Paul Auster
The NJ-raised Brooklynite author of The New York Trilogy talks about writing from a dog's point of view and others elements of illusion in this 25-minute audio interview.

James Baldwin
Listen in on an interview done shortly before his death.

Don Delillo
You want to hear an inteview about Underworld? Or you want to hear this guy read from Mao II? How about Libra?

Richard Ford
The author who lived in Haddam, NJ, and wrote "Independence Day"
and "The Sportswriter," chats with NPR. Here he reads an excerpt from Women & Men. 

Allen Ginsburg/Jack Kerouac
Ginsburg takes six minutes out of his now completed life to read an unpublished poem, "Brooklyn Bridge Blues" by Ti Jean.

Joesph Heller
Reads and talks for 37 minutes about (what else?) Catch 22.

Ernest Hemingway
Some people really like this guy. Ever heard his voice? Check out his short-winded Nobel Prize acceptance speech and/or a discussion of his novel The Fifth Column from 1937 . 

John Irving
Reading many years ago from The Hotel New Hampshire at the 92nd St, Y; in two 30-minute parts: I and II.

Ken Kesey
Reads from The Last Go Round.

Philip Roth
This Newark-raised thorougbred reads from I Married A Communist. There's also an interview. He sounds a lot like Mark Leyner?

Eudora Welty
In 1953, she read three stories: Why I Live at the P.O.; Powerhouse; and A Worn Path.
 
 
 
 
 

 
Recently Added 
Interviews
Chris Ware
William T. Vollmann
Jonathon Lethem Colm Toibin
George Saunders
David Foster Wallace
Dave Eggers
Donald Antrim
Mark Z. Danielewski
Lorrie Moore
Salman Rushdie
T.C. Boyle
Nicholson Baker
Russell Banks
Don Delillo
Rick Moody
Richard Ford

Zadie Smith
Reads a little something 
called Stuart***

Vladimir Nabokov

A one-hour program from 1964 with a Susan Sontag intro and readings from Pale Fire and Lolita, as well as a lecture on Russian Poetry.

Susan Sontag, Paul Auster, Cythnia Ozick,
David Foster Wallace, E.L. Doctorow, 
and other luminaries wax 
about Kafka's humor.
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Mark Leyner
The Tetherballs of Bougainville
An interview with NPR's Ray Suarez and some typical laughmaking excerpts.

Rick Moody
The Feelies-crazy author talks about Purple America with Terry Gross for the pleasure of whosoever clicks here. Here he reads Twister.
 

Celebrating Italo Calvino Umberto Eco, Salmon Rushdie, and others talk shit about the baron among the trees during this one-hour tribute.

Grace Paley 
Reads a poem at the Y.

John Updike
Test your endurance. Click on a 58-minute interview where the king phallocrat of gorgeous sentences reads from Toward the End of Time, talks about becoming a writer and now a senior citizen, and also says a few words about writing about home and Kerouac.

Doris Lessing
The author reads from her autobiography, talks about the process of writing about her life, and answers questions from the crowd.

Mary McCarthy
She reads from and discusses The Group from 1963.

John McPhee
Princeton-area Pulitzer Prize winner reads at the Y in '89.
 
 
 
 
 

 

Cannonball Runners
Paul Auster
Donald Barthelme
Jorge Luis Borges
Italo Calvino
Don DeLillo
William Gaddis
James Joyce
Jack Kerouac
Doris Lessing
Vladimir Nabokov
Thomas Pynchon
Philip Roth
Grace Paley
John Updike
David Foster Wallace
Eudora Welty
William T. Vollmann

The Art Memoir
Discussion on translating life into literature with Gore Vidal, Tobias Wolff , and Pang-Mei Natasha Chang. Fiction is fact selected, arranged, and charged with purpose. 

Kurt Vonnegut
The author talks about survivng and enjoying the Dresden firebombing.

David Foster Wallace
I don't care what you think about the guy. Listen to two stories read outloud, "A Radically Condensed History of Postindustrial Life" and
"Death Is Not The End" from Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, and then check out one-half hour of excerpted reading from Infinite Jest at NYC's KGB Bar, and then see if your opinions hold, and see if they were actually ever your own. There's also an excellent interview available on "Bookworm" where an interviewer correctly pins DFW's work for getting at sadness (ie, human emotion) through the downward spiraling flush of overaware hyperintellectualism. Good resources if you're too tired to read 300 pages of footnotes.
 

Ishmael Reed
Listen in on an interview about the commercial nickle-and-diming of multiculturalism (a term he coined).

David Sedaris
Several readings are available from Naked and his enlightening Xmas tales.

Randall Jarrell
1963, 92nd St., RJ bust a few rhymes for about an hour, including "The Mockingbird"; "The Bird of Night"; and "Bats," among others.