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David Bezmozgis joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Likes,” by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, which was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Bezmozgis is a filmmaker and writer. He has published two story collections and two novels, “The Free World,” which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, and “The Betrayers,” which won the National Jewish Book Award. He was also chosen as one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 in 2010.
David Bezmozgis joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Likes,” by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, which was published in The New Yorker in 2017. Bezmozgis is a filmmaker and writer. He has published two story collections and two novels, “The Free World,” which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award and the Giller Prize, and “The Betrayers,” which won the National Jewish Book Award. He was also chosen as one of The New Yorker's 20 Under 40 in 2010.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of the novels Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award; and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, The Best American Short Stories, and the O. Henry Prize Stories. She lives in Los Angeles. Her recent story collection is called Likes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
This week co-hosts Kate and Medaya are joined by author Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, whose latest book is the collection of short stories Likes. Sarah discusses the magic of childhood, the difficulties of family life in the current political climate, and ways to see the quotidian in new and unexpected ways. Also, Richard Seymour, author of The Twittering Machine, returns to recommend Benjamin Taylor's Here We Are, My Friendship with Philip Roth.
This week co-hosts Kate and Medaya are joined by author Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, whose latest book is the collection of short stories Likes. Sarah discusses the magic of childhood, the difficulties of family life in the current political climate, and ways to see the quotidian in new and unexpected ways. Also, Richard Seymour, author of The Twittering Machine, returns to recommend Benjamin Taylor's Here We Are, My Friendship with Philip Roth.
Likes is the latest short story collection by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum, featuring nine stories.
This week, Liberty and Danika discuss Transcendent Kingdom, We Are Not Free, Mill Town, and more great books. This episode is sponsored by Book Riot Insiders, the digital hangout spot for the Book Riot community, Size Zero by Abigail Mangin, and Guillermo del Toro and Chuck Hogan’s THE HOLLOW ONES. Pick up an All the Books! 200th episode commemorative item here. Subscribe to All the Books! using RSS, iTunes, or Spotify and never miss a beat book. Sign up for the weekly New Books! newsletter for even more new book news. BOOKS DISCUSSED ON THE SHOW: Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi We Are Not Free by Traci Chee Mill Town: Reckoning with What Remains by Kerri Arsenault Lux: The New Girl by Ashley Woodfolk Night of the Mannequins by Stephen Graham Jones Be Gay, Do Comics by The Nib Fangs by Sarah Andersen Throwaway Girls by Andrea Contos WHAT WE’RE READING: Love After the End edited by Joshua Whitehead White Ivy by Susie Yang MORE BOOKS OUT THIS WEEK: Likes by Sarah Shun-lien Bynum When No One is Watching by Alyssa Cole The Dream Architects: Adventures in the Video Game Industry by David Polfeldt Dear Life: A Doctor’s Story of Love and Loss by Rachel Clarke It’s a Pumpkin! by Kate Kronreif and Wendy McClure Spellbound: A Graphic Memoir by Bishakh Som Wayward Witch (Brooklyn Brujas) by Zoraida Córdova Fifty Words for Rain by Asha Lemmie The Fear of Everything by John McNally A Ritchie Boy: A Novel by Linda Kass Jenna Takes The Fall: A Novel by A. R. Taylor Having and Been Had by Eula Bliss Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas by Roberto Lovato Out of Mesopotamia by Salar Abdoh Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie Ruthie Fear: A Novel by Maxim Loskutoff Find Layla by Meg Elison Mason Mooney: Paranormal Investigator by Seaerra Miller The Somebody People: A Novel by Bob Proehl Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture by Sudhir Hazareesingh Blizzard: Poems by Henri Cole The Oxford Illustrated History of the Book edited by James Raven Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific, 1944-1945 by Ian W. Toll Sins of the Bees: A Novel by Annie Lampman You Can Keep That to Yourself: A Comprehensive List of What Not to Say to Black People, for Well-Intentioned People of Pallor by Adam Smyer The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante, Ann Goldstein (translator) Twisted: A Cookbook- Unserious Food Tastes Seriously Good by Team Twisted Omni, Vol. 1: The Doctor Is In by Devin Grayson and Alitha Martinez Amber Waves: The Extraordinary Biography of Wheat, from Wild Grass to World Megacrop by Catherine Zabinski The Art of Drag by Jake Hall Vegan Junk Food: A Down & Dirty Cookbook by Zacchary Bird Hong Kong Local: Cult Recipes From the Streets that Make the City by ArChan Chan Mad and Bad: Real Heroines of the Regency by Bea Koch The Deepest South of All: True Stories from Natchez, Mississippi by Richard