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 (bl...
Feb 21, 2019•19 min
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. ____________________...
Feb 21, 2019•34 min
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. ____________________...
Feb 21, 2019•1 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Stephanie Land, author of Maid, published just this month by Hachette. Stephanie HAS been a maid, a single parent, a free lance writer, and no offense a part of America’s underclass. And now she has written her memoir of her struggles and her overcoming of those struggles. Stephanie’s work has appeared in the NYT, The New York Review of Books, the WP, The Guardian, Salon, The Nation and many other perio...
Feb 04, 2019•47 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our gust is Madhuri Vijay, author of The Far Field published by Grove Atlantic on January 15th. The Far Field is a book of travel, almost in a picaresque manner, the journey of a woman who is an admixture of the good and bad qualities, we all posses but one with who we can emphasize and whose mistakes are mistakes we have all made, sometimes with unfortunate or even tragic consequences. Shalini, our protagonist is p...
Feb 04, 2019•38 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our gust is Madhuri Vijay, author of The Far Field published by Grove Atlantic on January 15th. The Far Field is a book of travel, almost in a picaresque manner, the journey of a woman who is an admixture of the good and bad qualities, we all posses but one with who we can emphasize and whose mistakes are mistakes we have all made, sometimes with unfortunate or even tragic consequences. Shalini, our protagonist is p...
Feb 04, 2019•2 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Sarah Selecky, author of Radiant Shimmering Light, her latest work, published by Bloomsbury late last year. Sarah’s previous work included This Cake Is For The Party. She has been teaching people how to write receptively since 2001 in a small workshop that developed into a writing school that now boasts an international celebration. She has since opened The Story Incentive, a creative writing and mentor...
Jan 10, 2019•52 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Sarah Selecky, author of Radiant Shimmering Light, her latest work, published by Bloomsbury late last year. Sarah’s previous work included This Cake Is For The Party. She has been teaching people how to write receptively since 2001 in a small workshop that developed into a writing school that now boasts an international celebration. She has since opened The Story Incentive, a creative writing and mentor...
Jan 10, 2019•42 sec
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Karen Thompson Walker. She is the author of The Age of Miracles, which we had a discussion about a couple of years ago. (at my age everything is a couple of years ago). Her new nook is The Dreamers, and the title describes perfectly what goes on in the book, which was just published last week by Random house. An epidemic, which starts very slowly, but accelerates at an alarming rate, begins with a girl ...
Jan 10, 2019•31 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Karen Thompson Walker. She is the author of The Age of Miracles, which we had a discussion about a couple of years ago. (at my age everything is a couple of years ago). Her new nook is The Dreamers, and the title describes perfectly what goes on in the book, which was just published last week by Random house. An epidemic, which starts very slowly, but accelerates at an alarming rate, begins with a girl ...
Jan 10, 2019•2 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guests are Greer Hendricks and Sarah Pekkanen authors of An Anonymous Girl, published January 8th by St. Martin’s Press. Greer Hendricks ,before she wrote novels, was an editor at Simon and Schuster. and her writing has appeared in the NYT, Allure and Publishers Weekly. Sarah Pekkanen has worked for Gannett covering Capital Hill, has written for The Baltimore Sun and has written several novels. The first collabo...
Dec 21, 2018•29 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Ryder Carroll, author of The Bullet Journal Method:Track The Past, Order The Present, Design The Future, published in October by Portfolio. Ryder is a digital product designer and author, who focuses on helping others in learning what the bullet journal (what we will be talking about today) is truly about. If you have lived in a cave for the past couple of years, let me tell you what bullet journaling i...
Dec 21, 2018•22 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Ryder Carroll, author of The Bullet Journal Method:Track The Past, Order The Present, Design The Future, published in October by Portfolio. Ryder is a digital product designer and author, who focuses on helping others in learning what the bullet journal (what we will be talking about today) is truly about. If you have lived in a cave for the past couple of years, let me tell you what bullet journaling i...
Dec 21, 2018•45 sec
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Adam Nemett, author of We Can Save Us All, his first novel, published just last month by The Unnamed Press. Adam is a graduate of Princeton, the setting of this book and received his MFA from California College of the Arts. An excerpt of this book appeared in The Apocalypse Reader, a great book by the way. We Can Save Us All is a kind of dystopian novel, one that combines a coming disaster, or a series ...
Dec 06, 2018•44 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Adam Nemett, author of We Can Save Us All, his first novel, published just last month by The Unnamed Press. Adam is a graduate of Princeton, the setting of this book and received his MFA from California College of the Arts. An excerpt of this book appeared in The Apocalypse Reader, a great book by the way. We Can Save Us All is a kind of dystopian novel, one that combines a coming disaster, or a series ...
Dec 06, 2018•2 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Laura Adamczyk, author of Hardly Children a collection of short stories, and her first book, published by FSG Originals in November. Laura was born, raised and lives in Illinois. Her writing has appeared in The Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, Washington Square Review and many other periodicals and collections. She earned her MFA in friction from the University of Illinois. Hardly Children is an eerie and ...
