Monday, December 29, 2014
Bay Area Theatre: Terry Baum, playwright and performer of Hick: A Love Story, at Berkeley City Club, Jan 2-25
Thursday, December 25, 2014
Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild
Rebroadcast from 2012
Monday, December 22
Malcolm Margolin, Publisher of The Heyday of Malcom Margolin. Malcolm Margolin serves as publisher of Heyday Books, which focuses on books relating to California and Native Americans. This book is his memoir/biography.about his forty years at Heyday.
Thursday, December 11
Steven Pinker Fund Drive Special. See below for full interview.
Monday, December 8
Molly Ivins. Fund Drive Special
Thursday, December 4
Steven Pinker, author of A Sense of Style
The cognitive scientist and linguist tackles the style manual, which both can be read as a book and as a reference text. Fascinating, but could have used a reference index for style details.
Monday, December 1
Stephen King. Archive interview from 1979
Hosted by Richard Wolinsky & Lawrence Davidson
Digitized & remastered 2014 Transcript available in Feast of Fear: Conversations with Stephen King.
Thursday, November 27
Martin Cruz Smith, author of Tatiana
Rebroadcast.
Monday, November 24, 2014
Kathleen Turner, star of Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass With of Molly Ivins, at Berkeley Rep through January 4, 2015.
Thursday, November 20
Martin Amis, author of The Zone of Interest.
A novel of the holocaust, told mostly from the point of view of Germans in the camp. Satirical in tone but deadly serious in perspective, one of Amis' best books to date.
Monday November 17
Cary Elwes, author of As You Wish
The star of The Princess Bride tells the detailed story of the making of that now-classic film.
Thursday, November 13
Vikram Chandra, author of Geek Sublime.
Book-length essay about programming and its relationship to Sanskrit, with side trips into Indian philosophy and the history of computers.
November 10, 2014
Andrea Martin, two-time Tony Award winner, author of the essay collection, Andrea Martin's Lady Parts
Humorous essays about Martin's life, both its private areas and its public spaces. The best essay is the one about SCTV, which was culled from interviews with other cast members.
November 3, 2014
November 6, 2014
Colm Toibin, author of Nora Webster, and playwright of Testament at ACT in San Francisco.
The play Testament is based on the novella, The Testament of Mary, and is a monologue by Jesus' mother as an older woman who doesn't believe the myths about her son. Very intense. Nora Webster is a gorgeous novel about a middle-aged woman in Ireland in the late 1960s dealing with the death of her husband.
October 30, 2014
David Mitchell, author of the novel,The Bone Clocks.
A novel by the author of Cloud Atlas, The Bone Clocks combines social realism and fantasy, and deals with the primary events of the past forty years (and into the future) set against the backdrop of a war between immortal enemies.
October 27, 2014
Tribute to KPFA host Denny Smithson
October 23, 2014
Gail Sheehy, author of the memoir, Daring: My Passages.
One of the founders of the New Journalism, Sheehy's book takes us from her days at New York Magazine through her years as a freelance journalist, focusing on the personalities of the people she's interviewed over the years as well as on her personal life.
Recorded at Book Passage in Corte Madera.
September 25, 2014
Daniel Alarcon, author of At Night We Walk in Circles. Now out in trade paperback. (rebroadcast)
September 18, 2014
Richard Flanagan, author of the novel The Narrow Road to the Deep North, just short-listed for the Mann Booker Prize.
September 11, 2014
Richard Powers, author of Orfeo (rebroadcast)
The latest novel by Powers concerns a modern composer who finds himself in trouble with Homeland Security. As with Powers' other works, the novel is really about a wide variety of ideas and themes, including in this case how we organize reality, and the real meaning of music.
September 10, 2014
Open Book: Tony Taccone, Artistic Director of Berkeley Rep in Berkeley.
September 4, 2014
Amy Bloom, author of Lucky Us
Two sisters escape from their father and go to Hollywood, and then on to New York. An examination of life in America before, during and after World War II.
August 28, 2014
Previously unaired excerpts from 2014:
Alan Furst and Sue Monk Kidd
August 21, 2014
Alan Furst, author of Midnight in Europe
A Spanish diplomat gets involved with arms smuggling in the years before World War II. Another spy novel from one of the contemporary masters.
