The Avid Reader Show

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Nathan Englander, Author of kaddish.com, published by Knopf, tomorrow the 26th. And also Nathan will be speaking and reading from kaddish.com at the free library on Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30 PM. You can visit the free library website to purchase tickets. Nathan is the author of Dinner At The Center Of The Earth, the collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, the best-selling story collection For The Relief Of Unbearable Urges and the novel The Ministry Of Special Cases. He is the recipient of the Frank O’Conner International Short Story Award and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, NYT, the Atlantic and the Post as well as in many collections of The Best Of series. He is the writer in resident at NYU. kaddish.com is the story of a complicated man, a tortured man, a man whose love is transcendent as is his guilt and shame. Because he neglected his duties as a son after the death of his father, he has failed as a good Jew, even though he attempted to rectify his lack of fortitude and gratitude by participating in a scheme that goes wrong, goes awfully wrong and he spends a great deal of his time as a converted man in trying to make good the promise that he had willfully broken years before. Whether he succeeds or not is for you to find out. Or maybe Nathan will tell you at the library.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of the Avid Reader . Today our guest is Mary Norris, author of this her second book Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen, published April 2 by Norton. Her first of course was Between You And Me: Confessions Of A Comma Queen back in 2015, the first time she and I spoke together. Mary began working at the New Yorker in 1978 (although we learn a lot about her life prior to that) and was a query proofreader at the magazine for 24 years. She is best known for her pieces on pencils and punctuation and also introduced me to Blackwing 602s. Oh—I almost forgot—Mary will be speaking and reading at the Free Library downtown on April 15th at 7:30. For more information on this you can go to our website WSB or freelibrary.org. Greek To Me is a book that takes the form of an interior and exterior journey. Mary tells us about her childhood, her parents, her initial love of language and primarily, as it should be, Greek. As her passion and fascination with the language and the land grows, we find ourselves drawn in, not only to the travelogue aspect of this book, but to the history of a language, its vagaries and its hidden presence in our everyday lives. Plus there is a lot of ouzo in this book and who could argue with that?

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of the Avid Reader . Today our guest is Mary Norris, author of this her second book Greek to Me: Adventures of the Comma Queen, published April 2 by Norton. Her first of course was Between You And Me: Confessions Of A Comma Queen back in 2015, the first time she and I spoke together. Mary began working at the New Yorker in 1978 (although we learn a lot about her life prior to that) and was a query proofreader at the magazine for 24 years. She is best known for her pieces on pencils and punctuation and also introduced me to Blackwing 602s. Oh—I almost forgot—Mary will be speaking and reading at the Free Library downtown on April 15th at 7:30. For more information on this you can go to our website WSB or freelibrary.org. Greek To Me is a book that takes the form of an interior and exterior journey. Mary tells us about her childhood, her parents, her initial love of language and primarily, as it should be, Greek. As her passion and fascination with the language and the land grows, we find ourselves drawn in, not only to the travelogue aspect of this book, but to the history of a language, its vagaries and its hidden presence in our everyday lives. Plus there is a lot of ouzo in this book and who could argue with that?

