tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-34907067498769894932012-02-02T12:43:36.731-06:00author interviewsMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comBlogger17841100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-11328201128381824502012-02-02T03:33:00.000-06:002012-02-02T03:33:00.849-06:00Lionel ShriverLionel Shriver's books include Orange prize-winning novel We Need To Talk About Kevin — now adapted as a film starring Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly, and Ezra Miller.
From Shriver's Q & A with Jessica Wakeman:
What was the reaction after the book was published — which we’ll probably see after the movie comes out — about an ambitious, careerwoman who is a parent but dispassionate about motherhoodMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-21353854579415465532012-02-01T03:33:00.000-06:002012-02-01T03:33:00.615-06:00Michael EsslingerFrom Randy Dotinga's Q & A with Michael Esslinger, author of Alcatraz: A Definitive History of the Penitentiary Years:
Q: Why does Alcatraz have such a unique place in American culture and history?
A: When Alcatraz opened in August of 1934, it was considered America’s Devil Island, and it was touted that no one could escape alive. It was intended to turn the spectacular criminal dispositions of Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-49015201300983836672012-01-31T03:21:00.000-06:002012-01-31T03:21:00.053-06:00Frances BrodyFrances Brody's Dying in the Wool--the first of the Kate Shackleton books--debuts in the US in February 2012.
From the author's Q & A at Book Chick City:
Hi Frances, thank you for being here today and for answering my questions, it's a pleasure to have you. For those who are unfamiliar with your Kate Shackleton books can you tell us a bit about them?
Kate Shackleton is a First World War widow Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-21686578530390835522012-01-30T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-30T06:34:11.765-06:00John YowFrom a Q & A with John Yow, author of The Armchair Birder: Discovering the Secret Lives of Familiar Birds:
Q: What is an "armchair birder"?
A: An armchair birder is a person too lazy to get up and "go birding," which can be pretty exhausting, or a wannabe naturalist who somehow made it through school without taking any science courses, which can be pretty demanding. But really, being an armchairMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-49478093174417134222012-01-29T02:34:00.000-06:002012-01-29T02:34:00.050-06:00S. J. WatsonIn Before I Go To Sleep, S. J. Watson's debut psychological thriller, an amnesiac who, following a mysterious accident, cannot remember her past or form new memories, desperately tries to uncover the truth about who she is—and who she can trust.
From the author's Q & A at the Guardian:
How did you come to write Before I Go To Sleep?
I was reading about a man called Henry Molaison who suffered Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-76851372517978925032012-01-28T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-28T03:33:00.407-06:00Jonathan WattsJonathan Watts is Asia Environment Correspondent for The Guardian and a former president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China.
His 2010 book When a Billion Chinese Jump tells the story of an unfolding ecological crisis as seen from the ground.
From Watts's Q & A with Sam Geall:
SG: So, could China become the world's first green superpower?
I wanted to ask that question in [When a Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-31078023929949985362012-01-27T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-27T03:45:01.424-06:00Kathryn StockettKathryn Stockett is the author of the novel The Help. From her Q & A with Elizabeth Day at the Observer:
You started writing The Help the day after 9/11. How did that affect you?
It can be really powerful to write something when you're sad. I've always felt that Aibileen [one of the main characters in the book] had this really deep sadness that I would never understand, being a privileged, Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-92100641415528434392012-01-26T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-26T03:45:01.155-06:00Ian RankinFrom Ian Rankin's Q & A with Janette Currie:
J:- The Impossible Dead is set in contemporary Scotland with much of the plot looking back to the social and political scene of the 1980s, the same time that you published your first novel, The Flood. If you could travel back in time, what advice would you give to your younger self?
IR:- Don’t drink so much. A lot of blank spaces back then Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-24480256564964752552012-01-25T03:33:00.001-06:002012-01-25T13:51:20.967-06:00Colin ThubronColin Thubron is an acknowledged master of travel writing. His first books were about the Middle East—Damascus, Lebanon, and Cyprus. In 1982 he traveled in the Soviet Union, pursued by the KGB. From these early experiences developed his great travel books on the landmass that makes up Russia and Asia: Among the Russians; Behind the Wall: A Journey through China; The Lost Heart of Asia; In Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-59060182564031150242012-01-25T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-25T03:33:00.885-06:00Bernard-Henri LévyPublic Enemies: Dueling Writers Take on Each Other and the World is a series of letters by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Michel Houellebecq. From the former's Q & A at the Observer:
Did you learn things about yourself from writing this book?
First of all I learned that the great egomaniac I'm supposed to be had never spoken about himself, until now. My main compulsion is secrecy. I do not regret Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-10981578582381124552012-01-24T02:34:00.000-06:002012-01-24T02:34:00.681-06:00Chuck PalahniukFrom Chuck Palahniuk's Q & A with Euan Ferguson at the Observer:
Rather than your usual homeland settings of the Portland/Seattle area, your latest, Damned, is set a little further afield – in Hell. And you write in the voice of a 13-year-old girl. An easy job?
It sucked. It was absolutely a misery because I was writing the book while taking care of my mother who was dying of cancer. On her Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-75988010558725741392012-01-23T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-23T03:45:00.460-06:00T. J. EnglishT. J. English's latest book is The Savage City: Race, Murder, and a Generation on the Edge.
From his interview by Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor:
Q: You describe New York as "The Savage City" in your book's title. What do you mean by that?
The book deals with the period from 1963 to 1973 in which the crime rate in the city soared. And more importantly, an atmosphere of fear, Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-26013189958216213082012-01-22T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-22T03:33:00.186-06:00Charles KennyIn Getting Better: Why Global Development Is Succeeding--And How We Can Improve the World Even More, the economist Charles Kenny argues that many people have overlooked the enormous improvements in human well-being over the last few decades.
