Bookworm (Book Reviews)
- Next available on KCRW 89.9 Santa Monica, CA in 1 hour 20 minutes
- Find another station or time for this program on one of 19 other stations & times
- Host: Michael Silverblatt
- A must for the serious reader, "Bookworm" showcases writers of fiction and poetry - the established, new or emerging - all interviewed with insight and precision by the show's host and guiding spirit, Michael Silverblatt.
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- Genres: Book Reviews, Poetry
- Location: Santa Monica, CA
- Language: English
- Networks: NPR
Last updated 387 days ago
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George Saunders
Thu, Dec 27
The Braindead Megaphone (Riverhead)This conversation provides a mini-course in short-story writing, Saunders-style and explores the construction of short fiction from the ground up.
Carol Muske-Dukes
Thu, Dec 20
Channeling Mark Twain (Random House)This novel revives the belief that poetry has a close connection to personal and political liberation.
Steve Erickson
Thu, Dec 13
Zeroville (Europa Editions)This breakthrough novel is about the The Movies---not the movie business, not the wheels and deals---but The Movies themselves.
Mario Vargas Llosa
Thu, Dec 6
The Bad Girl (Farrar, Straus Giroux)We take the occasion of the publication of Vargas Llosa's new novel, The Bad Girl, to air this previously unheard interview in which the great Peruvian novelist describes the effects of "El Boom" ---- magic realism and its relatives -- on the literature of Latin America. (This interview will not air live on KCRW as it will be pre-empted by special programming.)
Millard Kaufman
Thu, Nov 29
Bowl of Cherries (McSweeney's) Millard Kaufman has written a classic comic novel that belongs in the tradition that runs from Charles Dickens to Evelyn Waugh.
Ron Padgett
Thu, Nov 22
Joe: A Memoir of Joe Brainard (Coffee House) Joe is Ron Padgett's intimate and affectionate biography-memoir of his friend of four decades, artist-poet Joe Brainard.Note: This interview will not air on KCRW as it will be pre-empted by special holiday programming. It will, however, be available online.
Robert Alter
Thu, Nov 15
The Book of Psalms: A Translation with Commentary (Norton) Biblical scholar Robert Alter faces a barrage of questions: What are psalms. Who wrote them. If they are prayers, why does he consider them poems.
Junot Diaz
Thu, Nov 8
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Riverhead) This wide-ranging yet intimate conversation explores many difficult subjects: sex addiction, cultural difference, the Dominican diaspora, dictatorship, new ways of thinking about the function of literature, and the necessity that we leave the isolation of our self-made cocoons.
Veronica Gonzalez
Thu, Nov 1
twin time: or how death befell me (Semiotext(e)) The heroine of twin time is a woman whose life is surrounded by mystery. Who is her father. Where is her mother. Why did no one tell her she has a twin brother.
Rupert Thomson
Thu, Oct 25
Death of a Murderer (Knopf) A factual series of murders provides the background for this novel: the Moor Murders that haunted the British imagination in the 1960's.
Alice Sebold
Thu, Oct 18
The Almost Moon (Little, Brown) Alice Sebold wrote The Lovely Bones, one of the most beloved and lovable books in recent years. How did she prepare herself for the onslaught she'll face with The Almost Moon, a book which, for all its quality, is resolutely in the realm of unlovability. Alice Sebold, on the writer's obligation to surprise, to grow and to change.
Ana Castillo
Thu, Oct 11
The Guardians (Random House) This is a novel about borders in which borders disappear: the border between old and young, between secular and sacred, between states---but not the border between the U.S. and Mexico.
William Gibson
Thu, Oct 4
Spook Country (Putnam)Along with the most sophisticated future-predictions, speculations about the sociology of cities, and adventures in virtual post-realities, William Gibson has finally learned how to get his characters from one room to another.
Viken Berberian
Thu, Sep 27
Das Kapital: A Novel of Love and Money Markets (Simon Schuster)Viken Berberian writes in a post-modern apocalyptic vein about billionaire stock traders, terrorists and nationalists.