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Charlie Jane Anders, author of this, her new novel, The City In The Middle Of The Night. published in February by Tor. She’s the organizer of the Writers with Drinks series and was a founder of i09, a website about sci fi, science and futurism, Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Tin House and lots of anthologies. Her novel, Six Months, Three Days won a Hugo Award. The City In The Middle Of The Night explores a land where night and day, miserable and extremely hot and cold nights and days, compete with each other, while a very narrow perimeter allows a scrappy but flawed civilization to claw out an existence, more than subsistence, but less than bucolic. This, because the planet is rotationally locked with its sun, just as our moon is rotationally locked with our planet, which is why we see only one side of the moon and have no idea what they other side looks like other than the recent Chinese lunar lander. A mothership has left our dying planet for a generations long trip to this planet, not knowing what will be found there, and as the new residents try to creat a habitable world, the mothership revolves slowly up above, mythologized and revered. The cold war of two cities on this planet form the loose thread of this novel. Two women, almost lovers, very close friends have a relationship which evolves, as does this “war” over the course of this book. The two protagonist are joined with a panoply of well drawn peripheral friends as each faction tries to achieve control or power over the other. Added to this story is that of an alien life, misunderstood by some but embraced, literally and figuratively by the hero of our story.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Charlie Jane Anders, author of this, her new novel, The City In The Middle Of The Night. published in February by Tor. She’s the organizer of the Writers with Drinks series and was a founder of i09, a website about sci fi, science and futurism, Her stories have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Lightspeed, Tin House and lots of anthologies. Her novel, Six Months, Three Days won a Hugo Award. The City In The Middle Of The Night explores a land where night and day, miserable and extremely hot and cold nights and days, compete with each other, while a very narrow perimeter allows a scrappy but flawed civilization to claw out an existence, more than subsistence, but less than bucolic. This, because the planet is rotationally locked with its sun, just as our moon is rotationally locked with our planet, which is why we see only one side of the moon and have no idea what they other side looks like other than the recent Chinese lunar lander. A mothership has left our dying planet for a generations long trip to this planet, not knowing what will be found there, and as the new residents try to creat a habitable world, the mothership revolves slowly up above, mythologized and revered. The cold war of two cities on this planet form the loose thread of this novel. Two women, almost lovers, very close friends have a relationship which evolves, as does this “war” over the course of this book. The two protagonist are joined with a panoply of well drawn peripheral friends as each faction tries to achieve control or power over the other. Added to this story is that of an alien life, misunderstood by some but embraced, literally and figuratively by the hero of our story.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Nathan Englander, Author of kaddish.com, published by Knopf, tomorrow the 26th. And also Nathan will be speaking and reading from kaddish.com at the free library on Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30 PM. You can visit the free library website to purchase tickets. Nathan is the author of Dinner At The Center Of The Earth, the collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, the best-selling story collection For The Relief Of Unbearable Urges and the novel The Ministry Of Special Cases. He is the recipient of the Frank O’Conner International Short Story Award and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, NYT, the Atlantic and the Post as well as in many collections of The Best Of series. He is the writer in resident at NYU. kaddish.com is the story of a complicated man, a tortured man, a man whose love is transcendent as is his guilt and shame. Because he neglected his duties as a son after the death of his father, he has failed as a good Jew, even though he attempted to rectify his lack of fortitude and gratitude by participating in a scheme that goes wrong, goes awfully wrong and he spends a great deal of his time as a converted man in trying to make good the promise that he had willfully broken years before. Whether he succeeds or not is for you to find out. Or maybe Nathan will tell you at the library.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Nathan Englander, Author of kaddish.com, published by Knopf, tomorrow the 26th. And also Nathan will be speaking and reading from kaddish.com at the free library on Wednesday, March 27 at 7:30 PM. You can visit the free library website to purchase tickets. Nathan is the author of Dinner At The Center Of The Earth, the collection What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, the best-selling story collection For The Relief Of Unbearable Urges and the novel The Ministry Of Special Cases. He is the recipient of the Frank O’Conner International Short Story Award and a finalist for the 2013 Pulitzer Prize. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, NYT, the Atlantic and the Post as well as in many collections of The Best Of series. He is the writer in resident at NYU. kaddish.com is the story of a complicated man, a tortured man, a man whose love is transcendent as is his guilt and shame. Because he neglected his duties as a son after the death of his father, he has failed as a good Jew, even though he attempted to rectify his lack of fortitude and gratitude by participating in a scheme that goes wrong, goes awfully wrong and he spends a great deal of his time as a converted man in trying to make good the promise that he had willfully broken years before. Whether he succeeds or not is for you to find out. Or maybe Nathan will tell you at the library.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Whitney Scharer, author of her first novel, The Age Of Light, Released in February by Little, Brown and Company. White holds a BA in English Literature form Wesleyan and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous journals. This, The Age Of Light, as I said, is her first novel. The Age Of Light gives us a unique and, for most of us, previously unknown life. The life of Lee Miller, a beautiful woman who has graced the covers of Vogue and other high fashion magazines of the time. Her beauty is renowned and her ability to “be a photograph” is only outweighed by her desire “to take one”. She arrives, after having giving up modeling, in Paris in 1929, essentially and eventually penniless but she catches the eye of an artist who’s name IS known to all of us, Man Ray. He want to continue her life as a model by photographing her but instead Lee persuades hm to take her own as an assistant and even though Man turns out to be something less than the perfect lover, they begin a romance that is both torrid and mutually rewarding in its intensity. We