haruki murakami

History of Literature #101 – Writers at Work

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LOGO-COVERS

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We’re back! Recovered, rested, and ready to go with a brand new set of 100 episodes. In episode #101, we kick things off with superguest Mike Palindrome of the Literature Supporters Club who joins Jacke for a discussion of writers and their day jobs. How did famous writers earn their living? How did the experience of working help (or hinder) their writing? We look at everything, from the fascinating to the mundane. All this, plus a special trivia contest!

Have you always wanted to support the show? Well, now you can! Just head over to patreon.com/literature to sign up for a modest monthly donation to help me defray costs. All your support is greatly appreciated!

Writers discussed include J.D. Salinger, Jack London, Haruki Murakami, Octavia Butler, Douglas Adams, Dorothy L. Sayers, William Carlos Williams, Joseph Conrad, Herman Melville, T.S. Eliot, Julia Child, Roald Dahl, Zane Grey, Graham Greene, William S. Burroughs, Robert Frost, John Ashberry, Tomas Transtromer, Amy Bloom, Anthony Trollope, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Franz Kafka, Agatha Christie, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Wallace Stevens, Salman Rushdie, Maya Angelou, Jeffrey Eugenides, James Wood, John LeCarre, Ian Fleming, Elmore Leonard, Harper Lee, Primo Levi, Sebastian Junger, Scott Turow, David Foster Wallace, and Joseph Heller.

Show Notes:  Continue reading →

The History of Literature #92 – The Books of Our Lives

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“In the middle of life’s journey,” wrote Dante Alighieri, “I found myself in a selva oscura.” Host Jacke Wilson and frequent guest Mike Palindrome take stock of their own selva oscura in a particularly literary way: What books have they read? What books have been the most important to them? What do they expect to come next? It’s a celebration of reading – and friendship – on this episode of The History of Literature Podcast.

Authors discussed include: John D. Fitzgerald, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Thomas Mann, Rainer Maria Rilke, Elena Ferrante, Alice Munro, Lorrie Moore, Jay McInerney, Rene Descartes, James Boswell and Samuel Johnson, Graham Greene, Patrick O’Brian, Marcel Proust, Javier Marias, Haruki Murakami, Paul Celan, and Leo Tolstoy.

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Show Notes: 

Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or by leaving a voicemail at 1-361-4WILSON (1-361-494-5766).

You can find more literary discussion at jackewilson.com and more episodes of the series at historyofliterature.com.

Check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/historyofliterature.

You can follow Jacke Wilson at his Twitter account @WriterJacke. You can also follow Mike and the Literature Supporters Club (and receive daily book recommendations) by looking for @literatureSC.

Music Credits:

“Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA).

The History of Literature #61 – Wharton, Murakami, Chandler, and Fowles (with Professor Vu Tran)

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in-the-mood

What do Edith Wharton, Haruki Murakami, Raymond Chandler, John Fowles, Alfred Hitchcock, and Wong Kar-wai have in common? All are known for their ability to generate a particular mood and atmosphere – and all were selected by our guest, Professor Vu Tran of the University of Chicago, as being particularly inspirational as he wrote his novel Dragonfish. In this episode, Vu and Jacke discuss what makes these works so compelling, how the works helped Vu write his novel, and how a certain American city produces an intense feeling of endless hope and melancholy, twenty-four hours a day.

VU TRAN is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at the University of Chicago and the author of Dragonfish: A Novel (2015). Professor Tran has been described as “a fiction writer whose work thus far is preoccupied with the legacy of the Vietnam War for the Vietnamese who remained in the homeland, the Vietnamese who immigrated to America, and the Americans whose lives have intersected with both.”

“Richly satisfying work….[Has] a place on the top shelf of literary thrillers.” —Gerald Bartell, San Francisco Chronicle

Works Discussed:

Dragonfish: A Novel by Vu Tran

The Magus by John Fowles

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

Vertigo (dir. Alfred Hitchcock)

In the Mood for Love (dir. Wong Kar-wai)

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Show Notes: 

We have a special episode coming up – listener feedback! Contact the host at jackewilsonauthor@gmail.com or by leaving a voicemail at 1-361-4WILSON (1-361-494-5766).

You can find more literary discussion at jackewilson.com and more episodes of the series at historyofliterature.com.

Check out our Facebook page at facebook.com/historyofliterature.

Music Credits:

“Handel – Entrance to the Queen of Sheba” by Advent Chamber Orchestra (From the Free Music Archive / CC by SA).