Fresh Air

Kyle Chayka's first nonfiction book The Longing for Less A History of Minimalism was published in 2020.

Chayka's first nonfiction book, The Longing forLess, A History of Minimalism, was published in 2020.

Chayka's first nonfiction book, The Longing for Less, A History of Minimalism, was published in 2020.

Chayka's first nonfiction book, The Longing for Less, published in 2020, is a history of minimalism.

Chayka's first nonfiction book, The Longing for Less, A History of Minimalism, was published in 2020.

Chayka's first nonfiction book, The Longing for Less, published in 2020, is a history of minimalism.

Jane Austen turns 250 in December and what better way to celebrate than reading her most famous book, Pride and Prejudice.

Jane Austen turns 250 in December and what better way to celebrate than reading her most famous book, Pride and Prejudice. This week on Books We've Loved, we explore Austen's seminal work with pop culture happy hours Linda Holmes and hear from superfan author Casey McQuiston.

Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice is enjoying a 20th anniversary rerelease.

If I were teaching, for example, Pride and Prejudice, nothing could be more natural and normal to me to hold multiple ideas simultaneously.

there are also people on the left who were saying that we should not teach Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn in classes because of the language that is in those books.

He populated his works with abusers such as Huck Finn's alcoholic father, Tom Driscoll and Puddin'head Wilson.

It's a reimagining of Mark Twain's 1885 classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Hemingway famously declared that all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.

Hemingway was talking about the slangy cousin voice of the novel's narrator Huckleberry Finn who spoke a blunt, funny American dialect that leapt off the page.

He read them all. And that's where I read the Encyclopedia of Anatomy and Health. And that's where I read all my classics, you know, Moby Dick, Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde.

In a memoir published this year called Brothers, Alex charts both he and Eddie's life and music career, from their arrival to the United States from the Netherlands as kids, to the influence of their father, who was a Dutch jazz musician, and the formation of the rock band in 1974, after meeting vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.

My interview with Alex Van Halen was recorded in October when he published his memoir, Brothers.

Alex Van Halen shares this story in his new memoir, Brothers, which he wrote after the loss of his younger brother, Eddie, who died of cancer in 2020.

But most importantly, Brothers is a love letter to the music they created, and Eddie, who has been called for decades one of the greatest guitarists of all time.

Alex, this was a beautiful read, and I feel like there is no better way to ground this conversation... the way you write is so poetic.

We literally were yin and yang, the two halves of a whole, however it's been characterized.

It bled into everything we did, whether it was writing songs, even though Ed did the majority of the music.

Alex Van Halen shares this story in his new memoir, Brothers, which he wrote after the loss of his younger brother, Eddie, who died of cancer in 2020.

Alex, this was a beautiful read, and I feel like there is no better way to ground this conversation than to start at the beginning of this book, because the way you write is so poetic, and the way that both you and Ed talk about your relationship, which you use his words in this book, really gives us a grounding.

The book is called Brothers.

His new memoir is called Brothers.

Alex has written a new memoir called Brothers.

Also, filmmaker and writer Miranda July talks about her novel All Fours.

My next guest, Miranda July, was a bit afraid of what people would think of her after publishing her second novel, All Fours.

It was on many of 2024's 10 best lists, including in the New York Times, in which it was described as the year's literary conversation piece, and in the New Yorker, where it was described as, quote, a study of crisis.

Our critic at large, John Powers, described All Fours as hilariously unpredictable.

It's about a woman wanting to shake up her life. She's thinking of leaving her marriage and is having a very erotic affair. When she discovers she's entering perimenopause, she fears the best part of her life may be ending, and she may lose her libido.

My guest Miranda July was a bit afraid of what people would think of her after publishing her second novel, All Fours.

The book is partly about sexuality and has some very explicit sexual scenes, but that's true of many books.

When our critic John Powers reviewed it, he said, I gasped in surprise at All Fours, Miranda July's hilariously unpredictable novel.

All Fours' story revolves around a 45yearold woman, a slightly famous artist, writer, and performer, who decides to take a break from the routines she's stuck in and drive from her home in L.A. to New York.

It's such a good book.

filmmaker and writer Miranda July talks about her novel All Fours, which is on many bestoftheyear book lists.

