Anthony Doerr

Four Seasons in Rome released in paperback

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 04:26:00 MDT

My third book has just been published in paperback in the US and the UK.

Four Seasons in Rome is about writing, the fanfare surrounding the death of Pope John Paul II, habitualization, the ancient Roman encyclopedist Pliny the Elder, and being a parent of newborn twins in central Italy, where you can’t push a stroller twenty feet without someone stopping to tell you how beautiful your baby is. “Doerr has composed a bittersweet and artful meditation on the craft of writing and a celebration of the city and the senses,” says Salon.com. If you’re interested in travel, parenting, Italy, sleep-deprivation, perception, or writing, you might give it a look.

Register for a workshop in Sun Valley, Chautaqua, or Portland

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 28 May 2008 10:43:00 MDT

Anthony will be a teaching writing workshops at the Chautauqua Writers’ Festival, the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop, and at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts this summer.

Feldman

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 26 May 2008 17:00:00 MDT

Listen to an interview with Anthony on Michael Feldman’s Whad’ya Know? Part 1 / Part 2.

O. Henry Prize Stories 2008

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:34:00 MDT

My short story “Village 113” is included in the newly-released O. Henry Prize Stories 2008, a collection of 20 remarkable stories from writers as gifted and varied as Michael Faber, William Gass, Edward P. Jones, Alice Munro, and Olaf Olafsson. Full table of contents here.

Our Inner Zoos

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 11:14:00 MDT

The implication was that big-brained Homo sapiens, perched at the top of the topmost twig, formed the pinnacle of evolution. This is a fallacy. Evolution proceeds by blind chance, not by design. We are adapted creatures, but we are not optimized creatures. As counterintuitive as it might seem, it’s inaccurate to suggest that humans are more evolved than, say, horseshoe crabs, which have been living and dying for 400 million years

From All Creatures, Great and Overrated, a March 16 column in the Sunday Globe.

Tournament of Books

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 10:57:00 MDT

Like book contests? Think book contests are silly? Want to learn more about contemporary fiction? Think it’d be cool to see last year’s best novels compete against each other in a March Madness NCAA-style showdown? Then check out the Tournament of Books over at TMN. Complete with downloadable brackets.

Not every book is broccoli and spinach

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 04 Feb 2008 10:13:00 MST

…When you’re falling into a good book, exactly as you might fall into a dream, a little conduit opens, a passageway between a reader’s heart and a writer’s, a connection that transcends the barriers of continents and generations and even death… -From a short essay on reading in Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine, Spirit. You can read a PDF of the piece here.

Story in Scribner Anthology

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:15:00 MST

My story “The Caretaker” is included in the brand new edition of The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: 50 North American Stories Since 1970, a sharp and affordable collection of fifty good short stories.

We follow the same path as the soul of this great world

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:11:00 MST

Ultimately, Maeterlinck writes with the same intrinsic humility that will be familiar to admirers of John Muir, Aldo Leopold, Rachel Carson, Annie Dillard, or Mary Oliver. His conclusions match Thoreau’s: that we humans are only part of a network of much greater systems, and that we occupy a position in those systems which is located at neither the pinnacle nor the center. His is a post-Copernican, Enlightenment project: to rid our perception of the natural world of its human-centric context.

From reviews of new editions of Maurice Maeterlinck’s The Intelligence of Flowers and Henry David Thoreau’s Excursions in the Jan 20 Sunday Globe.

NPR interview

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 09:24:00 MST

Listen to Anthony’s interview on NPR’s Weekend Edition

New Zealand Listener on Procreate, Generate

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 09:26:00 MST

Doerr’s “Procreate, Generate” – about a couple’s IVF treatment – is a masterpiece of observed detail and intuitive poetic sense, like DeLillo at his best.

wisconsin read-aloud

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 09:14:00 MST

Hear Four Seasons read aloud on Wisconsin Public Radio.

Should the Stone Age be Taught in History Classes?

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 07:41:00 MST

History didn’t start with the first humans—they were cavemen! They were pre-history, pre-literacy, pre-everything. Early humans squatted in dusty dioramas and lived short, terrifying lives. The Stone Age wasn’t history; the Stone Age was a preamble to history, a dystopian era of stasis before the happy onset of civilization, and the arrival of nifty developments like chariot wheels, gunpowder, and Google. Right?

From reviews of Matthew Hedman’s The Age of Everything and Daniel Lord Smail’s On Deep History and the Brain in the Nov 18 Sunday Globe.

review in spiral notebook

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 13:15:00 MDT

Here is a memoir that is decidedly not about its author: it is about the nature of perception and interpretation.

Bob Kustra’s Radio Show

Anthony Doerr — Sat, 20 Oct 2007 10:17:00 MDT

Hear Anthony on NPR’s New Horizons in Education

Tyrannosaurus Tissue?

