Shows
The Virtual Memories ShowEpisode 618 - The Guest List 2024Twenty-two of this year's Virtual Memories Show guests tell us about the favorite books they read in 2024 and the books they hope to get to in 2025! Guests include Roland Allen, Shalom Auslander, Laura Beers, Sven Birkerts, Mirana Comstock, Leela Corman, Nicholas Delbanco, Benjamin Dreyer, Eric Drooker, Randy Fertel, Sammy Harkham, Frances Jetter, Ken Krimstein, Jim Moske, Robert Pranzatelli, Jess Ruliffson, Dmitry Samarov, Dash Shaw, David Small, Benjamin Swett, Maurice Vellekoop, and D.W. Young (+ me)! • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal and via our e-newsletter2024-12-231h 03
The Virtual Memories ShowEpisode 608 - Sven BirkertsAuthor & essayist Sven Birkerts returns to the show to celebrate his fantastic new essay collection, The Miró Worm and the Mysteries of Writing (Arrowsmith Press). We talk about the estrangement of the everyday, the problem of other minds, how serendipity tells us something about where we are, authors' photos and self-mythologizing, moving house (& turning 70) during COVID, and the inspiration of Cortazar's Around the Day in Eighty Worlds. We get into the threat of AI to writing, reading, and thinking, opening up to ambivalence, why people find it so tough to say the word "soul", what he misses about teaching, K...2024-10-161h 55
New Books in Literary StudiesAGNI magazine: A Discussion with Sven BirkertsSven Birkerts is the co-editor of AGNI magazine, an essayist, and a literary critic perhaps best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (FSG, 2006), about the impact of the internet and “electronic culture” in general. He’s taught at Bennington College, Harvard University, and elsewhere.What is MFA culture, and how has the rise of writing programs in academia changed the course of literature for better and, at times, perhaps for worst? That’s this episode’s first major topic, with Sven Birkerts offering observations about the rise of braided essays...2024-03-0730 min
Great New American EssaysAGNI magazine: A Discussion with Sven BirkertsSven Birkerts is the co-editor of AGNI magazine, an essayist, and a literary critic perhaps best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age (FSG, 2006), about the impact of the internet and “electronic culture” in general. He’s taught at Bennington College, Harvard University, and elsewhere.What is MFA culture, and how has the rise of writing programs in academia changed the course of literature for better and, at times, perhaps for worst? That’s this episode’s first major topic, with Sven Birkerts offering observations about the rise of braided essays...2024-03-0730 min
WBZ Book ClubThe Gutenberg Elegies, by Sven BirkertsThe Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age.2023-12-1500 min
Download Latest Full Audiobooks in Science Fiction & Fantasy, ParanormalThe Wolves of Eternity: A Novel by Karl Ove KnausgaardPlease visithttps://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/669355to listen full audiobooks.
Title: The Wolves of Eternity: A Novel
Author: Karl Ove Knausgaard
Narrator: Vas Eli, Gilli Messer, Natasha Soudek, Edoardo Ballerini
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 27 hours 42 minutes
Release date: September 19, 2023
Genres: Paranormal
Publisher's Summary:
An NPR Best Book of 2023 “Knausgaard is back, with a compulsively readable new novel.” —The Washington Post “The Wolves of Eternity, like some 19th-century Russian novel, wrestles with the great contraries: the materialist view and the religious, the world as cosmic accident versus embodiment of some radiant intention. Is this world shot through with meaning or not? Has there...2023-09-193h 42
Ms. Lyric's Poetry OutlawsEpisode 38: Openers with Sven Birkerts and Charles SimicIn which I chat about routine and writing and Sven Birkerts The Electric Life from 89 then read a poem by Charles Simic “untitled (soap bubble set) 1936” from Dime Store Alchemy (92). Enjoy!2023-02-1508 min
Explore New Worlds, Free Audiobook Are the Golden PearlsPlayhouse: A novel Audiobook by Richard BauschListen to this audiobook in full for free onhttps://hotaudiobook.com/freeID: 604296
Title: Playhouse: A novel
Author: Richard Bausch
Narrator: Lee Osorio
Format: Unabridged
Length: 15:45:29
Language: English
Release date: 02-14-23
Publisher: Random House (Audio)
Genres: Fiction & Literature, Mystery, Thriller & Horror, Literary Fiction, Psychological, Family Life
Summary:
From the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story . . . Effortlessly engaging” —Sven Birkerts, The New York Times), a sharp, affecting, masterly new novel about a close-knit theater community in Memphis and one turbulent, transformative production of King Lear.
