AOT #20: Frank McCourt Podcasts Teacher Man

Frank McCourt, nearly a decade ago, became an unlikey star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto the literary scene with Angela’s Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland.

After Angela’s Ashes came ‘Tis, McCourt’s glorious account of his early years in New York. Now McCourt reads from and discusses the third volume in his life story, Teacher Man, the long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer.

($26.00) Scribner ISBN # 0743243773

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AOT #19: Joan Didion Podcasts The Year of Magical Thinking

Joan Didion discusses her National Book Award-nominated book The Year of Magical Thinking, with author, friend and radio host, Sara Davidson. Joan Didion explores an intensely personal yet universal experience: a portrait of a marriage–and a life, in good times and bad–that will speak to anyone who has ever loved and lost a husband, wife, child, relative or friend. From one of America’s iconic writers, comes a stunning book of electric honesty and passion.

Several days before Christmas 2003, John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion saw their only daughter, Quintana, fall ill with what seemed at first flu, then pneumonia, then complete septic shock. She was put into an induced coma and placed on life support. Days later–the night before New Year’s Eve–the Dunnes were just sitting down to dinner after visiting the hospital when John Gregory Dunne suffered a massive and fatal coronary. In a second, this close, symbiotic partnership of forty years was over. Four weeks later, their daughter pulled through. Two months after that, arriving at LAX, she collapsed and underwent six hours of brain surgery at UCLA Medical Center to relieve a massive hematoma (she later dies).

This powerful book is Didion’s attempt to make sense of the “weeks and then months that cut loose any fixed idea I ever had about death, about illness . . . about marriage and children and memory . . . about the shallowness of sanity, about life itself.”

Joan Didion is the author of five novels and seven previous books of nonfiction including Play It As It Lays, Where I Was From, Political Fictions, The Last Thing He Wanted, After Henry, Miami, Democracy, Salvador, A Book of Common Prayer, and Run River.

(The audio for this podcast was furnished courtesy of KGNU radio in Boulder which also broadcast the event.)

($23.95) Knopf ISBN # 140004314X.

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AOT #18: Nicholas Sparks Podcasts At First Sight

Nicholas Sparks, the author of many bestsellers including The Rescue, Nights in Rodanthe, The Notebook, A Walk to Remember, True Believer and his moving memoir, Three Weeks with My Brother (written with his brother Micah), discusses his new novel, At First Sight.

At First Sight is an astonishing tale about the love between a man and a woman and between a parent and a child. Continuing the story of the young couple introduced in Sparks’s bestselling True Believer, this novel captures all the heartbreak, tension, romance and surprises of those who are newly wed.

($24.95) Warner Books ISBN 0-446-53242-8. Please visit Nicholas Sparks’s web site as well.

author podcasts, podcasts, Podcasting, book podcasts, nicholas sparks, the notebook

AOT #17: Will Arntz Podcasts What the Bleep Do We Know!?

Will Arntz, a research physicist and spirtual seeker, and co-creator of the movie What the Bleep Do We Know!?, discusses his book What The Bleep Do We Know!?: Discovering the Endless Possibilities for Altering Your Everyday Reality.

With the help of more than a dozen research and theoretical scientists, this book takes readers through the looking glass of quantum physics into a universe that is more bizarre and alive than ever imagined. This science leads not just to the material world, but deep into the realm of spirituality, and offers mind stretching questions and details endless possibilities for individual reality.

($26.95) HCI Books ISBN 0-7573-0334-x. Go down the rabbit hole in the official What the Bleep!? web site as well.

author podcasts, podcasts, Podcasting, book podcasts, will arntz, what the bleep, Quantum Physics, spirituality, what the bleep do we know

AOT #16: Lemony Snicket Podcasts The Penultimate Peril

Lemony Snicket, the popular and yet mysterious children’s book author, delighted nearly two-thousand people at a special reading and performance from his newest book “A Series of Unfortunate Events #12 – The Penultimate Peril.”