From his Q & A with David Leonhardt:
Q. You write that Africa, like the rest of the world, has escaped the Malthusian trap. What do you mean by that?
Mr. Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-48147960530952952422012-01-21T02:34:00.000-06:002012-01-21T02:34:00.378-06:00Wade DavisWade Davis's latest book is Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.
From his Q & A with Jeff Glor:
Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?
Wade Davis: My interest in this story began in the spring of 1996 as I completed a 4,000-mile overland journey from Chengdu in western China through southeastern Tibet to Lhasa and on to Kathmandu. Leading that Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-54530363426714298692012-01-20T03:21:00.000-06:002012-01-20T03:21:00.882-06:00Alan TaylorBorn and raised in Maine, Alan Taylor teaches American and Canadian history at the University of California, Davis. His books include The Divided Ground, Writing Early American History, American Colonies, and William Cooper’s Town, which won the Bancroft and Pulitzer prizes for American history.
From a Q & A at his publisher's website about his latest book, The Civil War of 1812: American Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-75712223248225159272012-01-19T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-19T03:33:00.426-06:00Sabrina BenulisSabrina Benulis graduated with a master’s in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University. She currently resides in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania with her husband, Mike, and her spoiled cockatiel, Caesar.
Last year's Archon is her debut novel.
From her Q & A with Jessica Strider:
What drew you to writing about angels?
I always wanted to write a story that was more about Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-55110694920670802932012-01-18T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-18T03:45:01.132-06:00Jennifer EganJennifer Egan's books include The Invisible Circus, which was released as a feature film by Fine Line in 2001, Emerald City and Other Stories, Look at Me, which was nominated for the National Book Award in 2001, The Keep, and A Visit From the Goon Squad, a national bestseller, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction, and the LA Times Book Prize.
From her Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-40388728696126702742012-01-17T03:21:00.000-06:002012-01-17T03:21:00.073-06:00Jodi KantorJodi Kantor is a Washington correspondent at the New York Times. From a Q & A about her new book, The Obamas, with Elizabeth Day at the Observer:
One of the most interesting chapters in your book deals with the discomfort faced by the Obamas when they realised most of the staff in the White House are of African-American descent. Has their tenure improved race relations in the US?
It's way too Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-82862500429265102382012-01-16T02:34:00.000-06:002012-01-16T06:11:22.514-06:00Krys LeeKrys Lee was born in Seoul, South Korea, raised in California and Washington, and studied in the United States and England. She was a finalist for Best New American Voices in 2006, and her work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, Narrative Magazine, California Quarterly, Pacific Ties, The Korea Times, and Asia Weekly.
Viking will release her debut short story collection Drifting House in early Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-34465741034376528372012-01-15T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-15T03:45:00.245-06:00David VannDavid Vann's latest novel is Caribou Island.
From his 2010 interview by Matt Scheiner:
WSJ: How did your own life experiences help to shape the narrative of “Caribou Island”?
There were two family stories in the background that were true stories. One right on the opening page is the suicide of my Grandmother’s mother on my mother’s side. It happened in British Columbia and it is unclear how it Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-20007219135038447232012-01-14T03:21:00.000-06:002012-01-14T03:21:00.140-06:00Jeff AbbottFrom author Jeff Abbott's interview by Paige Crutcher:
AUTHORLINK: As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
ABBOTT: I wanted to be a marine biologist or an astronomer, which is weird, because I was never that good at science. I was more just curious about the world. When I was about ten I decided I wanted to be a writer and I never really wavered from that ambition, even if it was aMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-66318655134266869742012-01-13T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-13T03:33:00.119-06:00Sarah McCoySarah McCoy's new novel is The Baker's Daughter.
From her Q & A with Lisa See:
Lisa: [The Baker's Daughter] moves back and forth between two vastly different settings: present-day America on the Tex-Mex border and Nazi Germany at the end of World War II. What inspired you to pair the two?
Sarah: It does seem obscure, and that’s why I found their association so captivating. I spent a portion of Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-64648058530778210282012-01-12T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-12T03:33:00.985-06:00Ben KaneBen Kane's books include The Forgotten Legion, The Silver Eagle, and The Road to Rome. He lives in North Somerset, England.
From his Q & A with Boyd Tonkin at the Independent:
Choose a favourite author, and say why you admire her/him
Rosemary Sutcliff. I was probably no older than nine or 10 when I read 'The Eagle of the Ninth' and it had a huge influence on me; it's one of the reasons I endedMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-12259863311858061092012-01-11T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-11T03:33:00.580-06:00Deborah HarknessFrom a Q & A with Deborah Harkness about her novel, A Discovery of Witches:
Diana is an appealing heroine, determined, accomplished, and yet aware of her own weaknesses. In what ways, if any, does Diana reflect your own experience or personality?
There are some similarities—Diana is also a historian of science, also interested in the history of alchemy, and shares some of my passions (including Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-6984793873357981662012-01-10T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-10T03:33:00.477-06:00Rick MofinaRick Mofina's latest novel is The Burning Edge.
From his interview by L.J. Sellers for The Big Thrill:
How much and what kind of research did you do with the FBI to write [The Burning Edge]?
I’d written to the FBI’s New York Field Office, with a request for help. The office was extremely busy but agreed to try to accommodate my request. It was during ThrillerFest when I was in New York City Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-34569524598920958152012-01-09T04:32:00.000-06:002012-01-09T04:32:00.220-06:00Susan ShermanFrom a Q & A with Susan Sherman about her debut novel, The Little Russian:
The Little Russian is such an impressive debut novel and certainly does not fall into the category of “write what you know.” What was your inspiration for the subject matter of the novel?