August 14, 2014
Lisa See, author of China Dolls
Three young women attempt to break into show business before World War II. A rich look back at Asian-American life in the 1940s and the effects of war and racism on their lives.
August 13, 2014
Open Book: Paul Mazursky (1930-2014)
Recorded during the tour for the memoir, Show Me the Magic.
Paul Mazursky was the director of such classics as An Unmarried Woman, Down and Out in Beverly Hills and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. He is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff. Recorded in September, 1999.
July 31, 2014
Fund Drive: Seth Rosenfeld, Subversives.
Excerpts from the Q&A session of the KPFA event.
July 24, 2014
Amy Tan, author of The Valley of Amazement.
Taking place in China in the early part of the 20th century, Tan's new novel deals with the life of a courtesan and as with all of Tan's books, focuses on mother-daughter relationships.
Just published in trade paperback.
July 17, 2014
Edwidge Danticat, author of Claire of the Sea Lighi
A poetic look at a small town in Haiti; a novel under the guise of a series of short stories or maybe vice versa. Beautifully written.
Just published in trade paperback.
July 14, 2014
Cover to Cover: Colum McCann, author of Transatlantic.
Another tour de force performance, this time involving different stories over a hundred fifty year period, linked by a family living in Ireland and America, just out in trade paperback.
July 10, 2014
Tom Rachman, author of The Rise and Fall of Great Powers
Told in an unconventional style, as three different time periods overlap, Rise and Fall tells the story of a young woman who seeks to discover the truth about her past. A gorgeous novel from a talented young writer.
July 9, 2014
Open Book: Bill English, Artistic Director of SF Playhouse.
July 3, 2014
Colson Whitehead, author of The Noble Hustle and Zone One
Zone One is a literary zombie novel, exploring survival after a zombie war. The Noble Hustle is Whitehead's story of his entry into the World Series of Poker and a rumination on gambling and the American Dream.
June 26, 2014
Mona Simpson, author of Casebook.
The author of Anywhere But Here and My Hollywood returns with the story of a young man dealing with his parents' divorce, becoming a detective as he wonders who his mom is now dating.
June 19, 2014
Michael Cunningham, author of The Snow Queen
The author of The Hours and other novels returns with a work set in New York between 2004 and 2008 featuring a pair of brothers, one gay and one straight, who negotiate their lives during a troubled period in American history.
June 16, 2014
Cover to Cover: Sitting in for Denny Smithson
George R. R. Martin. Archive 1991 interview hosted by Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff for Probabilities. Five years before the publication of Game of Thrones, Martin already had several novels to his credit but was mostly involved with television, particularly working on the Twilight Zone revival and the cult series Beauty and the Beast.
June 12, 2014
Susan Minot, author of the novel Thirty Girls.
Set in Uganda and Kenya during the late 1990s, this tells the story of girls kidnapped by Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army, from the perspective of one of the girls and of an American journalist researching the kidnapping.
June 11, 2014
Open Book: Tony Kushner, playwright, The Intellligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures, at Berkeley Rep through June 29th (live phone interview).
June 5, 2014
Bob Mankoff, cartoon editor of The New Yorker and author of How About Never - Is Never Good for You?
An illustrated memoir, featuring memorable cartoons by the author and by other New Yorker artists. Lots of fun.
May 29, 2014
Lorrie Moore, author of the collection, Bark.
Considered one of the finest short story writers living today, Lorrie Moore creates masterful tales. Often funny and moving, these stories exhibit the best she has to offer.
May 9, 2014
Open Book: One Hour Fund Drive Special
Brian Copeland, playwright and author of Not a Genuine Black Man, at Berkeley Rep through May 31, 2014
Thursday, May 8, 2014
Fund Drive Program
Teju Cole, author of the novel Every Day is for the Thief
A novel that reads like a travelogue, Every Day tells the story of a young Nigerian who has lived in the United States, returns home to Lagos after fifteen years, and tells of what he sees in his homeland.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Fund Drive Program:
Dinaw Mengestu, author of the novel All Our Names
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, author of the novel Americanah
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Helen Oyeyemi, author of the novel Boy Snow Bird
Nigerian-born and London-raised, Helen Oyeyemi sold her first novel at the age of seventeen, and as of this date, is still under thirty. This latest novel takes place in the 1950s and 1960s in New York and a small town in Massachusetts and deals with the nature of physical appearance and its relationship to racism and social interaction.
