David Shields in Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, declares that the novel as we know it is dead, or at least is no longer central to our culture. He discusses his controversial assertion with Daphne Kalotay whose Russian Winter is described as “an auspicious first novel… without a false note,” and Nick Montfort, poet, author of electronic fiction as well as the new book, Riddle & Bind, and an MIT professor of digital media. Guiding the conversation is author Jay Parini, whose many works include Promised Land: Thirteen Books that Changed America and The Last Station.