Sherman: The Little Russian is based on the experiences of my grandmother in Ukraine, which was called Little Russia at the time. HersMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-48919887125485745992012-01-08T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-08T03:33:00.198-06:00Alexis M. SmithAlexis Margaret Smith grew up in Soldotna, Alaska, and Seattle, Washington. She attended Mount Holyoke College, Portland State University, and Goddard College, where she earned an MFA in Creative Writing.
From a Q & A with the author about her debut novel, Glaciers:
How long have you been working on Glaciers? Do you remember how it began? How has it evolved from the beginning?
I have been Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-12829168571794956982012-01-07T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-07T06:50:05.467-06:00Michael ErardMichael Erard's new book is Babel No More: The Search for the World's Most Extraordinary Language Learners.
From his Q & A with Nataly Kelly at the Huffington Post:
Nataly Kelly (NK): Why did you write this book?
Michael Erard (ME): The changing linguistic world needs polyglots! We need to know what makes them tick so we can find out how to reproduce or mimic what they are able to do. We also Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-85003171438295370562012-01-06T03:03:00.000-06:002012-01-06T07:47:33.339-06:00Michael CannellMichael T. Cannell's new book is The Limit: Life and Death on the 1961 Grand Prix Circuit.
From his Q & A with Jeff Glor:
Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?
Michael Cannell: Photographs drew me into this story originally. While working as an editor at The New York Times I saw a compilation of photos from the European racing circuit in the 1950s. Back then many drivers came from Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-56446244594015558232012-01-05T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-05T03:33:00.435-06:00Samuel ParkFrom a Q & A with Samuel Park about his debut novel, This Burns My Heart:
This novel is based on your mother’s story. What inspired you to write it down?
Something really extraordinary happened to my mother the day before her wedding: another man tried to get her to choose him, instead. She was equally attracted to him, but what woman in her right mind goes off with a stranger the day before herMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-63841583297445370122012-01-04T03:45:00.000-06:002012-01-04T03:45:01.786-06:00Anna FunderBorn in 1966, Anna Funder is an Australian writer who grew up in Melbourne. She worked as an international lawyer and in public relations for a German overseas television service in Berlin. Her first book, Stasiland, won the prestigious Samuel Johnson Prize for Nonfiction in the United Kingdom.
Funder's new novel is All That I Am.
From her Q & A with Arifa Akbar at the Independent:Choose a Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-78234147211797224372012-01-03T03:21:00.000-06:002012-01-03T03:21:00.966-06:00John LescroartBestselling author John Lescroart's new novel is The Hunter.
From his Q & A with J. Sydney Jones:Let’s start things off with a discussion of your own crime scene. What’s your connection to San Francisco?
San Francisco has always been a special place for me. Growing up on the San Francisco peninsula, I always looked to the city as the location where everything important seemed to happen. I Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-66991809976319602782012-01-02T03:33:00.000-06:002012-01-02T03:33:00.613-06:00Matt ReesMatt Rees is an award-winning crime novelist and foreign correspondent. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed Omar Yussef crime series, including The Collaborator of Bethlehem. He is also the author of Cain’s Field, a nonfiction account of Israeli and Palestinian society. Rees lives in Jerusalem.
From Rees's Q &A with Jeff Glor about his new novel, Mozart's Last Aria:
Jeff Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-21754302956479286962012-01-01T02:34:00.000-06:002012-01-01T02:34:00.180-06:00Andrea CremerAndrea Cremer's books include the "Nightshade" trilogy--a "fantastical, feminist saga of witches and werewolves."
From her Q & A with Susan Carpenter at Jacket Copy:
Jacket Copy: One of the things readers relate to with "Nightshade" is the double standard applied to Calla and Ren. Ren's allowed to be a playboy, but Calla, whom he's supposed to marry, has to remain chaste. That's a double bind Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-73075289600747210772011-12-31T03:45:00.000-06:002011-12-31T03:45:00.448-06:00Wade DavisWade Davis's latest book is Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest.
From a Q & A at his publisher's website:
Q: How is INTO THE SILENCE different from other books that have tackled Everest and what new information will readers come away with?
A: I think it is fair to say that most books on the subject focus on the figure of George Mallory, and none of them reallyMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-88376500832204736712011-12-30T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-30T03:33:00.716-06:00Peter CareyPeter Carey's novels include Parrot and Olivier in America.
From his Q & A at the Man Booker Prize website:
MBP: You were researching [Parrot and Olivier in America] in America during the presidential elections. Was Democracy in America often cited during the campaigning? How important is it to contemporary American politics?
PC: I don't recall Tocqueville being quoted during the campaign, Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-14898985610918807142011-12-29T03:21:00.001-06:002011-12-29T03:21:00.223-06:00James EllroyJames Ellroy was born in Los Angeles in 1948. His L.A. Quartet novels—The Black Dahlia, The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidential, and White Jazz—were international best sellers. His novel American Tabloid was Time magazine’s Best Book (fiction) of 1995; his memoir, My Dark Places, was a Time Best Book of the Year and a New York Times Notable Book for 1996. His novel The Cold Six Thousand was a New YorkMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-86087462465064415952011-12-28T03:45:00.001-06:002011-12-28T03:45:00.121-06:00Kameron HurleyKameron Hurley's books include God’s War and Infidel.
From her Q & A at The Ranting Dragon:
So for those unfamiliar with the novel, what is God’s War about?
God’s War is a screaming, bloody adventure story set on a ravaged, contaminated world where a centuries-old holy war rages. It follows an inglorious former government assassin named Nyx and her ragtag band of felons, mercenaries, and Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-65051013800351079512011-12-27T02:34:00.001-06:002011-12-27T02:34:00.727-06:00William GibsonFrom William Gibson's 2011 interview by David Wallace-Wells for The Paris Review:
INTERVIEWER
How do you begin a novel?
