687. George Saunders

Otherppl with Brad Listi

Brad Listi

Arts, Society & Culture, Books

4.8 • 554 Ratings

🗓️ 6 January 2021

⏱️ 100 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

George Saunders is the guest. His new book, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, is available from Random House. This is George's second time on the program. He first appeared in Episode 100, on August 29, 2012. Saunders is the author of eleven books, including Lincoln in the Bardo, which won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for best work of fiction in English, and was a finalist for the Golden Man Booker, in which one Booker winner was selected to represent each decade, from the fifty years since the Prize’s inception. The audiobook for Lincoln in the Bardo, which featured a cast of 166 actors, won the 2018 Audie Award for best audiobook. His stories have appeared regularly in The New Yorker since 1992. The short story collection Tenth of December was a finalist for the National Book Award, and won the inaugural Folio Prize in 2013 (for the best work of fiction in English) and the Story Prize (best short story collection). He has received MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, the PEN/Malamud Prize for excellence in the short story, and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, he was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine. In support of his work, he has appeared on The Colbert Report, Late Night with David Letterman, All Things Considered, and The Diane Rehm Show. Saunders was born in Amarillo, Texas and raised in Oak Forest, Illinois. He has a degree in Geophysics from the Colorado School of Mines and has worked as a geophysical prospector in Indonesia, a roofer in Chicago, a doorman in Beverly Hills, and a technical writer in Rochester, New York. He has taught, since 1997, in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University. *** Otherppl with Brad Listi is a weekly literary podcast featuring in-depth interviews with today's leading writers. Launched in 2011. Books. Literature. Writing. Publishing. Authors. Screenwriters. Life. Death. Etc. Support the show on Patreon Merch www.otherppl.com @otherppl Instagram Email the show: letters [at] otherppl [dot] com The podcast is a proud affiliate partner of Bookshop, working to support local, independent bookstores. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:36.4	Hey folks, today's episode is brought to you by Mariner Books, publisher of Land of Big Numbers, the debut story collection from Deping Chen.
0:38.8	Land of Big Numbers traces the journeys of the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has
0:44.1	tumbled messily, violently, but still beautifully, into the present. Pilotser Prize winner,
0:49.6	Jennifer Egan calls it, quote, gripping and illuminating. Land of Big Numbers offers intimate glimpses of the seductive power of state control.
0:58.5	The Faustian bargaining it requires of its citizens, the landscapes and lives it forces them to discard in exchange for material prosperity.
1:07.1	At the heart of Dupin Chen's remarkable debut lies a question all too relevant in
1:12.7	21st century America. What is freedom? Land of Big Numbers, the debut story collection by
1:20.0	Deping Chen. Available now from Mariner Books.
1:24.0	There is a real word for the latest field. Hey, how's it going? Welcome to the other people show. My name's
1:39.7	Brad Listy. It's good to be with you. I'm in Los Angeles. Happy New Year. Happy 2021. I hope you're doing okay. I hope you had a good holiday. I have a great episode for you today. Great way to start off the new year. George Saunders is back on the program for a second time. He is celebrating the publication of a new book called A Swim in a Pond in the Rain,
2:03.3	in which four Russians give a masterclass on writing, reading, and life.
2:08.4	It is available now from Random House.
2:12.4	And this is nonfiction.
2:14.6	A swim in a pond in the rain is a book about writing.
2:18.4	It's a book about reading. It's a book about reading.
2:25.3	It's about what makes great stories work and what they have to teach us.
2:34.0	So if you happen to be out there and you're thinking of trying to write a book this year or just trying to write a story, this is a great episode for you.
2:37.9	If you are simply a devoted reader and you've found yourself wondering it turns over the years why certain stories grab you more than others, this is a great episode for you.
2:49.2	This is an excellent and very fascinating conversation
	...

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