AOT #133: Gustavo Arellano Podcasts Orange County: A Personal History

Nationally bestselling author and syndicated columnist Gustavo Arellano reads from and discusses his new book Orange County: A Personal History, the hilarious and poignant follow-up to ¡Ask a Mexican!, his critically acclaimed debut. Part personal narrative, part cultural history, Orange County is the outrageous and true story of the man behind the wildly popular and controversial column ¡Ask a Mexican! and the locale that spawned him. It is a tale of growing up in an immigrant enclave in a crime-ridden neighborhood, but also in a promised land, a place that has nourished America’s soul and Gustavo’s family, both in this country and back in Mexico, for a century.

($24.00) Scribner ISBN #1-41654-004-0.

author podcasts, books, podcasts, podcasting, book podcasts, literature, arts, Orange County: A Personal History, Gustavo Arellano

AOT #132: Jules Feiffer Podcasts Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips 1956-1966

Cartoonist, novelist and playwright Jules Feiffer‘s Pulitzer-winning comic strip has been influencing and entertaining readers for decades. His internationally syndicated cartoon ran for 42 years in the Village Voice, weaving the social, political, and personal into a perceptive, challenging, often hilarious mix. Feiffer discusses his work, including the new book Explainers: The Complete Village Voice Strips 1956-1966, the first of four volumes collecting Feiffer’s entire run of weekly strips from the Village Voice.

($28.99) Fantagraphics Books ISBN #978-1-56097-835-0. You can visit Jules Feiffer’s official web site as well.

AOT #131: Chuck Klosterman Podcasts Downtown Owl

Chuck Klosterman, the author of Fargo Rock City; Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs; and Killing Yourself To Live, is a columnist for Esquire and has written for GQ, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and others. Klosterman reads from and discusses his debut novel Downtown Owl. Like a colder, Reagan-era version of The Last Picture Show fused with Friday Night Lights, Klosterman’s Downtown Owl is the unpretentious, darkly comedic story of how it feels to exist in a community where rural mythology and violent reality are pretty much the same thing. Loaded with detail and unified by a (very real) blizzard, it’s technically about certain people in a certain place at a certain time, but it’s really about a problem: What does it mean to be a normal person? There is no answer, but in Downtown Owl, what matters more is how you ask the question.

($24.00) Scribner ISBN #1-41654-418-6.

author podcasts, books, podcasts, podcasting, book podcasts, literature, arts, Downtown Owl, Chuck Klosterman

AOT #130: Douglas Brown Podcasts Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!)

Doug Brown, a feature writer for The Denver Post, reads from and discusses his memoir Just Do It: How One Couple Turned Off the TV and Turned On Their Sex Lives for 101 Days (No Excuses!). Creeping into middle-age and saddled with work deadlines, child-rearing, homemaking, and fourteen years of togetherness, an ordinary, happy but harried couple set an outlandish goal: to have sex for 101 consecutive days-no excuses (not even the flu, late-night child wanderings, or flat-out exhaustion). The jolt that every marriage needs and longs for, Just Do It proves that even when it feels like there’s never enough time or energy, trust Doug and his wife, there is!

($21.95) Crown ISBN #0-307-40697-0.

author podcasts, books, podcasts, podcasting, book podcasts, literature, arts, Just Do It, Douglas Brown