see Lee in the present, when she has taken on a new look and a new passion, we see her on the battlefields of Europe as the war is ending and she lingers to photograph the hours that haunt her for the rest of her life, but we see her mostly, as she learns to be a photographer, a movie actress and once again, a model. This woman who previous to this book, was kind of lost in history, comes up with some remarkable ideas that are still important today, but for which she receives little or no correct. This is a beautiful story about a beautiful woman in many ways. She does have her flaws and those are filled in seamlessly, but overall, this is a woman that I would like to meet and whom, as so many other men, would probably fall involve with. With that, welcome Whitney and thank you for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Whitney Scharer, author of her first novel, The Age Of Light, Released in February by Little, Brown and Company. White holds a BA in English Literature form Wesleyan and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Washington. Her short fiction has appeared in numerous journals. This, The Age Of Light, as I said, is her first novel. The Age Of Light gives us a unique and, for most of us, previously unknown life. The life of Lee Miller, a beautiful woman who has graced the covers of Vogue and other high fashion magazines of the time. Her beauty is renowned and her ability to “be a photograph” is only outweighed by her desire “to take one”. She arrives, after having giving up modeling, in Paris in 1929, essentially and eventually penniless but she catches the eye of an artist who’s name IS known to all of us, Man Ray. He want to continue her life as a model by photographing her but instead Lee persuades hm to take her own as an assistant and even though Man turns out to be something less than the perfect lover, they begin a romance that is both torrid and mutually rewarding in its intensity. We see Lee in the present, when she has taken on a new look and a new passion, we see her on the battlefields of Europe as the war is ending and she lingers to photograph the hours that haunt her for the rest of her life, but we see her mostly, as she learns to be a photographer, a movie actress and once again, a model. This woman who previous to this book, was kind of lost in history, comes up with some remarkable ideas that are still important today, but for which she receives little or no correct. This is a beautiful story about a beautiful woman in many ways. She does have her flaws and those are filled in seamlessly, but overall, this is a woman that I would like to meet and whom, as so many other men, would probably fall involve with. With that, welcome Whitney and thank you for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Dr. H.W. Brands. Dr. Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr.. Chair in history at The University of Texas. An incredibly prolific author of American history and its most evocative and important periods, Dr. Brand has written 25 books, edited at least five others and has published dozens of articles and scores of reviews. He has written for the NYT, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and many others. His latest work is Heirs Of The Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, The Second Generation of American Giants. published byDoubleday and just released These three men, successors of our founding fathers, each born within four or five years of The American Revolution, through their rivalry and, in some cases their similarities, helped to forge for good or bad the conditions which led to our great Civil War. Each had aspirations for the Presidency. Each failed. However, Clay served as Speaker of the House, and John Quincey Adams’ Secretary of State and forged the Missouri Compromise which indeed was that, allowing one state to remain slave free and the other to hold on to an unspeakable tradition. That alone is an issue that is brought with questions and wonder, and I will ask those questions today. Calhoun was Vice-President to both John Quincey Adams and andrew Jackson, essentially extolled slavery, the crown of the southern culture. I wonder why he didn’t become President just from sheer tenure. Just as I wonder today about Joe Biden. And Webster, my favorite, I guess because of Steven Vincent Benet’s short story The Devil and Daniel Webster, was a senator, secretary of state to three presidents and the most gifted courtroom advocates of his time and maybe of any time, save for Clarence Darrow maybe, well he abandoned his anti-slavery position in an attempt to wrest the Presidency from his erstwhile rivals. Once again much as Mitch Mcconnell and Charles Grassley have done today, in their flip-flops on the absurd Presidency of Donald Trump. In any event and to stop my railing, Dr. Brand has in an accessible and compelling narrative has woven the threads of the lives of these three men, The Great Triumvirate, and given us a good object lesson of the origins of Constitutional Cris and what it can lead to.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Dr. H.W. Brands. Dr. Brands holds the Jack S. Blanton Sr.. Chair in history at The University of Texas. An incredibly prolific author of American history and its most evocative and important periods, Dr. Brand has written 25 books, edited at least five others and has published dozens of articles and scores of reviews. He has written for the NYT, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The Atlantic and many others. His latest work is Heirs Of The Founders: The Epic Rivalry of Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, The Second Generation of American Giants. published byDoubleday and just released These three men, successors of our founding fathers, each born within four or five years of The American Revolution, through their rivalry and, in some cases their similarities, helped to forge for good or bad the conditions which led to our great Civil War. Each had aspirations for the Presidency. Each failed. However, Clay served as Speaker of the House, and John Quincey Adams’ Secretary of State and forged the Missouri Compromise which indeed was that, allowing one state to remain slave free and the other to hold on to an unspeakable tradition. That alone is an issue that is brought with questions and wonder, and I will ask those questions today. Calhoun was Vice-President to both John Quincey Adams and andrew Jackson, essentially extolled slavery, the crown of the southern culture. I wonder why he didn’t become President just from sheer tenure. Just as I wonder today about Joe Biden. And Webster, my favorite, I guess because of Steven Vincent Benet’s short story The Devil and Daniel Webster, was a senator, secretary of state to three presidents and the most gifted courtroom advocates of his time and maybe of any time, save for Clarence Darrow maybe, well he abandoned his anti-slavery position in an attempt to wrest the Presidency from his erstwhile rivals. Once again much as Mitch Mcconnell and Charles Grassley have done today, in their flip-flops on the absurd Presidency of Donald Trump. In any event and to stop my railing, Dr. Brand has in an accessible and compelling narrative has woven the threads of the lives of these three men, The Great Triumvirate, and given us a good object lesson of the origins of Constitutional Cris and what it can lead to.

