Early on in this conversation there's a dead patch. The mic
didn't pick up the glorious seagull call that comes reverberating
down the chimney into the room John Banville and I were sitting
in.
John Banville is an Irish novelist, short-story writer, and
screenwriter who hates his own work. He's won a ton of...
Sep 14, 2023
Sir Tim Waterstone revolutionized
bookselling in Britain and changed the country's cultural
landscape. He also wrote a memoir,
called The Face Pressed Against a
Window (Atlantic, 2019). We met at The Garrick Club in
London to talk about the book, and about how he accomplished what
he accomplished.
Topics covered in...
Aug 18, 2023
I was in Ireland recently to interview two of the best novelists
on the face of the planet. John Banville, in Dublin, and David Mitchell, in Cork.
As a cost-cutting measure I decided to ask them both the same
questions:
What do you do?
How do you do it?
Why do you do it? And:
Why does it matter?
I got diametrically...
Aug 12, 2023
Jul 31, 2023
Last year I interviewed Margaret Atwood about "the role" of the writer. No such thing she informed me. So we talked about the "non-role." Combatative she is. Just like Tim Parks. He talks with me here about the other end of the spectrum, the reader. How to be a better one. I want him to be prescriptive, he won’t be....
Jul 17, 2023
Marta Sylvestrova is a curator and art critic, and has headed the graphic design department at the Moravian Gallery in Brno, Czech Republic, since 1986. She is a graduate of Masaryk University where she studied art history, and has, over the years, been involved in the organizing of many Brno Biennieles. They feature...