A great literary podcast is Bookworm on KCRW, featuring the insightful Michael Silverblatt interviewing authors about their work. One memorable episode is with Tom McCarthy, author of C, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2010. |MP3|
The novel C follows the story of Serge Carrefax, who has grown up around an environment of invention, at a school for the deaf run by his father. From there he travels through a period of drug-ridden military service toward his own realization of his abilities that I wouldn’t want to spoil. The style of the writing makes the novel read as venturing into speculative fiction, maybe alternate history, without ever fully embracing either genre. Each quarter of the book self-references other authors, which you don’t have to understand to appreciate the novel, but the interview Michael Silverblatt has with Tom McCarthy is very illuminating in that regard.
More than anything, I appreciate Michael Silverblatt’s exuberance about books and learning.
Podcast Feed: http://www.kcrw.com/podcast/show/bw
Posted by Jenny Colvin