Anthony Doerr — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 06:13:00 MDT

So what did the scientific community think when a devoutly Christian paleontologist cracked open the femur of a 68-million-year-old Tyrannosaurus rex and claimed she had found soft, stretchy tissues inside?...

Inquiring Minds and Brains is a review of The Best American Science Writing 2007 from the Globe.

Houston Chronicle

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 22:23:00 MDT

Who else would notice the pine trees that wave down on the Vespas that beetle around the city?

The World Without Us

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 10 Jul 2007 07:02:00 MDT

…Weisman is actually at his best when exploring the past, tracing the world as it was before homo sapiens to extrapolate what it might be like after homo sapiens. He conjures the mammoths and beavers (big as black bears) and sloths (big as cows) of North America in the late Pleistocene; he imagines the ancient, brooding forest that once shrouded Europe from Ireland to Siberia… Did you know that 13 million gallons of water need to be pumped out of New York City’s subway systems every day? Or that ancient underground cities are carved into the volcanic tuff of Cappadocia, Turkey?...

From a review of Alan Weisman’s The World Without Us in the July 15 Globe.

O. Henry

Anthony Doerr — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 14:22:00 MDT

‘Village 113’ wins an O. Henry

Where We Live

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 24 Jun 2007 14:14:00 MDT

It bewilders and disorients; the dark patches swarm with questions. If you peered into just one of its black corners, took an Ultra Deep Field of the Ultra Deep Field, would you see as much all over again? Why the breathtaking photograph known as the Hubble Ultra Deep Field should be in every classroom in the world, an essay in the July/August issue of Orion Magazine

Salon Review

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 14:20:00 MDT

This is not just another saccharine red-sauce and chianti-soaked travelogue…

Richmond Times Dispatch

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 09:18:00 MDT

It seems that every page offers something to be underlined or starred…

Budget Travel

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 13 Jun 2007 15:06:00 MDT

Window or Aisle?

Oregonian review

Anthony Doerr — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 09:16:00 MDT

A Tribute to Wonder Itself

Take the Pliny Challenge

Anthony Doerr — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 09:04:00 MDT

Four excerpts from ancient writers. Three are quotations from Pliny the Elder’s Natural History. One isn’t. Figure out which quotation isn’t from Pliny and win yourself a free, signed hardcover of Four Seasons in Rome. The Pliny Challenge happens at the Morning News all week long.

Seattle Times review

Anthony Doerr — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 09:36:00 MDT

Travel Memoir Is Good Enough to Eat

Remembering Pop

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:29:00 MDT

…On his 94th birthday, he leapt out of an airplane strapped to a skydiving instructor and free-fell for a mile. For his 95th birthday, he screamed up a stretch of the Columbia River in a jetboat. “Pulled 2 1/2 Gs,” he told us. He planned to fly a hot air balloon over Seattle; he wanted to market jewelry made from human hair to Playboy…

From Remembering Pop, a eulogy for my wife’s legendary grandpop.

Statesman piece

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 10:27:00 MDT

The book is a love letter to Rome…

Thrive piece

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 13:44:00 MDT

Through the Oculus.

Boise Weekly

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 23 May 2007 10:32:00 MDT

Strollers, Language Barriers, and the Pope

The Deep

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 20 May 2007 12:47:00 MDT

…Any world map shows that the earth’s surface is about 75 percent ocean. But it’s easy to forget that the seas are, on average, 2 1/2 miles deep. On land, animals live on the ground or within about 200 feet of it. In the ocean, animals live at the surface, or at the bottom of the deepest trenches, 6 1/2 miles down. Multiplied out, that means 99 percent of the space inhabitable by the earth’s animals exists in the oceans…

Fathoms Deep, a Diverse, Endangered World discusses the alien and fragile worlds of deep water, as presented in Claire Nouvian’s extraordinary The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss and Tony Koslow’s The Silent Deep: The Discovery, Ecology, and Conservation of the Deep Sea.

Writer in residence

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 13 May 2007 13:22:00 MDT

Doerr to be 2008 Idaho Writer-in-Residence

Essay in Spirit Magazine

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 07 May 2007 11:29:00 MDT

I have a short piece about my wife’s skydiving, jetboating, 96-year-old granddad in the May issue of Spirit, Southwest Airlines’ in-flight magazine. Click here for a PDF.

Granta #97

Sean Porter — Fri, 04 May 2007 02:17:00 MDT

I have a brand new short story in the newest issue of Granta. It’s titled “Procreate, Generate,” and tells the story of a Wyoming couple grappling with assisted reproductive medicine. London’s Sunday Observer says the story “chronicles a couple’s attempts at conception with such quiet and luminous beauty that it will stay with the reader for years,” the Telegraph calls the story, “powerful and effective,” and the New Zealand Listener says “it is a masterpiece of observed detail and intuitive poetic sense, like DeLillo at his best.” You can read the first few paragraphs of “Proceate, Generate,” here.

