Book Fight

This week's book is a Mike pick: an essay collection about travel, displacement, love, loss and occasional psychedelic drugs. We talk about the necessary artifice of narration, and why readers so often fail to acknowledge it; how travel experience is often more about the traveler than the place itself; dark humor and bad habits. We also bring back our Sticks and Stones segment, make an important announcement, and get lost in a Groundhog Day-style feedback loop.

Direct download: Ep67-Dyer_YogaForPeopleWhoCantBeBotheredToDoIt.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

This week on Summer of Shorts we're talking about Donald Barthelme's "Me and Miss Mandible" and also swim trunks. Tom is headed out on a beach vacation, despite pretty much hating the beach, whereas Mike grew up near the beach and thinks he needs to get over his irrational fears of the ocean. Also, the story is pretty good, and you should check it out, either in the collection Come Back, Dr. Caligari, or in the collected Sixty Stories.

Direct download: ShortsEp7-Barthelme_and_SwimTrunks.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

This week's story is "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," by Sherman Alexie. This week's shorts are boxers. Trigger warning: We're gonna talk about our underpants.

Direct download: ShortsEp6-Alexie_and_Boxers.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

We're joined this week by Matt Jakubowski--writer, critic, and interviews editor for the international journal Asymptote--to discuss the English translation of Aglaja Veteranyi's Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta. Veteranyi was originally from Romania but lived most of her life in Switzerland, after growing up with a family of circus performers, an experience which certainly informs the novel. We also talk about Matt's ongoing project to read only women for 2014.

Direct download: Ep_66-Aglala_Veteranyi_Why_the_Child_Is_Cooking_in_the_Polenta.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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