The Audio Book Club on Cloud Atlas
Our critics discuss David Mitchell’s 500-year puzzle epic.
Posted Friday, Nov. 2, 2012, at 11:04 PM ET
To listen to the Audio Book Club discussion of Cloud Atlas, click the arrow on the player below.
Are we really all connected? Despite Hurricane Sandy, Slate Book Review editor Dan Kois, Slate culture critic Meghan O’Rourke, and Slate senior editor Emily Bazelon connect (over phone and ISDN line) to discuss David Mitchell’s epic 2004 novel Cloud Atlas, now the basis for the much-discussed movie by the Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer. Which of the novel’s six stories was best? Which was way better in the movie? And is this long, engrossing, enjoyable novel literature—or fuzzy philosophical hoo-hah?
Next month’s Audio Book Club selection is Zadie Smith’s NW, the formally adventurous story of a downtrodden London neighborhood and four people who grew up there. Please read the book and join us on Dec. 1 for our discussion.
Visit our Audio Book Club archive page for a complete list of the more than 50 books we’ve discussed over the years. Or you can listen to any of our previous club meetings through our iTunes feed or through the player above.
See all the pieces in this month’s Slate Book Review.
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Emily Bazelon is a Slate senior editor and writes about law, family, and kids. Her forthcoming book, Sticks and Stones: Defeating the Culture of Bullying and Rediscovering the Power of Empathy and Character, will be published in February. Find her at emilybazelon@gmail.com or on Facebook or Twitter.
Dan Kois is a senior editor at Slate and a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine.
Meghan O'Rourke is Slate's culture critic and an advisory editor. She was previously an editor at The New Yorker. The Long Goodbye, a memoir about her mother's death, is now out in paperback.