Marianne Wiggins
Thu, Sep 20
The Shadow Catcher (Simon Schuster) With its fascinating combination of history, biography, memoir and essay, is The Shadow Catcher a novel.
Miranda July
Thu, Sep 13
No one belongs here more than you and Learning to Love You More, co-author Harrell Fletcher (Prestel) Miranda July's film Me and You and Everyone We Know captured the mood of a generation ---- and its attention. In this first book of stories, we find the same fear of paralysis, the same narcotized, sleepwalker affect. Why does Miranda July, a tireless whirlwind, identify with these listless characters.
Nathan Englander
Wed, Sep 5
The Ministry of Special Cases (Knopf)Nathan Englander uses desapareacidos to stand for all kinds of disappearance. Here, we focus on yet another: his own.
Naeem Murr
Thu, Aug 30
The Perfect Man (Random House)Naeem Murr's work has been described as perverse---but he insists that this perversity seems ordinary to him.
Michael Ondaatje
Thu, Aug 23
Divisadero (Knopf) Michael Ondaatje's novels come together through a combination of obsession and intuition. He works in the dark, not knowing where he is heading, juxtaposing disparate materials, noticing echoes and recurrences.
Helena Maria Viramontes
Thu, Aug 16
Their Dogs Came with Them (Atria) Helena Maria Viramontes has written about L.A.-based Latino culture before -- but who could have expected this epic work about a neighborhood that is divided by a freeway, cut off and lost in Los Angeles. Viramontes explores the explosive insights that gave her the ability to grow as a novelist.
Kurt Vonnegut
Thu, Aug 9
Support KCRW's Summer SignUp: (http://www.kcrw.com) A Man without a Country (7 Stories)The late Kurt Vonnegut has been astonishing us sincethe 1960's.-- Here, in the rebroadcast of a 2006 interview, he speaks as a socialist disappointed by human behavior, our country and our times. He "wants to go home. (This interview will be not be heard on KCRW as it will be pre-empted by our semi-annual subscription drive.)
Richard Flanagan
Thu, Aug 2
The Unknown Terrorist (Grove) Richard Flanagan felt that his last novel, Gould's Book of Fish, widely acclaimed a masterpiece, had burnt him out. Here, he discusses the things he did to reenergize.
Jim Crace
Thu, Jul 26
The Pesthouse (Doubleday) Jim Crace makes lies masquerade as truth in this post-apocalyptic tale of toxified America.
Jonathan Lethem
Thu, Jul 19
You Don't Love Me Yet (Doubleday) The pleasures of the lightweight and the free-spirited.
Kiran Desai
Thu, Jul 12
The Inheritance of Loss (Grove) Booker Prize-winner Kiran Desai says she prefers "messiness" to perfection--it's more human, and it fits her subject better.
Mark Slouka
Wed, Jul 4
The Visible World (Houghton Mifflin) Can a novelist uncover a secret.
John Ashbery and Ron Padgett on the works of Pierre Reverdy
Thu, Jun 28
Haunted House (Ashbery; Black Square Editions); Prose Poems (Padgett; Black Square Editions) The haunted, lonely prose-poetry of Pierre Reverdy has attracted many translators. Here, two of America's most extraordinary poets read and discuss their translations, prose-poetry in general, and the peculiar, eerie poetry of the great Reverdy.
Lydia Davis
Tue, Jun 19
Varieties of Disturbance (Farrar, Straus Giroux) Lydia Davis writes elegant prose pieces in which basic confusions are described with authority and clarity.
Joanna Scott
Thu, Jun 14
Everybody Loves Somebody (Back Bay Books)Joanna Scott claims her collection of stories is a history of love, from World War I to the present.
Joyce Carol Oates
Thu, Jun 7
The Gravedigger---s Daughter (Ecco)The Gravedigger---s Daughter is Oates's most autobiographical novel and the culmination of her career-long themes and obsessions.
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