GIBSON
I have to write an opening sentence. I think with one exception I’ve never changed an opening sentence after a book was completed.
INTERVIEWER
You won’t have planned beyond that one sentence?
GIBSON
No. I don’t begin a novel with a shopping list—the novel becomes Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-69705680766102557032011-12-26T03:45:00.001-06:002011-12-26T03:45:00.758-06:00Michael SimsMichael Sims is the editor of The Dead Witness: A Connoisseur's Collection of Victorian Detective Stories.
From his Q & A with the Jacket Copy blog:
Jacket Copy: The book’s subtitle refers to this as “a connoisseur’s collection.” How is this book different from other collections of Victorian-era stories of detection?
Michael Sims: For decades I dreamed about editing the ideal anthology: a Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-13844661188576247242011-12-25T02:34:00.001-06:002011-12-25T06:47:50.959-06:00Ursula K. Le GuinUrsula K. Le Guin's many books include the Earthsea series.
From her Q & A with readers at the Guardian in 2004:
Q: One of the most memorable images of the Earthsea books is that of the "wall of stones" and the grey world of the dead beyond. The idea of a shadowy world of despair seems to crop up a lot in SF - in the last century I'm reminded of Philip K Dick's "tomb world", or the grey town inMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-12874738735665549482011-12-24T04:44:00.001-06:002011-12-24T06:52:56.115-06:00Emma DonoghueEmma Donoghue's latest novel is Room.
From her Q & A at the Man Booker Prize site:
MBP: Room begins with a mother and son captured and living in one room - it's an incredibly chilling and powerful novel. Reviewers have written said that you were influenced by the Elizabeth Fritzl and Jaycee Lee Dugard cases - is this the case and how difficult was it to read this unsettling factual material?
EDMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-53929619486857037162011-12-23T03:21:00.000-06:002011-12-23T03:21:00.557-06:00Qiu XiaolongQiu Xiaolong, author of the Inspector Chen mysteries, came to the United States as a Ford Foundation Fellow in 1988, earning a Ph.D. in comparative literature at Washington University in St. Louis. Following the bloody 1989 anti-democracy crackdown at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, he resolved to stay on in the US and began writing in English.
From his Q & A with PBS:
How difficult was it to begin Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-55044777457704615732011-12-22T04:32:00.001-06:002011-12-22T04:32:00.144-06:00Jon SteeleJon Steele's new novel is The Watchers.
From his Q & A with Declan Burke:
What crime novel would you most like to have written?
THE LONG GOODBYE by Raymond Chandler.
* * *
Who do you read for guilty pleasures?
MULLINER’S TALES by P.G Wodehouse. One story before bedtime. Add a cup of hot chocolate and life is about as good as if gets.
* * *
The best Irish crime novel is …?
THE WRONG KIND OF Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-31086532492083080712011-12-21T02:34:00.001-06:002011-12-21T06:58:36.801-06:00Alexander J. FieldAlexander J. Field's latest book is A Great Leap Forward: 1930s Depression and U.S. Economic Growth, a "bold re-examination of the history of U.S. economic growth is built around a novel claim, that productive capacity grew dramatically across the Depression years (1929-1941) and that this advance provided the foundation for the economic and military success of the United States during the Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-81993790687030081882011-12-20T03:33:00.000-06:002011-12-20T03:33:00.719-06:00Mary GabrielMary Gabriel's Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution is a 2011 National Book Award Finalist.
From her interview with Paul Casciato for Reuters:
Q: Wasn't Marx a crowded field for a writer?
A: There are libraries of books on Marx and books on his theory in every conceivable language, but I was shocked to find that among all those volumes there was not a single book Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-65635125748733264302011-12-19T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-19T03:33:00.482-06:00Nicholson BakerNicholson Baker's novels are The Mezzanine, Room Temperature, Vox, The Fermata, The Everlasting Story of Nory, A Box of Matches, Checkpoint, The Anthologist, and House of Holes, A Book of Raunch.
From his Q & A with Sam Anderson at The Paris Review:
INTERVIEWER
Can we talk a little about the perils of sex writing?
BAKER
Yes. There aren’t any.
INTERVIEWER
No?
BAKER
It’s just too darn fun.Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-35009148051850630942011-12-18T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-18T03:33:00.132-06:00Frank Cottrell BoyceFrank Cottrell Boyce's books include Cosmic, Millions, and The Unforgotten Coat, which is shortlisted for the 2011 Costa Children's Book Award.
From his Q & A with Arifa Akbar at the Independent:
Choose a favourite author, and say why you admire her/him
Chekhov because he kept getting better. He noticed the tiny little things in life in his stories, and he didn't cut himself off or take himselfMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-46542268794442421512011-12-17T02:34:00.001-06:002011-12-17T02:34:00.846-06:00Carolyn CookeCarolyn Cooke's first novel, Daughters of the Revolution, was published by Knopf in June 2011.
From her Q & A at The Rumpus:
Rumpus: Daughters of the Revolution focuses on a specific period of time in a specific place, when New England prep schools were taking cautious steps toward integration and co-education. Around the same time, Boston was in the throes of a violent controversy over school Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-77625463015976737692011-12-16T03:45:00.001-06:002011-12-16T03:45:00.444-06:00Carl HiaasenCarl Hiaasen's novels have been published in 34 languages, which is 33 more than he is able to read or write. The London Observer has called him "America's finest satirical novelist," while Janet Maslin of the New York Times has compared him to Preston Sturges, Woody Allen and S.J. Perelman. His latest novel is Star Island (2010).
From Hiaasen's Q & A with Euan Ferguson at the Observer:
Why justMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-70924089616502763232011-12-15T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-15T03:33:01.882-06:00Patricia CornwellPatricia Cornwell's latest novel is Red Mist.
