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01-25-14 UPDATE: Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 145: John Rizzo, 'Company Man: Thirty Years of Crisis and Controversy in the CIA'

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Here's the one-hundred forty-fifth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I seem to be on top opf the game, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to stay back up and stumbling.

The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.

My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.

The one-hundred forty-fifth episode is a look at John Rizzo and 'Company Man: Thirty Years of Crisis and Controversy in the CIA.'

Here's a link to the MP3 audio file of Time to Read, Episode 145: John Rizzo, 'Company Man: Thirty Years of Crisis and Controversy in the CIA'




-01-23-14: A 2014 Interview with Riane Eisler

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"Our policies, especially in the United States, are completely insane..."

—Riane Eisler

Riane Eisler lives in the sort of compound you might hope to find as the residence for the author of 'The Chalice & the Blade.' It's quiet, surrounded by trees, and feels rather like a library and a monastery combined. The carpets are white.

I had the honor of being invited to Eisler's home office to discuss her books 'The Chalice & the Blade' and 'The Real Wealth of Nations.' She's appearing next week in Santa Cruz, and beyond wanting to get the word out about her appearance, I was just curious to hear what she had to say about her work in person.

I suppose I should not have been surprised to find that she's a passionate, expert speaker, able to dive into her scientific theories in a manner carefully calibrated to be accessible to a general audience. What she probably did not expect was my (eventual) reaction, in the review of the similarities between the reading experience of her work — and speaking with her — and the reading experience of great science fiction, the idea beeing that both genres inspire the imagination.

I was also quite curious to talk to her about how it feels for her to see her ideas start to get traction in the popular mindset, as evidenced by an interest in income inequality that does not seem to be getting washed out in the 24-hour news cycle. She's been a pioneer with a fearless vision for over a quarter century. She has a (I think I've got this right) 501-3C organization set up, The Center for Partnership Studies (http://www.partnershipway.org/), where you can get more video than you may have time to watch. All this effort has played out with constant work, so I wanted to find out how it felt to toil away.

Listeners who want to hear Riane Eisler can follow this link to the MP3 audio file.




01-22-14 UPDATE: Podcast Update: Time to Read Episode 144: Riane Eisler, 'The Chalice & the Blade'

Click image for audio link.
Here's the one-hundred forty-fourth episode of my series of podcasts, which I'm calling Time to Read. Hitting the two-year mark, I'm going to make an effort to stay ahead, so that podcast listeners can get the same sort of "sneak preview" effect that radio listeners get each Friday morning. This week, I seem to be on top of the game, but who knows what the hell might happen. I am hoping to stay back up and stumbling.

The podcasts/radio broadcasts will be of books worth your valuable reading time. I'll try to keep the reports under four minutes, for a radio-friendly format. If you want to run them on your show or podcast, let me know.

My hope is that in under four minutes I can offer readers a concise review and an opportunity to hear the author read from or speak about the work. I'm hoping to offer a new one every week.

The one-hundred forty-fourth episode is a look at Riane Eisler and 'The Chalice & the Blade.'

Here's a link to the MP3 audio file of Time to Read, Episode 144: Riane Eisler, 'The Chalice & the Blade'




01-20-14: A 2014 Interview with Chang-rae Lee

Click image for audio link.

"...that floating quality to the voice that I enjoyed..."

— Chang-rae Lee

Having spoken with Chang-rae Lee the night before in front of an audience about his book 'On Such a Full Sea' made my interview the next day all the easier. After a good night's rest in Santa Cruz, and with no interviews beforehand, Lee and I were able to follow up on threads I'd not had the time to discuss the previous night and recover some of that ground from a new and fresh angle.

This time around, we returned to the topic of "we" — how and why he chose that voice and how it shaped the novel. For me, it was fascinating to see how a simple, if unusual, choice changed not just the way the story was told but the story being told. It's a cASe of content following form rather than the reverse.

In this setting we also talked about the humor in the book, which I think has been missed by some, given the more serious nature of the voice and the dire-seeming setting. It's important to remember or perhaps easy to ignore the fact that Lee's world. while a bit broken down, is not so, so much worse than ours. If you want to point a finger at it and say it's a dystopian vision, fine, but to my mind you should be prepared to just look around and check out your own personal dystopia, now playing in a lifetime near yours. If you don't feel as if you're living in a dystopia yet, just wait — one will be arriving for you shortly as an ever-decreasing number of people manage to in hale an ever-increasing portion of the world's goods and wealth.

