Conversations with Tyler8 Huhti 2020

Emily St. John Mandel on Fact, Fiction, and the Familiar

When Tyler requested an interview with novelist Emily St. John Mandel, he didn't expect that reality would have in some ways become an eerie mirror of her latest books. And Emily didn't expect that it'd be boosting sales: "Why would anybody in their right mind want to read Station Eleven during a pandemic?" she wondered to Tyler. Her reaction was pure bafflement until she found herself renting Contagion and thought about why. "There's just such a longing in times of uncertainty to see how it ends." Narratives, especially familiar ones, soothe us. It's fitting then that her latest book has been suggested as "the perfect novel for your survival bunker."

She joined Tyler to discuss The Glass Hotel, including why more white-collar criminals don't flee before arrest, the Post Secret postcard that haunts her most, the best places to hide from the Russian mob, the Canadian equivalent of the "Florida Man", whether trophy wives are happy, how to slow down time, why she disagrees with Kafka on reading, the safest place to be during a global pandemic, how to get away with faking your own death, how A Canticle for Leibowitz influenced her writing, the permeability of moral borders, what surprised her about experiencing a real pandemic, how her background in contemporary dance makes her a better writer, adapting The Glass Hotel for a miniseries, her contrarian take on Frozen II, and more.

Read a full transcript enhanced with helpful links, or watch the full video.

Recorded March 27th, 2020

Other ways to connect

Follow us on Twitter and Instagram
Follow Tyler on Twitter
Follow Emily on Twitter
Email us: cowenconvos@mercatus.gmu.edu
Subscribe at our newsletter page to have the latest Conversations with Tyler news sent straight to your inbox.

Tämä jakso on lisätty Podme-palveluun avoimen RSS-syötteen kautta eikä se ole Podmen omaa tuotantoa. Siksi jakso saattaa sisältää mainontaa.

Jaksot(288)

Blake Scholl on Supersonic Flight and Fixing Broken Infrastructure - Live at the Progress Conference

Blake Scholl is one of the leading figures working to bring back civilian supersonic flight. As the founder and CEO of Boom Supersonic, he's building a new generation of supersonic aircraft and pushin...

19 Marras 202537min

Donald S. Lopez Jr. on Buddhism

Register for the Austin listener meetup Donald S. Lopez Jr. is among the foremost scholars of Buddhism, whose work consistently distinguishes Buddhist reality from Western fantasy. A professor at the...

12 Marras 202557min

Sam Altman on Trust, Persuasion, and the Future of Intelligence - Live at the Progress Conference

Register for the Austin listener meetup Sam Altman makes his second appearance on the show to discuss how he's managing OpenAI's explosive growth, what he's learned about hiring hardware people, what ...

5 Marras 202554min

Jonny Steinberg on South African Crime and Punishment, the Mandelas' Marriage, and the Post-Apartheid Era

Tyler considers Winnie and Nelson: Portrait of a Marriage one of the best books of the last decade, and its author Jonny Steinberg one of the most underrated writers and thinkers—in North America, at ...

28 Loka 202552min

George Selgin on the New Deal, Regime Uncertainty, and What Really Ended the Great Depression

George Selgin has spent over four decades thinking about money, banking, and economic history, and Tyler has known him for nearly all of it. Selgin's new book False Dawn: The New Deal and the Promise ...

15 Loka 20251h 8min

John Amaechi on Leadership, the NBA, and Being Gay in Professional Sports

John Amaechi is a former NBA forward/center who became a chartered scientist, professor of leadership at Exeter Business School, and New York Times bestselling author. His newest book, It's Not Magic:...

1 Loka 202559min

Steven Pinker on Coordination, Common Knowledge, and the Retreat of Liberal Enlightenment

Steven Pinker returns to Conversations with Tyler with an argument that common knowledge—those infinite loops of "I know that you know that I know"—is the hidden infrastructure that enables human coor...

24 Syys 202545min

David Commins on Saudi Arabia, Wahhabism, and the Future of the Gulf States

David Commins, author of the new book Saudi Arabia: A Modern History, brings decades of scholarship and firsthand experience to explain the kingdom's unlikely rise. Tyler and David discuss why Wahhab...

17 Syys 202551min