Bookworm

The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana (Harcourt) The loss of memory is Umberto Eco's subject here. After a stroke, an antiquarian bookseller remembers every book he's read--but he remembers nothing about himself....

The History of Love: A Novel (Norton) Memory is the subject of many novels, but Nicole Krauss' subject is the transmission of memory: how do you tell another person about the things that are no longer there?

Lunar Park (Knopf) Beginning as an autobiography, Lunar Park turns into a classic horror novel. The haunted house, however, is spooked by Bret Ellis- personal demons, and the past comes alive in creepy ways that go way beyond autobiography.

Maya Angelou believes that a writer who tells the truth can be read by anyone. James Baldwin, for example, can be enjoyed by black, white, Muslim or Jewish readers -- indeed by anyone who values reading the truth...  

Tom Wolfe discusses neuroscience and its view that there is no such thing as identity. Margaret Atwood talks about the coming threat to identity by cloning and genetic experimentation. Irish writer John Banville rails that identity does not exist.

Sandra Cisneros and Nina Marie Martínez The two Hispanic women explain how they've been put into the cage of multiculturalism, sometimes by the way they view themselves, but primarily by publishers and readers, to the extent of being expected to read only certain kinds of literature. When the names Thomas Pynchon and Marguerite Duras come up, the conversation takes a turn, and the satisfactions of broad, deep reading are embraced...

Susan Choi, Maxine Hong Kingston and Don Lee American-born writers of Asian descent explore the challenge of forging identity, while living "between cultures."

James McCourt, Camille Paglia, Alan Hollinghurst and Edmund White James McCourt discusses the emergence of "queer identity" and gives an overview of French literary theories and their influence on multiculturalism, while Camille Paglia explains the destructive nature of such theories. Booker Prize winner Alan Hollinghurst, who writes about the gay experience, reveals that he reads very little popular gay literature. Edmund White explains how he has turned away from the aesthetic and has embraced social realism in his desire to document the AIDS crisis.

Cartoonist and graphic novelist Art Spiegelman explains how writers' identities are revealed in their work, that reading a book is like crawling into the writer's head. Cynthia Ozick and Jonathan Rosen talk about the immigrant experience and the Jewish American novel...

Rita Dove, Edward P. Jones, Alice Walker and Jayne Cortez Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Rita Dove reads her thrilling poem "Hattie McDaniel Arrives at the Coconut Grove" and discusses black identity and American culture. Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Edward P. Jones talks about the history of slavery; Pulitzer Prize and American Book Award-winner Alice Walker explains that writing must address a worldwide crisis; and poet, spoken-word artist and activist Jayne Cortez talks about the Watts Writers' Workshop of the 1960's.