From her Q & A with Janice Kaplan at The Daily Beast:
You’re practically the godmother of forensics in fiction. Do you watch shows like CSI and think, "Wait, I did that first"?
I don’t watch CSI. I’m more interested in seeing the real procedures than a dramatic interpretation. No disrespect towards CSI or any others, but I enjoy crime shows that areMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-58108290951959198352011-12-14T04:32:00.002-06:002011-12-14T05:24:08.486-06:00Randy RobertsRandy Roberts is distinguished professor of history at Purdue University.
His books include Joe Louis: Hard Times Man.
From Jeff Glor's Q & A with Roberts about his new book, A Team for America: The Army-Navy Game That Rallied a Nation:
Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?
Randy Roberts: I look for stories from the worlds of sports and films that somehow connect with main themes in Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-73141842626482427082011-12-13T03:21:00.000-06:002011-12-13T03:21:00.353-06:00Theresa WeirTheresa Weir is a USA Today bestselling author of nineteen novels that have spanned the genres of suspense, mystery, thriller, romantic suspense, and paranormal; her work has been translated into twenty languages.
Her new memoir is The Orchard.
From her Q & A at Powell's:
Describe your latest book.
In 1975 I was a naïve hippie. While working at my uncle's bar in Illinois, I met an apple Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-54865397673123594422011-12-12T02:34:00.002-06:002011-12-12T07:07:34.286-06:00Noah FeldmanHarvard University law professor Noah Feldman is the author of Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices. From his Q & A with Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor:
Q: The Supreme Court blocked many of FDR's New Deal reforms, prompting him to try – and fail – to expand and pack the court. Then its resistance began to wilt, and judges started retiring. Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-69580087626563723842011-12-11T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-11T03:33:00.578-06:00Stuart WoodsNovelist Syd Jones interviewed Stuart Woods. Part of their exchange:
Stuart, it’s great to have you with us at Scene of the Crime. We like to focus on setting here, and Stone Barrington seems to get around quite a lot. Could you describe your connection to some of these locales?
I live in three places: Key West (my domicile and legal residence) in the Winter and early spring; Mt. Desert Island, Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-17135341947480871182011-12-10T03:33:00.000-06:002011-12-10T03:33:00.850-06:00David McCulloughFrom historian David McCullough's June 2011 Q & A with Belinda Luscombe at Time magazine:
Your new book, The Greater Journey, is about a bunch of mostly artistic Americans who moved to Paris from 1830 to 1900. Why them?
We know a good deal about the time when Franklin, Adams and Jefferson were in Paris and more than a great deal about Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein. My feeling was that Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-88905436500260612932011-12-09T03:21:00.000-06:002011-12-09T03:21:01.508-06:00Denise MinaScottish mystery author Denise Mina's latest novel is The End of the Wasp Season.
From her Q & A with Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor:
Q: Glasgow comes across as tremendously dark and sad place in your novels set in the 1980s. The Alex Morrow novels show a more upscale Glasgow with havens for the rich, although there's still plenty of grit to go around. What's different about the Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-31906427459852815672011-12-08T03:03:00.001-06:002011-12-08T03:03:00.657-06:00Craig McDonaldEdgar®-nominee Craig McDonald is an award-winning journalist, editor and fiction writer. His short fiction has appeared in literary magazines, anthologies and several online crime fiction sites. His novels include four entries in the Hector Lassiter series.
His new standalone novel is El Gavilan.
From McDonald's Q & A with crime fiction expert J. Kingston Pierce at Kirkus Reviews:
El Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-58371625406852925812011-12-07T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-07T03:33:00.070-06:00Libby Fischer HellmannLibby Fischer Hellmann's novels include the series featuring video documentarian Ellie Foreman (An Eye for Murder, A Picture of Guilt, An Image of Death, A Shot to Die For), and another with protagonist Georgia Davis, a police officer turned PI (Easy Innocence, Doubleback, Toxicity).
From her Q & A at Read Me Deadly:
Please engage in a "what if" for a moment. You're not a writer, and your dream Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-25138532562554637072011-12-06T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-06T03:33:00.775-06:00Matt ReesMatt Rees is an award-winning crime novelist and foreign correspondent. He is the author of the internationally acclaimed Omar Yussef crime series, including The Collaborator of Bethlehem. He is also the author of Cain’s Field, a nonfiction account of Israeli and Palestinian society. Rees lives in Jerusalem.
From Rees's Q &A with Jessica Duchen about his new novel, Mozart's Last Aria:
JDMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-55600367625192897002011-12-05T03:45:00.001-06:002011-12-05T06:18:20.705-06:00Colin CotterillAt Publishers Weekly Lenny Picker interviewed Colin Cotterill about Slash and Burn, possibly the last mystery starring the acerbic Laotian national coroner. Part of the Q & A:
How did you come to create Dr. Siri?
I’d worked with Lao refugees in Australia and alongside good old socialists in Laos, and I had a wicker basketful of stories and experiences. I began my search for a lead character in Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-87110901652553660122011-12-04T03:33:00.001-06:002011-12-04T03:33:00.239-06:00Peter JamesPeter James is the #1 international bestselling author of the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series with more than 6 million copies sold all over the world. His novels have been translated into thirty-four languages and three have been filmed. All his novels reflect his deep interest in the world of the police, with whom he does in-depth research.
