Bookworm

The Ghost in Love (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)Although he would never want us to say so, Jonathan Carroll's novels are like metaphysical self-help books for the supernaturally inclined.

Web exclusive: The terrible and sad impact of David Foster Wallace's suicide caused us to want to remember him as he first appeared in the KCRW studios, fresh from the publication of his breakthrough novel, Infinite Jest. He was brilliant and charming—and his death is an enormous loss to American literature.

The Wordy Shipmates (Riverhead)What brought the indomitable Sarah Vowell to write a book about the Puritans? A couple of Thanksgiving episodes of The Brady Bunch and Happy Days, to be sure, but also...

Grégoire Bouillier The Mystery Guest: An Account (Farrar Straus & Giroux) and Report on Myself (Houghton Mifflin)Olivier Cadiot Colonel Zoo ( Green Integer)Marc Cholodenko Mordechai Schamz (Dalkey Archive)Finally at ease in Paris, the Bookworm encounters three French novelists and attempts to navigate the tangle of philosophy, artifice, intertextuality and hilarity that exemplifies the art of the new French novel. Note: More installments of an American Bookworm in Paris will air over the next few months.

Lulu in Marrakech (Dutton)Here's a conversation about ambivalence, ambiguity and judgment in a comic or satiric novel. Usually, we would know exactly where the author stands, but not with Diane Johnson...

Francine Prose is full of surprises in speaking of her newest novel, Goldengrove It's narrated by a thirteen-year-old girl whose sister has drowned....

How Fiction Works (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)This conversation is characterized by indirection. Critic James Wood seems to be responding to accusations made against him by other reviewers...

Pierre Alféri: Oxo (Burning Deck) and Natural Gaits ( Sun & Moon) Emmanuel CarrèreClass Trip & The Mustache (Picador) and The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception (Picador)In this episode of our ongoing series, the American Bookworm leaves philosophy and politics and makes his way to his true loves: poetry and fiction... Note: More installments of an American Bookworm in Paris will air over the next few months.

Breakdowns (Pantheon)Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! is the subtitle of this new book, and we talk about the kind of young %@&*! Art Spiegelman was...

Senselessness, translated by Katherine Silver (New Directions)Castellanos Moya's first novel to be translated into English is a jet black tragic-comedy...