Grant A Girl is A Body of Water by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi The Appointment: A Novel by Katharina Volckmer The Circus of Stolen Dreams by Lorelei Savaryn Before the Ever After by Jacqueline Woodson None Shall Sleep by Ellie Marney Creepshow: The Taker by Elley Cooper Suitor by Joshua Rivkin The Death of Comrade President: A Novel by Alain Mabanckou The Candy Mafia by Lavie Tidhar and Daniel Duncan Greythorne (The Bloodleaf Trilogy) by Crystal Smith Punching the Air by Ibi Zoboi and Yusef Salaam The Book of Hidden Wonders: A Novel by Polly Crosby A Door Between Us by Ehsaneh Sadr The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman Road Out of Winter: a novel by Alison Stine The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes: A Novel by Elissa R. Sloan American Royals II: Majesty by Katharine McGee Queen of Volts by Amanda Foody Whispering Pines by Heidi Lang and Kati Bartkowski Flamer by Mike Curato Tune It Out by Jamie Sumner All the Devils Are Here (Chief Inspector Gamache Novel Book 16) by Louise Penny Bunbun & Bonbon: Fancy Friends by Jess Keating As the Shadow Rises by Katy Rose Pool Gold Wings Rising (The Skybound Saga) by Alex London Not Your #Lovestory by Sonia Hartl The Bridge by Bill Konigsberg Fable by Adrienne Young Ever After by Olivia Vieweg The Four Profound Weaves by R.B. Lemberg Set My Heart to Five by Simon Stephenson Daddy: Stories by Emma Cline Who We’re Reading When We’re Reading Murakami by David Karashima Red Pill: A Novel by Hari Kunzru The Stonewall Generation: LGBTQ Elders on Sex, Activism, and Aging by Jane Fleishman A Rogue of One’s Own (A League of Extraordinary Women Book 2) by Evie Dunmore Scritch Scratch by Lindsay Currie The Residence: A Novel by Andrew Pyper Milo Moss Is Officially Un-Amazing by Lauren Allbright The Witches of Brooklyn by Sophie Escabasse The Bass Rock by Evie Wyld Recommended For You by Laura Silverman The Insomniacs by Marit Wiesenberg One Step Behind by Lauren North Three Single Wives: A Novel by Gina LaManna Crush and Color: Idris Elba: Colorful Fantasies with the Sexiest Man Ever by Maurizio Campidelli Payback: A Novel by Mary Gordon The Wild Path by Sarah R. Baughman Sanctuary by Paola Mendoza, Abby Sher Every Night Is Pizza Night by J. Kenji López-Alt and Gianna Ruggiero Political Sign by Tobias Carroll Snake by Erica Wright Exit by Laura Waddell Dead Girls by Selva Almada, Annie McDermott (translator) See omnystudio.com/policies/listener for privacy information.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum’s “Likes” is a layered book of nine short stories.
On the night her single mother is taken to a mental hospital after a psychotic episode, eight year-old Francie is staying with her babysitter, waiting to take the train to Los Angeles to go live with her aunt and uncle. There is a lovely lamp next to the couch on which she’s sleeping, the shade adorned with butterflies. When she wakes, Francie spies a dead butterfly, exactly matching the ones on the lamp, floating in a glass of water. She drinks it before the babysitter can see. Twenty years later, Francie is compelled to make sense of that moment, and two other incidents — her discovery of a desiccated beetle from a school paper, and a bouquet of dried roses from some curtains. Her recall is exact — she is sure these things happened. But despite her certainty, she wrestles with the hold these memories maintain over her, and what they say about her own place in the world. As Francie conjures her past and reduces her engagement with the world to a bare minimum, she begins to question her relationship to reality. The scenes set in Francie’s past glow with the intensity of childhood perception, how physical objects can take on an otherworldly power. The question for Francie is, What do these events signify? And does this power survive childhood? Told in the lush, lilting prose that led the San Francisco Chronicle to say Aimee Bender is “a writer who makes you grateful for the very existence of language,” The Butterfly Lampshade is a heartfelt and heartbreaking examination of the sometimes overwhelming power of the material world, and a broken love between mother and child. Bender is in conversation with Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, the author of two novels—Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. _______________________________________________ Produced by Maddie Gobbo & Michael Kowaleski Theme: "I Love All My Friends," a new, unreleased demo by Fragile Gang. Visit https://www.skylightbooks.com/event for future offerings from the Skylight Books Events team.
The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker
Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum reads her story from the April 27, 2020, issue of the magazine. Bynum is the author of two novels, “Madeleine Is Sleeping” and “Ms. Hempel Chronicles.” Her story collection, “Likes,” will be published in September.
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum joins Deborah Treisman to read and discuss “Extra,” by Yiyun Li from a 2003 issue of the magazine.
The New Yorker: The Writer's Voice - New Fiction from The New Yorker
Sarah Shun-lien Bynum reads her story from the October 9, 2017, issue of the magazine. Bynum is the author of two novels, “Madeleine is Sleeping” and “Ms. Hempel Chronicles.” Her story “The Erlking” was included in The New Yorker’s "20 Under 40” issue, in 2010.
