#42 Reading Between the Lines

Selected Shorts

Symphony Space

Arts, Fiction, Books, Society & Culture

4.4 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 29 June 2023

⏱️ 59 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about the things she loves most: books and words and why they matter. In Ben Loory’s “The Book,” a contrarian volume becomes a literary sensation, and alters one woman’s life. The reader is Jane Kaczmarek. In “Things I Know to be True,” by Kendra Fortmeyer, originally published in One Story,” a damaged veteran uses words to hold his life together. The reader is Calvin Leon Smith. And in a special feature, Wolitzer visits a favorite indie bookstore, Three Lives & Company.

Transcript

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0:00.0	On this selected shorts, a few of my favorite things, books, words, and a trip to a beloved
0:13.8	indie bookstore.
0:14.8	Do you have a particular way that you hand-sell a book?
0:18.0	The most sure way I think is you have just read a book.
0:22.6	You have loved it.
0:24.4	And someone has asked you what to read.
0:26.7	And you're like, oh my God, you have got to read this.
0:30.4	You literally put the book in your hand.
0:32.4	I'm Meg Wallitzer.
0:33.4	Stay with me.
0:36.2	You're listening to selected shorts where our greatest actors transport us through the
0:40.2	magic of fiction, one short story at a time.
0:43.0	Newsflash.
0:52.9	Here at Selected Shorts, we love books.
0:55.9	And I especially love books.
0:58.1	And most importantly, the words they contain.
1:01.1	You know how during a Zoom you might try and look at the books on the shelf behind the
1:05.0	person's head?
1:06.3	Or is it just me who does that?
1:08.7	Books are exciting, low-tech.
1:10.4	I guess I mean no-tech objects.
1:12.9	If you see your favorite book on someone else's shelf, you immediately connect with that
	...

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