expansive poetry from John Keene, one of our time’s most notable writers. Seven sections offer different perspectives on what poetry can be: queer and Black, and much more than that. He joins Bookworm to discuss the difference between his prose and poetry.

After the deaths of her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and her daughter, Quintana, Joan Didion wrote "Blue Nights," the most personal and poetic book of her career. From 2011, she talks about aging, death, and the act of complete surrender that this devastating book required.

Honoree Fanonne Jeffers discusses writing about the full range of a community, its sexuality and gender, in her first fiction novel, “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.”

Master poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers discusses her fiction debut, “The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.”

Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954-1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (Knopf)A collection of lyrics from the first half of Stephen Sondheim's career, along with insights into the art of songwriting for the theater. In this 2010 conversation, he explains why a song that may be "perfect" can be wrong for its dramatic moment in a show. This famous perfectionist reveals how much can go wrong.

Dave Eggers further discusses his new book, “The Every.”

“The Every” is the new book by Dave Eggers, a follow-up to his book “The Circle.”

Every bookstore is haunted, and Louise Erdrich’s new book, “The Sentence,” is about one.

“Martita, I Remember You/Martita, te recuerdo” is a bilingual new book by Sandra Cisneros.

Idiosyncratic short story writer Diane Williams discusses her new book, “How High? – That High.”

Mary Gaitskill’s "The Devil’s Treasure” features sections from her previous novels and an unfinished novel, commentary, illustrations, and a story inspired by a dream her younger self had.

Teresa K. Miller discusses “Borderline Fortune,” which won her the National Poetry Series, when she was about ready to give up on herself.

Atsuro Riley says he wrote “Heard-Hoard” with a kind of pacing he could feel in his body.

Jackie Kay’s “Bessie Smith: A Poet's Biography of a Blues Legend” is a terrific mixture of memoir and biography.

Rabih Alameddine speaks about being in love with the characters in his new novel, “The Wrong End of the Telescope."

Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Richard Powers discusses his new novel, “Bewilderment,” which has been longlisted for the Booker Prize and National Book Award.

Santa Claus, James Turrell, “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter,” John Wayne Gacy, and, most of all, George Miles: these are parts of Dennis Cooper‘s discussion of his new book, “I Wished.”

Alice McDermott discusses the madness in fiction and her new book, “What About the Baby?: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction.”

About the interdependence between humans and trees, Richard Powers found a place for the non-human in literary fiction with his new book, The Overstory.

Ron and Russell Mael of Sparks discuss the small and significant differences between their original material and the final movie, “Annette.”

Rikki Ducornet speaks about writing in dreamtime for her new sci-fi book, “Trafik.”

Part two of two, a continuation of Yaa Gyasi’s discussion about the extraordinary explorations of her books “Homegoing” and “Transcendent Kingdom.”

Part one of two in which Yaa Gyasi discusses the myriad complexities of her novels “Transcendent Kingdom” and “Homegoing.”

Jack Skelley speaks about his new book, “Dennis Wilson and Charlie Manson,” and the bad Beach Boy’s intersection with a serial killer.

Editor/poet Emily Skillings and poet/critic John Yau speak about an iconic poet of the 21st century, John Ashbery, and his posthumous book, “Parallel Movement of the Hands: Five Unfinished Longer Works.”

Amy Gerstler's new book of poetry, “Index of Women,” is the product of a heart the world broke.

Joshua Cohen speaks about “The Netanyahus: An Account of a Minor And Ultimately Even Negligible Episode in the History of a Very Famous Family,” his new book that’s funny and tragic at the same time.

Joan Silber writes about life's strange surprises in her new book, “Secrets of Happiness."

Not a comicbook, but literally illustrated text, “Street Cop,” written by Robert Coover and inhabited by Art Spiegelman.

Edward St. Aubyn discusses his new book, “Double Blind,” and writing about the problems with consciousness that have long fascinated his consciousness.

Domenico Ingenito speaks about his book, “Beholding Beauty: Saʿdi of Shiraz and the Aesthetics of Desire in Medieval Persian Poetry.”

Biographer Brad Gooch reveals that he traveled 2500 miles to trace Rumi's footsteps, learned Persian and spent eight years to write “Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love.”

Sandi Tan speaks about writing “Lurkers” with a gut feeling, and following an emotional momentum.

Rachel Cusk’s “Second Place” wants to render the sensations and apprehensions of living that are pretty much beyond language.

“Status Update,” the mini-narratives of George Toles, accompanied by magnificent art responses from Cliff Eyland.

Rachel Kushner’s “The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020” is a career-spanning collection of nineteen essays.

Rita Dove’s new book of poetry, “Playlist for the Apocalypse,” goes in many different historical and personal directions.

Wayne Koestenbaum’s first book of short fiction, “The Cheerful Scapegoat,” is a spectacularly odd and original collection of whimsical, surreal, baroque, ribald, and heartbreaking fables.

Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Klara and the Sun” is a novel focused on a small group of people in a robot future.

A retrospective of Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel laureate in literature.

The debut novel of Robert Jones, Jr., “The Prophets,” is lyrical prose about the dimensionality and interiority of people.

Carol Edgarian’s “Vera” is the story of a strong, capable, and independent girl whose voice is the voice of the book.

A tribute to the co-founder of the highly influential independent bookstore and publisher City Lights, renowned poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

Viet Thanh Nguyen discusses his new novel, “The Committed,” the follow-up to his Pulitzer-winning “The Sympathizer,” and the second entry in a planned trilogy. It brings Nguyen’s storytelling further into the philosophy of refugees, feminism, communism, anti-communism and more—the terror of both the American war in Vietnam and the French presence in Vietnam, along with the Vietnamese presence in America andFrance. This is duality enacted as a writing method; this is a union between theory and fiction. A novel of ideas and politics and history and theory, but also a crime novel. A novel you’re not born knowing how to read, and you might have to reread it, this is exciting contemporary literature.

Ben’s life falls down around him, and he’s the protagonist, in A Wonderful Stroke of Luck, by master writer Ann Beattie.

David Duchovny speaks about his new novel, “Truly Like Lightning,” and its plot that matters.

Part two of two: George Saunders speaks about his new book, “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life."

The first in a two-parter with George Saunders discussing his new book, "A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life."

Rebecca Sacks discusses her novel, “City of a Thousand Gates,” which explores the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by testing its boundaries.

Those who read to write will want to hear Eileen Myles talk about “For Now,” which is part of the "Why I Write" series from Yale University Press.

Venerated critic Harold Bloom’s final book “Take Arms Against a Sea of Troubles: The Power of the Reader’s Mind over a Universe of Death” is discussed by the poets Alan Felsenthal and Peter Cole.

David Rieff discusses “Divorcing” by Susan Taubes: the reimagined end of an autobiographical marriage.

Garth Greenwell discusses seeking human truths by writing into an abyss, and his new novel Cleanness.

Brit Bennett pushes questions of race and color to their extremes in her new novel, The Vanishing Half.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore’s new book “The Freezer Door” explores the idea of radical visions not predicated on dominant forms.

Jen Craig discusses writing “Panthers and the Museum of Fire,” a short and expansive book that feels immense, rich and complex.

Dunce, by Mary Ruefle, finds meaning everywhere.

Douglas Stuart’s “Shuggie Bain” is not a book to miss.

The eerie realism of Charles Baxter reaches an apotheosis in his new novel, “The Sun Collective.”

Nicole Krauss speaks about subconscious magic and realism combining through the art of writing, and her new book of short stories, “To Be a Man.”

Mauro Javier Cárdenas discusses reimagining narrative possibilities with his new book, “Aphasia."

Douglas Stuart’s “Shuggie Bain” is not a book to miss.

Charles Yu’s "Interior Chinatown" is a contemporary novel about dealing with the difficulty of being whoever you are. 

Marilynne Robinson’s “Jack” is a book that Bookworms have been eager to read: the fourth volume of her multi-award-winning Gilead novels.

Walter Mosley’s “The Awkward Black Man” is a new book of short stories that brings readers into the middle of the experience of people today.

Barbara Kingsolver discusses crossing genres of writing and her second book of poetry, “How to Fly (In Ten Thousand Easy Lessons).”

Seventy-one-year-old Jorge Luis Borges as seen through the eyes of twenty-one-year-old Jay Parini in “Borges and Me: An Encounter.”

“How to Carry Water: Selected Poems of Lucille Clifton,” edited by Aracelis Girmay, is a literary special treat.

Mitch Sisskind discusses writing humorous poetry and his new book, “Collected Poems 2005-2020."

Henri Cole is a really sensational poet even for people who may not think poetry can be sensational. He works for the universe and he discusses his new book of poems “Blizzard” on Bookworm.

Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s “Likes” is a layered book of nine short stories.

Several kinds of novels in one, Edmund White’s “A Saint from Texas” is so good you might forget a novel can be this good.

Elizabeth Wetmore’s “Valentine” is an impressive demonstration of the power of the voices of women.

Elizabeth Wetmore discusses her debut novel, “Valentine,” and Southern conservatism that wants to steer clear of the uglier parts of life.

Life and story go hand in hand in Margot Livesey’s “The Boy in the Field.”

Daphne Merkin discusses what normative means, the concept of a normal looking life, and her new novel, “22 Minutes of Unconditional Love”.

From the archives: obliquely about Zadie Smith's "On Beauty", this intense, abstract conversation is about what a novel is.

History, autobiography, travelogue—a hybrid form—"Young Heroes of the Soviet Union: A Memoir and a Reckoning", by Alex Halberst.

Scott Spencer’s new novel, “An Ocean Without a Shore,” is about a life seeped in unfulfilled desires.

The co-producer of Bookworm, Shawn Michael Sullivan, was able to rebroadcast one of his favorite shows, between Michael Silverblatt and Horacio Castellanos Moya, regarding Senselessness.

