Robert Birnbaum talks with David Mitchell and it looks like he may have discovered Amoeba when he came through San Francisco: “There is a wonderful music store in San Francisco, vast warehouses like Borgesian universes of CDs—I forget the name.”

[UPDATE: Jenny D quibbles with Mitchell’s assertion that “all novels are actually compounded short stories” and goes on to suggest that Mitchell’s humor is a bit lacking. I agree with Jenny on the first point, but I think Mitchell was attempting to aver his own influences. Certainly, every single one of Mitchell’s novels represents an interconnected series of stories and perhaps this narrative approach is how he views fiction. As for Mitchell having no sense of humor, I will eventually offer first-hand evidence that he does indeed have a sense of humor, particularly regarding oddly formed sentences involving sandwiches. Stay tuned. The podcast is up the pipeline.]