Kurt Andersen is a writer and the host and co-creator of Studio 360 (and of the new occasional radio variety show Kings County).
His latest novel True Believers, according to Jon Robin Baitz's review in Vanity Fair, "is beautifully drawn," "a great American novel." The Washington Post calls it "a big, swinging novel...full of witty insights" with "plenty to keep us entertained," and The San Francisco Chronicle considers it "fiendishly smart, insightful and joyously loopy." Booklist says it's "an ambitious and remarkable novel, wonderfully voiced" with "spellbinding suspense, and according to The Winnipeg Free Press its "genre grafting" is "an unmitigated success."
His previous novel, Heyday, a New York Times bestseller, won the 2008 Langum Prize for the year's best work of American historical fiction. His earlier novel, Turn of the Century, was a national bestseller that Times reviewers called "wickedly satirical," "outrageously funny" and "the most un-clichéd novel imaginable," and that The Wall Street Journal called a "smart, funny and excruciatingly deft portrait of our age."
He is also the author of Reset, a book-length essay about the history and consequences of the 2008-09 financial crisis and recession, and of The Real Thing, a book of humorous essays. He has written and produced prime-time network television programs and pilots for NBC, ABC, and HBO, and co-authored Loose Lips, an off-Broadway theatrical revue that had long runs in New York and Los Angeles.
He is a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The New York Times, New York and Time.
Andersen began his career in journalism at NBC's Today program and at Time, where he was an award-winning writer on politics and criminal justice and for eight years the magazine's architecture and design critic. Returning to Time in 1993 as editor-at-large, he wrote a weekly column on culture. From 1996 through 1999 he was a staff writer and columnist ("The Culture Industry") for The New Yorker, and from 2004 through 2009 wrote a column ("The Imperial City") for New York.
He was also a co-founder of Inside.com and Very Short List, editorial director of Colors magazine, and editor-in-chief of both New York and Spy magazines, the latter of which he co-founded.
He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College, and is a member of the boards of trustees of the Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum and the Pratt Institute. He lives with his wife in Brooklyn.
Web site: http://www.kurtandersen.com/
Facebook Fan Page: http://www.facebook.com/kurtandersenbooks
Twitter: @kbandersen
Shows:
Kurt Andersen appears in the following:
New Rite of Spring From 'Studio 360'
Thursday, April 04, 2013
Spring is officially here, but for one of our sister programs at WNYC, the season started a little early this year. Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen recently embarked on a listener challenge called “Remixing Spring.” Before the show announces the winner this weekend, Andersen joins Soundcheck in the studio to name his short list of entries.
Producer Joe Boyd On Nick Drake; Broadway’s 'Cinderella' In Studio; Remixing Spring with Kurt Andersen
Thursday, April 04, 2013
In this episode: More than forty years ago, the record producer Joe Boyd helped turn the songs of the late English musician Nick Drake into musical masterpieces. Now, he’s releasing a tribute album to the songwriter, Way To Blue: The Songs of Nick Drake.
Plus: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s version of Cinderella is playing on Broadway for the first time. We’re joined by Cinderella and the Prince (Laura Osnes and Santino Fontana, respectively) and music supervisor David Chase for a live performance that will air before midnight.
And: Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen recently embarked on a listener challenge called “Remixing Spring.” Before the show announces the contest winner this weekend, Kurt joins us to share a shortlist of entries.
Faking It: The Matrix
Friday, November 16, 2012
Faking It: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, at the Metropolitan Museum, contains hundreds of strange and fascinating pictures, all of them altered in different ways. Wandering through the show, Kurt Andersen realized that each image could be plotted along two axes ...
Adele, Meet James Bond
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
This month marks the 50th anniversary of the first James Bond film and the franchise is being celebrated with a DVD box set, a documentary, a film festival at the Museum of Modern Art, and most importantly, a new movie, Skyfall. Naturally, no new Bond movie would be complete without a new James Bond song for the opening credits. And this time around its by the British superstar Adele. How does it hold up compared to past Bond songs?
Gore Vidal: Fighting Words
Wednesday, August 01, 2012
My first experiences of Gore Vidal were not his writing, but as a pop cultural performer playing himself on television. When I was a little kid, he was a regular on late-night talk shows, chatting with Johnny Carson and then Dick Cavett about '60s politics and culture and ...