Fowzia Karimi speaks about the art of the novel, and designing Above Us the Milky Way.

Mark Z. Danielewski’s The Little Blue Kite is a generous and big-hearted children’s book about creating a spacious mind, with room for others.

Anthologist André Naffis-Sahely says he provided a historical perspective to The Heart of a Stranger: An Anthology of Exile Literature.

Victoria Chang discusses Love, Love, her children’s novel written in verse—poetry written for children.

Victoria Chang’s Obit is a poetry book about the impact of death on the living.

Benjamin Moser recently won a Pulitzer Prize for his biography Sontag: Her Life and Work. In this show from the archives, he talks about Susan Sontag‘s ideology: reading more books, going to more plays, traveling more, learning more, taking learning seriously, and taking culture seriously.

Daniel Kehlmann describes his new novel, Tyll, as dark, frightening, and murky—in a good way.

Youthful nihilism, contradictory impulses, preferences and desires catch up with Rob Doyle in his explicitly autobiographical novel Threshold.

Ariana Reines discusses her A Sand Book poetry being centered around a theme of hiding: running away and trying to escape.

Charles North describes Everything and Other Poems as “messy poetry” without the formal demands of his earlier work.

Harry Dodge’s My Meteorite: Or, Without the Random There Can Be No New Thing shifts its scale from the cosmos to viruses.

Recollections of My Nonexistence is a personal, cultural, political, and journalistic hybrid narrative about the formative years in the life of Rebecca Solnit.

Stephen Wright’s Processed Cheese finds hilarity in the tragedy of contemporary life.

Jenny Offill’s Weather is a book about people living very much in our times.

Steven Sater’s Alice By Heart wants to reaffirm the power of the imagination, and inspire readers to reignite the wonder in themselves.

Charles Yu’s "Interior Chinatown" has won the 2020 National Book Award for fiction. In February 2020, Charles Yu spoke with KCRW's Michael Silverblatt in a live edition of Bookworm. 

A discovery readers have been waiting for, more Silvina Ocampo finally translated into English: The Promise and Forgotten Journey.

One of the first books within a huge movement that restored respectability to memoirs, This Boy’s Life celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, and Tobias Wolff celebrates thirty years since being on Bookworm.

Love and I, poems by Fanny Howe, about love, the failure of love, and the transformation of love over the years.

Garth Greenwell discusses seeking human truths by writing into an abyss, and his new novel Cleanness.

Daniel Mendelsohn’s Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones is an uncommon collection of essays that intertwine the personal with the intellectual and critical.

Jonathan Blum wrote characters with open destinies, in stories with open endings, for his new book of short stories, The Usual Uncertainties.

Ben Lerner’s Leaving the Atocha Station and 10:04 find their synthesis in The Topeka School, the third in his Hegelian trilogy.

In André Aciman’s Find Me, strokes of luck are destiny.

Again Deborah Eisenberg demonstrates herself as a masterful and electric writer, in her new collection of seven stories, Your Duck Is My Duck.

Adina Hoffman’s "Ben Hecht: Fighting Words, Moving Pictures" is about a man of multitudes.

Chris Ware’s Rusty Brown depicts life the way it is: jam packed with details, the closer you look the ever more there is.

And How Are You, Dr. Sacks?: A Biographical Memoir of Oliver Sacks by Lawrence Weschler is a book that can only be itself.

From the archives, Ocean Vuong speaks of leaving his thumbprint on his new novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. Alternate modes of storytelling are discussed, as are narratives without intrinsic conflict. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who doesn’t read English; it is about finding joy in innovative and creative survival.

Lynda Barry’s Making Comics is a how-to graphic novel guide for people who gave up on drawing.

Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein: A Love Story is about time travel and body travel.

Lynda Barry and Chris Ware discuss the culture of comics, and their new books, Making Comics and Rusty Brown. 

John Freeman and Robin Coste Lewis discuss Freeman’s: The Best New Writing on California.

In tribute, from the archives, a conversation with Harold Bloom (1930-2019) in his apartment to talk about his book, The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible. A discussion officially about the great King James translation of the Old and New Testaments. But when you talk with Harold Bloom, you talk about everything—politics, poetry, teaching, aging, reading and ultimately, respect.

Benjamin Moser’s Sontag: Her Life and Work is interested in the writing and ideas of Susan Sontag.

Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte is explored as a modern take on the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, with the opera Don Quichotte by Jules Massenet a strong influence.

Salman Rushdie’s Quichotte depicts the pleasures of fiction.

The structure of Emma Donoghue’s Akin leads the reader through one surprise after another.

Language-loving twin sisters discover themselves united by passion but separated by needs in The Grammarians, the eleventh book by Cathleen Schine.

Dunce, by Mary Ruefle, finds meaning everywhere.

Katya Apekina’s novel The Deeper the Water the Uglier the Fish has a dark sense of humor, and an interest in the soul.

Sarah Rose Etter’s The Book of X belongs to a literary conversation about the grotesque and surreal.

Characters with DNA, blood and soul populate forty three stories and a novella by Peter Orner: Maggie Brown & Others.

From the archives, a highly resonate conversation with Toni Morrison about transfiguring love, as portrayed in her novel Beloved.

Nobel Laureate, Toni Morrison passed away this week at 88 years of age.  Bookworm is rebroadcasting a 2009 conversation with her about her novel, A Mercy.*

Literary legends Captain Ahab and Captain Nemo are pitted against each other by real life engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel in Howard Rodman’s The Great Eastern.

The poetry in Ariana Reines's A Sand Book is centered around the theme of hiding: running away and trying to escape.

Ocean Vuong speaks of leaving his thumbprint within his new novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous.

Editor/poet David Trinidad, poet Amy Gerstler, and publisher Ruth Greenstein reflect on the dynamic mind behind Punk Rock is Cool for the End of the World: Poems and Notebooks of Ed Smith.

David Trinidad’s Swinging on a Star is a two-part collection of poems that put the human in pop culture.

 Laila Lalami’s The Other Americans is a polyphonic novel about social class and identity, with a revelation in every chapter.

A stunning graphic novel by one of the medium’s greatest creators, Seth’s Clyde Fans is about people living in a memory fog, and the strange reverie that life takes on when one grows older.

Ben’s life falls down around him, and he’s the protagonist, in A Wonderful Stroke of Luck, by master writer Ann Beattie.

The Parade, by Dave Eggers, is a book of creeping dread, where every worst thing is possible, and rational reason leads one to expect that the worst is not over.

About the interdependence between humans and trees, Richard Powers found a place for the non-human in literary fiction with his new book, The Overstory.

Seventy sonnets written in the first two hundred days of Trump's presidency, American Sonnets for My Past and Future Assassin, by Terrance Hayes, flies out of the cages of literary, cultural, and historical forms. Warning: Today's episode contains strong language that some listeners may find offensive. 

The stories in Heads of the Colored People, by Nafissa Thompson-Spires, try to capture what’s human in what otherwise may only be trends.

Her fourth book, which took her six years to write, An American Marriage brought Tayari Jones to the attention of Oprah’s Book Club. 

John Lanchester’s The Wall is a wild love story with a dystopian backdrop.

In Nathan Englander’s kaddish.com, a secular Jewish son experiments with the task of shepherding his father’s soul safely to rest.

Chris Cander’s The Weight of a Piano explores characters with passionate attachments to things that have been lost. 

Valeria Luiselli's Lost Children Archive tells the story of a family by combining the American road trip subgenre with the Latin American tradition of an inward journey. 

Her nature oppositional, Elizabeth McCracken’s Bowlaway is a sad, funny, hilarious, and melancholic novel.

In Yiyun Li’s Where Reasons End, a mother discovers a place where she can talk to her son who committed suicide.

Marlon James discusses the endlessly beautiful and brutal world of Black Leopard, Red Wolf, the first novel in The Dark Star Trilogy. 

Sea Monsters is a fascinatingly consistent and exquisitely shaped novel by Chloe Aridjis.

Bookworm alumnus Dennis Cooper, and collaborator Zac Farley, discuss the creative impulses behind their film Permanent Green Light.

A novel that presents ambiguity as a constant feature of modern life, Hark is a book full of tensions, written with Sam Lipsyte’s fine grain strangeness, and absent of easy answers.

A writer of ten novels in French, Holy Lands is the first novel by Amanda Sthers to appear in English, translated by herself.

Tosh Berman’s memoir, Tosh: Growing Up in Wallace Berman’s World, is a depiction of culture brought into Los Angeles from the rest of the world: reinvented to be here.

Mary Ruefle reads the entirety of her glorious and gruesome essay about shrunken heads, the title essay in her book My Private Property.

The original and indescribable writing of Diane Williams is showcased in over three hundred dazzling new and previously published shorts fictions from six releases, The Collected Stories of Diane Williams.

Again Deborah Eisenberg demonstrates herself as a masterful and electric writer, in her new collection of seven stories, Your Duck Is My Duck.

John Wray discusses writing about the extremes of subjectivity, and breaking the reader of expectations in his new novel, Godsend.

Jeff Jackson’s Destroy All Monsters: The Last Rock Novel comes at the same story from radically different angles that echo and rewrite each other.

A voluminous correspondence of an intellectual friendship between two literary geniuses,  Questioning Minds: The Letters of Guy Davenport and Hugh Kenner, edited by Edward M. Burns.

Dramatic, emotional, and philosophical, Katherine Weber’s, Still Life with Monkey, is a profound book written in the old style, with depths orchestrated by the author.

In Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered, characters feel as if they did what was right in life, but get a bad deal at the end of their lives.

Mythical and lyrical, written in love, Leland de la Durantaye’s debut novel Hannah Versus the Tree is original work that speaks to our moment.

