Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

For decades Cuba has been an American obsession, a political flashpoint, and a forbidden paradise of run-down charm, aromatic rum, cigars, and long hot nights filled with music. Four writers—two from Cuba and two other experts for whom Cuba is passionate muse—gather to explore Cuba today and tomorrow.

How far would you go for someone you love? These three gripping novelists contemplate the unexpected barbs, the questions, and disappointments of love’s promise. With provocative looks at relationships between parents, children, lovers, and friends, this event reminds us that love, as Stephen King put it, “has teeth.” Sylvia Brownrigg, Edan Lepucki, Shanthi Sekaran, moderated by Barbara Lane.

Why does this small, rocky island have such outsize influence on world literature? Who is following in the footsteps of James Joyce, Frank O’Connor, and Edna O’Brien? Meet three members of an exciting new generation of Irish fiction writers: the author of a short story collection about small-town Irish life, a novelist whose latest work is a satirical take on the Irish banking crisis, and a novelist who explores the mysteries of narrative itself in an unconventional mystery novel.

Oddny Eir and Geoff Dyer, interviewed by Ethan Nosowsky: Many of the world’s great stories are odysseys, adventures through landscapes that inspire and challenge. But the best writers know the most exotic and profound journeys really take place within. In their wildly original books, two genre-defying authors do both at once. Their works of fiction and nonfiction explore the meaning of travel and pilgrimage as well as the connections between imagination and reality, place and identity, story and myth.

Is it possible to study culture and laugh at the same time? Michael Krasny proves it is, delving deeply into the themes, topics, and forms of Jewish humor: chauvinism undercut by irony and self-mockery, the fear of losing cultural identity through assimilation, the importance of vocal inflection in joke-telling, and calls to communal memory, including the use of Yiddish. Here is an opportunity to hear and meet the man you listen to on the radio four weekday mornings a week!

A lecture. A warning. A lamentation. A diatribe. From David Thomson, the renowned film critic, historian, and author of more than 20 books, including the recent ‘Television: A Biography.’

‘Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming’ shows a realistic path forward that can roll back global warming within thirty years. Activist and renowned entrepreneur Paul Hawken gathered researchers from around the world to identify, investigate, and model the 100 most substantive existing solutions to climate change. Come learn how humanity has the means at hand to address this potentially devastating threat to our civilization.

Turtle Island’s First People, and its First Nations, have inspired writers, journalists, artists, musicians, and workers—Native American, Anglo, and other—in years past and today, up to and beyond Standing Rock activism. What stories and lessons from Native American history illuminate the present day for Native Americans, and why? Our panelists include a Native poet writing about voicelessness, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, an award-winning novelist and Native leader who discovered his roots as an adult, and a historian specialized in Native American studies. They discuss legacies, truths, and the potential future of our country’s First People’s place, stories, and movements.

Twenty-five years ago, Walter Mosley introduced us to Easy Rawlins, an Army vet turned private eye, to tell the story of black postwar Los Angeles. Today, with 55 critically acclaimed books, Mosley is one of America’s best-known and most beloved living writers. (Former president Bill Clinton named Mosley one of his favorite authors.) His writing is both prolific and spans many genres, from young adult to science fiction to politics. How does he do it? Learn how Mosley crafts his trademark accessibility, along his penchant for creating narratives that both entertain and instruct.

Join Charlie Jane Anders, Cory Doctorow, Annalee Newitz and John Scalzi as they kick ass, take names and decide who goes down first, and hardest, in an epic discussion about new directions in science fiction and fantasy.