It's about a 45yearold married woman, her erotic affair, sexual fluidity, beginning perimenopause, and the related fears of losing her libido and getting older.

Miranda July's hilariously unpredictable novel about a middleaged artist who leaves her family to drive to New York from Los Angeles, but only gets to the L.A. suburbs before she falls for a young rental car worker, checks into a cheap motel, and spends a fortune redecorating her room there. All Fours is sometimes described as a book about paramenopause, the transitional stage before menopause. July's mind is far too unruly and interesting for that. Perverse, unrepentant, sometimes dirty, and often laughoutloud funny. I couldn't stop reading passages to my girlfriend. It's a oneofakind book about a woman cannonballing into her search for a new self and a new life.

She won a Tony Award for playing 26 different roles in her onewoman Broadway production of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Snook plays all 26 characters in this stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel from 1890.

Now she's on Broadway in a oneperson show, an adaptation of the Oscar Wilde story, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Snook plays all 26 characters in this stage adaptation of Oscar Wilde's novel from 1890.

She played Shiv Roy on the Emmy Awardwinning show Succession. Now she's on Broadway playing all of the roles in the stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Last week, Snook received a Tony nomination for her leading role in the stage adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

The French writer-director, Kohaly Farja, draws inspiration from The Picture of Dorian Gray and also from double trouble thrillers like Black Swan.

She's written several books, including, I Am Malala and We Are Displaced, True Stories of Refugee Lives.

She's written several books, including I Am Malala and We Are Displaced, True Stories of Refugee Lives.

She's written several books, including I Am Malala and We Are Displaced, True Stories of Refugee Lives.

She's written several books, including I Am Malala and We Are Displaced, True Stories of Refugee Lives.

Carla's Choice takes place in 1963, between le Carr's novels The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor's Soldier Spy.

you have the first three, Call for the Dead, Murder of Quality and Spy Came from the Cold.

It takes place between LeCarr's Cold War spy novels, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.

He was still working for MI6 when his third book, the Cold War novel, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, became an international bestseller.

Behind it was the character of Alec Lemus in The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, who was an old professional agent, an aging professional agent, who was suffering from what you might call a kind of spiritual metal fatigue.

Carla's Choice takes place in 1963, between Le Carr's novels The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor's Soldier Spy.

author of the new book, Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

My guest, Brian Stelter, is the author of the new book, Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

Brian Stelter's new book is called Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

Your book is really interesting, so thank you for coming back to our show.

We discuss ... with Brian Stelter, author of the new book Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

His new book is called Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump and the battle for American democracy.

His new book is called Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump and the battle for American democracy.

My guest, Brian Stelter, is the author of the new book, Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

His new book is called Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

My guest is Brian Stelter and he's the author of the new book, Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

My guest is Brian Stelter, author of the new book, Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump, and the battle for American democracy.

I had to write this book because there were so many other messages, so many other insights you could gain by reading the depositions, by reading the transcripts.

He's written his second book about Fox called Network of Lies, the epic saga of Fox News, Donald Trump and the battle for American democracy.

Poet and novelist Ocean Vuong talks about his new novel, The Emperor of Gladness.

The Emperor of Gladness, like its predecessor, explores what Vuong has called in a recent interview, the loneliness of class movement.

If the novel's opening calls to mind Thornton Wilder glazed with Springsteen, what happens next reads like Vuong's nod to Frank Capra and his classic 1946 film, It's a Wonderful Life.

This is one vision of a found family that Vuong presents in The Emperor of Gladness, and its miraculous lack of sentimentality surely owes something to the fact that he lived a similar story himself.

And this book is funny. I'm a funny person. You know, there's all of me in here.

His new novel, The Emperor of Gladness, is an exploration of working-class life and the quiet joys and devastations of caregiving and survival. It's set in the fictional post-industrial town of East Gladness, Connecticut, and follows a 19-yearold Vietnamese American named Hai, who contemplates taking his own life before meeting an 82yearold widow with dementia.

poet and novelist Ocean Vuong joins us to discuss his new novel, The Emperor of Gladness.

One of this year's most anticipated novels has just arrived. The Emperor of Gladness is Ocean Vuong's second novel. It follows his celebrated 2019 debut, On Earth, We're Briefly Gorgeous. The Emperor of Gladness opens on a view, sweeping in time and space, of East Gladness, Connecticut, a town that manufacturing left behind.