The restless imagination of Brian Phillips brings lyrical essays to a narrative border in his debut book, Impossible Owls.

Evolution is a collection of all-new material by Eileen Myles, whose inspired poetry is a form of communication.

Ben Fountain writes with equal opportunity vexation, trying to make sense of what we’re doing in our lives, in his new book Beautiful Country Burn Again.

Susan Orlean’s The Library Book is about the cultural institution of libraries, with each chapter a source of its own excitement.

Beauty and despair woven into their history, twelve multigenerational urban Native Americans find ways to live in Tommy Orange’s There There.

Gary Shteyngart’s Lake Success is about a hedge-fund manager billionaire who has lost track of what he once cared about and loved.

French Exit by Patrick deWitt, a vastly amusing novel about a spider woman.

Edward St. Aubyn’s Never Mind, Bad News, Some Hope, Mother’s Milk, and At Last: The Complete Patrick Melrose Novels, recently adapted into a five-episode limited series on Showtime.

Samuel Nicholson edited three of Joshua Cohen’s books at Random House, including his recent collection of nonfiction, ATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction.

Joshua Cohen’s collection of nonfiction, ATTENTION: Dispatches from a Land of Distraction, examines the effect of the internet and technology on the human mind.

Buffalo Trace: A Threefold Vibration, by Mary Cappello, James Morrison, and Jean Walton, is a trio of novella-length autographical essays about graduate school students who love to read.

Joshua Mattson’s experimental debut novel, A Short Film About Disappointment, pulls the rug out from under the reader.

B. Catling further discusses learning to write The Vorhh Trilogy by being within it.

In B. Catling’s The Vorrh Trilogy, a vast surrealist tapestry comes into being; cooperating with the reader’s desire.

Christian Kracht’s The Dead is an expectations bending book with more tricks than a circus.

Lydia Millet’s Fight No More is a book of improvised stories about people who live improvised lives in Los Angeles.

David Sedaris is hilarious but that’s just the obvious. He discusses the art of melancholy, and mortality, topics in his new book of humorous stories, Calypso.

Nicola Lubitsch joins film historian Joseph McBride to discuss her father, Ernst, and McBride’s book about him, How Did Lubitsch Do It?

We share an episode of a KCRW podcast produced in collaboration with McSweeney's.

Characters in Lauren Groff’s collection of stories, Florida, try to meet the challenges of staying alive while life becomes more and more difficult.

In Days of Awe: Stories, A.M. Homes writes about characters who turn out not to be who they hoped to be, and unable to escape who they are.

Bewildered imagination finds a home in the stories of Rita Bullwinkel's Belly Up.

Michael Ondaatje’s Warlight alters the rules about how big a novel’s canvas can be; it gives the feeling of completeness without telling all the secrets.

Michael Ondaatje fully embraces the fun of storytelling in this miracle of a novel, Warlight.

Mary Gaitskill’s collection of essays, Somebody with a Little Hammer, explores prismatic perspectives on rich topics, including literature.

Linda Spalding’s novel, A Reckoning, based on her family history, describes past nightmares that trickle into today.

The poetry of Cape Verdean Blues is organic, melancholic, and gorgeous. Shauna Barbosa starts with feeling, shines with honesty, and questions everything.

Joyce Carol Oates discusses A Book of American Martyrs, a novel about what women are going to make of the American dream.

Leslie Jamison’s The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath is a book about the nightmare of feeling not enough, Jamison travels all 360 degrees of wanting to be the best and the worst, and has a great struggle to live in the middle ground.

Rachel Kushner discusses The Mars Room, a novel set in a women’s correctional facility, a dazzling novel full of surprising details that can’t be forgotten.

Carol Muske-Dukes discusses her book, Blue Rose. The poetry is written at the highest level but it’s about daily life: poetry as life story.

Christine Schutt says her writing takes place in a danger zone. In Pure Hollywood, one novella and ten stories, she writes beyond weird, at a level that both frightens and empowers.

Devastatingly beautiful, soulful, a fulfillment of a promise to his goddaughter, Junot Diaz’s Islandborn offers a new map into children’s books.

A novel trapped in the mind of a very unusual man. Lynne Tillman writes with wit that makes the reader dance.

A transcendent apocalyptic satire, an outrageous improvisation of a book, embedded with the rhythms of American prose, Sean Penn discusses his first novel, Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff.

Roberta Allen says every truth can work as fiction. She discusses writing into the essence of a story. The Princess of Herself is interconnected stories of familiar but monstrous people not normally written about.

Two brilliant writers talk about a brilliant writer: Ann Beattie and Richard Bausch discuss the haunted dreamscapes of the short fiction of Peter Taylor.

For The Monk of Mokha, Dave Eggers writes the story of Mokhtar Alkhanshali bridging the country of his ancestors with the country where he lives. This is a conversation about the fate of immigrant life in America.

André Aciman takes the intensity, complexity, and variety of his Call Me by Your Name still further in his new novel, Enigma Variations.

Scott McClanahan discusses two of his close-to- the-bone and personal novels: The Sarah Book and Crapalachia: A Biography of Place.

Víctor Terán and David Shook discuss the music of Isthmus Zapotec and poetry translated for Like A New Sun.

Matthew McIntosh’s theMystery.doc asks a reader to consider what a book is, while exploring how a book can be like life.

Jane Gillette describes the wicked writing of her first book, The Trail of the Demon and Other Stories.

Revisiting Ursula LeGuin, the immensely popular author who changed science fiction and fantasy for millions of readers. She died this month at the age of 88.

Storytelling queen Isabel Allende wrote a time-crossing, culture-hopping chamber piece that gives faces to immigration during these dark times for literature, In the Midst of Winter.

In her stunning After Kathy Acker: A Literary Biography, Chris Kraus wrote not of theory but of writing, creativity, and the depth a writer has to go to form an identity.

In Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine, Joe Hagan explores the countercultural rise of the late-60s rock and roll teen society.

Morgan Parker says that the poems in her book There Are Things More Beautiful than Beyoncé take a stand against the clichés of the dominant culture.

Anne Fadiman discusses topics from The Wine Lover’s Daughter: wine, literature, and her father Clifton.

The great novelist, essayist and prose stylist William H. Gass died last week at 93. This tribute show is composed of excerpts from previous Bookworm conversations with Gass.

A moody historical novel, Miss Burma by Charmaine Craig explores history as it is inscribed in the souls of a rather special Burmese family.

Without spoilers, we discuss the intricate surprises and complex modes of disclosure in Jennifer Egan's new novel Manhattan Beach.

This show features a dramatic and emotional reading by writer/actor Wallace Shawn of an excerpt from Night Thoughts, his book-length essay. (REPEAT)

The Familiar, Volume 5: Redwood, by Mark Danielewski, closes Season One of a serial novel imagined as a vast TV series.

The second conversation with brothers Ron and Russell Mael of the band Sparks, along with stripped-down versions of two songs from their new album Hippopotamus.

Sparks plays stripped-down acoustic versions of art rock songs off their new album Hippopotamus, along with a classic song, and the theme to Bookworm, Where Would We Be without Books.

Beloved writer Eileen Myles didn't make up the dog but she did make up Afterglow (a dog memoir).

We sample 25 years of Bookworm conversations with Kazuo Ishiguro, the 2017 Nobel Prize Laureate for literature.  

Following his National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize celebrated The Swerve, in the elaborately readable The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve Stephen Greenblatt explores reasons why the story of Genesis has seized the imagination.

Nicole Krauss took a risk by writing about two protagonists who never meet. Krauss says she let herself follow the characters of Forest Dark into the unknown.

In his novel Less, Andrew Sean Greer discusses filterless writing and the idea of getting what you want in a world bent on not giving you what you want. 

Matthew Klam reveals that his novel Who is Rich? ponders the meaning of wealth. Is richness having a big bank account or is it being happy with your lot in life?  

Mark Danielewski says he wants to give words to animals, to plants, to the waves of the ocean. His vast serial novel The Familiar begins with a young girl rescuing a cat.

Known for the outrageous comedy of his acclaimed short stories, George Saunders says that daring to write this novel about grief, loss and the journey of the soul was like jumping off a cliff. [REPEAT]

Lincoln in the Bardo dramatizes a grieving President Lincoln as he visits the grave of his beloved son Willie, who died at age eleven. In the novel, the buried dead believe they're not dead -- "they're sick and refer to their coffins as "sick boxes." [REPEAT]

In her novel New People, Danzy Senna relishes kicking political correctness to the curb. She believes that irony and humor are more effective than earnestness when writing about race and gender

Ryan Gattis reveals that one day he got a call, asking if he'd like to watch a former gang member crack a safe.  Thus, the novel Safe was born.  

The Dream Colony: A Life in Art is a posthumous memoir that captures the dazzling verbal gifts of Los Angeles art curator Walter Hopps.  

Trained as an architect, Roy reveals that she structured her novel The Ministry of Utmost Happiness like an Indian metropolis where ancient neighborhoods collide with modern urban planning.  

Quantum physics, the theory of relativity, and the miracle of the solar system fuel Novel Explosives, Jim Gauer’s ambitious and challenging novel.

In the family novel, Moving Kings, Joshua Cohen weaves together the tragedy of Israeli occupation with an American housing crisis.

Poet and translator Peter Cole reveals that his intention is to yoke together beauty and terror in his new book Hymns & Qualms: New and Selected Poems and Translations.

Zachary Mason insists that Void Star is not cyber-punk  Although it is set more than 100 years in the future during climate catastrophe, he describes the novel as literary fiction that uses science fiction and genre elements.

Alan Felsenthal's first book of poetry, Lowly, moves in the direction of the visionary, the mystical and the metaphysical.