Observer review

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 29 Apr 2007 02:00:00 MDT

Olivia Laing on Granta 97: Best of Young American Novelists 2

A New Look

Sean Porter — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 15:59:00 MDT

Welcome to the redesigned website! It features footnotes, sketches by the fabulous Beth Nash and a giant image of my own name. The concept comes directly out of the heads of the sensational gentlemen from dayjob, Sean and Todd. If you need a website, call them soon because they are blowing up.
Thanks for visiting.

Kirkus

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:52:00 MDT

Kirkus on Four Seasons in Rome.

Interview with Lisa Albers

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 08 Apr 2007 07:16:00 MDT

‘Globe-trekking with Anthony Doerr’

More Than a Match for Homo Sapiens

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 11:18:00 MDT

… Try termites. These blind creatures, rarely more than a twelfth of an inch long, routinely construct monumental castles 20 feet tall, replete with staircases, gardens, nurseries, royal chambers, waste dumps, air conditioning systems, and water wells that can sometimes be as deep as 150 feet. How far, the Goulds want to know, does the imagination of a termite extend?...

More Than a Match for Homo Sapiens is a column discussing Animal Architects, by James R. Gould and Carol Grant Gould and The Elephant’s Secret Sense, by Caitlin O’Connell.

A list of young writers

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 09:40:00 MST

‘A List of Young Writers to Keep an Eye On’

More on Granta

Anthony Doerr — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 09:48:00 MST

‘Granta Nominates Best Young US Novelists’

German Translation of The Shell Collector released

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 13:46:00 MST

The Shell Collector has been released in German by C.H. Beck Verlag , translated by Barbara Rojahn-Deyk. As one journalist noted, “Bei Anthony Doerr ist uns die Natur überlegen. Eine Urgewalt, grausam und geheimnisvoll.” Is that good?

Garbage Night

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 10:49:00 MST

…Before my kids turn 40, the vast majority of the world’s coral reefs could be devastated. Before my kids turn 20, 135 million people worldwide may have died from diseases resulting from a lack of clean water. Extinctions are currently happening faster than they did when the dinosaurs died off, the world population is more vulnerable than ever to epidemics, and fertilizer run-off in the Gulf of Mexico has created a dead zone—an expanse of ocean without sufficient oxygen to support life—the size of New Jersey…

from Garbage Night, a look at the American capacity for garbage-making.

Saturn’s Vanishing Rings and Other Surprises

Anthony Doerr — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 11:35:00 MST

...Modern astrophysics, it turns out, is built mostly on the analysis of spectra of light, much of which is entirely invisible to the naked eye. The universe throbs with the kinds of electromagnetic radiation we need specialized instruments to detect; radio waves radiate from nebulae, X-rays leave dying stars, and microwaves pour out of the chemical forges of the Milky Way…

Saturn’s Vanishing Rings and Other Surprises is a column reviewing Death by Black Hole: And Other Cosmic Quandaries, by Neil deGrasse Tyson.

Alice Munro Essay in Tin House #30

Anthony Doerr — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 13:44:00 MST

I have a long essay on memory, travel, reading, and Alice Munro in the Winter Reading issue of Tin House. It took me 2 months to write this damn essay.

Good Roots Anthology

Anthony Doerr — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 14:05:00 MST

From Sherwood Anderson to James Thurber, Ohio has had an undeniably rich literary tradition, but the Buckeye State also claims plenty of renowned contemporary writers, too. In Good Roots: Writers Reflect on Growing up in Ohio, Lisa Watts and The Ohio University Press have assembled some of the best, from P.J. O’Rourke to Susan Orlean to Mary Oliver to Dan Cryer, and it includes a brand-new essay from Anthony on memory.

Night Noise

Anthony Doerr — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 10:56:00 MDT

…In the air, all through our little neighborhood, mosquitoes are dying, crumpling, falling from the trees. Even though this is high desert, we have plenty of them, emerging mostly from standing puddles on over-watered lawns. And a few of them likely are carrying West Nile, a virus that does not exhibit symptoms in 80 percent of the people it infects and gives something like a fever and headache to the other 20 percent. Still, it can be deadly: This summer it has killed a pair of 70-year-old Idahoans, and contributed to the death of a 13-year-old boy who had also contracted Rocky Mountain spotted fever…

From Night Noise, the latest Letter From Idaho, on the city of Boise’s decision to spray Dibrom to help control mosquito populations.

Guardian Unlimited

Anthony Doerr — Sun, 22 May 2005 14:21:00 MDT

A review of ‘About Grace’ in the Guardian Unlimited

Fleeing the Future to Deny the Dream

Anthony Doerr — Wed, 12 Jan 2005 14:25:00 MST

‘Fleeing the Future to Deny the Dream’

Washington Post

Anthony Doerr — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 14:17:00 MDT

An interview with Anthony Doerr with readers of The Washington Post.

Laura Bush

Anthony Doerr — Thu, 12 Feb 2004 14:35:00 MST

We’ve infiltrated the White House: First Lady Laura Bush is reading ‘The Shell Collector’