William Gibson talks to Wired

William Gibson's 1984 novel "Neuromancer" established him as one of science fiction's great, most prescient voices, and he's never slowed down. He's continued writing fiction, of course. For a long time, he blogged, but he traded that in for Twitter. He's one of the few authors of his generation who really gets it -- he's @GreatDismal, and has more than 70,000 followers.

His latest book, released in January, is something different still. "Distrust That Particular Flavor" is a collection of Gibson's nonfiction essays. He talked to Wired Magazine -- where some of his pieces first appeared -- about the book, aging futurists and more. Gibson says:

Futurists get to a certain age and, as one does, they suddenly recognize their own mortality, and they often decide that what’s going on is that everything is just totally screwed and shabby now, whereas when they were younger everything was better.

It’s an ancient, somewhat universal human attitude, and often they give it full voice. But it’s been being given voice for thousands and thousands of years. You can go back and see the ancient Greeks doing it. You know, “All that is good is gone. These young people are incapable of making art, or blue jeans, or whatever.” It’s just an ancient thing, and it’s so ancient that I’m inclined to think it’s never actually true. And I’ve always been deeply, deeply distrustful of anybody’s “golden age” — that one in which we no longer live.

Gibson's interview marks the launch of the new Wired podcast, The Geek's Guide to the Galaxy. That's all I know about it, but I hope they continue speaking to authors.

After the jump, an anecdote from the podcast in which Gibson gets the Hollywood treatment.

Grammy nominees include audio books from Tina Fey, Betty White

Two audio books of memoirs by comediennes, read by the authors themselves, received Grammy nominations this week. Tina Fey's "Bossypants" and Betty White's "If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won't)" are both in the running in the Spoken Word category.

The three other nominees aren't books at all, but a variety of audio performances. One is "Fab Fan Memories: The Beatles Bond," a collection of fan reminiscences about the Beatles; another is a recording of "Hamlet" performed by the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; and "The Mark of Zorro," an audio drama  featuring Val Kilmer.

In recent years, however, audio books have taken the award. Former President Clinton's "My Life" won the 2005 Spoken Word Grammy, followed the next year by future president Barack Obama's "Dreams from My Father." Obama's "The Audacity of Hope," read by Jacob Bronstein, won the award in 2008. Political books have done well: Jimmy Carter's "Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis" was one of two winners of the 2007 award and Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" won in 2009.

Celebrity and comedy have also had some recent success. Jon Stewart's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents Earth (The Audiobook)" won in 2011, and the 2010 winner was Michael J. Fox's "Always Looking Up." Maybe that means that the chances of winning are equally good for White and Fey.

The Grammy Awards will be presented Feb. 12 at Staples Center; the audio books category may not make the Kanye-and-Adele-studded telecast.

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Exclusive audio excerpt: Tina Fey reads "Bossypants"

Betty White voted America's "most trusted" celebrity

Tina Fey's "Bossypants": precise, professional, hilarious

-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Tina Fey at a book signing of "Bossypants" in April in New York. Credit: Jim Spellman / Getty Images

 

John Muir audiobook celebrates summer in the Sierras

It's been 100 years since John Muir published "My First Summer in the Sierra." The renowned author and naturalist, then 73 years old, looked back at  the summer he was 23. Broke, longing to explore the mountains, he was hired to go up into the Sierra as a shepherd; his experiences are part of what led him to found the Sierra Club.

To celebrate the centenary of Muir's book, "My First Summer in the Sierra" is being released as an audiobook by Silver Hollow Audio, narrated by Brett Barry. A sample is available online so listeners can decide if Muir's story is the right accompaniment for their own summer trips.

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-- Carolyn Kellogg

Photo: Duck Lake in the John Muir Wilderness in the Sierra Mountains in 2005. Credit: Ken Hively / Los Angeles Times

Samuel L. Jackson reads 'Go the F --- to Sleep'

Writer Adam Mansbach's childrens book parody "Go the F--- to Sleep" is the gift that keeps giving. Digital galleys of the book, which was released on Tuesday, went viral in early May helping it to shoot to the top of the Amazon best seller list before it was even printed. And now Samuel L. Jackson has recorded an audio version of the book, which is available, for free, on Audible.com.

Why all the hullabaloo around this book? Because any parent who has tried to put a toddler down to sleep has inevitably felt the need to curse, a lot. As Jackson says in the beginning of the recording, "Everyone tells you that reading stories will put kids to sleep, but it never works. It didn't in my house.... I did say go the 'F' to sleep to her a lot. And then she would look at me and say, 'Go the F to sleep, daddy?' And I would say, 'Yeah. Go the 'F' to sleep.' "

As if that weren't awesome enough, Gothamist has a video of comedian Judah Friedlander reading "Go the F--- to Sleep" at a party for the book's release earlier this week, and the site is reporting rumors that Werner Herzog has also expressed interest in making a recording.

Will more celebrities get on board? We'd like a woman's voice to get in the mix -- after all, moms can get just as frustrated as dads when their kids won't go to sleep. Our vote is for Karen O.

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-- Deborah Netburn

Image: The cover of "Go the F-- to Sleep." Credit: Akashic Books.

Photo: Samuel L. Jackson at the 65th annual Tony Awards. Jackson has recorded and audio version of the book. Credit: Charles Sykes / Associated Press

Exclusive audio excerpt: Tina Fey reads 'Bossypants'

Near the end of Tina Fey’s audio recording of her book “Bossypants,” the actress, writer and comedian discusses the last six weeks of the 2008 election when she regularly portrayed Sarah Palin on “Saturday Night Live.” The second time she appeared as Palin on the show, she was slated to do the scene "in one," which means by herself, talking straight into the camera. Instead, she requested that her friend Amy Poehler be included in the scene as Katie Couric.

 "...my background is improvisation not stand-up," Fey explains. "I really prefer the buddy system on stage."

And this is why listening to Fey read her memoir might not be as hilarious as one expects. The ability to humorously, incisively spill your guts into a microphone, the quality that unites the greatest stand-ups, is not her strength, and she never pretends it is.

Still, there are reasons to hear Fey rather than read her -- especially for what it's like to be a normal looking person at a fashion magazine photoshoot (listen to our exclusive clip, below) or for her Palin impression.

Audio clip: Click here to hear Fey on being photographed for fancy magazines

Fey includes the whole audio of the first sketch she ever did as Palin, when she stood alongside Poehler who portrayed Hillary Rodham Clinton. As she talks about this time in her life she switches back and forth between her own voice and Palin's distinctive accent.

This audio book also includes a moment when Fey makes a pretend phone call away from the microphone, and another when her voice is altered to sound like it’s coming over a loudspeaker. Aside from these, however, Fey makes little use of the audio format, which is too bad. Instead, imagine Liz Lemon reading from a memoir: It's funny, sure, but probably not as funny as one might hope.

Audio clip: Click here to hear Tina Fey on meeting Lorne Michaels

 

-- Deborah Netburn

Photo: Tina Fey at a book signing of "Bossypants" earlier this month in New York. Credit: Jim Spellman / Getty Images