Written about a time when she was hospitalized for depression, Yiyun Li's Dear Friend, from My Life, I Write to You in Your Life is a combination of memoir and essay.  She believes that cherished writers saved her from sorrow and suicidal ideation.

In his novel House of Names, Colm Tóibín finds, in adapting Greek tragedy, a home for all of his old concerns and room for new ones, too.

In Claudio Magris' Blameless, a museum of the implements of war and destruction is created to inspire peace. But this conversation is not just about war and peace.

Biographer Brad Gooch reveals that he traveled 2500 miles to trace Rumi's footsteps, learned Persian and spent eight years to write Rumi's Secret: The Life of the Sufi Poet of Love.

Has the feeling of doom become our weather? If so, Richard Bausch says he contends with contemporary life by writing about people coping with loss and sorrow.

Poet Ron Padgett reveals that in the 1960s, he found a dusty novel in a Manhattan bookstore. Originally written for teenage girls during World War I, Padgett has been playfully rewriting it ever since.

Steven Moore has gathered his book reviews and essays that take us from the Beats and the Fifties to practically yesterday or even tomorrow. 

Talamantez Brolaski is trans-gender and describes himself as a multi-gendered, racial and linguistic mongrel.  His poems chart a journey out of pain, confusion and darkness into a visionary state.

Selin, the heroine of Batuman’s autobiographical first novel, The Idiot, is an 18-year-old Harvard freshman of Turkish-American descent.  Set in 1995, the novel observes the rise of internet culture.  

Screenwriter and critic George Toles' study of writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson focuses on his more recent films, including Punch-Drunk Love, There Will Be Blood and The Master. Toles values tracking his deepest personal experiences while watching a movie.

My Favorite Thing Is Monsters, Emil Ferris' debut graphic novel, is the diary of a ten-year-old girl obsessed with monsters who also believes she herself is a werewolf. 

Gary Groth, editor of Fantagraphics, publisher of some of the most notable graphic novels today, discusses the rise of comics, what makes a good graphic novel, and what his selection process is like.

Álvaro Enrigue's Sudden Death is the wild tale of a tennis match between the poet Francisco de Quevedo and the artist Caravaggio that transcends time and involves other historically transformative, and often combative, figures. Enrigue, who calls his impulse to write "visceral and erratic," was angered into starting this book by the 2008 financial crisis.

Rachel Cusk's novel Transit is the second in a planned trilogy. Cusk believes that humans have an innate grasp of form, a gift that makes us story-tellers. But the stories we tell ourselves can become traps.

In Erickson's intense, absorbing novel, the Twin Towers suddenly re-appear in the Dakota Badlands. This road novel is a trip through a phantom country where the American dream was never realized.

The North Koreans have tested a weapon called NK3, a weaponized nano-bacterium designed to confuse South Koreans. The test has spread around the world. As a result, the world has lost its memory. 

Padgett's poems stand in for the poems written by a bus driver in the Jim Jarmusch movie Paterson. Padgett experiences writing poetry as a natural activity, rather like brushing his teeth.

In the second half of our conversation with Ottessa Moshfegh, the author discusses her discomfort in this world but admits that there is a touch of self-parody in the title of this collection of stories. 

In the first of two conversations with Ottessa Moshfegh, the author reveals that she doesn't feel comfortable in this world. Her characters long for another world, as does Moshfegh.

Lynne Tillman's The Complete Madame Realism and Other Stories, is a unique blend of short fiction, essays, and philosophical musings that defy categorization. 

In Don DeLillo's latest novel, Zero K, the practice of cryonics or freezing oneself to be awakened later, is in full, but secret swing.

Colson Whitehead's new great American novel depicts a real underground railroad that transports a fugitive slave to stops that defy time and history, highlighting the daily struggles of black people, past and present.

Patrick Ness' A Monster Calls – about a boy facing tremendous conflict with a bully at school, well-meaning inattentive teachers, and a dying mother – was actually already a story begun by another writer, who died before finishing it.

Rabih Alameddine's The Angel of History takes place as much in the protagonist's head as it does in a psych ward where he checks himself in for a bit of rest while he battles the voices in his head.

Mitch Sisskind's Do Not Be a Gentleman When You Say Goodnight is a distillation of nearly fifty years of brilliant comic writing.  

When novelist Peter Orner's father died, he found himself unable to write. At the same time, his marriage fell apart. He consoled himself by reading and started to write responses to the literature that gave him comfort. 

Rapper, poet, playwright and now novelist, Kate Tempest always knew she would write The Bricks that Built the Houses as an accompaniment to the characters in her record Everybody Down. (Rebroadcast)

TC Boyle's The Terranauts centers around eight earth explorers who lock themselves up in E2, a biodome created to mimic earth and test the viability of a self-sustained environment. But what happens between the eight terranauts and their mission control has a bigger impact on sustainability than science had counted on.

Tessa Hadley's book, The Past, has at its center a summer vacation home, and the four middle-aged siblings who come together to decide whether to sell it or not. 

Ann Patchett's latest novel, Commonwealth, follows fifty-two years in the life of a large family. The idea of the book came to her because as a bookstore owner, she saw that what was missing from the shelves was the story of a big, modern family.

The hero of Here I Am is a pun-loving television writer who is pummeled by the loss of everything he values.  This novel expands a family crisis into a global crisis which threatens the state of Israel.

Nicholson Baker's Substitute: Going to School with a Thousand Kids was born of a desire to write a book articulating his theories about education – theories based on having had kids in school. Realizing his premise was weak, as he'd never been a teacher, he embarked on the adventure of a lifetime by becoming a substitute teacher. 

Since memory is not only malleable but unreliable, which version of the truth will prevail?

Another Brooklyn, award-winning Young Adult novelist Jacqueline Woodson's first novel for adults in twenty years, tells the story of childhood friends as they grow into women. 

An ugly young dwarf girl transforms first into a beauty, then into a tall woman, then into a wolf. 

In Auschwitz, the infamous Dr. Mengele conducted horrifying physical and psychological experiments on concentration camp prisoners. Affinity Konar's Mischling (meaning mixed blood) is the story of twin sisters who find themselves imprisoned in Dr. Mengele's "zoo."

Adam Fitzgerald's poetry in George Washington: Poems comes across as playful while exploring the concept of Americana and what that means. 

Krys Lee's first novel dramatizes boundaries and borders – not just political ones but those that complicate human relationships.  

A married couple wind up in a wasteland of foreclosed houses and abandoned homes.

Tom McCarthy's Satin Island features a protagonist who, as his company's corporate anthropologist, has been given the enormous task of compiling a report summing up the modern era.

In his travels to more than 100 countries – some dangerous, some surprisingly not – Tom Lutz finds that the more places he goes, the more the world leaves him a little bit lost.

Neither a novel nor a collection of stories, the "fictions" in She  weave together a composite view of Los Angeles.  

A tale of the ordinary, everyday quest for contentedness -- written entirely in heroic couplets.

Vivian Gornick's memoir The Odd Woman and the City takes us on a tour of a life that is lived by walking, observing and talking. Gornick keeps her eyes open, and does she ever have a mouth on her!

Paradoxically, Geoff Dyer begins his attempt to locate America by first traveling to Tahiti. There, he discovers that Gauguin’s vision of it no longer exists – if it ever really did. Can he find the soul of America in its landscapes?

In part two of this conversation about LaRose – Louise Erdrich's novel about an act of restorative justice that tests the boundaries between two families – the discussion explores the non-linear form the novel moves in towards seeking balance and resolution.

In Louise Erdrich's LaRose, a terrible tragedy forces two families to resort to a form of traditional "restorative justice" in which one son must be given to replace the loss of another. Erdrich talks about this act as an attempt at restoring balance in a tight knit community where healing can take generations.

Joyce Carol Oates raises questions about memory – ethics, what it means to love, identity, and the ability to engage, and takes us on a trip down memory lane with a reading from a previous memoir recounting her favorite bad-for-you childhood foods. 

A. Scott Berg's Max Perkins: Editor of Genius is the biography of Maxwell Perkins, a long time Scribner editor who worked with the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Thomas Wolfe. 

John Keene takes classic American narratives and stands them on their heads. In North and South American tales, he writes about the "others" (Indians, blacks, queers) to re-examine stories we think we know. 

Despite 20 years of study, John D'Agata believes that we're still in the "Wild West" of coming to terms with the essay, its long heritage and its creation.

Originally commissioned to write a novel for Jumex, a Mexican beverage company and supporter of the arts, Luiselli instead chose to write a novel for Jumex's factory workers. 

Greenwell's first novel examines the relationship between an American teacher in Bulgaria with a male prostitute.

After four acclaimed short story collections, Means' first novel takes on the Vietnam War.

Helen Macdonald's new book is her account of working through her grief over her father's death by adopting and training a goshawk.

The characters of Christopher Sorrentino's novel are unreliable narrators. They're liars who hide the truth, not only from themselves but ultimately from the reader. 

Greg Jackson's new collection of eight stories follows the lives of youngish people of privilege on their journey to deconstruct just what their destination is supposed to be. But his characters might be running up against the mystery of themselves.

Blanchfield's essays reveal truths about a queer poet in the post-AIDS era.

Dana Spiotta's Innocents and Others tells the feminist story of how women make do in a male-dominated world through two female filmmaker best friends, and a third, troubled woman adept at beguiling powerful Hollywood men. 

David Remnick and Deborah Treisman, editor and fiction editor, take us through the fiction at the New Yorker and how it has changed over the years. 

Joshua Cohen's The Book of Numbers  follows the rise of the Internet through a protagonist he modeled after some of the web's biggest shapers, including Google's Sergey Brin, but mostly Apple's Steve Jobs.

