Books, Design and Culture
Monday’s edition of CBC Radio show Ideas featured Michael Enright in conversation with the New York Review of Book‘s co-founder Barbara Epstein, caricaturist David Levine, and long-time Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter:
CBC Radio IDEAS: Barbara Epstein/David Levine/Graydon Carter mp3
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Earlier today, CBC Writers and Company repeated Eleanor Wachtel’s 2006 conversation with Robert Hughes, the Australian art critic and historian. He spoke with Wachtel about his memoir, Things I Didn’t Know. Hughes died in August 2012, age 74:
CBC Radio Writers and Company: Robert Hughes mp3
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Author Teju Cole, author of Open City, in conversation with Eleanor Wachtel on CBC Radio’s Writers & Company:
CBC RADIO Writers and Company: Teju Cole Open City mp3
Comments closedIn an archive interview from 2002 (rebroadcast this weekend), CBC Radio’s Eleanor Wachtel talks to the late Jane Jacobs, author of Death and Life of Great American Cities, at her home in Toronto:
CBC RADIO WRITERS & CO: Jane Jacobs mp3
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A trailer for a short film by Greg Durrell about Canadian graphic designer and painter Burton Kramer to be released in Spring 2012:
Durrell has also published a book about Kramer’s design work called Burton Kramer Identities.
(via Swiss Legacy)
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Ninety-Four year-old resistance fighter, concentration camp survivor and former UN speechwriter Stéphane Hessel talks to Anna Maria Tremonti about human rights and his bestselling book Time for Outrage! on CBC Radio’s The Current:
CBC RADIO THE CURRENT: Resistance Fighter Stephane Hessel
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Iranian cartoonist and filmmaker Marjane Satrapi, best known for her memoir Persepolis, talks to CBC Radio’s Eleanor Wachtel about her life, her work and a new film adaptation of her book Chicken with Plums:
CBC Radio Ideas: Wachtel on the Arts with Marjane Satrapi
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Author Ursula K. Le Guin talks to Eleanor Wachtel about writing, science fiction and short stories in this archive interview for CBC Radio show Writers & Co. from 1993:
CBC Radio Writers & Co: Ursula K. Le Guin
At the end of the interview, Le Guin reads her short story ‘Crosswords’ from the collection Searoad.
(image: Copyright © by Marian Wood Kolisch)
Comments closedGoing to the library is one of my earliest memories. I don’t remember much about the books, but I remember the building — its steps and its smell — and I remember the funny pinkish orange library tickets for children. I think I could take out three books at once.
I also remember that the library was not that close to where we first lived. We must have gone on the bus. It was surely an adventure for me, but a pain for my parents.
We’re more fortunate now. My family and I can walk to the library. It takes about 5 minutes — longer if we are distracted by a friendly dog or the need to jump off a wall.
I borrow picture books and music for their kids; books, comics, DVD and CDs for me. I request most of things from the library website. I can do it whenever something comes to mind or I read about it online. The books (and it is mostly books if I am honest) come from libraries across the city and I get a call at home when they arrive at my branch. I don’t know how many books I can borrow at once — I’ve never hit my limit (not for lack of trying, however) — but I must have at least 7 or 8 things out at the moment. It is an amazing service.
Our library is always busy — no matter the time of day — with people of all ages and from all walks of life. Some, like me, are borrowing books, movies or music. Others are reading newspapers and magazines. Some are making use of the programs that the library runs. Some are using the only computers they probably have any access to.
But here in Toronto, as in many towns and cities in the UK and US, library cuts are now being seriously discussed by politicians who do not appreciate their value to neighbourhoods and who apparently wouldn’t recognise Margaret Atwood on the street. It is hard to imagine they have visited to a library recently, let alone made use of its services.
On yesterday’s CBC news show The Current there was a lengthy and interesting discussion of libraries and their future. Contributors included librarian Ken Roberts, local councillor Sarah Doucette, and Julia Donaldson, the UK’s Children’s Laureate and author of The Gruffalo:
CBC RADIO THE CURRENT: Whither the Library?
If you live in Toronto, you can sign an online petition in support of the public library system here.
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The late Dame Muriel Spark, author of Memento Mori, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie and The Ballad of Peckham Rye among others, talks to Eleanor Wachtel about her life and work in this archive interview for Writers & Company from 1999:
CBC RADIO WRITERS AND CO: Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark died in 2006 at the age of 88. The cover art in the image above is by Terence Greer.
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In another great archive interview for Writers & Company, author David Lodge talks to Eleanor Wachtel about artificial intelligence, consciousness and his 2002 novel Thinks:
CBC RADIO WRITERS & COMPANY: David Lodge, Think
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