Karl Ove Knausgaard’s six autobiographical novels, published in Norway between 2009 and 2011 under the series title *Min Kamp* (‘My Struggle’) have excited controversy and critical acclaim in equal measure. Knausgaard’s unflinching and almost uncritical laying on of detail has led some critics to call him ‘the Norwegian Proust’. ‘There is something ceaseless ... Show More
Mar 4
Nell Stevens & Olivia Laing: The Original
In The Original (Scribner), Nell Stevens’s second novel, Grace Inderwick grows up as the ward of a cold Victorian family in which the only warmth and affection is provided by her cousin Charles. After many years missing at sea, Charles returns to the household. But is this the re ... Show More
57m 11s
Feb 25
Liliane Lijn & Jennifer Higgie: Liquid Reflections
In 1958 the 18-year-old Liliane Lijn left New York for Paris, determined to become an artist. Her captivating memoir Liquid Reflections (Hamish Hamilton) tells the story of her meetings with poets, painters, philosophers and revolutionaries and of the development of her groundbre ... Show More
1 h
Feb 18
Kathryn Scanlan & Emily LaBarge: Aug 9 – Fog
Twenty years ago Kathryn Scanlan (Kick the Latch, The Dominant Animal) acquired a diary at a public estate auction. It was kept by Cora E. Lacy, an eighty-six-year-old woman living in a small Illinois town, from 1968 to 1972. Scanlan began to compulsively read and reread the stra ... Show More
57m 6s
Jan 2018
132. Karl Ove Knausgaard (writer) – The Way I Should Be in the World
Wherever you are right now, take a look around you. Let your eyes rest on the first thing that catches your attention. For me, while writing this, it’s a bowl in Big Think’s offices. Highly polished, assembled, it seems, from curved, stained strips of wood. If I kept going, I mig ... Show More
42m 56s
Dec 2024
Book Club: "Small Things Like These," by Claire Keegan
<p>Clare Keegan's slim 2021 novella about one Irishman's crisis of conscience during the Christmas season, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, has also been adapted into a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/07/movies/small-things-like-these-review-cillian-murphy.htm ... Show More
51m 41s
Apr 2025
693 Understanding the Wonders of Nature (with Alan Lightman) | My Last Book with Alan Lightman
In today's world of specialization, Alan Lightman is that rare individual who has accomplished remarkable things in two very different realms. As a physicist with a Ph.D. from Cal Tech, he's taught at Harvard and MIT and advised the United Nations. As a novelist, he's written awa ... Show More
56m 13s
Nov 2024
Book Club: Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
<p>It begins with one of the most iconic lines in literature: “Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice.”</p><p>“One Hundred Years of Solitude,” Gabriel García Márquez ... Show More
41m 9s