Elizabeth McKenzie's half screwball romantic comedy and half critique of the conspicuous consumption of the leisure class, featuring a heroine named after the depressive American economist Thorstein Veblen and a cast that includes advice-giving squirrels.

Philosopher Mark de Silva's debut novel shows what a novel can do when it goes off the beaten track.

Darryl Pinckney talks about the attraction of leaving America to discover how to be an African-American in America.

Ryan Gattis' new book, All Involved, is really a reconstitution of the L.A. riots from a person who wasn't there.

Larissa MacFarquhar writes about do-gooders who practice effective altruism. They don't care what others think of their extreme choices. They care about being effective.

Edmund de Waal takes us on a vast journey into the history and heart, skin and bones of porcelain.

Bruce Bauman's new novel is like a family with everyone, including the reader, struggling to find a place, a home, a sense of community.

Poets and editors CAConrad, Robert Dewhurst, and Joshua Beckman talk both about groundbreaking, boldly gay poet/activist, John Wieners, and about the process of compiling and honoring such a prolific poet with the selected works book.

Hotel reviews that really, become reviews on life.

Salman Rushdie's version of The Arabian Nights, his attempt to understand what the through-line of the collection of classic tales is and partly as a portrait of the human race and its salvation. (Repeat)

Paul Murray's comic novel dramatizes an economic crisis in his native Ireland, one that imperils the vitality of Dublin's culture.

Poet, fiction writer, essayist and dramatist Eileen Myles on success, the relevancy of poetry and surviving as a poet

Allende brings her emotional wisdom to the love lives of three generations of post World War II Asian and Jewish characters.

Sandra Cisneros, now in her sixties, looks back at her journey to find her voice, in a candid memoir woven from prose, photographs, and essays.

Jonathan Franzen's latest book is an exploration of intensely intimate relationships and the inevitability of their destructive effects. 

The outlandish and unguarded Gary Indiana has written what can be described as an "anti-memoir." He doesn't like memoirs but has written one himself, partly because he has lived a real life all over the world: he actually has something to write about. 

Is it common practice to lie in a memoir? Not for accomplished memoirists, according to Mary Karr. The Art of Memoir, in part a how-to book, distills 30 years of teaching and writing memoir.

The writer's writer, Joy Williams, has written a book that spans her body of work – from familiar stories to new ones, showcases her deep, natural understanding of the process of writing. 

Patrick deWitt's latest book follows his penchant for building humiliation into his novels. 

Bill Clegg makes the transition from memoirist to novelist. His book and its title are a statement on the kindness of strangers and the necessity to fashion one's own family.

In The State We're In: Maine Stories, Ann Beattie deftly and effortlessly takes the ingredients that make up short stories and shakes them up to create something new and beautiful. 

Fiction writer Bonnie Nadzam and environmental philosopher, Dale Jamieson, worked together to write Love in the Anthropocene, a collection of five short stories that describe a very near future in which nature as we know it no longer exists.  

In this collection of prose pieces, Bellamy explodes the essay form into poetry, personal memoire and literary analysis

The Dying Grass: A Novel of the Nez Perce War is the fifth book in Vollman's seven-book series about loss and transformation of the North American continent, this novel dramatizes a power grab disguised as a race war between Native Americans and settlers. 

The rise of corporate America begins with the ruthless acquisition of Indian land in this massively researched epic which evokes the language, the food, and the lost customs of the Nez Perce.  This is the first of two conversations about William Vollman’s novel of the 1877 war that destroyed the Nez Perce. 

A conversation with the author and Emily Goldman of Ooligan Press.

Louisa Hall's novel Speak considers the Alan Turing test:  how do we know if what we are communicating with via machine is human?

Mira Gonzalez and Tao Lin's Selected Tweets is a compendium of tweets -- often dark and dispairing, but also bitingly funny -- written over the course of ten years, sometimes under their own names, sometimes using assumed names.

In this comic and affecting novel based on the lives of the Collyer brothers — one a blind pianist, the other a hoarder and inventor — Doctorow creates an ironic allegory of modern America.

Michael Silverblatt in conversation with Bookworm producer Connie Alvarez  about the recent book by the late author. Harper Lee died today at the age of 89.

In 1965, a young Linda Rosenkrantz had the novel idea to tape record her friends on the beach in East Hampton. The result was Talk, in which anything could become a subject for conversation – it was all discussed. 

Christian Kracht's Imperium: A Fiction of the South Seas is a satirical parable that sees fanaticism as the root of German culture and imperialist culture in general. 

Amy Gerstler's new book of poems is an exploration of getting lost, the unknown, mortality and remembrance. 

Vendela Vida's new novel is a story of identity, a recurring mystery in her work. We get to the bottom of why identity is her obsession. 

This darkly nihilistic book masquerading as a comedy is as much a commentary on society as it is the story of a bad script-writer.

The "voice of NPR book reviews" takes a singular opportunity – the discussion of his own novel with KCRW's bookworm, Michael Silverblatt.

The Argonauts is a work of "auto-theory" in which theory is put to the test against life experience.

Atticus Lish's debut novel won the 2015 PEN/Faulkner Award for First Fiction, demonstrating that he waited 40 years to become a natural.

Valeria Luiselli's first novel reminds us of what it's like to be young and in love with literature. 

We talk to author Per Petterson, editor Ethan Nosowsky, and publisher Geir Berdahl about the what it takes to bring a book to life and about the changing world of publishing. 

Thomas McGuane's new book of stories is a demonstration model of his verbal surprises and his deep insight into his characters.

Per Petterson's I Refuse is a beautiful and lyrical symphony of sadness, grief and loss.

Kazuo Ishiguro starts the interview about his new book as a look at the concept of societal memory.

The border between poetry and fiction is dismantled when the poet/author is Luis Alberto Urrea. 

In talking about his new novel, David Vann tells us how the characters were born of staring for hours at different delicate fish until they revealed who he was supposed to write about. 

Charles Baxter takes us through the pleasure of discovering books for what might be called the "hidden bookshelf." 

Charles Baxter examines the elements of virtue and vice in his new collection of short stories.

Rachel Kushner talks about the earliest impulses that inspired her first novel Telex from Cuba. She wanted a new concept of time, she needed to find a voice to create that highly subjective and changeable thing--the past.

The discussion takes up writers who write about the racial "other." Can every writer do it successfully? Are there writers who shouldn't or can't? When is it appropriate and necessary?

In discussing Claudia Rankine's Citizen, an American Lyric, we discuss the way racism catches us all. 

Joyce Carol Oates shapes a novel from the Tawana Brawley scandal of the 1980's.

In Peter Cole's poetry, the Jewish mystical tradition gives rise to transmission of the spiritual vision.

The possibility of a romantic adventure novel written in the repressive language of a dictatorship like China's would be entirely heartbreaking if it weren’t so funny. It would be very funny if it weren’t so heartbreaking.

Can we truly understand another human being?

Letter to Jimmy is Congolese author Alain Mabanckou’s book-length letter to James Baldwin. 

Frank Bascombe, who's been making appearances since Ford's breakthrough novel, appears again in Richard Ford's latest novel.

Lydia Millet's new novel is fast-moving and funny -- except when it isn't. 

Colm Tóibín discusses his deeply personal story of a provincial Irishwoman who sets aside motherhood to grapple with grief. 

What is a Splash state? Poet Todd Colby tells us a splash state is the golden moment when his writing hits its ecstatic stride. 

Iranian author Goli Taraghi's recent collection translates many of her short stories of the past forty years into English for the first time.

Bookworm is joined by Marilynne Robinson to discuss Lila ( Farrar, Straus, and Giroux), the latest in a series of novels set in the backdrop of the dustbowl years. 

Acclaimed novelist Martin Amis returns to discuss The Zone of Interest, a mordant exploration of love in a place that is meant  to crush the soul in a concentration camp. 

A conversation about the artist Jess and poet Robert Duncan who were the center of an underground art scene in San Francisco.

What makes a good kid’s book?

Ben Lerner is a novelist/poet who writes about the way we live now, which is not the way we used to live.

The title of Waters’ new novel is a euphemism for “lodgers,” here used by the protagonist’s family to mask the shame of taking on tenants following WWII.

Darnielle titled his novel after a back-masked message in Larry Norman’s song “Six Sixty Six.” He reflects on our desire to locate meaning where there might be none.

Unlike Coe’s other comedic novels, here the humor has a nostalgic feel, reminiscent of 1950s British films like Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes.

Mitchell’s new novel follows his protagonist from 1984-2040; he reflects on mortality in a world that doesn’t much smile upon the aging process.

This is the third in a trilogy of graphic novels by Burns in which the seemingly normal happenings of his protagonist Doug's life take an unsettling Freudian turn.

Landis’ novel, a series of chronological short-stories, follows the lives of three vulnerable, precocious girls as they pass through adolescence in 1970s New York.

Flanagan’s Booker-nominated novel, titled after a travelogue written by 17th century Japanese poet Basho, follows the building of the Burma-Siam Railway during WWII.

Our discussion of this anthology, written by incarcerated men and women, divides between the shocking realism of the stories and Oates’ experience as editor of the collection.

Antrim’s collection of stories stems from his own experience with psychosis; we all have our turn in the barrel, he notes, and sometimes you're really turned upside down.

What exactly made Ulysses so dangerous? Like an eye into the future, this difficult, all-consuming book still seems radical almost a century after its publication.

Kevin Birmingham delves into the history of censorship surrounding the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses for its seemingly seditious, immoral content.

William T. Vollmann has authored a wide array of works of nonfiction as well as fiction. Who is this literary chameleon, and where is his life’s work going?

Vollmann leads us to the “wall of ill” that separates life from death. We dissect Vollmann’s opening remarks to the reader, brimful of images both dark and sweet.

