An interview with Michael Chabon on io9

Dec 28, 2009 by donny

Michael Chabon talks about genres and his new book Manhood for Amateurs in io9.com, which is surprisingly good with interesting book related stuff, I’m finding out lately.

Michael Chabon‘s celebrated science fiction and geeky pop culture, and his latest book Manhood For Amateurs is a love letter to fandom. So when we managed to ask him a few questions, we were excited to geek out about genres.

Check it out here.

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Bookbabble Episode 57: 2009’s Great and Not So Great Reads

Dec 24, 2009 by donny

Bookbabble Episode 57: 2009’s Great and Not So Great Reads

Recorded 14 Dec 2009
Babblers: Bjorn, Renee, Marcel, Donny

Synopsis:

The group discusses their best reads of the year, plus some not-so-great reads as well.  Also, what books best defined the past decade, given all that has happened in the past 10 years?  Plus, Renee treats us to a wonderful rendition of bad sex prose, courtesy of this year’s winner of Literary Review’s 2009 bad sex in fiction award.

Show Length: 1:41:42 mins

Mentioned

• The Kindly Ones, Jonathan Littell
• Swann’s Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1, Marcel Proust
• My Uncle Oswald, Roald Dahl
• Doctor Glas, Hjalmar Söderberg
• Inherent Vice, Thomas Pynchon
• Code of the Woosters, PG Wodehouse
• 2666, Roberto Bolaño
• Atemschaukel, Herta Müller
• The Land of Green Plums, Herta Müller
• The Passport, Herta Müller
• Landscape Painted with Tea, Milorad Pavic
• Song of Lawino & Song of Okol, Okot p’Bitek
• Nervous Conditions, Tsitsi Dangarembga
• The Restless Supermarket, Ivan Vladislavic
• Reine Pokou, Véronique Tadjo
• Sleepwalking Land, Mia Couto
• Leo Africanus, Amin Maalouf
• Replay, Ken Grimwood
• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
• Naked, David Sedaris
• The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett
• The Road, Cormac McCarthy
• The Death of Bunny Munro, Nick Cave
• The Walking Dead Vol1: The Days Gone By, Robert Kirkman
• Blood Meridian, Cormac McCarthy
• No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy
• The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perotta
• Left Behind, Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid
• Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer
• Against The Day, Thomas Pynchon
• The collector of worlds, Ilya Troyanov
• When Gravity Fails, George Alec Effinger
• Colson Whitehead

Links

• Bad sex award goes to Jonathan Littell’s The Kindly Ones (Literary Review)
• Véronique Tadjo
• “Den danske oversættelse af Atemschaukel udkommer på Gyldendal medio 2010.”
• Bjorn’s Review of Tom Perotta’s The Abstinence Teacher (forum)
• Shigekuni: Field Work: Ilija Trojanow’s “Der Weltensammler”
• Shigekuni: Gotham City: Colson Whitehead’s ”The Intuitionist”
• Shigekuni: Rotter: Colson Whitehead’s “Apex Hides The Hurt”

[audio:http://m.podshow.com/media/17719/episodes/205081/bookbabbletheshow-205081-12-23-2009.mp3]

Download the show here.

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Bookbabble Episode 50: Desert Island Reads

Nov 1, 2009 by donny

Bookbabble Episode 50: Desert Island Reads 
Recorded 26 October 2009
Babblers: Bjorn, Lone, Marcel, Donny, with guest Umapagan Ampikaipakan

Synopsis:

Uma leads the group in listing each of our 5 desert island reads – books that we’d like to take with us when we get stranded in a desert island.  Some of us took some liberties on the topic and decided to list books they haven’t read that they’d like to bring, for whatever practical reasons. 

