This week we're reading an essay by Harlan Ellison called "The Three Most Important Things in Life," which was suggested to us by a listener who said we couldn't talk about spite without talking about Ellison. We talk about whether we buy the essay's details, whether Ellison is self-aware as a narrator, and whether it's a good or bad idea to tell dirty jokes on your first day at a new job. We also discuss some of Ellison's own spiteful behavior, and his super-janky website. 

Plus: another author feud, this one between Nabokov and Edmund Wilson, and a couple stories of companies that exist only because of spite.

For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com. 

This week is another donor pick, Donald Antrim's first novel, which presents a kind of dystopic view of an American suburb, one where people build moats around their houses and a town mayor is drawn and quartered. We talk about the limits of irony, and whether this book, published in the mid-90s, should be considered prescient.

We've also got another installment of Fan Fiction Corner, this one featuring a couple surprising pairings. 

For more, as always, you can visit us online at bookfightpod.com. 

For this installment of the Spring of Spite we read a few selections from Bernhard's collection MY PRIZES, which includes essays about his experiences with prize ceremonies and some speeches he delivered at those ceremonies. There's plenty of Bernhardian spite to go around: for other writers, for his home country of Austria, for the idea of literary prizes in the first place.

We've also got stories this week about some neighbors who took their spite to the next level, as well as another literary feud, this one between Theodore Dreiser and Sinclair Lewis.

For more, visit our website at bookfightpod.com. 

This week we're reading (part of) this famous work of natural history from the early 19th century. Alexander von Humboldt traveled extensively in Latin America and recorded all sorts of stuff: geology, plant life, animal life, interactions with the natives, water temperatures, and speculation abou tcontinental drift. The book, a donor pick from our winter fundraising, is sort of a departure from our normal reading, but we're always happy to try new things outside our normal comfort zones.

Also this week, another installment of Raccoon News, including a dispatch from our neighbors to the north, and a new segment: James Patterson Novel Or Eric Stoltz Movie From the 90s?

For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com. 

Week two in our Spring of Spite, and we're reading a delightfully odd Flannery O'Connor story called "Enoch and the Gorilla," about a man who is very excited to insult a famous ape. Though things don't turn out how he planned!

We also talk about spiteful wills and obituaries, spiteful paleontologists who basically made careers out of hating each other, and the long-running feud between H.G. Wells and Henry James.

Note: This version of the episode fixes an audio issue around minute 46 in the previously published file.

For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com. 

This week's book is an unconventional memoir: in 300 short, numbered sections, Waldie investigates the origins of his hometown, a suburb outside of Los Angeles considered the Levittown of Southern California, as well as his own life there and the lives of his parents. We talk about the book's unusual construction, and how it creates connections and meaning through surprising juxtapositions. Also this week: the triumphant return of Fan Fiction Corner!

For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com.

Welcome to your first installment in the Spring of Spite! This week we're reading a Richard Yates story, "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired," which paints a pretty rough portrait of the author's mother and her failed attempts at artistic (and social) relevance. We also talk about the science of spite, and the phenomeon of "spite houses" and "spite fences." Finally, Tom gives Mike a spite-related quiz, though several of the questions are obviously flawed and not accurate measures of actual spitefulness, which is just objective fact rather than a reflection of which of us writes these weekly episode descriptions. Enjoy!

For more, including a link to several of the things we talked about in today's episode, visit us online at bookfightpod.com. 

This week is a Tom pick, by a writer who is Mexico's greatest novelist, if the blurb on the front cover is true. The novel--Herrera's only, so far, to be translated into English--follows a young woman named Makina as she crosses the border into the United States in search of her brother. We talk about the book's attempt to thread the needle between realism and fabulism, as well as one of its translator's more difficult decisions.

In the second half of the show, we've got a long-awaited update on Cousin Joey, as well as a new segment called Cargo Sweatpants Watch, in which Mike tries to triangulate what it means, culturally, that Tom owns a pair of cargo sweatpants. 

You can check out Herrera's book from Powell's, by clicking this link.

And as always, you can learn more about the show, and see links to some of the stuff we talked about this week, by visiting us at our website, bookfightpod.com.

It's our last Winter of Wayback episode before we have to finally admit that spring has sprung. This week we're traveling to 1916, where we read a P.G. Wodehouse story ("Jeeves Takes Charge"). We also talk about art manifestos, and speculate about why there aren't any these days. Other topics covered include: elephant executions, the most lopsided college football game of all time, terrorist acts, taxes, and the early years of Piggly Wiggly.

You can read the Wodehouse story at this link: "Jeeves Takes Charge." And you can learn more about the show, and get links to some of what we talked about in today's episode, at our website, bookfightpod.com. 

This week's book is an addiction and recovery memoir by celebrated journalist David Carr, who recently lost a battle with cancer (after surviving lymphoma, as detailed in the book). Carr takes an unusual vector through his own drug-fueled past, employing the skills he learned as a journalist to interview friends, family, colleagues and lovers, in an attempt to piece together an account of his own life more objective than what he could glean from memory alone.

In the second half of the show, we dip into the ol' mailbag. We've got a question about submitting your work for publication, and one about the recent Harper Lee news. Plus a listener calls us out on our anti-Meatloaf bias.

For more, including links to things we talked about on the show, and your chance to nominate a book for an upcoming bonus episode, visit us online at bookfightpod.com.