Tillman says a writer shouldn’t be ahead of one’s time but ‘of’ one’s time. She wishes to open doors, break down barriers, and make us aware of how thoughts are formed.

St. Aubyn’s novel parodies the upsurge of interest in literary prizes: what do these prizes have to do with literature, and are the books that win ones we should read?

Prose’s protagonist, Lou Villars, is based on the athlete and Gestapo interrogator Violette Morris, who was photographed with her lover in a Parisian nightclub in 1932.

The heroine of Alice Notley's noir epic poem is named Ines. This is short for "inessential," which is what Notley says the poet is, and, really, what we all are.

Knausgaard’s third volume focuses on childhood. He says what he knows of people he knows from books. He continues in this tradition of telling with the written word.

Reflecting on his autobiographical novels, Knausgaard says literature should be about life; in writing, he attempts to find meaning within the banality of the everyday.

An exciting first for Bookworm, recently married literary-couple Michael Carroll and Edmund White join us for a double-interview.

Do we have a need for a connection with heaven and hell? Krasznahorkai's novel is a valuation of human life seen from heaven and hell through the eyes of a Taoist goddess.

Intellectual, accessible, and provocative literary conversations.

Sjón places classic epics side-by-side with Icelandic sagas of past centuries. We discuss how literature comes from literature and one story gives birth to the next.

We are never prepared to discover our parents are fallible; Simpson's protagonist investigates his parents' lives but most of what he uncovers he doesn't wish to know.

VanderMeer's trilogy chronicles expeditions orchestrated by a government agency called the Southern Reach into a dangerous landscape where reality and unreality blur.

For Jeff Jackson, starting a novel is an invocation. There's an idea that telling our stories is cathartic but sometimes what you've really done is turn up the volume.

Emma Donoghue found the San Francisco she uncovered while researching for her novel far more modern than the Dublin she grew up in a century later.

Lorrie Moore's darkly humorous stories follow middle-aged men and women in states of lonely desperation trapped by the absurdities of their everyday lives.

Dustin Long speaks of the disappointment his generation has grown to expect at having prepared for a  life that isn't there.

Love can become a false Eden. Michelle Huneven's protagonist retreats to the Sierras to write her dissertation but upon accepting a lover begins to dwell in their affair.

Irish author John Banville has written a new novel under his crime-fiction pseudonym, Benjamin Black, and in the guise of Raymond Chandler.

Robert Bly and Marion Woodman &quotThe; Maiden King" (Holt) Why do fairy tales, legends and myths continue to transmit wisdom? Poet Bly and analyst Woodman interpret a Russian fairy tale

Trying to Save Piggy Sneed (Ballantine)

Northern Lights The playwright discusses, and performs from, his new work.

The Last Station

Originally from Beijing, Yiyun Li thought she would be a scientist. Writing in her non-native English, she addresses the emotional brutality of our time.

T.C. Boyle's latest book demonstrates the breadth of his years as a story-teller. Now in his 60's he is turning towards the uncertainties of age and our planet's destiny.

Warren Lehrer's interest in the look and shape of books has led him to become "an illuminated novelist." We discuss the future of books, authorship and print itself.

Valerie Martin on her fascination with the ship Mary Celeste, found floating with no crew off the coast of Spain in 1872. She says she does not believe in ghosts, but…

Hilton Als' first book in 14 years is a series of essays that defy easy categorization. His "white girls" are neither necessarily girls nor white….

Richard Powers says his new novel reveals that there's little difference between a passion and an idea. 

Junot Diaz says Jaime Hernandez's illustrations for the deluxe new edition of his acclaimed collection of stories make their collaboration "rise to the level of jazz."

Blum on publishing his first book, and the riddle of a moral contained in its inscrutable 13-year-old antihero, a Bartlebian computer whiz with a vengeful streak.

Shteyngart wrote his memoir when he realized that his life story mirrored that of the 20th century, the saga of one failed superpower giving way to another failing one.

Ben Estes, Alan Felsenthal and Amanda Nadelberg read poems from Alfred Starr Hamlton's "Dreambox" and reflect on their experience editing this unsung enchanter.

Esteemed German literary critic Denis Scheck joins us for a special international "meeting of the minds" to appraise the state of book criticism today.

James McCourt's novelistic memoir collages together vignettes of personal and queer community history in the New York City of mid-century.

Our master of seductive street-slang on seduction and its relation to fiction. Can a writer seduce you?  Junot Díaz describes what he calls "the shock of representation."

A trenchant "comic journalist" depicting the horrors of human conflicts, Joe Sacco's latest work is an astonishing panorama of the Battle of the Somme...

On its 40th-anniversary, Jong clarifies "Fear of Flying's" earnest philosophical motives, and identifies her literary influences, from Shakespeare to Pauline Réage.

Self’s striking novel about loss, language, and perception after the First World War -- and a bold departure from the satirical mode he is best known for.

After the deaths of husband and daughter, Joan Didion wrote the most personal and poetic book of her impressive career...

James Franco says literature was his emotional and intellectual escape valve from the alternate reality of filmmaking, performance, and celebrity.

Allan Gurganus says the three novellas that comprise his new book, "Local Souls," were written as modern fables or fairy tales.

Alice McDermott once felt a fear that her new novel would be seen as just another of her perfect Irish American novels. Instead it leaps from the page.

Four linked novellas explore the poignant interior lives of small-town characters who are usually unseen and unknown.

Nicholson Baker, poet of small accuracies, shows us how if you assemble enough of these small accuracies, you've got a novel.

Jonathan Lethem’s latest chronicles a lost generation of Jewish socialists who lived in Queens in the mid-twentieth century.

An aristocratic Liberian woman is left bereft and exiled on a remote Aegean island during her country's second civil war…

Part memoir, part literary criticism, part self-analysis, Rebecca Solnit's latest is an inter-genre meditation on the ways our lives are orchestrated by stories.

Van Dyke Parks on his multifaceted career as a lyricist, composer, arranger, producer and instrumentalist, on the heels of his first studio album in nearly twenty years.

This garden of literary and visual delights, edited by Russ Kick, wondrously illustrates the arc of 20th century literature by over 80 graphic artists.

Mark Slouka explores passion as an alternative to irony in the creation of dramatic, lyrical prose.

Margaret Atwood's Maddaddam completes the dystopian trilogy that began with "Oryx and Crake" and "The Year of the Flood."

Cathleen Schine says that she – and her writing – survive by seeing the humor in her life.

Peter Orner says his poignantly distilled, often tiny short stories are attempts to "create silence on the page."

Greer on his heroine's late wish to escape the troubled 1980's, his experience inhabiting a female narrative voice and the gender traveling implicit in his latest novel.

Linda Spalding on her historical novel, the story of an abolitionist in Antebellum America forced to buy a slave, and the inherent conflicts of spirit and commerce.

The author of "Shoplifting from American Apparel" on writing his latest novel, written in meticulously careful prose.

Scottish writer James Kelman on his penchant for internal dialogue and his a working-class romance set in modern-day London. 

Canadian poet and professor Anne Carson on cultural life in the wake of classical knowledge, and her poetry novels Autobiography of Red and the follow-up, Red Doc>.

Tom Drury latest novel follows a resident of his fictional Grouse County who has moved to Los Angeles to reunite with his mother, co-star of a New-Agey TV series.

A troubled teen who seeks refuge from the demon of addiction is also a symbol for a host of social ills in post-socialist Chile and present-day America.

Reading David Sedaris is like watching an aerialist. His famed humor pieces take escalating risks while never failing to bring off smooth, astonishing landings.

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie prefers thorny, resistant characters to likeable ones. She talks about why readers shouldn't settle for characters that are less than difficult.

Inspired by an iconic American image, Marisa Silver's Mary Coin imagines the fabric of life behind Dorothea Lange's depression-era photograph, "Migrant Mother."

Alice Fulton wants to "dirty" lyric poetry by making it bear witness to the grievous geo-politics of the present.

Rae Armantrout's poems apprehend the world as a place charged by the nonexistent supernatural. For her, the eerie thing is that ghosts don't exist.

Pura Lopez-Colomé's poetry, translated by Forrest Gander, envisions the body as a mystically rich reservoir of experience and language.

Aleksandar Hemon takes us though his life from his childhood in Sarajevo -- from the public tragedy of warfare to the private catastrophe of the loss of his child.

Margaret Atwood has embraced the frontiers of online literary culture. She reflects on her exploration of literary innovation and why Hermes is the patron of the new(s).

A novel of multiple voices, motorcycles, and swift zigzags between separate times and places.

David Shields explores the power of the written word in his new book of essays.

Mohsin Hamid mocks the self-help genre in his new novel.

The brazen, satirical stories in Sam Lipsyte's latest book incite reactions that run the gamut from anger to outrage to sheer hilarity.

Set on the Princeton campus in 1905, a penetrating social commentary masquerades as a classic American Gothic.

Ondaatje discusses his turn from concealment to revelation and reflects on the magic of youth.

How did Jess Walter make the leap between his romantic novel, "Beautiful Ruins," and the end-of-the-world sadness of his stories in "We Live in Water?"

The recently named the first poet laureate of the City of Los Angeles reads selections from her new collection and reflects on what it means to be a poet of place today.

Luis Alberto Urrea ("The Hummingbird's Daughter" and "Queen of America") continues to discuss his saga inspired by the life of Teresita Urrea, "the Mexican Joan of Arc."

Luis Alberto Urrea's "Queen of America," completes the two-volume saga that began with "The Hummingbird's Daughter." Both follow the journey of a Mexican curandera...

In this second interview, George Saunders delves further into the dark-comic twists and turns of his recent short story collection. (Part 2 of 2)

Nick Flynn on the strange days on the set of Being Flynn, a film adapted from his personal memoir, and starring Robert De Niro and Paul Dano.

