At National Public Radio, Maud Newton recommends Brian Dillon’s The Hypochondriacs.

Dillon is an unusually dexterous writer. Each of his slim chapters focuses on a different artist or thinker, and each fully evokes the subject’s fears and afflictions, showing how they’re reflected in his or her life’s work. Charlotte Bronte, for instance, was beset by headaches, chest pain and nervous, melancholic breakdowns that became a central theme of her fiction and tended to lift when she finished a novel.

On National Public Radio, Michael Schaub recommends Don DeLillo’s Point Omega.

A piece at National Public Radio bemoans the trivialization of American culture.

Perhaps the tendency to trivialize is born of bandwagonism or laziness. Idiomatically speaking: It’s easier to tear down than to build up. Or maybe we devalue valuable things because, as Herbert Marcuse observed, of society’s tilt toward repressive desublimation. In Marcuse’s mind, our capitalist culture renders a strong, often threatening urge into something weak and nonthreatening. For instance, marketers learn to satisfy our desire to be closer to nature by selling us Patagonia fleece jackets that we wear in our all-terrain Land Rovers driving to the mall.

This desublimation is repressive, Marcuse asserted, because it muffles social criticism and supports addictive consumerism. Consequently, contemporary society is spiritually and intellectually stagnant.

At National Public Radio, Heller McAlpin reviews T. C. Boyle’s Wild Child.

I’m a “pad” skeptic. Yeah, I saw Steve Jobs on stage with the shiniest, newest, coolest tablet computer out there, but I couldn’t help but ask myself, where does this fit into my life?

Eyder Peralta at National Public Radio dismisses Apple’s awkward device.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Alan Cheuse reviews J. M. Coetzee’s Summertime.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has a segment on the deleterious effects of e-books on readers and writers.

On WHYY’s Fresh Air, Maureen Corrigan picks her books of the year.

Retired Seattle librarian Nancy Pearl, who has her own action figure, recommends holiday books on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered interviews Dave Eggers about Zeitoun.

At National Public Radio, Maud Newton recommends Samantha Peale’s The American Painter Emma Dial.

Emma, in the employ of a critically acclaimed painter, hasn’t visited her studio in a year. Her self-loathing is palpable; the prose vibrates with the heat of her disgust. (The author herself served as a studio assistant to Jeff Koons — the controversial “King of Kitsch” — and would have had the opportunity to witness this creative trap first-hand.)

Terry Gross of WHYY’s Fresh Air interviews Roya Hakakian.

On WHYY’s Fresh Air Terry Gross interviews Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power.

On National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Susan Stamberg gets summer reading picks from independent booksellers.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Robert Siegel notes J. D. Salinger’s lawsuit against a Swedish author accused of ripping off The Catcher in the Rye.

At National Public Radio, Maureen Corrigan recommends crime fiction for summer.

For National Public Radio, Laurel Maury reviews Joanna Smith Rakoff’s A Fortunate Age.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Rebecca Roberts interviews Bao Pu, editor of Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Christina Sunley recommends Halldór Laxness’s Independent People.

WHYY’s Fresh Air has Maureen Corrigan’s review of What Are Intellectuals Good For? by George Scialabba.

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition profiles Barney Rosset.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has a segment on the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Elements of Style.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a short segment on e-books and digital restrictions management.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Alan Cheuse reviews Jesse Ball’s The Way Through Doors and John Wray’s Lowboy.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, librarian Robert Darnton outlines his opposition to Google’s book scanning project.

For National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Lynn Neary covers publishers’ and booksellers’ objections to Amazon’s Kindle electronic reading device, the second version of which was recently announced.

Liane Hansen of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition interviews Jayne Anne Phillips, author of Lark & Termite.

At National Public Radio, John Irving remembers Richard Seaver.

When I met Dick and Jeannette, I was recently divorced and spectacularly unreliable; I envied the obvious strength of the Seavers’ marriage and Jeannette’s superb cooking. Their youngest son, Nick, and my middle son, Brendan, were friends. In my wrestling room in Sagaponack, Dick and I wrestled together. I was younger, and more technically trained; he was bigger and stronger. (Few people know that Dick Seaver wrestled — probably because he was such a sweet and gentle man.)

For National Public Radio, librarian Nancy Pearl lists books beneath the reading radar.

Scott Simon of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition speaks to Publishers Weekly contributing editor Charlotte Abbott about present conditions and the future of publishing.

National Public Radio announces that it is canceling Day to Day and News and Notes. A post at GalleyCat explains what the move means for public radio’s coverage of literature.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a segment by Rick Kleffel on the art of translation.

National Public Radio’s Day to Day laments America’s literary insularity.

For National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, poet Andrei Codrescu speaks of Wall Street’s sweet deal.