Lost Children Archive documents a cross country trip that is goal oriented for both a husband and wife whose marriage is disintegrating. Accompanying them are their two nameless children, one of whom becomes our narrator for a bit. As they travel, they document in many ways, their travel much as each of them have documented for much of their lives. The archive that is carried with them and accumulated anew as they journey gives the reader insight into both relationships and I guess I could say current events that are both heartbreaking and ignored, filled with peril and terror. I would like to say that there is a nicely wrapped ending which ties up the loose ends, but just as in life and in our difficult present, it is not as easy as that, and though we may feel somewhat adrift from time to time and even at its conclusion, we are informed, enlightened and guided to a new understanding of a tragedy that unfolds each day in a country that once stood for freedom, asylum and welcome

Lost Children Archive documents a cross country trip that is goal oriented for both a husband and wife whose marriage is disintegrating. Accompanying them are their two nameless children, one of whom becomes our narrator for a bit. As they travel, they document in many ways, their travel much as each of them have documented for much of their lives. The archive that is carried with them and accumulated anew as they journey gives the reader insight into both relationships and I guess I could say current events that are both heartbreaking and ignored, filled with peril and terror. I would like to say that there is a nicely wrapped ending which ties up the loose ends, but just as in life and in our difficult present, it is not as easy as that, and though we may feel somewhat adrift from time to time and even at its conclusion, we are informed, enlightened and guided to a new understanding of a tragedy that unfolds each day in a country that once stood for freedom, asylum and welcome

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Chris Cander, author The Weight Of A Piano, published by Knopf in January. Chris is the writer in residence at Houston-based Writers in the Schools, an organization which works with children—in reading and in writing. She has also written the novels Whisper Hollow and 11 Stories. _______________________ In The Weight Of A Piano, our protagonist, surrounded by a fine cast of characters is a Bluethner (blueter) upright piano. Upright, because a Grand would have been way too unwieldy for this story. This beautifully made and, for the most part, lovingly cared for instrument carries, as it should, so much weight, that it sort of bends the space-time around in such a manner that the characters spiral about it, and in each revolution, are drawn closer and closer. Clara, Bruce, Greg, Katya all are possessed and do possess something that is precious and valuable and at the same time, not a curse or albatross but something to be carried. The idea of letting go or not is what makes this book. From the cover, to the acknowledgments. And with that welcome Chris and thanks so much for joining us today.

Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Pitchaya (pitch eye a) Sudbanthad (soot banth odd) author of Bangkok Wakes To Rain, published this month by Riverhead. Bangkok Wakes To Rain is Pitchaya’s first novel. He has received Fellowships in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts and the McDowell Colony and is the fiction editor for The Conundrum Engine Literary Review. He spends time in both Bangkok and Brooklyn. _______________________________________ Bangkok Wakes To Rain is a difficult novel to explain. It has no epigraph but if it did, it would be “It is only so”. Those words describe not only the book’s thematic course but they also give us a good idea of what our hustling and bustling, our hither and yon amount to in our everyday waking lives. “It is only so”. Back to the book itself, it weaves, it dances, it describes a city in its past, present and future incarnations. While our chief narrator is Jee, from time to time the protagonist becomes a flock of birds, or an aging jazz musician who is tied to Krunthemp, the name of the city we call Bangkok. The prose is much as in The Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, something I thought of early on and then was satisfied to read it compared to that book in many of the reviews. It’s the collapse of time, illusory or not that draws us in, awaiting the next course, the next tense, the next world.