As renovations begin at the Shakespeare Theater of Mem...2023-02-153h 45
Grab the Top Full Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror, PsychologicalPlayhouse: A novel by Richard BauschPlease visithttps://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604296to listen full audiobooks.
Title: Playhouse: A novel
Author: Richard Bausch
Narrator: Lee Osorio
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 15 hours 45 minutes
Release date: February 14, 2023
Genres: Psychological
Publisher's Summary:
From the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story . . . Effortlessly engaging” —Sven Birkerts, The New York Times), a sharp, affecting, masterly new novel about a close-knit theater community in Memphis and one turbulent, transformative production of King Lear. As renovations begin at the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis, life for the core members of the company seems to be falling into d...2023-02-143h 45
Grab the Top Full Audiobooks in Mystery, Thriller & Horror, PsychologicalPlayhouse: A novel by Richard BauschPlease visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604296 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Playhouse: A novel Author: Richard Bausch Narrator: Lee Osorio Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 15 hours 45 minutes Release date: February 14, 2023 Genres: Psychological Publisher's Summary: From the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story . . . Effortlessly engaging” —Sven Birkerts, The New York Times), a sharp, affecting, masterly new novel about a close-knit theater community in Memphis and one turbulent, transformative production of King Lear. As renovations begin at the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis, life for the core members of the company seems to be fallin...2023-02-1410 min
Listen to Top Full Audiobooks in Fiction, DramaPlayhouse: A novel by Richard BauschPlease visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604296 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Playhouse: A novel Author: Richard Bausch Narrator: Lee Osorio Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 15 hours 45 minutes Release date: February 14, 2023 Genres: Drama Publisher's Summary: From the prize-winning fiction writer Richard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story . . . Effortlessly engaging” —Sven Birkerts, The New York Times), a sharp, affecting, masterly new novel about a close-knit theater community in Memphis and one turbulent, transformative production of King Lear. As renovations begin at the Shakespeare Theater of Memphis, life for the core members of the company seems to be fallin...2023-02-1410 min
The Last We FakeS2 E18 - Richard Bausch Reads and Discusses PLAYHOUSESend us a textRichard Bausch (“A master of the novel as well as the story ” —Sven Birkerts, The New York Times) previews a chapter of his 13th novel, PLAYHOUSE, scheduled for release by Alfred A. Knopf on February 14, then talks with Alan Rifkin about the book and his craft. Bausch’s works have appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Esquire, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Narrative, Gentleman’s Quarterly. Playboy, The Southern Review, New Stories From the South, The Best American Short Stories, O. Henry Prize Stories and The Pushcart Priz...2023-02-041h 01
St. John's College (Annapolis) LecturesVirtuality Is Its Own Reward (Sven Birkerts)Recording of a lecture delivered on September 12, 1997, by Sven Birkerts as part of the Formal Lecture Series. 2023-01-3050 min
QuotomaniaQUOTOMANIA 363: Marcel ProustToday’s Quotation is care of Marcel Proust. Listen in! Subscribe to Quotomania on quotomania.com or search for Quotomania on your favorite podcast app!