Kurt Andersen on True Believers
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360, discusses his new novel, True Believers. The story alternates between the present and the 1960s—and captures the enduring impact of the social upheaval of that time on the ways we live now. The narrator, Karen Hollander, is a successful attorney who recently removed herself from consideration for appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court because of a 1968 episode she’s managed to keep secret for more than forty years. She’s about to make that secret public—but first she has to track down the answers to some crucial last questions.
Dylan, Hendrix, Lennon: The True Believers Soundtrack
Thursday, July 05, 2012
I have a new novel coming out next week, True Believers, that isn't easy to pigeonhole. So I'll defer to the novelist Scott Turow, who describes it as "one part bildungsroman, one part political thriller and one part contemplation on age." The part that's a bildungsroman is the story of my ...
Kings County
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen talks about his new Brooklyn-centric take on the variety show, Kings County, and helps with a listener quiz. Think you know Brooklyn? Call 212-433-9692 and test your Kings County bona fides!
Rebranding Teachers
Friday, January 20, 2012
Deroy Peraza, principal and creative director at Hyperakt, and Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360, talk about working together to rebrand teachers.
Remembering Christopher Hitchens
Friday, December 16, 2011
Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360, remains with us to remember his Vanity Fair colleague Christopher Hitchens. Call in with how you remember the intellectual, or start posting in the comments below. What's your favorite Hitchens piece, quote, or story?
The More Technology Changes...
Friday, December 16, 2011
In the current issue of Vanity Fair, Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360, asks why styles in clothing and music have stopped evolving despite rapid technological innovations.
360 Staff Pick: 101 Things to Learn in Art School
Thursday, December 08, 2011
Since Kit White and I met when I was a freshman in college, I've just realized that means we've been friends for two-thirds of our lives. He is pretty much the same person he was then: philosophically serious but funny and fun, learned, lucid, wise, and a painter ...
Apple, Steve Jobs, and Me
Thursday, October 06, 2011
I started writing on a computer in the early 1980s when I worked at Time magazine. The several of us younger writers, including Walter Isaacson, who were eager to abandon typewriters had to go to use special non-PC consoles in a special little room. There were no PCs, no on-screen icons, ...
Returning Home on September 11, 2001
Friday, September 09, 2011
On the morning of September 11, I was in midtown Manhattan, so I walked south – downtown. There I encountered the wave of refugees walking north, people still wearing white breathing masks, people in suits covered head to toe in dust and soot. And finally, after an eight mile hike, I arrived home to my wife and kids Brooklyn, where our little backyard ...
How Creativity Works
Monday, May 30, 2011
Where does creativity come from? Kurt Andersen, host of Studio 360, joins its founding producer Julie Burstein to talk about her new book, culled from the archives of the series: Spark: How Creativity Works (Harper, 2011)
Leave your comment below! How do you find your creative spark? Is it more like going to work, or more like thinking and dreaming? And are you driven to create more by the beautiful, the terrible or the ordinary?
The Greene Space
Studio 360 Live with Elizabeth Wurtzel, Eugene Mirman & Tune-Yards
Monday, May 23, 2011
7:00 PM
Join host Kurt Andersen for this live taping of Studio 360 featuring the writer Elizabeth Wurtzel (Prozac Nation), comedian Eugene Mirman and Brooklyn band Tune-Yards.
Osama bin Laden's Hollywood Ending
Friday, May 06, 2011
From the beginning it was like fiction. The world’s most famous skyscrapers vaporized by two hijacked airliners. The phrase you heard over and over again was: "it seemed just like a movie." Yes, but the implausible opening sequence of a bad action movie — spectacular destruction orchestrated by a rich, ...
Redesigning Monopoly
Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Kurt Andersen, host of PRI's Studio 360, stops by to discuss his show's listener contest to redesign the game Monopoly for the 21st century.
Covering Trump’s Long Flirtation with the Oval Office
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Back in 1987 he was flirting with the idea of running for president and saying, 'Of course, if I ran, I'd win.' And this is in the 1988 election, almost a quarter-century ago. Just as he's been bankrupt many times, Trump has flirted with running for president many times...If he dropped out, what would his excuse be? The boy can cry wolf only so many times.
— Kurt Andersen, host of WNYC's Studio 360 and founder and former editor-in-chief of Spy magazine, on The Brian Lehrer Show.
Kurt Andersen On Donald Trump
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Kurt Andersen, host of WNYC's Studio 360 and founder and former editor-in-chief of Spy magazine, discusses the ups and downs of Donald Trump -- and of covering Donald Trump over the years.
→ Listen, Read a Recap and Join the Conversation at It's a Free Country.