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Listen Longer 8/15: Great Authors

August 17, 2015  • Katherine Grygo, Guest Blogger

This past week Aspen Institute Radio focused on great authors we recommend for these last few weeks of beach reading. The episode features talks with David Ignatius about his latest novel “The Director,” Phil Klay on his Award-Winning book “Redeployment” and a conversation with Dani Shapiro, Andre Dubus III, and Ann Hood.

Aspen Institute Radio, our two-hour radio show, airs every Saturday and Sunday on SiriusXM Insight (channel 121). Each episode dives into the topics that inform the world around us. Here in our weekly Listen Longer posts, we’ll recap each episode and show where you can read, watch, and listen to more. Don’t have SiriusXM? Try it free for a month here.

David Ignatius on His Latest Novel

(Photo Credit: Steve Johnson)

As part of the 2015 Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series, The Washington Post prize-winning Columnist and Author David Ignatius, who has been covering the Middle East and the CIA for more than 25 years, sat down for an interview with The New York Times Chief Washington Correspondent David E. Sanger to discuss his book. In Ignatius’s gripping novel, “The Director,” spies don’t bother to steal information… they change it, permanently and invisibly.

Phil Klay on His Award-Winning Book

(Photo Credit: Patrice Gilbert)

Also part of the Alma and Joseph Gildenhorn Book Series, this conversation featured US Marine Corps Veteran Phil Klay discussing his award-winning collection of short stories in his book “Redeployment,” with author Lea Carpenter, who wrote the 2013 best-selling war novel “Eleven Days.”

The stories of “Redeployment” reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship, and violence that make up a soldier’s daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier’s homecoming. 

Conversation with Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

(Photo Credit: Erin Baiano)

In conversation with Aspen Institute Arts Program Director Damian Woetzel, Author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, whose third novel “Americanah” was selected by The New York Times as one of the 10 Best Books of 2013, discusses the role of literature and the arts in a discourse on race and gender.

Aspen Words Presents: Dani Shapiro, Andre Dubus III, and Ann Hood

What is the relationship between fact and truth in one’s writing? When mining your own life as an author, what is fair game? Are some “truths” better suited to fiction than nonfiction? How do you decide? And how do you shape those truths into a coherent story? 

Authors Dani Shapiro (“Devotion: A Memoir”), Andre Dubus III (“Townie: A Memoir”) and Ann Hood (“Comfort: A Journey Through Grief”) discussed the risks and rewards of writing a memoir at the 2015 Summer Words.

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