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Shelf Life
Shelf Life is a show about books and the people who love them. In each episode, we invite a celebrated bibliophile (think Alan Cumming, John Waters, and Joyce Maynard) to select two of their favorite books, and then we chat about them, drawing connections between their lit choices and their lives and careers.
Podcasting since 2021 • 52 episodes
Shelf Life
Latest Episodes
Biographer Katherine Bucknell on Christopher Isherwood's Odyssey from Weimar Berlin to California
What can we learn from Weimar Germany and its rapid unraveling in the 1930s? Lately that question has gained more urgency as the US turns away from the trans-Atlantic alliance that has underpinned European security for the past 80 years. For Ka...
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Season 4
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Episode 3
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52:07
Legendary Publisher Edwin Frank in Praise of Rudyard Kipling — and Why the 20th Century Novel Matters
Nobel Laureate Rudyard Kipling is among the most derided of 20th century novelists, but in this episode of Shelf Life, the publishing legend Edwin Frank urges us to take a second look. As it happens, taking a second look was the impetus behind ...
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Season 4
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Episode 2
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50:40
Jeanette Winterson on ghosts, tech bros, and what her success taught her about class in Britain
It's been 40 years since Jeanette Winterson's debut novel, Oranges are Not the Only Fruit, launched a confident and daring new voice in English fiction, one that wasn’t afraid to take risks in the service of craft. Many books have foll...
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Season 4
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Episode 1
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51:26
Jennifer Kabat on America's forgotten populist uprising and the politics of place
Memoir meets history meets politics in Jennifer Kabat’s book, The Eighth Moon, a fascinating account of moving to the Catskills in 2005, and stumbling on a history of America’s forgotten populist uprising, the Anti-Rent War, that culmi...
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Season 3
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Episode 10
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51:32
Ricky Ian Gordon's Odyssey of Sex, Drugs and Opera
A teenage prodigy who worshiped Joni Mitchell, Ricky Ian Gordon has made a career turning novels and poems into operas and song. “I was that kid who was invited to the party because I could play anything, no matter how hard, and incite everyone...
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Season 3
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Episode 9
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52:10
