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the audio book club: Discussing new and classic works.

Dissecting The Emperor's ChildrenSlate's Audio Book Club on Claire Messud.

By Andy Bowers
Posted Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2006, at 3:05 PM ET

To listen to Slate's Audio Book Club, click the arrow on the player below:



You can also click here* to download the MP3 file, or you can subscribe to the Audio Book Club podcast feed in iTunes by clicking here.

Love it or hate it, The Emperor's Children, by Claire Messud, has quickly become one of the most talked-about novels of the year. Its richly detailed portrait of several 30-year-old Ivy Leaguers struggling to fulfill their promise in pre- and post-9/11 New York has touched a nerve (and not only among thirtysomething New York Ivy Leaguers).

Now our regular Audio Book Club members Stephen Metcalf, Meghan O'Rourke, and Katie Roiphe are here with an hourlong discussion of The Emperor's Children that touches on everything from whether the book can rightly be called a satire to its perfect description of a bookish young woman's studio apartment.

Click here* to download the audio program.

You can also start reading our next book-club selection, Independence Day, by Richard Ford.

Ford recently published The Lay of the Land, the third novel in his Frank Bascombe trilogy. So, we thought now was a perfect time to revisit the series' previous installment. Published in 1995, Independence Day won the Pen/Faulkner and Pulitzer prizes, and it's also a favorite of our book-club members. (Of course, if you want to go for extra credit you can also read the first book in the series, The Sportswriter.)

Listen to our Audio Book Club about Independence Day in February.

You can also listen to any of our previous club meetings by clicking on the links below*:

The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Everyman, by Philip Roth
Saturday, by Ian McEwan
The Year of Magical Thinking, by Joan Didion

Questions? Comments? Write us at . (E-mailers may be quoted by name unless they request otherwise.)

* To download the MP3 file, right-click (Windows) or hold down the Control key while you click (Mac), and then use the "save" or "download" command to save the audio file to your hard drive.

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