His latest novels are Perfect People and Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-11779953346941465182011-12-03T02:34:00.001-06:002011-12-03T02:34:00.105-06:00Miranda JulyMiranda July is a filmmaker, artist, and writer. Her videos, performances, and web-based projects have been presented at sites such as the Museum of Modern Art, the Guggenheim Museum and in two Whitney Biennials. July wrote, directed and starred in her first feature-length film, Me and You and Everyone We Know(2005), which won a special jury prize at the Sundance Film Festival and four prizes atMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-69545123907456248272011-12-02T03:33:00.000-06:002011-12-02T03:33:00.086-06:00D. E. MeredithD.E. Meredith read English at Cambridge, then ran the press office and the land mines campaign for the Red Cross, travelling extensively to Bosnia, Afghanistan and Rwanda during the conflicts. She worked as a consultant on media relations for Greenpeace and other worthy causes before embarking on "The Hatton and Roumande Mysteries" series for St Martin's Press (Devoured, October Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-76353674446428805662011-12-01T03:21:00.000-06:002011-12-01T03:21:00.201-06:00George R.R. MartinGeorge R.R. Martin's best-selling fantasy series "A Song of Ice and Fire" is the basis for the HBO series Game of Thrones.
From his Q & A with Adam Pasick at New York magazine:
What's your biggest worry about the TV show as it gets deeper into the story?
There are certainly challenges that lie ahead, and as the show goes on, the challenges will get greater. I wanted to write a book as big as myMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-254504262999982552011-11-30T04:32:00.002-06:002011-11-30T07:16:06.068-06:00Alice FahsFrom a Q & A with Alice Fahs about her new book, Out on Assignment: Newspaper Women and the Making of Modern Public Space:
Q: You state that we know more about a few mid-nineteenth century women journalists than we do about the hundreds of female journalists writing at the turn of the century, despite the amount of published writing they left behind. Why is this the case?
A: Many of the Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-18395460652936205372011-11-29T03:21:00.002-06:002011-11-29T03:21:00.725-06:00John AshberyPulitzer Prize–winning poet John Ashbery was awarded the National Book Foundation's Lifetime Achievement Award in 2011.
From his Q & A with Belinda Luscombe in Time magazine:
You were banned from Poetry magazine for a while. Why?
My school roommate was a frustrated poet, and he took some of my poems and some of his own, which were terrible, and sent them to Poetry, and then I sent my poems someMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-80095179622480891482011-11-28T02:34:00.002-06:002011-11-28T06:37:07.193-06:00Roger SmithRoger Smith was born in Johannesburg and now lives in Cape Town. His debut thriller, Mixed Blood (2009), was published in six countries and won the Deutscher Krimi Preis (German Crime Prize). His second book, Wake Up Dead (2010), was a 10 best pick of the Philadelphia Enquirer, Times (South Africa) and Krimiwelt (Germany) and was nominated for the German Krimi-Blitz Reader’s Award. Mixed Blood Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-40186170007054101152011-11-27T03:33:00.001-06:002011-11-27T03:33:00.729-06:00Anne RiceAnne Rice's novels include Interview With the Vampire, The Vampire Lestat, The Queen of the Damned, and the forthcoming werewolf novel The Wolf Gift.
From her Q & A with Marlow Stern at The Daily Beast:
How did you develop your set of vampire “rules,” so to speak?
I went along with what I inherited from Hollywood—that vampires burn up in the sun. I didn’t know that wasn’t part of the original Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-49437152477785328872011-11-26T02:34:00.002-06:002011-11-26T08:18:12.214-06:00Anthony HorowitzAnthony Horowitz’s new Sherlock Holmes novel is The House of Silk.
From his Q & A with Anna Metcalfe at the Financial Times:
What music helps you to write?
Music by Philip Glass.
Which literary character most resembles you?
Gordon Comstock in George Orwell’s Keep the Aspidistra Flying. It’s his constant striving for contentment. I drink less though.
Who are your literary influences?
CharlesMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-88677410098160335542011-11-25T04:32:00.000-06:002011-11-25T04:32:00.871-06:00David BaldacciDavid Baldacci's latest novel is New Day.
From his Q & A with Janice Kaplan at The Daily Beast:
Janice Kaplan: I once heard Joyce Carol Oates say that she’s not prolific—everybody else is just lazy. Given how many books you’ve written, I assume the same holds?
David Baldacci: Very funny, but I might get in trouble with that. Some people take 10 years to write a book and some can do one in underMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-85332896326085410172011-11-24T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-24T03:45:00.396-06:00Daniel KahnemanDaniel Kahneman is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is also Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs Emeritus at the Woodrow Wilson School, the Eugene Higgins Professor of Psychology Emeritus at Princeton University, and a fellow of the Center for Rationality at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
He won the 2002 Nobel Prize in economics.
Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-78395572810382583862011-11-23T03:33:00.001-06:002011-11-23T03:33:00.842-06:00Mary GabrielMary Gabriel's Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution is a 2011 National Book Award Finalist.
From her interview by Megan Gilbert:
Megan Gilbert: Love and Capital illuminates the private family life of Karl Marx. How do you think the professional lives of great thinkers are influenced by their private lives?
Mary Gabriel: The majority of men and women live at least Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-23041691453171500512011-11-22T03:33:00.003-06:002011-11-22T06:04:47.364-06:00Philip RothPhilip Roth, winner of the Man Booker International Prize 2011, was interviewed by Benjamin Taylor in May 2011. Part of their dialogue:
BT: For more than half a century now, you have been the most protean of American fiction writers. The talented comic performer of Goodbye Columbus, your first book, gives way to the Jamesian craftsman of Letting Go and When She Was Good - the second and third Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-52951804867312955882011-11-21T03:21:00.001-06:002011-11-21T03:21:00.208-06:00Eliot PattisonEliot Pattison has been described as a "writer of faraway mysteries." In the late 1990's he decided to combine his deep concerns for the people of Tibet with his interest in venturing into fiction by writing The Skull Mantra. Winning the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery--and listed as a finalist for best novel for the year in Dublin's prestigious IMPAC awards--The Skull Mantra launched the Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-83212162777132223612011-11-20T03:21:00.002-06:002011-11-21T08:03:20.246-06:00Sarah HallSarah Hall is the author of Haweswater, which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award, and a Lakeland Book of the Year prize.
