In Episode 89, Dave and Matt have the insane privilege of talking to PUP's remarkably well-read frontman, Stefan Babcock, whose year-end reading list hit PUP's Substack on December 28th, and is full of great books. 

In addition to talking about Stefan's year in reading, we delve into the literary influences and qualities of PUP's discography, discuss skateboarding in mid-life, and manifest a Tim Robinson/PUP collaboration for 2026. 

Dave and Matt will be back soon with a Part 2, talking about their year in reading, and you can look forward to 30 more bonus minutes with Stefan through our Patreon, coming in about two weeks' time. 

N.B. this episode probably breaks our record for most swearing, as expected. 🤘

Show Notes:

Stefan’s Substack post

Stefan’s Instagram

PUP's Instagram

PUP's Substack

PUP's website

PUP's Tour Dates (go see them live, pronto)

Contact Concavity Show: 

Email us at [email protected]

Patreon

Instagram

Threadless Merch Store

YouTube

In Episode 88, we welcome Brandon back to the show to talk about his new novel, The Devil Is a Southpaw, out now from HarperCollins. We discuss things like metafiction, abjection, doppelgängers, alt-country, and much more. 

You can buy the novel here or here online, or ideally at your local independent bookstore. 

Brandon's website

Brandon's Instagram

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbt2QjzmrwakXQtH08WZ6-rSaeEVcSknI

For Episode 87, Matt and Dave are joined by the Jonathan Lethem, who has a new short story collection out on September 23rd, A Different Kind of Tension. We discuss it, many of his novels and his non-fiction writing, his committment to craft, teaching, bookselling, and much more. 

You can order his new book here, or at your friendly local bookseller. 

Visit Jonathan's website. 

Visit Jonathan's Instagram. 

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

In Episode 86, Matt Bucher not only co-hosts, but guests as the author of interest, whose new novel, a follow-up to The Belan Deck, has just recently released. Matt's latest book is a Marksonian treatise on the marking, measuring, and allocation of time, and is sure to delight listeners of our show. 

You can purchase Matt's excellent sophomore release here: 

Bookshop.org 

Barnes & Noble

Alienated Majesty Bookstore (Austin, TX)

Book People (Austin, TX)

Matt's Websites:

mattbucher.com

simpleranger.net

buchrtumblr.com

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

In Episode 85, we're joined by Camille Bordas, whose recent novel The Material explores what a fictionalized MFA program in stand-up comedy might look like. It's funny (as you might imagine) and philosophical, exploring some of the great cultural questions of our (and just about any other) time. 

You can find out more about Camille on her website, where eight of her New Yorker short stories are linked. 

Her English language novels are both available on bookshop.org.

Camille's Chicago piece we mention on the 2024 Democratic National Convention is here. 

Camille is on Instagram a little bit here. 

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

In Episode 84, the incredible Sergio De La Pava joins Dave and Matt to talk about his latest novel, Every Arc Bends Its Radian, out now from Simon & Schuster. We also discuss David Lynch and his recent passing, deep sea life, and haunted hotels, among many other things. 

You can find Sergio's website here. 

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

Join Matt and Dave as they look back at the best of their year in reading during 2024, each with a list of ten(ish) books they found compelling and noteworthy.

Dave's top 10:

Dayspring by Anthony Oliveira

Matt's top 10:

SUNDAY  by Olivier Schrauwen

Blood of the Virgin by Sammy Harkham

The Horse by Willy Vlautin

Caged by Brandon Lamson

The Book of Losman by KE Semmel

Avid Reader by Robert Gottlieb

You'll Like it Here by Ashton Politanoff

A Primer for Forgetting by Lewis Hyde

The Notebook by Roland Allen

Al rio / To the River by Zoe Leonard

Stay tuned for the Patreon bonus episode in two weeks that covers all other things we liked this year in pop-culture.

As always, this episode comes with a playlist of our favorite songs of 2024:

Apple Music - https://music.apple.com/ca/playlist/concavity-show-best-of-2024/pl.u-pMylAeRi4KoErM

Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5fVLMtsQSVBCLQUbDxhUFM?si=FaHzQsz8ThCZLMtAWO81tg

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

In this episode, Matt speaks with Lauren Elkin about her new novel, Scaffolding. They discuss Lacan, marriage, and why Paris is so damn literary, among other things.

Lauren Elkin is a French and American writer and translator, most recently the author of the novel Scaffolding (FSG), a New York Times Editor's Choice which the Observer called both "erudite" and "horny."

Previous books include Art Monsters: Unruly Bodies in Feminist Art, No. 91/92: Notes on a Parisian Commute, and Flâneuse: Women Walk the City, which was a finalist for the 2018 PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay, a  New York Times Editor’s Choice and a Notable Books of 2017, a Radio 4 Book of the Week, and a best book of 2016 by the Guardian, the Financial Times, the New Statesman, and the Observer. Her writings on books, art, and culture have appeared in a variety of publications including the London Review of Books, the New York Times, Granta, Harper’s, Le Monde, the Times Literary Supplement, Les Inrockuptibles, and Frieze, and her essay "This is the Beginning of Writing," published in the Sewanee Review, was awarded notable distinction in the Best American Essays of 2019, edited by Rebecca Solnit.

Her website is: https://www.laurenelkin.com/

You can find her on BlueSky here: https://bsky.app/profile/laurenelkin.bsky.social

The Spotify playlist she created for the novel is here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3saYDj2BSKyCFWGXsUhCTZ?si=f7a471a0e77e45bc

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

We're delighted to present our conversation with the remarkable Benjamín Labatut for Episode 81, in which we primarily discuss his 2023 non-fiction novel The MANIAC, its primary figure John von Neumann, the madness and magic of fiction, and the limits and future of science and the human mind. 

Run, don't walk to buy Benjamín's two English-language books: 

When We Cease to Understand the World 

The MANIAC

Extra special thanks to Cameron Waller of Penguin Random House Canada (@cameronsbookshelf) for (a) putting us onto Benjamín's work in a personal way, and (b) making this conversation with Benjamín possible. 

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/

For episode 80, we welcome Jessica Anthony back to the show. She has long been one of our favorite writers and she returns this month with a new novel titled The Most (out July 30 from Little Brown).

Jessica Anthony is the author of three books of fiction, most recently the novel Enter the Aardvark, a finalist for the New England Book Award in Fiction. Her debut, The Convalescent, won the inaugural McSweeney’s Amanda Davis Highwire Fiction Award in 2004. A recipient of the Creative Capital Award in Literature, Anthony wrote The Most while guarding the Mária Valéria Bridge in Štúrovo, Slovakia. She lives in Portland, Maine.

Preorder the book on Bookshop: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-most-jessica-anthony/20862156?ean=9780316576376

You can see some of the upcoming events for the novel here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/contributor/jessica-anthony/

Contact Dave & Matt: 

Email - [email protected]

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ConcavityShow

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/concavityshow/

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/concavityshow

Threadless Merch Store - https://concavityshow.threadless.com/