mythiligrao

Introducing The Takeaway Book Club

Exciting things are happening with The Takeaway’s book coverage in the coming months.

We’ll be picking six book clubs from different parts of the country and bringing them on air to discuss a new novel. Here I am describing what’s in store and talking about the books we’ll be reading.

And here is a picture of my books-based standing desk. Let the record show that I am dismayed by the whole book-as-fashion-object trend— but I don’t have a lot of shelf space in my office (or a doctor’s note to get a real standing desk).

This Is Where: Poems about Places that Matter

For National Poetry Month, in April I produced a series of stories on The Takeaway highlighting poems submitted by listeners around the country. The project grew out of the #ThisIsWhere poetry contest WLRN and O Miami held this month for south Floridians; The Takeaway expanded the call for submissions to include listeners around the country, inviting listeners to send us their poems the places that really matter to them.

New Jersey listener Jane Byron described moving to Camden as a young single mom with a dream of revitalizing the city. Worcester, Massachusetts resident Augustine Kanjia wrote about the love he discovered for the city that welcomed him in after he fled war-torn Sierra Leone. A poem from Cathy Wells of east Texas paid tribute to the family land her parents purchased, cleared, and settled together. And in Miami, WLRN listener Eduardo Lis wrote about finding freedom and solace on North Beach as a new immigrant with not much more than a Walgreen’s bathing suit to his name. Hear their stories at: http://www.thetakeaway.org/series/thisiswhere/.

Kitty Genovese: How a Famous Murder Helped Create the 911 System

On a bracingly cold morning this March– exactly 50 years to the day after Kitty Genovese’s death– author Kevin Cook and I met on the block in Kew Gardens where Genovese spent her last living hours.

Cook’s new book, Kitty Genovese: The Murder, The Bystanders, The Crime that Changed America looks back at Genovese’s life and death in detail. His investigation focuses in particular on what happened the night she died. Spoiler alert: It’s a little more complicated than what you might’ve heard (or read in that intro psychology course, for that matter).

We also stopped in on some longtime residents of the neighborhood. Carol and Murray Berger moved into a charming home in Kew Gardens in 1957, and have been a vital part of the community ever since. They were kind enough to invite me in and to share their remembrances of how Genovese’s murder transformed the neighborhood’s reputation.

Take a listen to my piece for WNYC here. Check out The New Yorker’s take on Cook’s book here. And see some lovely photos of the Bergers’ home here.

Everyone’s A Critic

But not everyone gets profiled by their alumni magazine! I was incredibly flattered to be interviewed by the brilliant Molly Minturn for the most recent issue of Virginia Magazine. I’ve got some fantastic company, too– check out the profile of SNL’s Sasheer Zamata, reflections from bioethics professor John Arras (and others) and much more.

Hot Reads: Blood Will Out, The Fishing Fleet, Rebel Music

A little bit of everything in this week’s all-star line-up– grifters, gold-diggers, and Kool and the Gang. As usual, full reviews at The Daily Beast. Bonus: Hear Hisham Aidi talking about Rebel Music (and take a listen to some of the music he describes) over at The Takeaway.

Hot Reads: The Race Underground, Praying Drunk, Bark

The most recent installment of Hot Reads features new books from Doug Most, Kyle Minor and Lorrie Moore. Full reviews at The Daily Beast.

Back to Back

I reviewed Julia Franck’s Back to Back for Words Without Borders.

German Book Prize-winning novelist Julia Franck’s most recent work, Back to Back, is an extremely difficult book to read. This is not an issue of translation, or a comment on Franck’s narrative powers. The prose of Anthea Bell’s translation is brisk, bold, and clear; in Bell’s hands, Franck’s story is engrossing—immediately, completely. But the neglect and deprivation, emotional and sexual abuse, and tragedy and despair visited upon Back to Back’s two young protagonists make the act of reading this masterful novel painful. For Thomas and Ella, siblings growing up in communist East Berlin in the 1950s, misery isn’t merely episodic, like bad weather or strep throat. The definitive experience of these characters is one of nearly constant anguish.

I’m still recovering. The full review is up with the rest of the latest (beautiful) issue, which happens to showcase the international graphic novel.

Meet The Hummus, A Fake News Site for Muslim-Americans

This week, I produced an interview with the anonymous founders of The Hummus on The Takeaway, and then blogged about their project for On the Media. PRI ended up republishing the interview on their site too. Check ’em out.

A Literary Walkabout in Gary Shteyngart’s Queens

In the brief interval between Polar Vortex I and Polar Vortex II, I somehow I managed to get in a leisurely amble through Queens with Gary Shteyngart.

We met at the Solomon Schechter School of Queens in Flushing and wandered through his old school playground before circling back to his family’s first apartment in Kew Garden Hills. Eventually we made our way to Main Street Cinemas, site of a certain memorable screening of Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman.

He told me many more hilarious stories than I could possibly include in this radio segment. But I did my best. Take a listen to A Literary Walkabout in Gary Shteyngart’s Queens and enjoy the slideshow of the author posing in front of his key childhood landmarks. Then go read his memoir, Little Failure.

Hot Reads: Tomorrow-Land, Leaving the Sea, A Highly Unlikely Scenario

A new year, new books! This week’s picks feature the cities of Cleveland and Dusseldorf, Pythagorean Pizza, and a whole lot of Robert Moses:

A little more than a week before the 1964-65 World’s Fair was set to open its gates in Queens, The New York Journal-American ran a front page story charging that the mural Andy Warhol had created for the fair—a mural commissioned by architect Phillip Johnson—depicted, quite literally, the city’s worst face—or rather, faces. Warhol’s painting featured 22 images of the city’s 13 Most Wanted Criminals, “resplendent in all their scars, cauliflower ears, and other appurtenances of their trade.” Within days, at Johnson’s suggestion, Warhol’s work was completely painted over. It wasn’t exactly censorship at “master builder” Robert Moses’s hands, but to Warhol, it felt that way. In frustration, he made a new painting, this one featuring 25 silk-screened images of the president of the World’s Fair Corporation. He called it “Robert Moses Twenty-Five Times.”

Find the full reviews here. And take a listen to author Joseph Tirella talking about Tomorrow-Land on The Takeaway here.