Champs at the Lit

This is a rerun of our episode about the book American Prometheus, a biography of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin. It originally aired on October 27, 2022.

We're rerunning it in honor of the movie Oppenheimer, which Christopher Nolan wrote based on this book. This episode contains spoilers.

Related stuff:

• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
• The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb by McGeorge Bundy in the New York Review of Books
• Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Bomb by Ronald Takaki

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This episode is about Heaven, a novel by Japanese author Mieko Kawakami

References:

• A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

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This episode is about The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a novel by the Pakistani-British author Mohsin Hamid.

References:

• Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid
• Moth Smoke, by Mohsin Hamid
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a box office bomb starring Riz Ahmed
• Opinion piece on Pakistani-Indian relations by Mohsin Hamid: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/22/opinion/pakistani-militants-the-enemies-of-peace-the-internal-enemies-of-pakistani-peace.html
• Mohsin Hamid profile: https://www.fastcompany.com/3045216/why-companies-need-novelists
• Interviews with Mohsin Hamid: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct3c7l and https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0144ybj
• Critique of Hamid's work by Zain R Mian: https://herald.dawn.com/news/1398781
• The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho
• The Fall, by Albert Camus

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This episode is about the book American Prometheus, a biography of J Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J Sherwin. It won the Pulitzer Prize and is being made into a feature film by Christopher Nolan.

Related stuff:

• The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing
• The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb by McGeorge Bundy in the New York Review of Books
• Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Bomb by Ronald Takaki

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we're talking about The Buried Giant by Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro. This episodes contains spoilers.

References:

• Ishiguro's WSJ interview: https://www.wsj.com/video/kazuo-ishiguro-uncovers-the-buried-giant/542AED13-6ABD-42D9-A8F3-86806087F241.html
• Neil Gaiman's review: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/books/review/kazuo-ishiguros-the-buried-giant.html
• Postwar by Tony Judt
• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight
• Le Morte d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory
• The English and their History by Robert Tombs
• The Makers of Scotland: Picts, Romans, Gaels and Vikings by Tim Clarkson

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In this episode, we're talking about The End of the Myth by Greg Grandin. Please join us. Or don't. It's your choice.

Further reading:

• "The Moral Equivalent of War" by William James
• A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln, and the 1846 U.S. Invasion of Mexico by Amy Greenberg
• The War Lovers: Roosevelt, Lodge, Hearst, and the Rush to Empire, 1898 by Evan Thomas
• Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City by Greg Grandin
• The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln by Sean Wilentz
• What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1845 by Daniel Walker Howe

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In this episode, we're talking about Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson. Please join us. Or don't. It's your choice. This episode, like all of our episodes, contains spoilers.

Other Kim Stanley Robins work that we reference (or have read):

• The Mars Trilogy (Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars)
• The Years of Rice and Salt
• New York 2140
• Red Moon
• The Ministry for the Future

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In this episode, we're talking about The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. Please join us. Or don't. It's your choice. This episode, like all of our episodes, contains spoilers.

References:

• Other books by Ben Lerner that we reference are 10:04 and Leaving Atocha Station
• Poetry by Ben Lerner
• Lerner's article in Harper's about high school debate and political speech
• Lerner on the Guardian's book podcast
• National Forensics League list of national champions
• David Kensinger

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In this episode, we're talking about Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel. Please join us. Or don't. It's your choice. This episode contains many spoilers, for all three books in the trilogy.

References:

• The final two books in the trilogy are Bring Up the Bodies and The Mirror and the Light
• Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life by Diarmaid MacCulloch
• The Life of Cardinal Wolsey by George Cavendish
• A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, with two film adaptations starring Paul Scofield (1966) and Charlton Heston (1988)
• Wolf Hall Parts One & Two is a play adaptation of the first two books by Mike Poulton, premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company
• Wolf Hall was also adapted into a 6-episode BBC miniseries
• A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
• The Power Broker by Robert Caro

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/champsatthelit

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In this episode, we're talking about SPQR by Mary Beard. Please join us. Or don't. It's your choice. This episode contains spoilers, but it's all ancient history.

References:

• The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon

Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/champsatthelit

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