Thursday April 17, 2014
Dinaw Mengestu, author of the novel All Our Names
Ethiopian born novelist and journalist Dinaw Mengestu's latest work is a novel set in Uganda and America in the late 1960s and early 1970s, when the end of colonialism had given great hope to Africa, hope that was shattered by the revolutions and coups that followed.
Friday, April 11, 2014
Open Book: Carey Perloff, Artistic Director of A.C.T., American Conservatory Theatre in SF.
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Edmund White, author of the memoir, Inside a Pearl.
Noted gay author Edmund White, whose novels are memoirs in disguise, now tells his own life story, this book about his life in Paris during the 1980s and 1990s, fleeing the AIDS crisis in New York and struggling to be a successful author living in the City of Light.
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Roddy Doyle, author of the novel, The Guts.
Doyle burst on the scene with his novel, The Commitments, about a year in the life of a Dublin rock band. He followed it with two other novels in the series, and then moved on to Booker Prize winner Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha and other works. His new novel, The Guts, returns to many of the characters in The Commitments as they deal with hard times in Dublin today.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Gary Shteyngart, author of the memoir, Little Failure
Shteyngart came to America as boy, old enough to remember his life in Leningrad and briefly, in Rome. He grew up in Queens, New York and eventually became a successful novelist. His memoir talks about life as an immigrant, and coming to grips with his Russian past.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Yiyun Li, author of the novel, Kinder Than Solitude.
Yiyun Li's new novel focuses on China today and on the life of Chinese immigrants in America, set against the backdrop of a murder in Beijing in the early 1990s.
Friday, March 14, 2014
Open Book: Jasson Minidakis, Artistic Director of Marin Theatre Company, discussing the present and upcoming seasons.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Sean Strub, author of the memoir, Body Counts.
Sean Strub began his career as a Senate page, but soon became a gay activist and later an AIDS activist. His memoir covers his career, along with the evolution of the gay movement in America.
Thursday, March 6, 2014
Jehane Noujaim, director; and Karim Amer, producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary, The Square discuss the events in Tahrir Square, the importance of the Arab Spring, and what's next for Egypt.
Thursday, February 27, 2014
Sam Harris, author of Ham: Slices of a Life
The Star Search winner who went on to a career as a cabaret and Broadway performer writes a memoir in essays about his life in the world of celebrity as well as as growing up gay in the Bible Belt and being a dad in Los Angeles.
Thursday, February 13, 2014
John Schwartz, author of Oddly Normal and reporter for the New York Times discusses his memoir about his gay son and dealing with gay teens and tweens.
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Sue Monk Kidd, author of The Invention of Wings
The author of The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid's Chair turns her attention to the antebellum south in the early part of the 19th century as she tells a fictionalized version of the life of Sarah Grimke, an early feminist and abolitionist, her sister Angelina, and her (fictional) slave, Hetty/Handful.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Alissa Solomon, author of Wonder of Wonders
A cultural history of the classic musical Fiddler on the Roof discusses not only the literature behind the show, and the show itself, but also the representation of "the shtetl" in history and culture, and how this one musical continues to have an effect on society today.
Thursday, January 23, 2014
Richard Powers, author of Orfeo.
The latest novel by Powers concerns a modern composer who finds himself in trouble with Homeland Security. As with Powers' other works, the novel is really about a wide variety of ideas and themes, including in this case how we organize reality, and the real meaning of music.
Thursday, January 16, 2014
Chang Rae Lee, author of On Such a Full Sea
The latest novel by the Korean-American author of The Surrendered takes place in a future dystopia and deals with themes of identity, both racial and personal, and class inequality.
Friday, January 10, 2014
Open Book: John Fisher discusses Rhino's production of Stephen Sondheim's Road Show, and in a 2011 interview, Sondheim himself discusses his career, including this particular musical.
Thursday, January 9, 2014
Amy Tan, author of The Valley of Amazement.
Taking place in China in the early part of the 20th century, Tan's new novel deals with the life of a courtesan and as with all of Tan's books, focuses on mother-daughter relationships.
Thursday, January 2, 2014
Elmore Leonard (1925-2013) Documentary on the life and career of the great thriller writer, based on archive interviews.
