Great novels deserve to be celebrated every now and then. In this post we’re sharing a podcast that does just that with one of our most beloved literary classics, The Great Gatsby. The radio series, Studio 360′s AMERICAN ICONS, explores F. Scott Fitzgerald's THE GREAT GATSBY and finds out how this compact novel became the great American story of our age.

Novelist Jonathan Franzen tells Kurt Andersen why he still reads it every year or two, and writer Patricia Hampl explains why its lightness is deceptive. We'll drive around the tony Long Island suburbs where Gatsby was set, and we'll hear from Andrew Lauren about his film G, which sets Gatsby among the hip-hop moguls. And Azar Nafisi describes the power of teaching the book to university students in Tehran. Readings come courtesy of Scott Shepherd, an actor who sometimes performs the entire book from memory.

So, if you love the book, then please… listen to this:

Just the other day, Chip Kidd was in Pennsylvania where he was a guest on TAKE NOTE RADIO - WPSU, the official radio show of Penn State University. This was where Chip had gone to school. The Radio Talk Show Host was Patty Satalia and they talked about Graphic Design, Creating Book Covers, What it’s like to write your own books (The Cheese Monkeys, The Learners, and his new book, GO: A Kidd’s Guide To Graphic Design) and much much more! Mrs. Satalia’s questions were very well-researched & also pretty clever. Whew!

You can hear the complete interview, right here in it’s entirety, but we also suggest visiting their website for more broadcasts.

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On May 9th, 2013, Jon Stewart of The Daily Show interviewed David Sedaris, the author of “LET’S EXPLORE DIABETES WITH OWLS” (Little, Brown and Company). Check out the video, it’s pretty funny!

This week Neil Gaiman’s MAKE GOOD ART Book came out (which was designed by Chip Kidd) and one cool thing to happen is that the Philadelphia Weekly not only did a great interview all about the creation of this book, but they put Neil’s face on the cover! Oddly, this is only the second time that has happened (the first was on WIRED Magazine).

Neil Gaiman was interviewed by Kyle Cassidy. The article covers many topics all related to the new MAKE GOOD ART book like how did the, now famous, graduation Speech even come about and what prompted the creation of this book. It’s a great interview with this fun Author. Here’s a LINK to check it out, just CLICK HERE!

Author James Ellroy joins Walter Kirn on BylinerTV for a conversation where nothing is restrained and the boundaries of polite conversation are obliterated.

Ellroy testifies to the vile and glorious corners of L.A., and shares his visions of history without refracting the present day. With all the confidence of a shotgun blast, he tears through the politically correct limits on discussion and breathes fire with each admission and opinion. From his roots in writing, crime, fame fascination and current events, it’s an interview that could be measured on the Richter scale.

NPR Radio’s Talk of the Nation recently interviewed Neil Gaiman about his latest Graduation Gift book titled, “Neil Gaiman’s MAKE GOOD ART Speech”. The new book, designed by Chip Kidd and published by Harper Collins, is set to be released on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013.

Click here to listen to the NPR Radio Interview with Neil Gaiman:

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Chip Kidd, Associate Art Director at Knopf Books, Peter Mendelsund, Art Director for Pantheon Press, and Stephen Doyle, Creative Director, Doyle Partners; Design Contributor, New York Times and Wired, discuss whether cutting edge visual design can save the print industry. The talk is moderated by Darhil Crooks, Creative Director for the Atlantic, and way down below is the video-taped footage of the event.

Date: Tuesday, May 7th, 2013
Location: New York Historical Society, NYC

The first Speaker is Chip Kidd and he starts out talking a little bit about working with Neil Gaiman on Neil’s new book, MAKE GOOD ART : Neil Gaiman’s Speech Book. Which, by the way, is coming out on Wednesday, May 15th. Yes, that’s tomorrow! Very quickly, Chip Kidd gives a preview of what the book will look like, discusses some of the design ideas and concepts, and then (in a very sneaky way) he shamelessly plugs his own book that is coming out in October of 2013. We’re talking about his “Teaching Graphic Art to Kids” Book which is titled, “GO! A KIDD’S GUIDE TO GRAPHIC DESIGN“.

Then, next-up is Peter Mendelsund who quickly shares an amazing assortment of some of his work. Like Chip, he mainly designs book covers. But his graphic art has an interesting twist. He designs jackets for new books that are expected to be bestsellers AND he creates new covers for old classics, what they call the “back list”, and it’s all really great stuff like: Franz Kafka, Dante, Plato, Simone De Beauyoir, James Joyce, etc…

Peter also makes a shameless plug for his brand-new Design Book coming out in the Spring of 2014 titled, “COVER” by Peter Mendelsund. It looks pretty cool!

Then, the last guest (last, but NOT least) is Stephen Doyle who shares an amazing art-concept movie he created called CIPHER. This was a project he worked on with some Students and the end result is pretty interesting. He also discusses recent trends in publishing & print media.

Last year, around February, Chip Kidd was in Texas to speak at a special lecture given at the Dallas Museum of Art. So, to promote the event he got the chance to talk with the crazy guys over at FANBOY RADIO. ( We mean “crazy” in a good way, they’re awesome!)

The cool thing is that you can tell that the people doing the interview either, did some amazing research, or they’re just honestly huge fans because their questions were really really clever. I mean, they discuss Graphic Design, Book Covers, Comic Books, Batman, and a few of Chip Kidd’s Books like - The Cheese Monkeys, The Learners, Batman: Death By Design, and much more.

OK, I know this podcast interview is “a year old”, but it’s actually still very timely today and it shares some really good insight into design and other issues. So, please enjoy… oh yeah, and please share it with everybody you know

THANK YOU FANBOY RADIO!

CLICK HERE TO HEAR IT LIVE:

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Cartoonist and MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Fellowship winner Ben Katchor was recently interviewed by Gil Roth in a episode of “The Virtual Memories Show” Podcast. The main focus was Ben Katchor’s brand-new graphic novel recently published by Pantheon Books in 2013 titled, HAND-DRYING IN AMERICA AND OTHER STORIES, which collects his monthly comic page from Metropolis magazine. During this special episode, Ben even “performs” several of his comics. Plus, he gives us all some really great insight into his creative process. Also, as a side-note, we should mention that this book cover was designed by Chip Kidd.

We have embedded the podcast down below, but for even MORE information we suggest a visit to VIRTUAL MEMORIES.

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Ben Katchor
Hand Drying in America and Other Stories
Pantheon Books / Random House
ISBN 978-0-307-90690-8
160 Pages

As sort of a tribute to the great American Historian & Random House Author, Gore Vidal, we would like to present this full-documentary that PBS TV Series, American Experience, did on him titled, “The Education of Gore Vidal”. It runs about an hour & twenty four minutes, so please, just sit back and enjoy.

Gore Vidal is the author of twenty-four novels, five plays, many screenplays, more than two hundred essays, and the critically lauded memoir, Palimpsest (of which, Chip Kidd designed the cover, you can view it on Page 2 of our COVER GALLERY, Link Button up above just below the header). Also, Gore Vidal's United States (Essays 1952-92) won the 1993 National Book Award.

R.I.P. Gore Vidal 1925 - 2012.