Lee told me that he's unlikely to work in the speculative fiction setting soon, I think mistaking in my question for "Will there be a sequel/series?" I would never want to see him revisit the same world, but I would love to see this author raid the genre toolkit again in a radically different manner. I think and hope that we will see more writers who have in the past hewed to mimetic realism swerve ever so slightly away to write a nice ghost story. Lee did, however give a glimpse of what's to come and I am very interested in reading it sooner rather than later, even if it arrives sans ghosts.

You can hear my in-studio conversation with Chang-rae Lee by following this link to the MP3 audio file.



New to the Agony Column

09-18-15: Commentary : William T. Vollman Amidst 'The Dying Grass' : An Epic Exploration of Simultaneity

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with William T. Vollman : "...a lot of long words that in our language are sentences..."

09-05-15: Commentary : Susan Casey Listens to 'Voices in the Ocean' : Science, Empathy and Self

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Susan Casey : "...the reporting for this book was emotionally difficult at times..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 213: Susan Casey : Voices in the Ocean: A Journey into the Wild and Haunting World of Dolphins

08-24-15: Commentary : Felicia Day Knows 'You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)' : Transformative Technology

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Felicia Day : "I think you have to be attention curators for audience in every way."

08-22-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 212: Felicia Day : You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost)

08-21-15: Agony Column Podcast News Report : Senator Claire McCaskill is 'Plenty Ladylike' : Internalizing Determination to Overcome Sexism [Incudes Time to Read EP 211: Claire McCaskill, Plenty Ladylike, plus A 2015 Interview with Senator Claire McCaskill]

Agony Column Podcast News Report : Emily Schultz Unleashes 'The Blondes' : A Cure by Color [Incudes Time to Read EP 210: Emily Schultz, The Blondes, plus A 2015 Interview with Emily Schultz]

08-10-15:Agony Column Podcast News Report : In Memory of Alan Cheuse : Thank you Alan, and Your Family, for Everything

07-11-15: Commentary : Robert Repino Morphs 'Mort(e)' : Housecat to Harbinger of the Apocalypse

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Robert Repino : "...an even bigger threat. which is us, the humans..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 208: Robert Repino : Mort(e)

07-05-15: Commentary : Dr. Michael Gazzaniga Tells Tales from Both Sides of the Brain : A Life in Neuroscience Reveals the Life of Science

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Michael Gazzaniga : "We made the first observation and BAM there was the disconnection effect..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 208: Michael Gazzaniga : Tales from Both Sides of the Brain: A Life in Neuroscience

06-26-15: Commentary : Neal Stephenson Crafts an Eden for 'Seveneves' : Blow It Up and Start All Over Again

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Neal Stephenson : "...and know that you're never going to se a tree again..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 207: Neal Stephenson : Seveneves

06-03-15: Commentary : Dan Simmons Opens 'The Fifth Heart' : Having it Every Way

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Dan Simmons : "...yes, they really did bring those bombs..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 206: Dan Simmons : The Fifth Heart

05-23-15: Commentary : John Waters Gets 'Carsick' : Going His Way

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with John Waters : "...you change how you would be in real life...”

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 205: John Waters : Carsick

05-09-15: Commentary : Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD and 'Shrinks' : A Most Fashionable Take on the Human Mind

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD : "..its influence to be as hegemonic as it was..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 204: Jeffrey A. Lieberman, MD : Shrinks: The Untold Story of Psychiatry

04-29-15: Commentary : Barney Frank is 'Frank' : Interpersonally Ours

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Barney Frank : "...while you're trying to change it, don't ignore it..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 203: Barney Frank : Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage

04-21-15: Commentary : Kazuo Ishiguro Unearths 'The Buried Giant' : The Mist of Myth and Memory

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro : ".... by the time I was writing this novel, the lines between what was fantasy and what was real had blurred for me..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 202: Kazuo Ishiguro : The Buried Giant

04-17-15: Commentary : Erik Larson Follows a 'Dead Wake' : Countdown to Destiny

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Erik Larson : "...said to have been found in the arms of a dead German sailor..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 201: Erik Larson : Dead Wake

04-15-15: Commentary : Peter Bell Reflects 'A Certain Slant of Light' : Strange Stories of Modern Scholars

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2014 Interview with Peter Bell : "...I looked up some of the old books..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 200: Peter Bell : Strange Epiphanies and A Certain Slant of Light

03-14-15: Commentary : Marc Goodman Foresees 'Future Crimes' : Exponential Potential

Agony Column Podcast News Report : A 2015 Interview with Marc Goodman : "...every physical object around us is being transformed, one way or another, into an information technology..."

Agony Column Podcast News Report UPDATE: Time to Read Episode 199: Marc Goodman : Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It

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