Bookworm

W. G. Sebald, a renowned German writer celebrated for his unique prose and exploration of memory, delves into the poetic qualities of his literary style inspired by 19th-century authors. He discusses the significance of literary influences like Keller and Heine, using complex sentence structures to convey historical trauma. The conversation also highlights the intersection of literature and natural science, alongside the metaphor of fog in post-war narratives. Ultimately, Sebald reveals how beauty and horror intertwine, enhancing the understanding of profound suffering.

Political Fictions (Knopf) We discover that the strategy underlying Joan Didion's essays also provides the foundation for her fiction. She rejects the human need for stories with clear resolutions and, instead, searches out the messy realities that stories conceal.

Death of a River Guide (Grove) In this novel, a drowning river-guide in Tasmania relives his life as it recedes before him. Author Richard Flanagan insists that reality in his island homeland is stranger still...

David Means, the young winner of the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award discusses his interest in redemption, an impulse that transforms his tightly calibrated realistic fiction into a moral tightrope-walk.

Little America (Knopf) Author Henry Bromell, the son of a CIA agent, discusses the traps, secrets and patricidal rivalries that can turn father-son relationships into metaphors for espionage...

Coming Soon!!!  (Houghton Mifflin) More on the spectacular fictional inventions of John Barth-including dual narrators, Muse-author collaborations, and stories so complexly interconnected that they mirror the spiraling structure of the universe. (Part II of a two-part interview)

Coming Soon!!! (Houghton Mifflin) A full-scale celebration of the career of John Barth, one of America's greatest comic writers. His experiments with form, his crazy circumlocutions and contractions of language and, in particular, his creation of double-gendered narration are explored, explained, exhibited and exclaimed over.(Part I of a two-part interview)

J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century (Houghton Mifflin) With the film of Lord of the Rings hard upon us, Professor Shippey recalls Tolkien and his interest in language and epic poetry. As a special treat, Shippey sings Tolkien's school song, which, disguised, makes its way into the Sagas of Middle Earth.

In part two of this interview with Salman Rushdie, we consider the wilder aspects of Fury: the influence of science fiction, surrealism and film. Special attention is paid to the blurring distinction between humans and machines and the painful irony implicit in the difficulty of making such a distinction. (Part one aired October 4.) 

In the first of a two-part interview, Salman Rushdie explores the politics, psychology and sociology of his first America-set novel, Fury.