GUEST HOST: DAVID SEDARIS
Guest host David Sedaris presents two stories about quiet times. Leonard Nimoy reads Raymond Carver's classic "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love," which is what perplexes the married couples sitting around drinking gin on a slow summer evening. It's also summer in Bernard Malamud's "A Summer's Reading," and a rootless young man is trying to find a path in life. David Rakoff was the reader.
Artists and Writers:
Raymond Carver (1938 - 1988) graduated from the Iowa Writers' Workshop in 1966, and taught there from 1973 to 1974. He is best known for his short stories, which are collected in the volumes Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?; Furious Seasons and Other Stories; What We Talk About When We Talk About Love; Cathedral; Where I'm Calling From; No Heroics, Please; Call if You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Other Prose; and the Library of America's Collected Stories. He also published numerous collections of poetry and Fires, a book of essays, poems, and stories. In 1988 he was inducted into the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.
Bernard Malamud (1914 - 1986) is considered one of the great storytellers of the twentieth century, ranked with Anton Chekhov, Isaac Babel, and Flannery O'Connor for his mastery of the short story form. He is the author of eight novels, including The Natural, which was made into a major motion picture; The Assistant, which was included in Time magazine's All-Time 100 Novels; and The Fixer, for which he was awarded the National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. Bernard Malamud: The Complete Stories brings together all of Malamud's published stories. He was also awarded the National Book Award for his short story collection The Magic Barrel. Malamud served as president of PEN American Center from 1979 to 1981. The PEN/Malamud Award, created in 1988, recognizes excellence in the art of the short story.
Leonard Nimoy (1931 - 2015) defied the limits of a genre-defined career to move beyond "Star Trek" to a distinguished career that included stage, photography, and many wonderful readings for Selected Shorts. He starred in numerous stage productions, including Equus and Full Circle on Broadway. In addition to his enormous success in the series Star Trek, he was a film director, responsible for Star Trek III and IV, Three Men and a Baby, The Good Mother, Funny About Love and Holy Matrimony. Television appearances in addition to Star Trek included Mission Impossible, In Search of…, Ancient Mysteries, and Fringe, for which he won a Saturn Award. He is the subject of the documentary For the Love of Spock, directed by his son.
David Rakoff (1964 - 2012) wrote the bestsellers Fraud, Don't Get Too Comfortable, and Half Empty and the novel-in-verse Love, Dishonor, Marry, Die, Cherish, Perish. A two-time recipient of the Lambda Literary Award and a winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, he was a regular contributor to Public Radio International's This American Life as well as a frequent reader at Selected Shorts. His writing frequently appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Wired, Salon, GQ, Outside, Gourmet, Vogue, and Slate, among other publications. An accomplished stage and screen actor, playwright, and screenwriter, he adapted the screenplay for and starred in Joachim Back's film The New Tenants, which won the 2010 Oscar for Best Short Film, Live Action.
David Sedaris is the author of the bestselling essay collections Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and When You Are Engulfed in Flames. His pieces appear regularly in The New Yorker and have twice been included in The Best American Essays. He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name "The Talent Family" and have written half-a-dozen plays including Stump the Host, Stitches, One Woman Shoe, which received an Obie Award, Incident at Cobbler's Knob, and The Book of Liz. He has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. Sedaris' most recent works include Theft By Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) and the essay collection Calypso. A second volume of his diaries is expected for summer 2021.
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