The Emperor of Gladness is a truly great novel about work, still an underacknowledged topic in American fiction. Vuong's achingly austere artistic vision leaves it to his readers to imagine the better world he won't let himself depict on the pages of this wonderful novel.

title of Lily King's latest novel, Heart the Lover, comes from a card game that the three main characters play starting when they meet in college.

Heart the Lover opens in a college class of the 1980s.

Heart the Lover is both a prequel and a sequel to King's novel, Writers and Lovers, which made my best-of-the-year list in 2020.

Heart the Lover is about screwing up, wising up, finding yourself, and realizing what you may have lost in the process.

You don't have to have read the earlier novel to be drawn into what's essentially a great triangular love story.

Heart the Lover is a companion novel to Lily King's 2020 novel, Writers and Lovers, but the structure of this followup is so ingenious that you don't have to have read the earlier book.

my last fiction pick is more in the Jane Austen miniaturist mode Heart the Lover is a companion novel to Lily King's 2020 novel Writers and Lovers.

Heart the Lover is a companion novel to Lily King's 2020 novel Writers and Lovers, but the structure of this followup is so ingenious that you don't have to have read the earlier book.

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy is one of the most vivid and exquisitely written memoirs of a motherdaughter relationship I've ever read.

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy is one of the most vivid and exquisitely written memoirs of a motherdaughter relationship I've ever read.

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy is one of the most vivid and exquisitely written memoirs of a motherdaughter relationship I've ever read.

Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy is one of the most vivid and exquisitely written memoirs of a mother-daughter relationship I've ever read.

The satirical novel Colored Television was on a number of best book lists of 2024... It's out in paperback next week.

Her new novel, Colored Television, is both heartfelt and satirical. It's about a writer who's devastated when the novel she's been working on for 10 years ... is rejected by her publisher.

Dan Zicena speaking with Terry Gross last year. Her novel, Colored Television, is out in paperback next week.

Danzy Senna spoke with Terry Gross last year. Her novel, Colored Television, comes out in paperback next week.

Her new novel, Colored Television, is out in paperback next week.

Everett is married to Danzy Senna, whose novel Colored Television is a revelatory satire on race and class. Senna's main character, Jane, is a mixed-race writer and college teacher struggling to finish her second novel. Desperate for money, Jane cons her way into a meeting with a Hollywood producer who's cooking up a biracial situation comedy. Disaster ensues. Senna's writing is droll and fearless.

In her new novel, Colored Television, the main character is a writer whose novel about biracial identity is rejected by her publisher, jeopardizing her tenure and family stability.

The book is filled with observations about race, marriage, parenting, teaching, generational differences, and entering the world of prestige television writing.

I'm exploring in Colored Television how mixedrace people have been denied their identity from the first biracial child born onto a plantation to today.

Her new novel, Colored Television, is both heartfelt and satirical.

My guest is Danzy Senna, her new novel is called Colored Television.

Well, it's time for another rake so let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Danzy Senna, her new novel is called Colored Television.

The new book is called Stomp Off, Let's Go, which is also the title of a song Armstrong wrote.

This new one is called Stomp Off, Let's Go, The Early Years of Louis Armstrong.

author of the new book Stomp Off, Let's Go, The Early Years of Lewis Armstrong.

Ricky Riccardi's latest book about Armstrong is titled Stomp Off, Let's Go. The Early Years of Louis Armstrong.

We talk with Ricky Riccardi, author of Stomp Off, Let's Go! The Early Years of Louis Armstrong.

The new book is called Stomp Off, Let's Go, which is the title of a song he recorded with another band led by Erskine Tate.

Ricky Riccardi's new book is Stomp Off, Let's Go, the early years of Lewis Armstrong.

Through writing about Armstrong, Riccardi's new book has a lot to say about segregation in New Orleans in the first part of the 20th century. The new book is called Stomp Off Let's Go, which is the title of a song he recorded with another band led by Erskine Tate.

We need to take another break here. So let me reintroduce you. If you're just joining us, my guest is Ricky Riccardi. He's the author of the new book, Stomp Off, Let's Go, The Early Years of Louis Armstrong.

my guest is Ricky Riccardi, author of the new book, Stomp Off, Let's Go.

author of Stomp Off, Let's Go, the early years of Louis Armstrong.

