The Avid Reader Show

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Michael Graziano, author of Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory Of Subjective Experience, Published in September by Norton. Michael is professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton. He has written four other neuroscience books and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, NYT, Huffington Post and many other periodicals. His lab at Princeton focuses on a theory, a theory labelled The Attention Schema. Rethinking Conscious explores the world in which we live and how that world is represented in our mind. It is not only the perception of reality but our perception of that perception that drives the experience which we call consciousness. Neurons fire, the ones that fire like warriors drive our attention and thus give rise to the idea that we exist and that we are paying attention to something or other.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Michael Graziano, author of Rethinking Consciousness: A Scientific Theory Of Subjective Experience, Published in September by Norton. Michael is professor of psychology and neuroscience at Princeton. He has written four other neuroscience books and his work has appeared in The Atlantic, NYT, Huffington Post and many other periodicals. His lab at Princeton focuses on a theory, a theory labelled The Attention Schema. Rethinking Conscious explores the world in which we live and how that world is represented in our mind. It is not only the perception of reality but our perception of that perception that drives the experience which we call consciousness. Neurons fire, the ones that fire like warriors drive our attention and thus give rise to the idea that we exist and that we are paying attention to something or other.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Kate DiCamillo, author of her latest, Beverly Right Here, published in September by Candlewick. As almost all of you know, Beverly is the recipient of two Newberry Awards, a National Book Award Finalist, has more than 12 NYT best sellers. She has been named the National Ambassador for Young People’s literature. And as most of you already know from Winn Dixie to Despereaux and so many others, Kate has a special place in children’s and young adult literature. Now, her Three Rancheros trilogy, Raymie Nightingale, Louisiana’s Way Home and Beverly Right Here has occupied my and my guest host’s attention for some time.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Kate DiCamillo, author of her latest, Beverly Right Here, published in September by Candlewick. As almost all of you know, Beverly is the recipient of two Newberry Awards, a National Book Award Finalist, has more than 12 NYT best sellers. She has been named the National Ambassador for Young People’s literature. And as most of you already know from Winn Dixie to Despereaux and so many others, Kate has a special place in children’s and young adult literature. Now, her Three Rancheros trilogy, Raymie Nightingale, Louisiana’s Way Home and Beverly Right Here has occupied my and my guest host’s attention for some time.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guests are Robin POGrebin and Kate Kelly, authors of The Education Of Brett Kavanaugh, published in September by Portfolio. Robin is a reporter on the Culture Desk of the NYT. She covers art, auction and architecture. She has also covered the Media industry for the Business desk and city news for the Metro desk. Kate has worked for Time and The New York Observer. She has also worked at the WSJ as an investigative journalist and is now the Business Reporter for the NYT. I believe this is their first collaboration and first book. Kavanaugh is a book about a special time and place in our nation’s history. It explores, yes, the education of a man, but also his character, his friends and acquaintances and his confirmation. And does so evenhandedly and with copious research. I learned a lot about a person I had previously formed a very strong opinion about and then after reading this book, changed a lot. Not so much that I sincerely regret the fact that he will, for the next 30 years be taking away the rights of Americans and helping to destroy our country and its values. And with that somewhat convoluted introduction welcome and thanks for joining us.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guests are Robin POGrebin and Kate Kelly, authors of The Education Of Brett Kavanaugh, published in September by Portfolio. Robin is a reporter on the Culture Desk of the NYT. She covers art, auction and architecture. She has also covered the Media industry for the Business desk and city news for the Metro desk. Kate has worked for Time and The New York Observer. She has also worked at the WSJ as an investigative journalist and is now the Business Reporter for the NYT. I believe this is their first collaboration and first book. Kavanaugh is a book about a special time and place in our nation’s history. It explores, yes, the education of a man, but also his character, his friends and acquaintances and his confirmation. And does so evenhandedly and with copious research. I learned a lot about a person I had previously formed a very strong opinion about and then after reading this book, changed a lot. Not so much that I sincerely regret the fact that he will, for the next 30 years be taking away the rights of Americans and helping to destroy our country and its values. And with that somewhat convoluted introduction welcome and thanks for joining us.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Maurice Isserman author of the book The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey Of The 10th Mountain Division, America’s Elite Alpine Warriors. publish earlier this month by Houghton (Howton) Mifflin. Dr. Isserman is a prolific author, penning about two scholarly works a year since the early eighties. They all concern fascinating aspects of American History with regard to some of the nooks and crannies of our past about which we many have never otherwise known His work regularly appears in the NYT, The Nation and other renowned periodicals. The Winter Army is a fascinating tale of pioneering, convincing and fighting, all related to how the US and the work of just a few men, primarily one led to the story of the 10th. The first and only American Ski Regiment. This led to a military force that scaled peaks, literally and figuratively, which before then no fighting force has every done In addition to helping in the culmination of our victory over the Axis powers, the Regiment went on to fight for us in the 80s and 90s! Parenthetically, it also helped to create the organization of one of America’s favorite past-times. Welcome Maurice and thanks so much for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Maurice Isserman author of the book The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey Of The 10th Mountain Division, America’s Elite Alpine Warriors. publish earlier this month by Houghton (Howton) Mifflin. Dr. Isserman is a prolific author, penning about two scholarly works a year since the early eighties. They all concern fascinating aspects of American History with regard to some of the nooks and crannies of our past