Amor Towles on his New Short Story Collection 'Table for Two'

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 7 May 2024

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Amor Towles says the title of his new book “Table for Two” arose from a subconscious conviction “that our lives can often change materially due to a single conversation.” And it’s the power of a conversation – or a chance encounter or a sudden decision – to force a personal or historical reckoning that animate the characters in his latest work, a collection of six stories and a novella set in in New York and Los Angeles. We talk to Towles, who’s also the bestselling author of “A Gentleman in Moscow” and “The Lincoln Highway,” about finding inspiration for his stories, how history informs his work and what it’s like to see his novels adapted for the screen. Guests: Amor Towles, author, "Table for Two." His other books include "The Lincoln Highway," "A Gentleman in Moscow" and "Rules of Civility." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:32.6	... From KQED in San Francisco, I'm Mina Kim.
0:50.2	Coming up on forum, we talk with Amor Tolls about his new short story collection called Table for Two, where we meet an agreeable Russian peasant, an indignant investment banker, and finally learn what happens to the enigmatic Eve Ross, a character in Toll's previous novel, Rules of Civility. We'll hear how small encounters and tolls life can ignite his literary
1:12.8	imagination and what it's been like for him to see a gentleman in Moscow become a television
1:18.5	series starring Ewan McGregor. Join us after this news. Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
1:34.4	Amor Toll's best-selling author of The Lincoln Highway and a gentleman in Moscow, says the title of his new book, Table for Two, arose from a subconscious conviction that our lives can often change
1:46.1	materially due to a single conversation. It's the power of a conversation, or a chance
1:52.3	encounter, or a sudden decision, that force a personal reckoning for many of the characters
1:56.8	in his latest work, a collection of six stories and a novella, said in New York or Los Angeles.
2:02.9	And listeners, what's a small encounter that had a big effect on you?
	...

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