The National Endowment for the Arts' Literary Arts Director Amy Stolls joins me for a conversation about books that can see us through difficult times. From children's books to YA to short stories to novels...and oh yes, there's poetry too, we discuss the many ways books can bring the world to us as we shelter in place. Amy and I also talk about the almost magical power of books to open ourselves to imagined worlds in other universes and then intensely inhabit the perspective of a single human being in a barren landscape. And, Amy is known as the agency wit--so it's a fun podcast! The books we discussed are below:
Metropolitan Stories: A Novel by Christine Coulson
Culinaria Italy: Pasta Pesto Passion edited by Claudia Piras
The Principles of Uncertainty by Maira Kalman
Here by Richard McGuire
In the Distance by Hernan Diaz
Severance by Ling Ma
At the Same Moment Around the World by Clotilde Perrin
The Fortunes by Peter Ho Davies
Barn 8 by Deb Olen Unferth
The Murderer's Ape by Jacob Wegelius
All the Names They Used for God by Anjali Sachdeva
American Journal: Fifty poems for our Time, selected and introduced by Tracy K. Smith