In 2004, her second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, the Commonwealth Writers Prize (Eurasia region), and the Prix Femina Etranger, and was longlisted for the Orange Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-87213934155318160032011-11-19T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-19T03:45:00.463-06:00Arundhati RoyArundhati Roy's new book is Walking with the Comrades, an account of her travels into the forest with India’s Maoist indigenous communities at war with the government.
From her Q & A with Parul Sehgal at Publishers Weekly:
How did you earn the guerrillas’ trust?
When the Indian government declared war against the Maoists, Indian liberals, for the most part, took a very safe, neutral position: “Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-20976901346085926732011-11-18T04:32:00.002-06:002011-11-18T04:32:00.119-06:00Greil MarcusGreil Marcus's new book is The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening to Five Mean Years.
From his Q & A with Jeff Makos at Publishers Weekly:
Your full-length appreciation of the Doors flies in the face of many of your fellow music critics, who have not been kind to the band since lead singer Jim Morrison died in 1971.
Well, it’s an interpretation, not a reinterpretation—it’s the first real thinking Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-25107371676541738712011-11-17T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-17T03:45:00.719-06:00Hannu RajaniemiHannu Rajaniemi is from Finland and lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he is a director of a think tank providing business services based on advanced math and artificial intelligence. He holds a Ph.D. in string theory and is a member of the same writing group that produced Hal Duncan. He wrote The Quantum Thief in English.
From his Q & A at the Guardian:
Who's your favourite writer?
In terms Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-16515518811239326472011-11-16T00:34:00.001-06:002011-11-16T00:34:00.073-06:00Don DeLilloDon DeLillo's novels include Falling Man, Libra and White Noise. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction and the Jerusalem Prize. In 2006, Underworld was named one of the three best novels of the last twenty-five years by The New York Times Book Review, and in 2000 it won the William Dean Howells Medal of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for the most Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-17101064712965256372011-11-15T03:21:00.002-06:002011-11-15T03:21:00.278-06:00Steven PinkerSteven Pinker's new book is The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined.
From his Q & A with J.P. O'Malley at the Christian Science Monitor:
What made you want to write a book exploring the subject of violence?
It was an interest in human nature. I had written two books previously on human nature, and I faced criticism that any acknowledgment of human nature is fatalistic. I Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-72993668530706332512011-11-14T03:33:00.000-06:002011-11-14T03:33:00.445-06:00Frances WilsonFrances Wilson's books include Literary Seductions: Compulsive Writers and Diverted Readers and The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth: A Life, which won the British Academy Rose Mary Crawshay Prize.
From a Q & A about her latest book, How to Survive the Titanic: The Sinking of J. Bruce Ismay, with Randy Dotinga of the Christian Science Monitor:
Q: What drew you to Ismay's story?
A: I'm drawn as a Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-67077919088814449212011-11-13T03:33:00.001-06:002011-11-19T11:42:28.606-06:00John GrishamJohn Grisham's new novel is The Litigators.
From his Q & A with Christopher John Farley at the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:
How did you come up with the characters in “The Litigators”?
Certainly Wally and Oscar are compositions of many lawyers. I got the idea for the guys from watching all this really sleazy TV advertising done by lawyers. It’s epidemic all over the country. You see Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-46619278857210631842011-11-12T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-12T03:45:00.503-06:00Jeffrey EugenidesJeffrey Eugenides's new novel is The Marriage Plot, a complicated college love story set in the early 1980s.
From his Q & A with Carolyn Kellogg of the Jacket Copy blog:
JC: You have such tremendous skill for really evocative detail – I was wondering how you access those memories. In one scene, I don’t even know whose point of view it is, somebody looks and the pull on a shade is like a life Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-73250672742041073152011-11-11T01:11:00.000-06:002011-11-11T01:11:00.163-06:00Stephen KingStephen King's new novel is 11/22/63 [the date of the JFK assassination]. From his Q & A with Alexandra Alter at the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog:
You’ve never written historical fiction before. What took you in this direction?
I like doing different things because they keep what I do fresh and you get out of the rut a little bit. There’s a real challenge — I started to say there’s a Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-41794645370945876292011-11-10T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-10T03:45:00.192-06:00Adam GopnikAdam Gopnik’s new book is The Table Comes First: Family, France, and the Meaning of Food.
From his Q & A with David Haglund at Slate:
Slate: Your background is in art history. In what ways is writing about food like writing about art? In what ways is it not like that at all?
Adam Gopnik: The job of trying to make first-hand sensual experience—this picture, that plate—into second-order sentencesMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-21413465810275985042011-11-09T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-09T03:45:00.445-06:00Joan DidionJoan Didion's new memoir is Blue Nights, her account of "losing a daughter. Richly textured with bits of her own childhood and married life with her husband, John Gregory Dunne, and daughter, Quintana Roo, this new book by Joan Didion examines her thoughts, fears, and doubts regarding having children, illness, and growing old."
From her Q & A with David Ulin at the Los Angeles Times Jacket Copy Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-25503111926697525162011-11-08T03:45:00.001-06:002011-11-08T03:45:00.552-06:00Banana YoshimotoFrom an Amazon Q & A with Banana Yoshimoto about her novel, The Lake:
Q: Facing difficulties with courage is one of the themes of your latest novel, The Lake. In it the character Nakajima is struggling to overcome sometimes paralyzing emotional trauma that stems from a very unusual ordeal. What compelled you to tell this story?