Ah, where were we? The economy, yes: $700 billion is more than enough money to buy every able-bodied American a chain saw, a solar-powered generator and a stake in a communal well and windmill. Also, red dirt and plum trees.

Terry Gross of Fresh Air interviews Robert Baer, ex-CIA operative and author of The Devil We Know.

Jacki Lyden of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered interviews Daniel Mendelsohn, author of How Beautiful It Is And How Easily It Can Be Broken.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered reports that Russia’s authoritarian turn has produced a literary boom.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Alan Cheuse reviews Tan Twan Eng’s The Gift of Rain and Roma Tearne’s Mosquito.

Fresh Air remembers Ted Solotaroff, founder of The New American Review.

WHYY’s Fresh Air interviews Ron Suskind. Suskind’s book, The Way of the World, alleges criminal behavior in the push for war with Iraq.

National Public Radio has Andrew Sean Greer reading from The Story of A Marriage.

On Fresh Air, Terry Gross interviews David Sedaris about When You Are Engulfed in Flames.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, David Gura examines writers’ Web sites. The popular ones seem to be designed to appeal to those who do not read books.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Alan Cheuse reviews Joseph Olshan’s The Conversion.

On National Public Radio’s Morning Edition, Clark Davis covers BB&T CEO John Allison’s attempts to buy Ayn Rand a place on campus.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a piece by Karen Grigsby Bates on the closing of Dutton’s Books in Los Angeles.

Maureen Corrigan of Fresh Air reviews Donna Foote’s Relentless Pursuit: A Year in the Trenches with Teach for America.

For National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Curt Nickisch covers libraries that are choosing to pay to digitize their collections rather than sharing control with Google or Microsoft.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Alan Cheuse reviews James Howard Kunstler’s World Made by Hand.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Jeff Lunden profiles playwright Edward Albee.

In 1993, Masako Owada, an Ivy League-educated Japanese commoner, married Crown Prince Naruhito of Japan, and the pressures of life in the Imperial Palace soon started building.

Scott Simon of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition talks with John Burnham Schwartz about The Commoner.

Melissa Block of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered interviews Eric G. Wilson, professor of English at Wake Forest University and author of Against Happiness.

[Wilson] explores the link between sadness, artistic creation and depression — which has led to suicide in many well-known cases: Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, Hart Crane and Ernest Hemingway, for instance.

Wilson says perhaps this is “just part of the tragic nature of existence, that sometimes there’s a great price to be paid for great works or beauty, for truth.”

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered profiles Twelve, publisher of Christopher Buckley’s Boomsday and Christopher Hitchens’s God Is Not Great.

On the latest “You Must Read This” segment of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, Michael Chabon recommends The Exploits and Adventures of Brigadier Gerard, a collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s post-Holmes short stories featuring the titular French dandy.

WHYY’s Fresh Air recently re-ran Terry Gross’s 1995 interview with William Maxwell.

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition interviews Xiaolu Guo, author of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.

National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation interviews Francis Wheen, author of Marx’s Das Kapital.

National Public Radio’s Day to Day has an interview with Naomi Wolf, author of The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot.

Jacki Lyden, of National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, interviews Ha Jin, author of A Free Life.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has a segment on the relationship between novelist Ann Patchett and her first reader, Elizabeth McCracken.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered talks with Michael Chabon about his adventure story Gentlemen of the Road.

“Chick lit” is certainly a dire development, but it is not the nadir of contemporary fiction. National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a story airing discontent with the rise of “Ghetto lit.”

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered interviews Philip Roth, whose latest novel, Exit Ghost, is the last to feature protagonist Nathan Zuckerman.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a review of Junot Diaz’s first novel, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

WHYY’s Fresh Air has an interview with Connie Schultz, author of . . . and His Lovely Wife: A Memoir from the Woman Beside the Man.

On National Public Radio’s All Things Considered, the lovely Jennifer Egan recommends Wilkie Collins’s The Woman in White (published in 1860) for summer reading.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has a segment on the dwindling number of pages devoted to book coverage in print newspapers.

National Public Radio’s Fresh Air has a chilling interview with two Philadelphia public school teachers who were assaulted by students.

Scott Simon of National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition interviews Ruth Downie, author of Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire.

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition has readings from Margaret Bradham Thornton’s Notebooks, a collection of the journals of Tennessee Williams.

Veronique de Turenne reviews Matt Haig’s The Dead Fathers Club for National Public Radio’s Day to Day.

Fresh Air is rerunning a 2002 interview with Pulitzer Prize winning historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.

National Public Radio’s Web site covers a series of Oxford-style debates called Intelligence Squared U.S.

All Things Considered has a review of The Bastard of Istanbul by Elif Shafak.

Fresh Air has an interview with Turkish novelist Elif Shafak.