Marcel Proust was born on July 10, 1871 in the Paris suburb of Auteuil. His father, Dr. Adrien Proust, was one of France's most distinguished scientists. His mother, Jeanne Weil, was a well-educated woman who loved the great classic writers of the 17th century, especially Molière and Racine. Marcel's only sibling, Robert, was born in 1873. The hypersensitive Marcel suffered all his life from a number of ailments, especially asthma. Although he...2022-11-2902 min
The BunkerWar of the Words: Is your phone changing how you think?Our always-on digital world is changing how we read, which means it’s altering how our minds work. Literary critic Sven Birkerts, author of Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age, tells Andrew Harrison how the act of reading is fundamentally different when the printed word is just part of an ever-changing multiplex – and why the state reading puts you in is more important than the words on the page (or the screen).
“A book used to be an escape, but now the outside world is always insistently present.”
“It’s harder to get inside...2022-08-2724 min
The Virtual Memories ShowEpisode 500 - ALL The GuestsFIVE-HUNDRED EPISODES of The Virtual Memories Show?! Let's celebrate this milestone episode with tributes, remembrances, jokes, congrats, non-sequiturs, and a couple of songs (!) from nearly 100 of my past guests, including Maria Alexander, Jonathan Ames, Glen Baxter, Jonathan Baylis, Zoe Beloff, Walter Bernard, Sven Birkerts, Charles Blackstone, RO Blechman, Phlip Boehm, MK Brown, Dan Cafaro, David Carr, Kyle Cassidy, Howard Chaykin, Joe Ciardiello, Gary Clark, John Crowley, Ellen Datlow, Paul Di Filippo, Joan Marans Dim, Liza Donnelly, Bob Eckstein, Scott Edelman, Barbara Epler, Glynnis Fawkes, Aaron Finkelstein, Mary Fleener, Shary Flenniken, Josh Alan Friedman, Kipp Friedman, Michael Gerber, Mort Gerberg...2022-08-192h 46
Science Write NowTime, memory and the stories of our lives with Sven BirkertsIn this episode, Amanda Niehaus chats with writer & AGNI co-editor Sven Birkerts about time, memory, and the patterns that shape our writing. Sven Birkerts is the author of eleven books of essays and memoirs, most recently 'Speak, Memory', a personal reading of Nabokov's memoir. He is the former director of the Bennington Writing Seminars, and he co-edits the journal AGNI at Boston University.Purchase Sven’s smart and personal analysis of Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak Memory here.The Science Write Now (SWN) Podcast is a 3x/mo...2022-03-2247 min
From What If to What Next24 - What if We Read more Books?When was the last time you read a book cover to cover? And if you are still able to do this, do you feel you read in the same way you did, say, 20 years ago? How is the decline in our collective attention span affecting our ability to read and, by extension, our collective capacity for knowledge, wisdom and art? What do we lose when we lose our ability to focus? This was such a fascinating conversation, with two people who have given this question a great deal of thought. Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, a...2021-05-2450 min
Rob HopkinsEpisode Twenty Four: What if we read more books?When was the last time you read a book cover to cover? And if you are still able to do this, do you feel you read in the same way you did, say, 20 years ago? How is the decline in our collective attention span affecting our ability to read and, by extension, our collective capacity for knowledge, wisdom and art? What do we lose when we lose our ability to focus? This was such a fascinating conversation, with two people who have given this question a great deal of thought.
Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, a teacher, and an advocate...2021-04-1249 minRob HopkinsEpisode Twenty Four: What if we read more books?When was the last time you read a book cover to cover? And if you are still able to do this, do you feel you read in the same way you did, say, 20 years ago? How is the decline in our collective attention span affecting our ability to read and, by extension, our collective capacity for knowledge, wisdom and art? What do we lose when we lose our ability to focus? This was such a fascinating conversation, with two people who have given this question a great deal of thought.