Philip Roth called his 1986 novel, A Perfect Spy.

Philip Roth called le Carr's 1986 novel A Perfect Spy the best English novel since the war.

It was before I wrote a novel about him called A Perfect Spy.

Philip Roth called Le Carr's 1986 novel, A Perfect Spy, the best English novel since the war.

His favorite chapter of his memoir, The Pigeon Tunnel, is all about his father and his novel, A Perfect Spy, considered one of his best.

Questlove is also the author of several books, including Music Is History and Soul Train, the Music, Dance, and Style of a Generation.

He won an Oscar last year for directing Summer of Soul and is the author of several books, including Music Is History.

He's written several books including Music Is History.

He won an Oscar last year for directing Summer of Soul, featuring performances from and interviews about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival. He's written several books, including Music Is History.

He's written several books, including Music Is History.

He won an Oscar last year for directing Summer of Soul and is the author of several books, including Music Is History.

Justin Torres' Blackouts won this year's National Book Award for fiction; at its center is an extended deathbed conversation between two gay men about sex, family ostracism, Puerto Rican identity and the films they love.

Justin Torres' Blackouts won this year's National Book Award for Fiction. At its center is an extended deathbed conversation between two gay men about sex, family ostracism, Puerto Rican identity, and the films they love.

Justin Torres' Blackouts, which has been shortlisted for the National Book Award, struck me as a traditional novel wearing the costume of experimental fiction.

Blame the Halloween season, but Blackouts is festooned in dizzying layers of tales within tales, photographs, film scripts, scholarlysounding endnotes, and fictionalized accounts of reallife figures, yet at its core it is a classic conceit dramatized by the likes of Tolstoy and Cather.

Over a decade has passed since Torres made his mark with his semiautobiographical debut novel called We the Animals, which was hailed as an instant queer classic and made into a film.

Justin Torres' longawaited second novel, Blackouts, has been shortlisted for the National Book Award.

Blackouts strikes me as a traditional novel wearing the costume of experimental fiction.

It shares that title with the famous 1937 coming-of-age novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, a copy of which surfaces in the story.

But there's a clue to the movie's meaning in its original Japaneselanguage title, How Do You Live? It shares that title with the famous 1937 comingofage novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, a copy of which surfaces in the story as a gift to Mahito from his late mother.

But there's a clue to the movie's meaning in its original Japanese language title, How Do You Live? It shares that title with the famous 1937 coming of age novel by Genzaburo Yoshino.

The original Japaneselanguage title, How Do You Live? It shares that title with the famous 1937 comingofage novel by Genzaburo Yoshino, a copy of which surfaces in the story as a gift to Mahito from his late mother.

The audiobook of Frank Herbert's science fiction masterpiece features a full cast that brings a new generation to the classic series.

Villeneuve was a teenager when he read the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert.

My guest, Denise Villeneuve, was a teenager when he read the 1965 novel Dune by Frank Herbert.

I read the first book at 13 but then there's many books and my love for Dune went on through the years.

And also I was in love with biology when I was a student and it's something that I was mesmerized how Frank Herbert used ecology to express himself.

I was very excited when I learned that the book will be brought to the screen and it's something that I remember watching the movie and being very mesmerized and impressed by how David Lynch approached it.

I was very excited when I learned that the book will be brought to the screen and it's something that I remember watching the movie and being very mesmerized and impressed by how David Lynch approached it was also destabilized by some of his choices.

Rachel Maddow has a new book titled Prequel, where she explores the littleknown story about an ultrarightwing proNazi movement that plotted to overthrow the U.S. government before World WarII.

Her new book Prequel tells the same story of her hit podcast series Ultra.

Rachel Maddow has a new book titled Prequel, where she explores the littleknown story about an ultra rightwing proNazi movement that plotted to overthrow the US government before World War II.

The story told in the podcast is now the basis for Maddow's new book Prequel, More After a Break.

Her new book Prequel tells the same story of her hit podcast series Ultra.

Rachel Maddow has a new book titled Prequel where she explores the littleknown story about an ultrarightwing proNazi movement that plotted to overthrow the U.S. government before World WarII.

The story told in the podcast is now the basis for Maddow's new book Prequel, More After a Break.