In this book in the series, after any harrowing struggle, it is nice to consider checking into a hotel for a rest. In fact, this might be just the break Violet, Klaus, and Sunny Baudelaire could use after their wearying deep-sea adventure. A hotel can be a good choice for any family vacation. With so many floors, such a variety of rooms, and a curious array of guests, spending time in the safety of the right hotel can be the perfect learning environment for children of any age. A keen researcher like Klaus, an adept inventor like Violet, and a sharp-toothed culinary master like Sunny are all sure to find engaging diversions during their stay. Regardless of how they pass their time while at a hotel, the three siblings will be sure to take in all the interesting sights and sounds — and write them down — just in case this episode turns out to be the darkest yet in a series of unfortunate events.

This podcast recording is copyright (c) 2005 by Lemony Snicket.

($11.99) HarperCollins AuthorTracker for Lemony Snicket ISBN 0-064-410153. Visit Lemony Snicket’s web site as well.

author podcasts, podcasts, Podcasting, book podcasts, Lemony Snicket, a series of unfortunate events, children’s books, Teens, children’s literature

AOT #15: Walter Kirn Podcasts from Mission to America

Walter Kirn is a contributing editor to Time magazine, where he was nominated for a National Magazine Award in his first year, and a regular reviewer for the New York Times Book Review. The author of four previous works of fiction, including the novel Up in the Air, Kirn reads from and discusses his new novel Mission to America, a superb story about the collision between the forces of faith and an overstimulated, overfed, spiritually overextended America.

($23.95) Doubleday ISBN 0-385-50764-x. Check out Walter Kirn’s cool new serialized e-book The Unbinding exclusvely on Slate magazine’s web site as well.

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AOT #14: Charles Blackstone Podcasts The Week You Weren’t Here

Charles Blackstone reads from and discusses his debut novel The Week You Weren’t Here, a poignant and wry portrait of a young writer closing in on the last of his undergraduate days. “The Week You Weren’t Here is a witty and inventive deconstruction of a young-man-as-artist’s pursuit of love among a confusion of choices. It’s as if Kafka’s Joseph K had been commissioned to write a Dating for Dummies (the How-Not-To version) in the form of a postmodern novel. This is an auspicious debut.” — author Jonathan Baumbach

($15.00) Low Fidelity Press ISBN 0-9723363-4-6. Visit Charles Blackstone’s web site as well.

author podcasts, podcasts, Podcasting, book podcasts, charles blackstone,the week you weren’t here

AOT #13: Dan Savage Podcasts from The Commitment

Dan Savage, best-selling author and journalist, whose column "Savage Love," is a nationally-syndicated sex-advice column read by more than four million people each week, discusses and reads from his new book The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage and My Family. There is no hotter issue than gay marriage in the culture-war debate, and Dan Savage takes it on and makes it personal in this rollicking and wickedly funny memoir of coming to terms with sex, marriage, adoption and parenthood.

($23.95) Penguin ISBN 0-525-94907-0. Visit Dan Savage's The Stranger web site as well.

author podcasts. podcasts, Podcasting, book podcasts, dan savage, savage love, Sex, gay, lesbian, GLBT, marriage, relationships, family, love

AOT #12: Clive Barker Podcasts from Visions of Heaven and Hell

Clive Barker, acclaimed author, director and producer, podcasts from his new book, Visions of Heaven and Hell , an unbelievable collection of more than 300 of his most stunning drawings and oil paintings. Illuminated with new writings by Barker, this artwork renders with expressionist fervor some of our most primal passions — good, evil, and all that’s inbetween. “Barker has an unparalleled talent for envisioning other worlds,” Washington Post Book World.

($50.00) Rizzoli ISBN 0-8478-2737-2. Visit Clive Barker’s web site as well.

Podcasting, book podcasts, clive barker, visions of heaven and hell. hellraiser

AOT #11: Nicholas Evans Podcasts from The Divide

This week we podcast Nicholas Evans, the best-selling author of The Horse Whisperer. Evans reads from and discusses his new novel The Divide. In a journey of discovery and redemption, from the streets of New York to the daunting grandeur of the Rocky Mountains, The Divide delves into the dynamics of a fractured family and their struggle with the pain of lost happiness.

(Please note: the sound is a bit rough in the beginning of this podcast, but gets better after the first few minutes.)

($26.95) Putnam ISBN 0-399-15206-7. Visit Nicholas Evans’ web site as well.

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