about which we many have never otherwise known His work regularly appears in the NYT, The Nation and other renowned periodicals. The Winter Army is a fascinating tale of pioneering, convincing and fighting, all related to how the US and the work of just a few men, primarily one led to the story of the 10th. The first and only American Ski Regiment. This led to a military force that scaled peaks, literally and figuratively, which before then no fighting force has every done In addition to helping in the culmination of our victory over the Axis powers, the Regiment went on to fight for us in the 80s and 90s! Parenthetically, it also helped to create the organization of one of America’s favorite past-times. Welcome Maurice and thanks so much for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Lucy Ellman, author of Ducks, Newburyport released is September by Biblioasis (Biblio-aas-iz). Lucy’s novels include the autobiographical Sweet Desserts, Varying Degrees of Hopelessness and Man Or Mango. She is a contributor to The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement and lots of other prestigious publications. Later in her career she published Dot In The Universe, Doctors and Nurses and Mimi. Ducks, Newburyport is her longest and most novel novel, if it is a novel, which is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Welcome Lucy and thanks for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Lucy Ellman, author of Ducks, Newburyport released is September by Biblioasis (Biblio-aas-iz). Lucy’s novels include the autobiographical Sweet Desserts, Varying Degrees of Hopelessness and Man Or Mango. She is a contributor to The Guardian, The New Statesman, The Times Literary Supplement and lots of other prestigious publications. Later in her career she published Dot In The Universe, Doctors and Nurses and Mimi. Ducks, Newburyport is her longest and most novel novel, if it is a novel, which is shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. Welcome Lucy and thanks for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Catherine Chung, author of The Tenth Muse, published in June by Ecco. Catherine was honored for her first novel Forgotten Country and has been a National Endowment For The Arts Fellow, a Granta New Voice and worked (enviably) at The Institute For Advanced Studies in Princeton. She has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago (which is very important to this book), worked at a think tank in Santa Monica and her writing has appeared in NYT and Granta and she is a fiction editor at Guernica (ger nee ka) magazine. The Tenth Muse is a novel about mathematics, problems with no solutions, at least for now. It is also about personal relationships, their parabolas and inconsistencies. And perhaps most importantly it is about Katherine and her search for her parents and her identity. What makes this book so wonderful is that all of these disparate subjects somehow whirl about and coalesce in many different ways, governed by strict rules that are sometimes broken or forgotten. In the end it is all about discovery and courage and to add the mystery to the mix, betrayal.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Catherine Chung, author of The Tenth Muse, published in June by Ecco. Catherine was honored for her first novel Forgotten Country and has been a National Endowment For The Arts Fellow, a Granta New Voice and worked (enviably) at The Institute For Advanced Studies in Princeton. She has a degree in Mathematics from the University of Chicago (which is very important to this book), worked at a think tank in Santa Monica and her writing has appeared in NYT and Granta and she is a fiction editor at Guernica (ger nee ka) magazine. The Tenth Muse is a novel about mathematics, problems with no solutions, at least for now. It is also about personal relationships, their parabolas and inconsistencies. And perhaps most importantly it is about Katherine and her search for her parents and her identity. What makes this book so wonderful is that all of these disparate subjects somehow whirl about and coalesce in many different ways, governed by strict rules that are sometimes broken or forgotten. In the end it is all about discovery and courage and to add the mystery to the mix, betrayal.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Tim O’Brien, best known over the past decades as the author of The Things They Carried, a book that changed my outlook on a lot of things, just as it did for one of the characters in this memoir, (or pretty modest level memoir.) Tim started off back in the 70s with If I Die In A Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. He won the National Book Award for Northern Lights and Going After Cacciato. His other works include, in part, The Lake of the Woods, Tomcat in Love and July, July. As you will see in this book, his influences include Hemingway, Conrad, Faulkner . His collision with truth has run through his novels, if they all are novels, except perhaps with my favorite of his The Nuclear Age.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Tim O’Brien, best known over the past decades as the author of The Things They Carried, a book that changed my outlook on a lot of things, just as it did for one of the characters in this memoir, (or pretty modest level memoir.) Tim started off back in the 70s with If I Die In A Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. He won the National Book Award for Northern Lights and Going After Cacciato. His other works include, in part, The Lake of the Woods, Tomcat in Love and July, July. As you will see in this book, his influences include Hemingway, Conrad, Faulkner . His collision with truth has run through his novels, if they all are novels, except perhaps with my favorite of his The Nuclear Age.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Brought to you by my independent book store, Wellington Square Bookshop. Ann’s is Parnassus Books in Nashville. So our guest is Ann Patchett who really needs no introduction, but I’ll give one anyway. Anne has written seven novels including The Magician’s Assistant, State of Wonder and of course Bel Canto. She’s been the recipient of the Orange Prize, The PEN Faulkner award. And have been NYT Notable books, and so many awards. Ann’s latest novel is The Dutch House, which will be released tomorrow! But if you want to be one of the first ones to get a signed copy and to hear part of the book and ask questions about it, you can hear all about it from Ann herself at the Free Library downtown tomorrow, Tuesday the 24th at 7:30. And if you miss that you can see her at Congregation Keneseth Israel (where I was Bar Mitzvah and also ejected with my brother from Saturday services in front of 2000 people) on Wednesday the 25th from 9:30-11:30 in the morning. The Dutch House, as in many of Ann’s work, explores the intricacies and emotional upheavals of a family. The story is set in Elkins Park about 30 minutes from where I sit and is very nostalgic for me. I have many connections with that place and that time. But the book’s real main character is a house, an extraordinary house with a history that suffuses, permeates the lives of everyone we meet. And with that, welcome Ann and thanks so much for joining us today.