Jamaica Kincaid's first novel in ten years is an emotionally bare story about the erosion of a marriage.

George Saunders reflects on writing, "infinitely" revising, and how he finds the voices for his luminous but smudged characters. (Part 1 of 2)

Poet Ange Mlinko reads poems from her forthcoming collection and talks about the way that poetry braids difficulty and pleasure.

In Lydia Millet's novels, characters pass from the comedy of daily life to the beauty of visionary experience.

Journalist Amy Wilentz's admiring and sober portrait of post-earthquake Haiti...

The aimless hero of Antoine Wilson's second novel takes the world at face value and wishes to impart wisdom to his unborn son, after a life of suspended childhood himself.

Oliver Sacks on the neuropsychology and literature of hallucination, and what this disorienting medical condition reveals about the nature of the mind and human condition.

Burns reflects on the eerie spaces and dark themes that populate his graphic novels, as well as the nature of suspense that does not necessarily resolve into explanation.

A ghost story about the weave of storytelling itself, written in sparse fragments of dialogue punctuated by faint embroidery, grim illustrations, and blank spaces.

Two artists find themselves in an inexplicable and unhappy marriage in Christine Schutt's new novel written in hypnotic prose.

A conversation with cast members about this revelatory new take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, "The Great Gatsby."

David Mitchell traces the consequences of greed from the beginnings of imperialism far into the future and the end of civilization...

Novelist and social critic Chris Kraus on her latest novel, where romance and social redemption collide in post-Patriot Act America.

Graphic novelist Chris Ware stretches the notion of the book to fantastic proportions in his latest publication...

Craig Nova's fourteenth novel conveys readers into dark and discomforting realms of the unseen, where human organs are harvested for sale on the black market...

British novelist Martin Amis discusses how a writer makes a good character endearing when readers want to root for the villain in his new work.

Susanna Moore is interested in the things her characters don’t know. Her new novel is a story of innocence and dread.

British writer, Lawrence Norfolk on his new novel of historical fiction and how his desire to write about love and need relates to his epicurean tale of appetite and hunger.

Former US Poet Laureate, Robert Hass explores certain obsessions in his first collection of essays.

In his new novel, how did Michael Chabon dare to speak for black characters and black neighborhoods? Is this novel audacious and usurping? His answers may surprise you.

The prolific young writer talks about his new book, as well as Internet culture, language and fiction.

Neal Stephenson, a sort of contemporary Dickens (from Seattle,) talks about essays and other writing; science fiction and mainstream literature.

Mary Ruefle brings refreshment and beauty to basic instincts and, in the process, creating mystery, surprise and, well, yes, poetry.

Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 93-year-old renowned Beat generation poet and co-founder of City Lights Booksellers, on his latest adventure, a dire warning for America.

Academy Award-winner John Irving returns with a compelling novel, a tormented portrait of desire and secrecy.

Neo-feminist Sheila Heti on her novel and journal, a how-to book and a philosophical treatise. Heti wants to undo coherence and, in many ways, she has.

Walter on his much acclaimed new work, a completely pleasurable summer read -- and not your typical Hollywood novel.

Bookworm Michael Silverblatt and co-interviewer Jim Krusoe talk with the Hungarian author and screenwriter about modernist novels and filmmaker Bela Tarr.

Jim Krusoe talks about his new novel, where a sacred fool searches for his own private holy grail and perhaps saves the world from destruction.

Victoria Nelson writes about the rise of the supernatural into mainstream popular culture. Vampires and werewolves, no longer monsters, have become heroes.

A middle-aged, American salesman experiences the challenges of the post-industrial economy. He travels to Saudi Arabia, hoping to sell Internet technology to its King.

The second of a two-part conversation with Richard Ford about his writing style and the themes of his robust, new novel.

The first of a two-part conversation about Richard Ford's seventh novel, the powerful story of a teenager, a bank robbery and life’s contradictory experiences.

Pushcart and O. Henry Prize-winner Ben Fountain talks about heroes, war, and street language in his new novel.

Dutch author, Cees Nooteboom discusses the translation process and his poems of myth and landscape inspired by the drawings of Berlin artist, Max Neumann.

Susan Orlean on her moving account of how an orphaned puppy from France became a Hollywood movie star and a beloved canine icon.

British Indian writer Hari Kunsru on his new novel that explores loss, spiritual reconnection and sacrifice.

Adam Levin on how behavior, B.F. Skinner, and his own training to be a therapist influenced his wild and crazy collection of stories.

Israeli writer Etgar Keret talks about the explosive and funny stories that voyage into the fantastic in his new book.

Peter Behrens on his epic family saga, a compelling tale of Irish immigration during the first half of the twentieth century.

Heidi Julavits on female rivalry and the psychic bonds between mothers and daughters in her imaginative new novel.

Eighty-seven-year-old, William Gass discusses his new book of essays on the art of crafting words into prose.

Krys Lee on her collection of short stories about immigrants leading two lives: the ones they left behind, and new lives they can't quite inhabit.

Jeanette Winterson on her new memoir that details how she survived being adopted by a dominating and wildly eccentric Pentecostal mother.

The true tale of a white boy from Oakland who became a drug addict, criminal, mental patient, and then turned 16.

Edward St. Aubyn on his a five-book series, The Patrick Melrose Novels. (Part Two of two)

Edward St. Aubyn on his a five-book series, The Patrick Melrose Novels. (Part One of 2)

What if language turned on its human users? Ben Marcus his novel, a dark story about language and the breakdown of language.

Jonathan Lethem and Steve Erickson discuss science fiction-prophet, writer Philip K Dick.

Can a gay man and a straight man be friends? Edmund White explores the gay-straight axis in Jack Holmes & His Friend.

Ayad Akhtar on coming-of-age as a Muslim in Milwaukee. We discuss the nature of cultural understanding and misunderstanding, sexual and spiritual awakening. 

Most everyone has a skeleton in the closet. Wayne Koestenbaum talks about those gruesome and hideous moments most of us would rather not remember.

Steve Erickson latest novel seeks to find a haven in the midst of our economic despair and our fears of global catastrophe.

Leibovitz's first photo book of objects and landscapes is a triumphant array of iconic images. We talk about her opinions on light, digital imagery and distilling time.

This first novel follows the narrator who just happens to be named Ismet Prcic from Bosnia to America, from a radical theater group to a creative writing program.

Dennis Cooper on the inarticulate emotions that underlie the razzle-dazzle of secret corridors, lush language, brutality and desire.

Autobiographical essays and Jonathan Lethem on his favorite books, spending time with James Brown and the writer's role as public intellectual.

This book of poetry is the product of great grief in Peter Gizzi's life: the death of his mother, his brother and his best friend...

Paul La Farge on his innovation of the novel form. His new novel, though it is published between covers, only represents one third of the book. The other two-thirds...

The true story of the historical detective whose work uncovered the 1000 year-old poem that shook the early Christian world and marked the beginning of the Renaissance...

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides on his new novel, in which he learned to "do" character.

A rebroadcast of an engaging conversation with our great octogenarian laureate, W.S. Merwin.

With little known about Pat Nixon, Ann Beattie decided to write a novel in the form of a writer's manual, she used Mrs. Nixon as a model of how to create a character.

Tony D'Souza reveals the life events that led him to write a novel about a solid, middle-class kid who becomes a drug mule...

The veteran contributor to The New Yorker and McSweeney's distills his knowledge about how to structure the essay—from cultural comedies to political tragedies.

The author of Affliction and The Sweet Hereafter takes breathtaking risks in exploring a morally complex story. The protagonist is a renegade and convicted sex offender...

We visited Harold Bloom to talk about his new book, but when you talk with Bloom, you talk about politics, poetry, teaching, aging, reading and ultimately, respect...

This sequence of short stories, or prose poems, or vignettes (author Justin Torres is open to all three descriptions) adds up to a little novel about an underclass family....

Wilson's goofy, sweet-hearted first novel is about a family of performance artists. The Fang family's siblings are struggling to leave their parents behind in order to lead a normal life...

Araceli Ramirez, the heroine of Héctor Tobar's new novel, is a nanny is accused of kidnapping her charges, when she is, in fact, taking them to their grandfather....

Modern and post-modern art have gone up to a level of transgressive and theoretical border play that leave many viewers bewildered or repelled...

The Bookworm learns about retro culture from a master of rock criticism. Simon Reynolds meditates on the aspects of global music that have led to endless recycling....

An explorer of sensuality and violator of taboos, Rikki Ducornet allows a predatory psychoanalyst to narrate her new novel...

Tales of romance and adventure inspire Jesse Ball's novellas and prose poems....

At age sixteen Jon-Jon Goulian started to wear women's clothes — he couldn't say why. At age forty he wrote this memoir to account for his fascination with androgyny...

After twenty-five years, Art Spiegelman gathers his thoughts about his prize-winning, ground-breaking graphic novel, MetaMaus .

A deep and ultimately heartbreaking look at family relationships, love, identity and memory—all against the heyday of LA rock 'n' roll, new wave and punk...

The author of Push, on which the film Precious was based, has a new novel, The Kid, told from the point of view of Precious' son, Abdul...(Part 2 of 2)

The author of Push, on which the film Precious was based, has a new novel, The Kid, told from the point of view of Precious' son, Abdul...(Part 1 of 2)

WEB EXCLUSIVE! Michael Silverblatt felt challenged when Sapphire's publisher mentioned that The Kid "might not be your kind of thing..."

Dora Malech explores the violence of relationships...

Oncologist and novelist Chris Adrian talks about how his need to tell and hear stories has helped him through his difficult work with children.

John Sayles on how a writer gathers knowledge, the language, the unusual perspectives and the humanity to illuminate the whole arc of our history...