A: In this novel, I indirectly took up the abductions of Japanese Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-24817417663063067962011-11-07T04:44:00.001-06:002011-11-07T04:44:01.401-06:00Mindy KalingThe 32-year-old Emmy-nominated writer/actress/producer Mindy Kaling plays Kelly, the ditzy, pop-culture-obsessed customer-service rep on NBC’s The Office.
Kaling’s new book is Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns).
From her Q & A with Jessica Bennett at The Daily Beast:
When did you find time to write a book? You write about working 16-hour days.
One of the ways I unwind is Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-72764889194669230442011-11-06T02:34:00.000-06:002011-11-06T02:34:00.278-06:00Alice HoffmanAlice Hoffman's new novel is The Dovekeepers.
From her Q & A with Arifa Akbar for the Independent:
Choose a favourite author, and say why you admire her/him
Emily Brontë, and 'Wuthering Heights' is my favourite book. I think she was a psychological genius. If I had to choose someone living rather than someone dead, it would be Toni Morrison. I feel I could read just one sentence and know it wasMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-58595365167844822742011-11-05T03:45:00.001-05:002011-11-05T03:45:00.177-05:00Megan AbbottPart of Jeff Glor's Q & A with Megan Abbott about The End of Everything, her novel about a thirteen-year-old girl named Lizzie who goes on a search for her missing friend, and finds many things she never expected:
Jeff Glor: What inspired you to write the book?
Megan Abbott: I always wanted to write about those magical families we all want to be a part of. I think we all knew one, growing up--Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-13040418021117517692011-11-04T04:32:00.001-05:002011-11-04T04:32:01.313-05:00Scott McCreaScott McCrea is a drama professor at Purchase College, State University of New York, and the author of 2005's The Case for Shakespeare: The End of the Authorship Question.
From his Q & A with Randy Dotinga at the Christian Science Monitor:
Q: When did people start wondering if Shakespeare was actually Shakespeare?
A: In the mid-19th century, when there was a guy who wrote a book and claimed Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-22742416092742547512011-11-03T03:21:00.002-05:002011-11-03T03:53:34.057-05:00Alma KatsuAlma Katsu is the author of The Taker, a gothic tale of desire, obsession and the need within us all for redemption.
The Taker has been described as "an epic supernatural love story" and compared to The Historian," Interview with the Vampire, and Twilight even though it doesn't have one vampire in it.
From her Q & A with Jennifer Haupt at the Psychology Today's One True Thing blog:
JH: I love Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-76131742048286687132011-11-02T03:21:00.001-05:002011-11-02T03:21:00.049-05:00James GarnerThe actor James Garner is now out with a memoir, The Garner Files.
From his Q & A with crime fiction maven J. Kingston Pierce of The Rap Sheet:
J. Kingston Pierce: Is there anything about Jim Rockford, who you played in The Rockford Files, that you wish was true of you, as well?
James Garner: I wish I could have quit smoking as easily as Rockford did: During the first season he smoked, but we Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-3711632073329521162011-11-01T02:34:00.001-05:002011-11-01T02:34:00.407-05:00Gerald EliasA graduate of Yale, Gerald Elias has been a Boston Symphony violinist, Associate Concertmaster of the Utah Symphony since 1988, Adjunct Professor of Music at the University of Utah, first violinist of the Abramyan String Quartet, and Music Director of the Vivaldi Candlelight concert series.
His novels include Devil's Trill, Danse Macabre, and Death and the Maiden.
Raymond Taras is Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-86453260377781269012011-10-31T03:21:00.002-05:002011-10-31T03:21:00.485-05:00David AbulafiaDavid Abulafia is Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge University.
From an Amazon Q & A about his latest book, The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean:
Q: What role did Greek mythology and Homeric poetry play in creating a lasting conception of the Mediterranean?
A: The seas described in Homer's Odyssey are a strange amalgam of the Mediterranean and the Black Sea, of eastMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-64133101987261465762011-10-30T03:21:00.001-05:002011-10-30T03:21:00.277-05:00Sandra SpanierSandra Spanier is general editor of The Letters of Ernest Hemingway, Vol 1 1907-1922.
From her Q & A with Melissanne Scheld at the Cambridge University Press blog:
CUP: Fifty years later, why is Hemingway still such an important figure in American literature?
SS: Hemingway revolutionized English prose style, and for that he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. He used the American Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-67397121760396471372011-10-29T03:33:00.001-05:002011-10-29T03:33:00.288-05:00Anne TylerFrom Anne Tyler's Q & A at the Man Booker site:
MBI: Some of your most well-known characters are male. Is it harder or easier to write from that perspective?
AT: Male characters are more of a challenge to me, because I think men generally are less willing to express their emotions. I'm conscious of a feeling of constraint when I'm looking at things through their eyes.
MBI: Many of your novels Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-16050815986346969492011-10-28T03:21:00.001-05:002011-10-28T03:21:00.351-05:00John HarveyJohn Harvey is the author of the Charlie Resnick novels and the Frank Elder series, and is a recipient of the Silver Dagger Award, the Barry Award, and the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for lifetime achievement, among other honors.
His latest book is a collection of short stories, A Darker Shade of Blue.
From his Q & A with PBS:
You’re a fan of American crime fiction and jazz. What about Marshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3490706749876989493.post-28648853405323535792011-10-27T03:21:00.001-05:002011-10-27T03:21:00.386-05:00Scott SpencerScott Spencer's books include Man in the Woods, Endless Love, and A Ship Made of Paper.
From his 2010 Q & A with Cynthia Crossen at the Wall Street Journal:
The Wall Street Journal: You live in a small town? what makes that appealing as a writer?
Mr. Spencer: It's like being a painter--you paint what's outside the door. There aren't so many of us here, so we don't have to protect ourselves fromMarshal Zeringuenoreply@blogger.com