British novelist Zadie Smith tells Steve Paulson why she admires writers who don’t sound just like her. Her book “On Beauty” owes a lot to E.M. Forster...
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
Literature
Here's a conundrum. Some say the number of Americans who read books for pleasure is at an all time low, yet the internet's teeming with literary blogs, and just about everyone who cares about writing has a manuscript of their own stashed in a desk drawer somewhere. In this hour of To The Best Of...
Laurence Sterne's 18th Century novel "Tristram Shandy" is a staple of college English Literature courses everywhere. The 600-odd page book-within-a-book-within-a-book is filled to the brim with digressions, stunts and frazzled chronology. For many it's unreadable. For sure it's unfilmable. This...
"Story of O" scandalized a nation. And a nation not easily scandalized - France! The anonymous tale of complete submission was called vulgar by some, brilliant by others. In any case, what kind of person could write such a book? In this hour of To The Best Of Our Knowledge, we'll find out the...
What makes a classic? Well, for one thing, it’s got to have some staying power. The Bob Dylan song, “Like A Rolling Stone,” certainly fits the bill. It was recorded more than fifty years ago but it’s still considered by many to be the greatest pop single ever made. In...
Kazuo Ishiguro talks with Steve Paulson about his book about a boarding school full of cloned children bred to donate their organs.
During his lifetime, David Foster Wallace was one of the leading figures of post-modern literature. Speaking to TTBOOK in 1996, he said that he saw himself as a realist.
Middle English isn’t what it used to be. Add a back-beat, some high-flying rhymes, and you’ve got a hot new version of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales.” In this hour of To the Best of Our Knowledge, the madcap transformation of one of literature’s oldest classics from history to hip hop...
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