Maryanne Wolf is a scholar, a teacher, and an advocate...2021-04-1249 min
The Quarantine TapesThe Quarantine Tapes 181: Sven Birkerts“You realize at a certain point that you’re carrying the thing, it has entered you, it has affected you, and that, in a way, is the afterlife of reading. But in a way it’s the real life of reading. Reading was just getting you ready to have this ongoing experience.”2021-04-0528 min
The Virtual Memories ShowEpisode 418 - Sven BirkertsIs it unhip to search for a meaningful pattern in life? Sven Birkerts rejoins the show to talk about his new book, Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory: Bookmarked (IG Publishing), which explores time, memory, and those aforementioned meaningful patterns. We get into Sven's history with Nabokov's memoir, his own impulse toward memoir as he approached 50, and the challenge of writing about someone whose prose is as incandescent as Nabokov's. We talk about larger questions of literary greatness, the nature of individuality in an age of distributed social networks, whether Nabokov's best-known book will survive, and what other books and authors...2021-01-261h 32
The Virtual Memories ShowEpisode 416 - Wendung"At 50, everyone has the face he deserves," said George Orwell, but he died at 47, so what does he know? To celebrate turning 50, I use an obscure Woody Allen movie to talk about why I can't take stock of my life. Then the good part: I ask nearly 40 guests of the podcast one question, "What do you wish you'd done before the pandemic?" (You can skip right to that at 18:45.) Participants include Witold Rybczynski, Kathe Koja, John Holl, Emily Flake, Wallis Wilde-Menozzi, Ian Kelley, David Townsend, John Bertagnolli, Jennifer Hayden, Richard Kadrey, Joan Marans Dim, Liniers, Sven Birkerts, Barbara Nessim, Da...2021-01-111h 38
The Liberating ArtsThe Misformation of ZoomReading guru Karen Swallow Prior (author of On Reading Well) interviews the ‘Neil Postman of our age’ Sven Birkerts (author of The Gutenberg Elegies) about how digital technologies can deform our freedom and our humanity. But also how reading may counter such malformation!
2021-01-1145 min
In the AtelierThere's a Crowd on My DeskTHERE'S A CROWD ON MY DESK: A word for creative solitude amid the hive life of screens.
Mentioned in this episode: John Stuart Mill; Michel de Montaigne; Henry David Thoreau; Neil Postman; Aldous Huxley's Brave New World; Lee Siegel's Against the Machine; Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; John Updike; The Paris Review; Sven Birkerts' The Gutenberg Elegies; William Shakespeare's King Lear; Zadie Smith; J.D. Salinger; The Chronicle of Higher Education; William Deresiewicz.
Music: "Urban Drummers" by Mike Kirin; "Over and Over" by Stanley Gurvich; "Shiver" by Borrtex; "Heavens Anthem" by Skygaze; "Soft Awakening" by John Gegelman; "B...2020-11-1820 min
The Virtual Memories ShowCOVID Check-In with Sven BirkertsFrom Arlington, MA, essayist and AGNI co-editor Sven Birkerts checks in to let us know what books and poems provide him some degree of solace during the pandemic. We talk about what normal might look like in future and the way the recent past seems unreal, his daily challenge of taking an interesting photo for Instagram, the theme of ongoingness in literature, caring for his 92-year-old mom, and more. Follow Sven on Instagram and Twitter • Listen to our full-length podcast from 2017 • More info at our site • Find all our COVID Check-In episodes • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypa2020-04-0228 min
DeviateMajor Jackson“The act of creating is a way of stopping time.” – Major Jackson
Major Jackson (@Poet_Major) is an American poet, professor, and author of four collections of poetry: Roll Deep, Holding Company, Hoops, and Leaving Saturn. He currently serves as the Poetry Editor of the Harvard Review.