Dec 06, 2018•33 sec
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Laura Adamczyk, author of Hardly Children a collection of short stories, and her first book, published by FSG Originals in November. Laura was born, raised and lives in Illinois. Her writing has appeared in The Chicago Reader, Ninth Letter, Washington Square Review and many other periodicals and collections. She earned her MFA in friction from the University of Illinois. Hardly Children is an eerie and ...
Dec 06, 2018•47 min
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...
Nov 26, 2018•42 min
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...
Nov 26, 2018•21 sec
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Dr. Kara Cooper. Dr. Cooper is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA. She’s worked with National Geographic and the Discovery channel. And produced and appeared in a series you may have seen entitled Out Of Egypt which I believe is still available on Amazon and Netflix. Although she has published prolifically, we may know her best from her first general public book The Woman Who Would Be ...
Nov 26, 2018•47 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Dr. Kara Cooper. Dr. Cooper is a professor of Egyptian Art and Architecture at UCLA. She’s worked with National Geographic and the Discovery channel. And produced and appeared in a series you may have seen entitled Out Of Egypt which I believe is still available on Amazon and Netflix. Although she has published prolifically, we may know her best from her first general public book The Woman Who Would Be ...
Nov 26, 2018•2 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. This week our guest is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black, published in October by Mariner. Nana has an MFA from Syracuse. Has appeared, or will appear, in Esquire, Guernica, Printer’s row and the Breakwater review. He was chosen as one of the five under 35 by the National Book Foundation. Black Friday displays, in unflinching detail, the cruelty that we inflict upon another and the absurdity of that cruelty...
Oct 19, 2018•42 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. This week our guest is Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, author of Friday Black, published in October by Mariner. Nana has an MFA from Syracuse. Has appeared, or will appear, in Esquire, Guernica, Printer’s row and the Breakwater review. He was chosen as one of the five under 35 by the National Book Foundation. Black Friday displays, in unflinching detail, the cruelty that we inflict upon another and the absurdity of that cruelty...
Oct 19, 2018•58 sec
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Simon Van Booy. Simon is the award winning and best selling author of nine books of fiction and three anthologies of philosophy. He has written for the NYT, The Financial Times, NPR and the BBC. In 2013 he founded Writers for Children, a project which helps young people build confidence in their storytelling abilities through annual awards. His latest work is The Sadness of Beautiful Things published th...
Oct 12, 2018•50 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Simon Van Booy. Simon is the award winning and best selling author of nine books of fiction and three anthologies of philosophy. He has written for the NYT, The Financial Times, NPR and the BBC. In 2013 he founded Writers for Children, a project which helps young people build confidence in their storytelling abilities through annual awards. His latest work is The Sadness of Beautiful Things published th...
Oct 12, 2018•1 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Shane Bauer, author of American Prison: A reporter’s Undercover Journey Into The Business Of Punishment. Released just last month by Penguin. Shane is a senior reporter at Mother Jones. His articles have appeared in The Nation, Salon, the LATs, SFC, and many other publications. American Prison is a story about things we may not know, things we may not want to know and things that happen that we may find...
Oct 12, 2018•40 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Shane Bauer, author of American Prison: A reporter’s Undercover Journey Into The Business Of Punishment. Released just last month by Penguin. Shane is a senior reporter at Mother Jones. His articles have appeared in The Nation, Salon, the LATs, SFC, and many other publications. American Prison is a story about things we may not know, things we may not want to know and things that happen that we may find...
Oct 12, 2018•1 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Casey Legler, author of her new memoir Godspeed, published this July by Atria Books an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Casey is an artist, restaurateur, model and former Olympic swimmer. She is also a fascinating human being whose first book is startling, surprising and much more than what we think of as a memoir. The backstory of Lesley’s life, as documented in her book is the fact that she was an Olymp...
Oct 01, 2018•54 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of The Avid Reader. Today our guest is Casey Legler, author of her new memoir Godspeed, published this July by Atria Books an imprint of Simon and Schuster. Casey is an artist, restaurateur, model and former Olympic swimmer. She is also a fascinating human being whose first book is startling, surprising and much more than what we think of as a memoir. The backstory of Lesley’s life, as documented in her book is the fact that she was an Olymp...
Oct 01, 2018•1 min
Good afternoon everyone and welcome to another edition of the Avid Reader. Today we are happy to have with us Deborah Harkness. Deborah a former Philadelphia native, graduate from Mount Holyoke, Northwestern and UC, Davis with her doctorate. She is renowned for her work as an historian of science and medicine. She has obviously studied alchemy, magic and the occult. She’s published two works of non-fiction, but it is the All Souls Trilogy that probably brings you to this show, and perhaps, if I ...
Sep 25, 2018•11 min
