Subjects Discussed: The overlapping relationship between The Book of Dave and Psychogeography, topographical narrative, Nicholson Baker, Nabokov’s rule about topographical necessity and novels, John Updike’s Brazil, the Post-It notes in Self’s writing room, early plotting efforts with 3×5 cards, short-term memory, Self’s use of arcane words, My Idea of Fun, working with a large vocabulary, Peter Carey’s “The Cartographers,” why Self uses “minatory,” lexical blending, “kidults,” writing 1,000 words a day, Anthony Burgess, the writers who showed Self the way, David Markson, NADSAT vs. Mockney, Russell Hoban’s Ridley Walker, George Michael’s “I Want Your Sex,” bodily functions and literature, J.G. Ballard, starting from corporeal qualities for characters, Jonathan Swift, Oliver Rackham as armchair historian, Karrie Higgins’s review, austere terms for psychogeography, why Self went to the obvious tourist spots, the Situationists’s failure to account for family, on having two passports and national identity, being a citizen of London and trying to get out of the city, the problems with the travel industry, the cigarette as a narrative unit, airline travel, Marx and Guy Debord, Self’s definition of the dérive, walking 25-30 miles a day, Self’s theories about Our Young, Roving Correspondent’s anxieties over long walks and drab details, how long walks become variegated, expanding one’s curiosity, Self’s difficulty in talking with people, and learning more about people through a system.
Tagged with “books”
(8)
-
The Bat Segundo Show: Will Self
-
The Bat Segundo Show: David Mitchell
Subjects Discussed: Puzzle box narratives, the deficiencies of North American reviewers, William Faulkner, the presence of islands in Mitchell’s fiction, the early roots of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, Thornton Wilder’s The Bridge of San Luis Rey and Luisa Rey, Stanislaw Lem’s Solaris, investigations into fate and chance, the use of corporations as verbs, Sloosha’s highly stylized vernacular in Cloud Atlas, being overwhelmed by imagination, the continental drift of language over time, intergenerational neologisms, Mitchell charting Americanisms in his notebook, thinking consciously about language while getting older as a writer, language as a mystical concept taken for granted, visual words vs. spoken words, American dialect, British linguistic purists who view American and Australia dialects as corrosive, Nabokov, dialect that’s a quarter tone out, considering a less prolix Melville, literary blogs, references to the act of writing in Cloud Atlas, Elgar, Greek philosophers using dialogue as a means of inquiry, why writers write about other artists, writers who write about writing perceived as literary masturbation (and other related taboos), David Markson, Benjamin Britten’s The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Mitchell’s “single stroke of a myopic president’s pen,” George W. Bush, humanism, the human world being made of stories, areas of existence where ideas can gem with impunity, writers compared with other vocations, why humanity needs stories, the UK cover for Cloud Atlas, Mitchell’s input on book covers, why Cloud Atlas came out in paperback in the States, and attracting younger readers.
Tagged with david mitchell interview books
-
Podcast: Louis Theroux, Author and TV Host | Maximum Fun
Louis Theroux is an author and television host. His new book, "The Call of the Weird: Travels in American Subcultures." He’s been reporting on fringe groups and subcultures since he started in television, on the Michael Moore series TV Nation.
In the 1990s, he hosted the series "Weird Weekends," which ran in the United States on the Bravo network. More recently, he’s hosted the UK-only series "When Louis Met…", a series of long-form documentaries which investigates some of the odder corners of celebrity culture. His work is often distinguished by a very strong sense of empathy towards his subjects, which has sometimes been interpreted as manipulation for the purpose of mockery, particularly given the generally light tone of his work.
In his new book, Louis rekindles some of the relationships he’d formed in his first television series, and investigates how his subjects have changed and how the nation has changed around them.
Tagged with louis theroux books
-
Ventures and Adventures in Topography, S02E07: London Topographical Bookfest
Nick Papadimitriou and John Rogers discuss a selection of their favourite London books with readings to music by Europa51. They delve into Montague Sharpe’s Middlesex in British, Roman and Saxon Times (1919); William Margrie’s The Diary of a London Explorer (1933); Gordon S. Maxwell’s Highwayman’s Heath (1935) and HV Morton’s London (1926).
-
Jonathan Lethem on the Legacy of Philip K. Dick
While Philip K. Dick fan clubs have long been part of the literary landscape, one of the novelist’s biggest fans is famed author Jonathan Lethem. Lethem has co-edited of "The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick," a sprawling collection of Dick’s notes, journal entries, and ideas.
Tagged with jonathan lethem philip k. dick books interview
-
BBC Bookclub: James Naughtie with Iain Banks
Iain Banks meets James Naughtie and readers at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh to talk about his debut novel The Wasp Factory, first published in 1984.
Tagged with iain banks books
-
openbook: Will Self, dead lovers and comic novels
Mariella Frostrup talks to writer Will Self about cuts to UK libraries. He explains why he’s lending his voice to a campaign to preserve funding for local libraries, but he also examines how a crisis can be turned into an opportunity.
Novelists Joseph O’Connor and Maggie O’Farrell discuss why dead lovers haunt the pages of their books, as well as the back catalogue of English literature.
Plus, have young novelists forgotten how to be funny? Open Book responds to a reader’s query for new comic fiction from writers under the age of thirty-five - comedian Robin Ince is on hand to offer guidance.
-
Robin Ince’s Bad Book Club
Robin Ince is a comedian and writer. For the last two years he has been the host of Nine Lessons and Carols for Godless People. His Radio 4 show with Professor Brian Cox, The Infinite Monkey Cage, has just finished it’s second series. Robin has recently written a book, Robin Ince’s Bad Book Club, which casts a critical eye over Don Estelle’s autobiography, tales of giant killer crabs, and romance novels set in the Antarctic.
Tagged with skepticism reading books comedy