In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Major discuss the changing perception of time and how creation leads to a deeper experience of time (2:00); poetry and the lessons it teaches us about life (23:00); and time as prison, the way we claim our freedom, and art as a means toward...2018-10-0258 min
Rob HopkinsSven Birkerts on imagination.Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book 'The Gutenberg Elegies', which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture." More recently he wrote the brilliant 'Changing the Subject'. Both books are utterly brilliant, and I can't recommend them highly enough. As a result, I was so thrilled when I got the opportunity to speak to him... here is our conversation.2018-01-0746 minRob HopkinsSven Birkerts on imagination.Sven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book 'The Gutenberg Elegies', which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture." More recently he wrote the brilliant 'Changing the Subject'. Both books are utterly brilliant, and I can't recommend them highly enough. As a result, I was so thrilled when I got the opportunity to speak to him... here is our conversation.2018-01-0746 min
The Virtual Memories ShowThe Guest List 2017Three dozen of the year's Virtual Memories Show guests tell us about the favorite books they read in 2017 and the books they hope to get to in 2018! Guests include Pete Bagge, Kathy Bidus, Sven Birkerts, RO Blechman, Kyle Cassidy, Graham Chaffee, Howard Chaykin, Joe Ciardiello, John Clute, John Crowley, John Cuneo, Ellen Datlow, Samuel R. Delany, Nicholas Delbanco, Barbara Epler, Joyce Farmer, Sarah Williams Goldhagen, Paul Gravett, Liz Hand, Vanda Krefft, Michael Meyer, Cullen Murphy, Jeff Nunokawa, Mimi Pond, Eddy Portnoy, Keiler Roberts, Martin Rowson, Matt Ruff, Ben Schwartz, Vanessa Sinclair, Ann Telnaes, Michael Tisserand, Gordon Van Gelder, Shannon...2017-12-1955 min
The Virtual Memories ShowEpisode 231 - Sven BirkertsIn the '90s, Sven Birkerts cautioned us about the impact of technology on reading with The Gutenberg Elegies. In 2017, we mute our iPhones to talk about his new book, Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age (Graywolf Press). We dive into the impact of digital technology on perception and identity, but also get into the way life becomes a thematic puzzle in middle age, why he stepped down from his role directing the low-residency MFA program at Bennington, the joy of bringing his favorite writers in as instructors (and the ones he regrets not getting...2017-08-151h 56
The Kindle ChroniclesTKC 465 Kevin KellyAuthor of The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future Interview starts at 18:40 and ends at 43:00 “All the visions that most people have of the future are all dystopian, and they’re afraid. They’re worried. And yet the reality, the scientific evidence is that we are much better off today. Any of your listeners are 10 times better off than 10 or 20 years ago. ” News “Early data suggests Amazon’s Echo Show could be a hit with consumers” by Jonathan Camhi at Business Insider - May 24, 2017 Echo Show - $230 at...2017-07-0144 min
TK with James Scott: A Writing, Reading, & Books PodcastEp. 34: Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich & Colin DickermanThe author of the gripping new true crime/memoir, THE FACT OF A BODY, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich tells James that "the book teaches you how to write it." They talk about how those lessons evolved over a decade of work, as well as earning the story, engaging with darkness, measuring the emotional impact of working on a memoir versus finishing one, and geeking out over the work of Maggie Nelson. Plus Colin Dickerman, editor at Flatiron Books. - http://alexandria-marzano-lesnevich.com/ Alexandria and James discuss: Mike Scalise The Muse...2017-05-231h 38
PEN AmericaBook Reviewing: The Good, the Bad and the Overlooked, 1/11/1989Panelists Nina King, Rebecca Sinkler, James Wolcott, and Sven Birkerts talk about the "purposes, process and principles of book reviewing." The event is co-sponsored by the Association of American Publishers.2016-12-231h 31
ThirtyFour-50's tracksAmerican Essayist Sven BirkertsSven Birkerts is an American essayist and literary critic of Latvian ancestry. He is best known for his book The Gutenberg Elegies, which posits a decline in reading due to the overwhelming advances of the Internet and other technologies of the "electronic culture."2015-10-1226 min
Thinking in Public with Albert MohlerThe Fate of Reading in a Digital Age: A Conversation with Sven BirkertsThis is Thinking in Public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.Sign up to receive every new Thinking in Public release in your inbox.Follow Dr. Mohler:X | Instagram | Facebook | YouTubeFor more information on The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, go to sbts.edu.For more information on Boyce College, just go to BoyceCollege.com.2011-05-3141 min