Episode 234 — Jonathan Miles

Jonathan Miles is the guest. His new novel, Want Not, is now available from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Dave Eggers, writing for The New York Times Book Review, says "I loved this book…the work of a fluid, confident, and profoundly talented writer…it’s a joyous book, a very funny book, and an unpredictable book, and that’s because everyone in it is allowed to be fully human.” And Ben Fountain, author of Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, says "In this powerful, blisteringly funny novel, Jonathan Miles makes a startling discovery: We are what we throw away. It’s in our castoff goods, edibles, chances and people that our authentic selves are revealed; or, as one of his many memorable characters puts it, 'garbage [is] the only truthful thing civilization produced.' Miles mines the depths of waste so artfully that by the end of this extraordinary novel, we’re left with the suspicion that redemption may well be no more, and no less, than an existential salvage operation." Monologue topics: New York City, feeling overprotective, my best books of 2013

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