 

Show Length: 1:26:50 mins

 

Bjorn’s 5

• The Man Without Qualities Vol. 1: A Sort of Introduction and Pseudo Reality Prevails, Robert Musil 
• Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
• Life: A User’s Manual, Georges Perec
• Foucault’s Pendulum, Umberto Eco
• The Diamond Age, Neal Stephenson

Lone’s 5

• The Book of Illusions, Paul Auster
• La Commedia Divina (The Divine Comedy), Dante Alighieri
• The Red Book, Carl Gustav Jung
• Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
• Intimacy, Hanif Kureshi

 

Donny’s 5

• Gormenghast Trilogy, Mervyn Peake
• The Once and Future King, TH White
• Gravity’s Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon
• The Complete Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle
• A Wizard of Earthsea,  Ursula Le Guin

 

 Uma’s 5

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, Michael Chabon
• Hopscotch, Julio Cortazar
• The Princess Bride, William Goldman
• Don Quixote, Cervantes
• The Man on the Moon, Andrew Chaikin

 

Marcel’s 5

• The Recognitions, William Gaddis
• Fluß ohne Ufer, Hans Henny Jahnn
• Pierre, Herman Melville
• Wonder Boys, Michael Chabon
• The Changing Lights at Sandover, James Merrill

 

Mentioned

• Intimacy, the movie
• Maus, Art Spielgelman
• The Secret History, Donna Tartt
• What you really should have in a desert island:
  • Boatbuilding: A Complete Handbook of Wooden Boat Construction, Howard Irving Chapelle
  • Handbook of Poisonous and Injurious Plants, Lewis S Nelson

 

Links

• Alternative view of German politics: http://www.classless.org/

 

[audio:http://m.podshow.com/media/17719/episodes/194959/bookbabbletheshow-194959-11-01-2009.mp3]

 

Download the show here.

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Bookbabble Episode 48: Booker, Nobel and Reviews

Oct 17, 2009 by donny

Bookbabble Episode 48: Booker, Nobel and Reviews
Recorded 12 October 2009
Babblers: Bjorn, Renee, Marcel, Lone, Donny with guests Francois Monti and Umapagan Ampikaipakan

 

Synopsis:

Founding member of the Fric Frac Club, Francois Monti, and literary reviewer Umapagan Ampikaipakan joins the group to talk about the literary awards given out recently, namely the Man Booker Prize and the Nobel.  Of course, when discussing the Nobel, this year’s oft-debated Nobel Peace Prize laureate also found his way in our chit-chat.  Also discussed are elements important in a literary review, as seen from both the enthusiast blogger/reviewer and the professional critic perspectives.  Also, Marcel’s adventures in the fantasy convention RingCon (held in Bonn, Germany) and the origin story for the Fric Frac Club.

 

Show Length: 1:28:22 mins

 

About Uma

• Uma on the radio – BFM 89.9 (search for ‘umapagan’)
• Uma on Twitter 
• Uma on Facebook 

 

About Francois

• Fric-Frac Club
• Blog – Tabula Rasa (selected picks here, here and here, and Marcel’s post here)

 

Mentioned

• Revolutionary Road, Richard Yates
• The Yiddish Policemen’s Union, Michael Chabon
• Leviathan, Paul Auster
• Moby Dick, Herman Melville
• Shakespeare, The Complete Works
• Zadie Smith
• Atemschaukel, Herta Muller
• Herztier, Herta Muller
• The Land of Green Plums, Herta Muller
• A Man for All Seasons, Robert Bolt
• Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel
• The Childrens Book, A.S. Byatt
• Not Untrue and Not Unkind, Ed O’Loughlin (review by Marcel)
• The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters (review by Marcel)
• The Glass Room, Simon Mawer

 

Links

• Shigekuni’s Writeup on RingCon: Conventional (Ring*Con 1)
• Shigekuni’s Writeup on RingCon: Conventional (Ring*Con 2)
• Booker Prize Winner announced
• Herta Muller Nobel Prize in Literature winner
• Barack Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize 2009
• Science fiction author hits out at Booker judges: Kim Stanley Robinson, one of science fiction’s contemporary greats, accuses the Booker prize judges of ignorance
• Clemens Setz – info here, here and here

 

Shigekuni’s selection of poems:

• http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2008/09/03/john-berryman-god-among-poets/
• http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/08/29/this-is-not-a-cultural-event-this-is-entertainment/
• http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/poem-of-the-day-lowell/
• http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/09/23/how-quivering-and-fierce-we-were/
• http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/03/10/poem-of-the-day/
• http://shigekuni.wordpress.com/2009/09/11/poem-of-the-day-6/

 

Note:

The subject matter raised while Marcel discusses RingCon may not be suitable for young listeners.

 

[audio:http://m.podshow.com/media/17719/episodes/192401/bookbabbletheshow-192401-10-17-2009.mp3]

 

Download the show here.

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