A podcast posted every Sunday featuring extended interviews and discussions from Bookwaves, Art-Waves, and Bookwaves Artwaves Hour programs on KPFA, and newly digitized and edited archive interviews from the pre-digital Probabilities series dating back to 1977. Literature, theater, film, the visual arts: in-depth interviews from a progressive and artistic viewpoint, with long-time KPFA/Pacifica host Richard Wolinsky.
Erik Larson discusses his book, “In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin,” hosted by Richard Wolinsky, and first aired on July 21, 2011. One of the decades that seems to have parallels to our own is the nineteen thirties, particularly in terms of the rise of Hitler in Germany. This interview delves into the book, its subjects, and what we can learn from examining the past.
Erroi Morris, documentary film maker and author of “The Ashtray (Or the Man Who Denied Reality)” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. The discussion ranges from the nature of truth to the history behind “The Thin Blue Line” to the role of truth in our society today.
In 1998, Paul Theroux wrote a scathing memoir about his friendship with Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul, who died on August 11, 2018 at the age of 85. In this interview recorded in October, 1998, Richard A. Lupoff and Richard Wolinsky speak with Paul Theroux about Naipaul, and about his work. The photo shown here was taken in 2011 at their reconciliation after their fifteen year old feud.
Glen David Gold, whose latest book is “I Will Be Complete: A Memoir,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. Glen David Gold is the author of the bestselling novels Sunnyside and Carter Beats The Devil which has been translated into 14 languages. “I Will Be Complete” focuses on his early life in San Francisco, Berkeley, and Los Angeles, and reads like a novel.
Howard Browne (1908-1999) was a novelist, pulp magazine editor, radio writer, screenwriter and author of dozens of television episodes in the 1950s. He discusses his long career, with anecdotes from life in the depression, ’40s radio, and his work in Hollywood. This is the only radio interview he ever gave, hosted by Richard A. Lupoff, dating to the mid to late 1980s. The interview was digitized, remastered and re-edited by Richard Wolinsky in 2018/
Richard Powers, whose latest novel is “The Overstory,” is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. The author of “The Time of Our Singing” and “The Echo Maker” delves into the world of eco-terrorism and the secret life of trees in this epic story about eight individuals who, together and apart, come to see the forests of earth as our salvation, and the salvation of the planet.
Nancy MacLean, author of “Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky. In this interview recorded October 20, 2017, she discusses the role of Buchanan and the Mont Pelerin Society in the underpinnings of this gradual take-over of the state and federal government, and what the goals are, according to her research.
Harlan Ellison (1934-2018), in conversation with Richard Wolinsky and Richard A. Lupoff, recorded in San Francisco on September 15, 1997, while he was on tour for his collection, “Slippage.” Impossible to categorize, and sometimes impossible to be around, Harlan Ellison was an acclaimed short story writer known for his science fiction and fantasy, a novelist, an editor known for the classic Dangerous Visions anthologies, a television writer and consultant, a media gadfly, and one of the most steadfast promoters of reading and independent bookstores.
Simon Winchester, whose latest book is “The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World,” is interviewed by Richard Wolinsky. A master at non-fiction writing, Simon Winchester looks at the difference between precision and accuracy, and at how these two elements helped create the world we see today, from automobiles to cell phones.
Len Cariou, Tony Award winner for the original production of “Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street” and star of his one-man show, “Broadway and the Bard,” in conversation with Richard Wolinsky.