In an unnamed country at the beginning of the last century, a child called Pavla is born to peasant parents. Her arrival, fervently anticipated and conceived in part by gypsy tonics and archaic prescriptions, stuns her parents and brings outrage and scorn from her community. Pavla has been born a dwarf, beautiful in face, but as the years pass, she grows no farther than the edge of her crib. When her parents turn to the treatments of a local charlatan, his terrifying cure opens the floodgates of persecution for Pavla.Little Nothing unfolds across a lifetime of unimaginable, magical transformation in and out of human form, as an outcast girl becomes a hunted woman whose ultimate survival depends on the most startling transfiguration of them all. Woven throughout is the journey of Danilo, the young man entranced by Pavla, obsessed only with protecting her. Part allegory about the shifting nature of being, part subversive fairy tale of love in all its uncanny guises, Little Nothing spans the beginning of a new century, the disintegration of ancient superstitions, and the adoption of industry and invention. With a cast of remarkable characters, a wholly original story, and extraordinary, page-turning prose, Marisa Silver delivers a novel of sheer electricity.Praise for Little Nothing“Silver has created a gorgeously rendered, imaginative, magical yarn.” —Booklist“Pavla serves to remind readers of the moral of the story, that a good soul can find transcendence in the face of unbearable odds. And in Danilo readers will recognize their own longing for transcendence and meaning as he transforms himself through pain and sorrow into a man of courage and ingenuity." —Publishers Weekly“In Little Nothing, the wizardly Marisa Silver conjures a pitch-dark tale with empathy and humor. An emotionally suspenseful allegory, the novel reveals how the world's expectations can torque a woman's identity and leave a ferocious ache behind. The novel twisted me up inside. I loved it.” —Lauren Groff, author of Fates and Furies, a National Book Award Finalist"Little Nothing is a magnificent something, an inventive, unexpected story that seamlessly blends fable and folklore into the lives of characters who remain heart-wrenchingly real. That Silver wrestles with nearly unanswerable questions – What does it mean to occupy a body? What does it mean to be human? How transformative is love? – and still produces an exhilarating page-turner is a testament to her biting, beautiful prose. In addition to being a joy to read, this book challenged and changed me, and I can’t imagine what else anyone would want from a work of art." —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, author of The NestMarisa Silver is the author of the novel Mary Coin, a New York Times bestseller and winner of the Southern California Independent Bookseller’s Award. She is also the author of The God of War (a Los Angeles Times Book Prize finalist); No Direction Home; and two story collections, Alone with You and Babe in Paradise (a New York Times Notable Book and Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year). Silver’s fiction has won the O. Henry Award and been included in The Best American Short Stories, The O. Henry Prize Stories, and other anthologies. She lives in Los Angeles.Sarah Shun-lien Bynum is the author of two novels, Ms. Hempel Chronicles, a finalist for the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award, and Madeleine Is Sleeping, a finalist for the 2004 National Book Award and winner of the Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize. Her fiction has appeared in many magazines and anthologies, including the New Yorker, Ploughshares, Tin House, the Georgia Review, and the Best American Short Stories 2004 and 2009. The recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award and an NEA Fellowship, she was named one of “20 Under 40” fiction writers by the New Yorker. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.
MaddAddam: A NovelMargaret AtwoodIn conversation with author Sarah Shun-lien BynumIn Atwood’s dark and hilarious new novel, a man-made plague has swept the earth, but only a small group survives. In a world only Atwood could imagine, the Crakers’ reluctant prophet is hallucinating and giant Pigoons and malevolent Painballers threaten to attack. Join us for a conversation with this visionary author on the stunning conclusion to her dystopian trilogy, set in a future that is not only possible, but perhaps inevitable.*Click here to see photos from the program!
In this episode, fiction writer Sarah Shun-lien Bynum discusses her life and work on the February 22, 2012 edition of KNPR's "State of Nevada." Later that night, Bynum appeared as part of BMI's panel "Female Novelists in the 21st Century." This audio segment is used with the gracious permission of KNPR's "State of Nevada" which podcasts many segments of its programs. See knpr.org/son/feeds for more information.
In this episode, fiction writers Mary Gaitskill, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, and Cheryl Strayed discuss "Female Novelists in the 21st Century." Moderated by novelist and UNLV Assistant Professor of English Maile Chapman, the event was held February 22nd, 2012 in the UNLV Student Union Ballroom in Las Vegas, NV.
In this episode, fiction writer Mary Gaitskill discusses her life and work on the February 17, 2012 edition of KNPR's "State of Nevada." On February 22nd, Gaitskill will appear, along with Cheryl Strayed, Sarah Shun-lien Bynum, and Maile Chapman, as part of BMI's panel discussion "Female Novelists in the 21st Century." This audio segment is used with the gracious permission of KNPRs "State of Nevada" which podcasts many segments of its programs. See knpr.org/son/feeds for more information.
This week: award winning author Sarah Shun-lien Bynum uses her children to live out her own teen fantasies…We replicate a cocktail recipe… And Rico celebrates athletes by stuffing his face with dough and butter.