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

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

Det här avsnittet är hämtat från ett öppet RSS-flöde och publiceras inte av Podme. Det kan innehålla reklam.

Avsnitt(288)

Bob Spitz on the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and the Art of Biography

Bob Spitz on the Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, and the Art of Biography

Bob Spitz has written major biographies of the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan, and now the Rolling Stones — but also, somehow, Ronald Reagan and Julia Child. In rock, his credentials were hard won: ...

13 Maj 55min

Craig Newmark on Institutional Maintenance, Giving Away Control, and the Internet We Were Promised (Live at 92NY)

Craig Newmark on Institutional Maintenance, Giving Away Control, and the Internet We Were Promised (Live at 92NY)

Craig Newmark's career, in retrospect, looks like a series of deliberate subtractions: he kept Craigslist plain, stepped aside as CEO early on, gave his equity to his foundation, and now funds people ...

29 Apr 46min

Kim Bowes on the Economic Lives of Rome's Ninety Percent

Kim Bowes on the Economic Lives of Rome's Ninety Percent

Kim Bowes is an archaeologist at the University of Pennsylvania whose book, Surviving Rome: The Economic Lives of the Ninety Percent, Tyler calls perhaps his favorite economics book of 2025. By siftin...

15 Apr 1h 1min

Arthur Brooks on Reinvention, Religion, and the Science of Happiness

Arthur Brooks on Reinvention, Religion, and the Science of Happiness

Click here to find Tyler's new generative book, The Marginal Revolution: Rise and Decline, and the Pending AI Revolution! Arthur Brooks reckons he's on the fourth leg of a spiral-shaped career: French...

1 Apr 59min

Paul Gillingham on Why Mexico Stays Together

Paul Gillingham on Why Mexico Stays Together

Buy tickets for the live Conversations with Tyler recording with Craig Newmark at 92NY! Tyler calls Paul Gillingham's new book, Mexico: A 500-Year History, the single best introduction to the countr...

25 Mars 1h 4min

Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli, Straussianism, and the Character of Liberal Democracy

Harvey Mansfield on Machiavelli, Straussianism, and the Character of Liberal Democracy

Buy tickets for the live Conversations with Tyler recording with Craig Newmark at 92NY! Few living scholars can claim to have shaped how we read Machiavelli as decisively as Harvey Mansfield. His new ...

18 Mars 49min

Henry Oliver on Measure for Measure, Late Bloomers, and the Smartest Writers in English

Henry Oliver on Measure for Measure, Late Bloomers, and the Smartest Writers in English

Sign up for the Chicago CWT Listener Meetup. Henry Oliver is the preeminent literary critic for non-literary nerds. His Substack, The Common Reader, has thousands of subscribers drawn in by Henry's co...

4 Mars 59min

Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires

Joe Studwell on Africa, Asia, and What Development Actually Requires

When Tyler called Joe Studwell's How Asia Works "perhaps my favorite economics book of the year" back in 2013, he wasn't alone: it became one of the most influential treatments of industrial policy e...

18 Feb 53min

Populärt inom Utbildning

det-skaver
historiepodden-se
rss-bara-en-till-om-missbruk-medberoende-2
allt-du-velat-veta
nu-blir-det-historia
harrisons-dramatiska-historia
johannes-hansen-podcast
not-fanny-anymore
sektledare
rss-viktmedicinpodden
roda-vita-rosen
i-vantan-pa-katastrofen
rss-dr-bjorklund
rss-real-talk-with-jesper-stahl
rss-max-tant-med-max-villman
rss-basta-livet
rss-relationsrevolutionen
sa-in-i-sjalen
rss-sjalsligt-avkladd
rss-foraldramotet-bring-lagercrantz