Novelist and essayist Geoff Dyer celebrates his first published essay in the New Yorker. He tells us how his amateur interest in jazz led him to write a book...

Radiance (Counterpoint) Mark Perdue, a physics professor who we first met in Louis B. Jones' Particles of Luck, is at the farther fringe of a complete nervous breakdown..

The occasion of a Los Angeles theater festival offers playwright John Steppling (Phantom Luck) the chance to talk about theater in general and what's wrong with it.

Ann Patchett has written a book you can't put down. State of Wonder is a version of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, set in South America in the heart of the jungle...

My New American Life is the immigrant story told in a new way. Francine Prose's touching and funny character, Lula, is used to suffering -- she comes from Albania...

The Finkler Question is the winner of this year's Booker Prize, an amazing novel in that it's many things at once: comic, melancholic, philosophical and paradoxical.

Unable to sleep after her husband, Ray Smith, died three years ago, Joyce Carol Oates spent the night keeping a journal of her day to day thoughts and experiences...

Fearless Eileen Myles discusses her fears in this autobiographical novel.

When Diane Ackerman's husband, Paul West, suffered a stroke, the couple had to learn a new way to communicate. That led him to write a new form of novel — an aphasic novel.

While the Bookworm and Harvard literary theorist Marjorie Garber disagree about nearly everything, theirs is one of the most diverting literary debates you'll likely hear.

What You See in the Dark (Algonquin) Manuel Muñoz imagines a crime of passion set in the Central Valley, which he deviously juxtaposes with the mayhem of Hitchcock's Psycho.

When David Foster Wallace died, he left behind drafts of a rich and complex novel. Writers Rick Moody and David Lipsky discuss Wallace's achievement, The Pale King...

Widow: Stories (Bellevue Literary Press)Michelle Latiolais wrote some of these stories before the death of her husband, some later. Her emotional register changed markedly after his death...

The New Yorker Stories (Scribner)This collection, which spans the years 1974-2006, contains all of the Anne Beattie stories published in the New Yorker – from the very first one, accepted after 17 rejections....

A second program with Carlos Fuentes, this one about culture and politics: Will narco-politics defeat government? Will a "New Deal" be negotiated to help the ni-nis? (Part I of this two-part conversation airs on March 17.)

Destiny and Desire (Random House) The great Mexican writer modestly confides that yes, he has completed a new novel but it's really the same story, just with new characters... (Part I of this two-part conversation airs on March 24.)

The Intimates (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)Ralph Sassone, a first novelist, on the vicissitudes of — what else — the first novel.

When the Killing's Done (Viking)T.C. Boyle's newest novel contains elements of sea-adventure story and eco-thriller. Bringing together the themes of his life's work, he explores the interstices of the green-movement and the animal rights community...

House of Prayer No. 2: A Writer's Journey Home (Nan A. Talese/Doubleday)Busy writing for film and television, for his first book in over a decade, Mark Richard provides a decidedly unconventional autobiography, a spiritual journey through some of the most unusual underworlds the soul can encounter...

The Lotus Eaters (St. Martin's Griffen) Ten years ago when Tatjana Soli began to write her novel about female journalists in Viet Nam, she was warned that it might not sell. Instead, this prophetic tale about America's foreign wars was chosen one of the most important books of last year...

Night Soul and Other Stories (Dalkey Archive Press)Joseph McElroy is well regarded as one of the most demanding living American writers. His work is usually innovative and difficult. But in this collection of short stories, his first, stories of tenderness, often about care for children, predominate.

How can writing provide consolation? Writer Isabel Allende talks about her daughter's death and the events and feelings that led to the publication of this memoir.

The novels of T.C. Boyle are well known for addressing complex concerns about the environment and endangered species. In this brief interview, we prepare for the February publication of Boyle's most exciting environmental novel, When the Killing's Done.

The Lover's Dictionary (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) David Levithan has written a dictionary for lovers. The entries in it could apply to any romantic relationship, and yet, as you will hear in this conversation, the specificity of the entries gives the characters unanticipated depth.

Caribu Island (Harper Collins) David Vann builds his first novel out of dire materials: his father took his own life, and his stepmother's parents died in a murder/suicide...

Luka and the Fire of Life (Random House) Once again, Salman Rushdie writes a fable, this time for his second son, who has had the time to take in Haroun and the Sea of Stories and feel envy for his brother to whom that book was dedicated...

Selected Poems (Wave Books)When you hear Mary Ruefle reading her poems, you will quickly become entranced by their accessibility: they are funny and heartbreaking—simultaneously...

Lord of Misrule (McPherson) Jaimy Gordon is a recently-discovered American novelist with an original voice and vision. Her National Book Award-winning novel, Lord of Misrule, is set at Indian Mound Downs, a rinky-dink racetrack in Wheeling, West Virginia, a place where "scarred and lonely dreamers in the American grain" dream of better luck someday....

Great House (Norton) Nicole Krauss is more sensitive to emotional textures and to characters than she is to conventional plot. Here, she speaks about how the careful maneuverings of feelings and the details that provoke feeling help to generate a structure for her new novel.

The Turquoise Ledge: A Memoir ( Viking) The Sonoran desert, its creatures and features, its ants and plants, becomes the classroom for that most trans-human of lessons. Poet, novelist and essayist Leslie Marmon Silko provides a memoir of her education outdoors.

Voice Over: A Nomadic Conversation with Mahmoud Darwish (Archipelago); Intimate Stranger (Archipelago); Notes from the Middle World (Haymarket Books) As a writer, South African-born Breyten Breytenbach is an activist. As an activist he functions as something like a conscience. As a participant in the global response to apartheid, he was imprisoned for seven years, and his writing comes from the anguished nightmares of his imprisonment. His is the art of passionate dissent; his prose and poetry are in service of a more "human" human race.

All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost (Norton) This short novel emerged virtually whole — unique in the writing life of its author, Lan Samantha Chang. Perhaps this is because the book is about the writing life...

Take One Candle Light a Room (Pantheon) The complexities of race and community are at the center of Susan Straight's lively discussion about family, memory, migration and history...

My Hollywood (Knopf) Mona Simpson's new novel corkscrews its way into the heart of a Santa Monica marriage, a marriage in which child raising duties are agreed to be divided fifty-fifty between husband and wife. Instead, they are divided fifty-fifty between wife and nanny...

Bitter in the Mouth (Random House) Monique Truong is an intransigent—she will not settle for anyone's desire to interpret or in any way falsity the world she knows. This time Vietnamese-born Truong sets to revealing the lies implicit in the question, "What is it like to grow up Asian in America?"

Tom McCarthy's C (Knopf) is one of those post-modern novels designed to drill a hole in your head and help you inventory the contents of your mind...

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (Pantheon) Charles Yu's sweeter-spirited vision of how vintage science fiction can be used to imagine our world. Caught in a computer game, the hero seeks to escape his chronic melancholy. It just so happens that our hero's name is the same as the author's...

The Four Fingers of Death (Little, Brown) Rick Moody creates a sleazoid end-of-the-world saga, basing his story on a cheapo so-bad-it's-good sci-fi classic...

What Is Left the Daughter (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) Howard Norman's Wyatt Hillyer has good reason to be blocked: His parents committed suicide within an hour of one another; his love has been unrequited; he assisted in an unpremeditated hate crime...

Super Sad True Love Story (Random House) Can Lenny and Eunice find love in a futuristic America in which computer screens instantly and constantly reveal economic status and sexual "hotness" quotients?

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It (Riverhead Books) Maile Meloy’s stories go shooting off in such surprising and unpredictable directions that a reader might think, "every which way is the only way she wants it..."

The Lovers (Harper Collins/ Ecco) Vendela Vida has crafted another mysterious and beautiful novel about a woman's identity. This woman, Yvonne, is middle-aged, the oldest woman whose tightly-knit personality Vida has unraveled so far.

First, Sparks on Bookworm's new theme songs. Then poet Paul Muldoon (Maggot, from Farrar, Straus & Giroux) on how writing poems differs from writing song lyrics..

The Informer (Shaye Areheart Books) Craig Nova has written a frightening novel about corruption in pre-Nazi Berlin. Especially frightening is Nova's perception that those times are so similar to ours...

Dear Money (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) In Martha McPhee's comic novel, a wizard of Wall Street promises he can change a novelist from a desperate bohemian into a "Master of the Universe," in a brief eighteen months. In this conversation, we explore the mis-marriage of aesthetics and greed...

WEB EXCLUSIVE: Extended interview with David Mitchell Glowing front-page reviews and profiles proclaim David Mitchell to be "the real thing" and his new novel, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet (Random House), a masterpiece.

Chronic (Graywolf) The Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award offers an impressive $100,000 prize to a poet entering the major phase of his/her career. We speak to this year's winner, D.A. Powell, and the chair judge, Linda Gregerson, to find out about poetry awards and how they are determined...

Private Life (Knopf) Jane Smiley explores lives limited by repression, narrow scope and boundless ego, describing the sadness of a genius whose work never catches on, and the frustration of a wife whose husband never achieves his potential—and who barely discerns her own

Parrot & Olivier in America (Knopf) Australian-born Peter Carey celebrates his years in America with a larking, picaresque novel based on Toqueville's Democracy in America...

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake (Doubleday) A little girl is able to taste sadness in her food. Her brother, who has become emotionally withdrawn, is able to turn himself into inanimate objects. Aimee Bender shows how by using the techniques of fairy tales, legends and magic realism, her novels and stories about family dysfunction are transformed into narratives about growth and change.

Role Models (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) and The Possessed (Farrar, Straus & Giroux) John Waters’ gives a passionate description of his favorite books, and for good measure, Elif Batuman gives a lively count-down of her favorite Russian novels.