Last month, Madeleine Thien‘s third novel was shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize. Do Not Say We Have Nothing (W.W. Norton), which is set in both present-day Vancouver and the China of Mao and Tiananmen Square, captivates from its opening paragraph: “In a single year, my father left us twice. The first time, to end his marriage, and the second, when he took his own life. I was ten years old.” The book’s structure allows Thien’s considerable talent free rein, as stories within stories proliferate and she hops nimbly between countries and time periods. “To write a novel is to find many other ways of being alive,” she told the Guardian last week; reading this marvelously rich book, you’ll believe that to read a novel might afford the same opportunities. The winner of the Man Booker Prize will be announced on the evening of Thursday, October 25, and Madeleine will join House of SpeakEasy at its next Seriously Entertaining show, Razor’s Edge, in New York City on November 1. Before then, we spoke to her about art, Johann Sebastian Bach, and discovering literature. Name: Madeleine Thien Age: 42 Where are you from? Montreal, by way of Vancouver. What is your occupation? Words, sentences and time travel. Title […]

“Thousand shades of grey”. Picture from James Rebanks’s hugely popular Twitter feed, @herdyshepherd1. “When English people dream of a rural arcadia, they usually dream of our landscape,” writes James Rebanks in The Shepherd’s View, just published as an attractive, colorful hardback by Flatiron Books. His latest account of farm life in the Lake District is a photo-filled follow-up to the New York Times best-seller The Shepherd’s Life, and every bit as funny, as plainspoken, as gripping, and as suddenly, unexpectedly moving. Rebanks, who combines the poetic eye of Wordsworth with a distinctly English wit (and an iPhone camera), turns the material of his everyday existence as a shepherd into a powerful chronicle of twenty-first century rural life. With understated affection and deadpan humor, he describes both his neighbors and his dogs (guess whom he favors), as well as the ins and outs of livestock shows (“They need to be stylish with good lines and curves. Think shapely, like Beyoncé”). Before his appearance at the House of SpeakEasy on November 1, we spoke about bookishness, Ernest Hemingway, and the sheep that’ll probably outlive us all. Name: James Rebanks Age: 42 Where are you from? Matterdale, Cumbria, England. What is your occupation? Shepherd and writer. Title of most recent work: The […]