National Public Radio’s All Things Considered has a review of Marcus Sakey’s The Blade Itself.

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition has an interview with Jane Poynter about her book The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes inside Biosphere Two.

National Public Radio’s Fresh Air has an interview with Thant Myint-U about The River of Lost Footsteps: Histories of Burma.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has an interview with Calvin Trillin about his book About Alice.

The publishing industry let its guard down in 2006, earning a swift pop to the proboscis, asserts a piece from National Public Radio’s All Things Considered.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has a story about writers who draw inspiration from Shanghai.

National Public Radio’s Day to Day has a segment on the controversy generated by Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, Jimmy Carter’s new book.

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition has an interview with Kitty Burns Florey about her book Sister Bernadette’s Barking Dog: The Quirky History and Lost Art of Diagramming Sentences.

The National Archives, that is. National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation has an interview with the editors of Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the Censored Images of Japanese American Internment. The editors, while doing research, were surprised that these photographs, commissioned by the government of the United States and long available in the Archives, had never been presented in a book.

National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition has an interview with Kate Atkinson, the most interesting portion of which covers her becoming a novelist later in life.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has an interview with Isabel Allende about her latest novel, Ines of My Soul.

National Public Radio is running the commentary of Barbara Feinman-Todd on the public’s strange acceptance of ghost writing.

When a student showed Alice McDermott a discarded library copy of Katherine Anne Porter’s Pale Horse, Pale Rider, stamped “Low Demand,” McDermott felt like she’d been punched in the stomach.

Listen to her defense at National Public Radio.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition has a segment on how Orhan Pamuk’s Nobel win is viewed in his native country.

National Public Radio’s Morning Edition today ran a piece on the detective fiction of Qiu Xiaolong. What makes Qiu Xiaolong’s fiction interesting beyond its genre is that it deals deeply with the changes in Chinese society from the Cultural Revolution to the present. Qiu Xiaolong’s latest book is A Loyal Character Dancer.

Noam Chomsky spoke about his book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance on The Tavis Smiley Show. The starkly differing timbre of the two voices proved to be an interesting juxtaposition.

British-born Moazzam Begg was secretly abducted by U.S. forces and taken to Guantanamo Bay, where he spent nearly two years imprisoned as an enemy combatant of the United States. He was released in March 2005, and has now written a book about his time inside Guantanamo.

The book, Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar, details his experiences. Listen to the interview at National Public Radio.

National Public Radio has a piece on George Eliot’s Middlemarch as part of its “must read books” series.

Today’s Fresh Air featured an interview with Jonathan Franzen about his memoir The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History.

Today’s Talk of the Nation featured a segment on the life and writing of Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, author of The Cairo Trilogy and numerous other works.

In the latest installment of All Things Considered’s “buttonhole books” series, T. C. Boyle explains how he came to appreciate the short stories of John Cheever.

John Pomfret went to college in China. In 1981, that was a rare experience for an American. Pomfret–now a journalist–has since checked on five former classmates for the book Chinese Lessons.

Listen to the story at National Public Radio.

Yesterday’s episode of Fresh Air featured reviews of two new novels: Pound for Pound by late writer F.X. Toole, and The Night Gardener by George Pelecanos.

National Public Radio’s Talk of the Nation recently ran a piece on an interesting nonfiction title, Jonathan Wright’s The Ambassadors: From Ancient Greece to Renaissance Europe, the Men Who Introduced the World to Itself.

I am not sure that I agree with the premise of the segment, part of National Public Radio’s Summer Reading series, but it is almost always fun to listen to Nancy Pearl, a Seattle librarian whose enthusiasm regularly reminds me why I do what I do.

Linguist Geoff Nunberg appeared on Fresh Air today to discuss his book Talking Right.

Listen to the interview at National Public Radio.

Yesterday’s Fresh Air featured reviews of Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky and Triangle by Katharine Weber.

John Updike was on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition today.

Listen to the interview.

NPR is running a feature on Stuart Kelly’s The Book of Lost Books.

I needed to get out of the incessant Taipei rain for a while, so I checked out the streaming audio of several American public radio stations. One was running Fresh Air. Terry Gross is my favorite interviewer. She has a great, nuanced radio voice, which doesn’t seem to go with her photograph at all. She was interviewing Al Gore, who was supporting his new book and documentary. The segment is already in the archive, so tune in for a preview of Al’s environmental message.

Presidential historian Robert Dallek and journalist Terry Golway have collected Kennedy’s most famous speeches in a CD that accompanies their new book, Let Every Nation Know: John F. Kennedy in His Own Words.

Resources:

• Buy Let Every Nation Know: John F. Kennedy in His Own Words (Hardback) at Amazon.com
• Listen to Excerpts of the Speeches at National Public Radio
• Read about John F. Kennedy at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum