Step Across This Line: Collected Non-Fiction 1992-2002, by Salman Rushdie

Step Across This Line: Collected Non-Fiction 1992-2002

By Salman Rushdie

Pulitzer Prize winning poet Rita Dove will discuss her most recent publication, Sonata Mulattica. The book-length lyric narrative was inspired by history and imagination. It re-creates the life of a nineteenth-century mixed-race virtuoso violinist, George Polgreen Bridgetower. He travels to Vienna to meet Ludwig van Beethoven. The great composer's subsequent sonata is originally dedicated to the young mulatto, but George, exuberant with acclaim, offends Beethoven over a woman. From this crucial encounter evolves a grandiose yet melancholy poetic tale.

Midmorning interview: September 13, 2002, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: October 2, 2002, 7 p.m.


My Losing Season, by Pat Conroy

My Losing Season

By Pat Conroy

The author of "The Prince of Tides" and "Beach Music," in this new memoir, reconstructs his senior year as an athlete at The Citadel in 1966-67. He tells the truth about the family he would immortalize in fiction in "The Great Santini" and the school whose secrets he revealed in "The Lords of Discipline." The story is one of a smart, idealistic young man with a brutal father and a habitually abusive coach, who must find self-respect and resilience—and shore up his basketball teammates—through punishing circumstances.
Midmorning interview: October 22, 2002, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: November 7, 2002, 7 p.m.


The Tapestries, by Kien Nguyen

The Tapesties

By Kien Nguyen

This first novel, by the author of the acclaimed memoir The Unwanted, is loosely based on the author's grandfather, court embroiderer to the last King of Vietnam in the early 1900s, as the old ways were giving way to French customs. The story is that of Dan Nguyen, who at seven is married to a woman 20 years his senior so she can function as his family's unpaid slave. When his parents are beheaded their by political enemy, his wife-caretaker hides him as a slave in the murderer's house, where he falls in love and carefully embroiders a plan to win his heart's forbidden desire and his freedom.
Midmorning interview: October 22, 2002, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: November 7, 2002, 7 p.m.


Bud, Not Buddy, by Christopher Paul Curtis

Bud, Not Buddy

By Christopher Paul Curtis

Times are hard for 10-year-old Bud in 1936 Flint, Michigan. He's motherless, and he's on the run, but he has hope. He's looking for his father. His mother never told him who his father was, but she left him a clue about Herman E. Calloway and his famous band, the Dusky Devastators of the Depression. When he decides to hit the road and find this mystery man, nothing can stop him.
Midmorning interview: December 17, 2002, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: January 12, 2003, 2 p.m.


Transcircularities, by Quincy Troupe

Transcircularities: New and Selected Poems

By Quincy Troupe

Quincy Troupe's poetry is all about rhythm and bass. This new volume captures Troupe's lyrical, rhythmic voice in a collection of his newest work and his best classics, taking on jazz, sports, love, art, literature, and American life.
Midmorning interview: January 23, 2003, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: February 12, 2003, 7 p.m.


Kitchen Boy, by Robert Alexander

The Kitchen Boy

By Robert Alexander

On July 16, 1918, Bolshevik revolutionaries murdered the entire Russian royal family. Narrated by the sole witness to the basement execution, the kitchen boy, Robert Alexander's novel takes us through the entire story. "The Kitchen Boy" is historical fiction at its best, and the accessible style and intricate plot will keep readers guessing throughout.
Midmorning interview: February 20, 2003, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: March 12, 2003, 7 p.m.


Stone Heart, by Diane Glancy

Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea

By Diane Glancy

In "Stone Heart," Diane Glancy retells the story of American legend Sacajawea, the young Shoshoni woman who traveled with Lewis and Clark on their expedition to the West. Presented in Sacajawea's voice in the form of a journal, the book makes moving and illuminating fiction out of a famed piece of history that has long been masked by myth.
Midmorning interview: March 18, 2003, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: April 17, 2003, 7 p.m.


The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

By Margaret Atwood

Offred, a handmaid, describes life in what was once the United States, now the Republic of Gilead, a shockingly repressive and intolerant monotheocracy, in this futuristic and satirical tour de force.
Midmorning interview: April 14, 2003, 10 a.m.

Live appearance: May 8, 2003, 7 p.m.

Margaret Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale'
Feature by Katherine Lanpher

Talking Volumes Archives

About Talking Volumes

Talking Volumes is a partnership of Minnesota Public Radio and the The Star Tribune, in collaboration with The Loft Literary Center.
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