Colum McCann, TWIST: A Novel
Totally Booked with Zibby
Zibby Owens
4.5 • 643 Ratings
🗓️ 9 April 2025
⏱️ 27 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
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Summary
New York Times bestselling Irish author Colum McCann joins Zibby to discuss TWIST, an urgent and utterly compelling novel about a journalist reporting on the underwater cables that carry the world’s information—tiny fiber-optic tubes that carry words, images, memes, voices… Colum unpacks the mind-bending reality that 95% of our global communications travel through fragile cables at the bottom of the ocean. He shares the real-life inspiration behind his maritime thriller, blending geopolitics, underwater espionage, and the deeply personal story of a man in recovery. The two explore themes of repair—both technological and emotional—and the fragile threads that connect us all.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Zibi Owens, and you're listening to Totally Booked with Zibby. Formerly, moms don't have time to read books. In my daily show, I interview today's latest, best-selling, buzziest, or underrated authors and story creators, whose work I think is worth your time. As a bookstore owner, publisher, author, and obviously podcaster, I get a comprehensive |
| 0:24.0 | look at everything that's coming out and spend my time curating the best books so you don't |
| 0:29.3 | have to. |
| 0:30.3 | Stay in the know, get insider insights, and connect with guests like I do every single day. |
| 0:36.2 | For more information, go to zibbimedia.com and follow me on Instagram at Zibby Owens. |
| 0:44.6 | Column McCann is the author of Twist, a novel. |
| 0:48.1 | Column is the internationally best-selling author of the novels Aparagon, Transatlantic, |
| 0:53.5 | Let the Great World Spin, Zoli, |
| 0:55.7 | Dancer, The Side of Brightness, and Song Dogs, as well as three critically acclaimed story |
| 1:00.2 | collections, and two non-fiction books, letters to a young writer and American mother. His fiction |
| 1:05.7 | has been published in more than 40 languages. He has received many honors, including the National |
| 1:10.1 | Book Award, the International |
| 1:11.9 | Dublin Literary Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and an Oscar nomination for his short film, |
| 1:17.8 | Everything in This Country Must. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, |
| 1:23.0 | as well as the Irish Association of Artists Aostana, and he has received a Chevalier |
| 1:28.5 | Des Alt-Etes-Ele-Latres Award from the French government. In addition, he has won awards |
| 1:33.6 | in Italy, Germany, and China. A contributor to the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, |
| 1:38.0 | and the Paris Review. He is the co-founder of the global non-profit story exchange organization |
| 1:42.9 | Narrative 4. He lives with his family in New |
| 1:45.7 | York. Welcome, Collum. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Book to talk about your latest novel |
| 1:50.9 | Twist. Congratulations. Thank you. It's nice to be totally booked. Aren't we all just totally |
| 1:57.4 | booked all the time? Like everybody, crazy busy. I do feel that increasingly in life, |
... |
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