Robert Gordon tells Steve Paulson that he discovered the great Black Blues players while still a white boy in high school and that the racial complexities of Memphis have always been at the heart of its music.
Intelligent. Optimistic. Curious.
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Novelists have always mined their own lives for inspiration. But no ever's gone quite as far as Karl Ove Knausgaard. People call him the Norwegian Proust. He recently came out with the sixth volume of his autobiographical novel, "My Struggle." What's remarkable about Knausgaard is not just that he's telling the story of his life as a novel. It's the incredible level of detail.
Are we ever good enough, or are we doomed to self-optimization for our entire lives?
Mary Lefkowitz is the author of “Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn from Myths.” She says that the Greek gods seem too much like us to impress most modern people.
Natalie Goldberg tells Jim Fleming that people who want to become writers should just write, and find themselves a writing mentor.
Historian Orville Vernon Burton tells Jim Fleming about the parallels between Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama.
Jill Gusman is a chef and the author of “Vegetables from the Sea: Everyday Cooking with Sea Greens.” She gives Anne Strainchamps some of her favorite seaweed recipes.
Peter Handel reviews mystery novels for Pages magazine. He talks about the rise of interest in mystery writers from such countries as Italy, France, Scotland and Sweden.
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