This episode was recorded at the beginning of December, so apologies for all the nonsensical temporal references to 'last week', and stuff that 'just' happened. Something fresher soon, if all goes according to plan, but in the meantime please enjoy the sounds of us waxing on and off about:

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson

Jacob Rubin's article on Slate.com, The Death of Titles

The New York Times' 100 Notable Books of 2011

Gridzbi Spudvetch/Boom! by Mark Haddon

The woman who sued over the trailer for the movie 'Drive'

Wes Anderson. A lot.

Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding

My Kid Could Paint That

Toronto couple raising a child without gender restrictions

Christopher Guest

Jonathan Tropper

It's the missing episode 76! Where have you been, young lady? Your father and I were sick with worry.

We mention:

The National Book Awards

The Giller Prize

Laura Miller at Salon, on book awards

Who the Hell is Arcade Fire?

It was the New York Times: when book awards tried to go mainstream.

More Laura Miller: can we even agree what makes great literature?

Amazon's Best Books of 2011. (In other news: 2011 - still not over at the time of this posting.)

Keith Gessen's Vanity Fair article on Chad Harbach

I meant Shoeless Joe. I called it The Field of Dreams because who's not more familiar with the movie version. I added the "The" because that's what all the cool kids are doing. The Rock. The God Damn Batman. Everybody.

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann. (For the briefest of moments I thought the personal appeal from Wikipedia programmer Brandon Harris was Thomas Mann's author photo. Dissonant!)

David Lodge

A Separate Peace

Paul Quarrington

Our discussion of Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad.

Evelyn Waugh

Jason Kottke loves Gordon Korman's Bruno and Boots. So should you.

Jon endorses John Hart’s Iron House.

We also mention:

The Adventures of Tintin: Collector's Gift Set

Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by Mindy Kaling

The Art Museum

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

A History Of The World In 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor

A History Of The World in Six Glasses by Tom Standage

James Burke's Connections

Chew

Fables, Preacher, Transmetropolitian

Iron House by John Hart on the indigo book blog

In this episode Jon endorses Joshua Foer's Moonwalking With Einstein.

We also mention:

Richard K. Morgan's 'The Steel Remains'

Ian Tregillis' 'Bitter Seeds'

Additional info: The new mass market paperback release of 'Bitter Seeds' will include the prequel short story 'What Doctor Gottlieb Saw'.

Correction: The audio version of Bitter Seeds' sequel 'The Coldest War' will be released in December 2011, not 2010.

Ian Tregillis on the Wild Cards series

Malcolm Gladwell's ketchup essay

Perry Moore's 'Hero'

Perry Moore on the treatment of gay characters in comics

Trailer for 'Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close'

Tom Hanks' brother Jim

Brooke Gladstone 'The Influencing Machine' trailer

Mark endorses Siddhartha Mukherjee's The Emperor of All Maladies.

We also mention:

Enthusiasticast Episode 59

The Steel Remains by Richard K Morgan

Juliet Marillier's Son of the Shadows

Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game — Enthusiasticast Episode 69

Peter Darbyshire On Orson Scott Card at the province (also http://www.peterdarbyshire.com)

www.thomaslitchford.com

Enthusiasticast Episode 50 where Jon goes Romance.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot

Special guest Catherine S. endorses Patrick Dewitt's The Sisters Brothers.

We also talk about:

McCarthy's All The Pretty Horses as read by Brad Pitt

McCarthy's The Crossing

McCarthy's Blood Meridian

McCarthy's No Country for Old Men

McCarthy's The Road

James Franco Adapting McCarthy's ‘Child of God’

Todd Field directed Beautiful Children

Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz in the movie of All The Pretty Horses

Matt Damon in Contagion

The Lion King

Ryan Gosling's Drive

The Booker Prize

The Amazing Dan Stiles

The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson with references to Miranda July

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

Terri -- Movie with John C Reilly written Patrick DeWitt

Scott Westerfeld's Goliath

Jon endorses Ernest Cline's Ready Player One.

We also mention:

Amazon working on a subscription library for books, says WSJ (http://thisismynext.com)

Ernest Cline's Ready Player One as read by Wil Wheaton

The 33 Best Books Remaining on the Last Day of the Borders in the Time Warner Center at theawl.com

The Harvard Co-op Bookstore

Walter Macken

WakeField Press

James Sallis' Drive

Fanboys the movie

Mark endorses Joan Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem.

We also mention:

Erin Morgenstern's The Night Circus

Sheila Heti's How Should a Person Be.

Kate Beaton's Hark a Vagrant.

Charlotte Gill's Eating Dirt

Dani Couture's Algoma

Adam Gopnik's Winter: Five Windows On The Season

Douglas Coupland's and Graham Roumieu's Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People

Neal Stephenson's Reamde

"The Mongoliad" By Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear, and Friends from Subutai

Michael Crichton's Airframe

Michael Lewis' Boomerang: Travels in the New Third World

Michael Lewis' Big Short

Niall Ferguson's Civilization: The West and the Rest

Sebastian Junger's War

Michael Lewis' It’s the Economy, Dummkopf! from Vanity Fair

Mark Bowden's Worm: The First Digital World War

Haruki Murakami's 1Q84

Haruki Murakami's Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche

The Third Reich: A Novel by Roberto Bolaño

All-TIME 100 Best Nonfiction Books at Time.com

Truman Capote's In Cold Blood

Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast

Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking

The September Issue -- the movie.

Tom Wolfe and Martin Amis

Joan Didion's Blue Nights

Jon endorses Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain.

We also mention:

Gosling in Drive

Girl With a Dragon Tattoo

Moneyball

Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol

Brad Bird and The Iron Giant

EW.com Fall Movie Preview

Spiderman, Batman, Avengers and Superman

Bridesmaids, Hangover II, Terrible Bosses, and The Change Up

The Adventures Tin Tin

The second Sherlock Holmes movie

The Iron Lady

My Week With Marilyn, Colin Clark, and The Prince and The Showgirl

Contagion, The Bourne Ultimatum,  The Informant, Saramago's Blindness and Outbreak

The Killer Elite remake

Jason Reitman's Young Adult

The Rum Diary, Diablo Cody and Juno

Jason Reitman on The Slash Filmcast

In Time, Gattaca, The Truman Show

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

The Casual Optimist

The Wire

The Muppets

Mark Strong

Cameron Crowe's Oeuvre, Elizabethtown, Pearl Jam Twenty, We Bought A Zoo

Ides of March

xkcd.com, cancer, Jack Layton, Steve Jobs

Sloan Crosley @askanyone, How Did You Get this Number, and Frozen Ground

David Rakoff, David Sedaris, The Cosby Show

Haddon's Curious Incident Of Dog in The Night Time

Ayrton Senna 's biopic

Navy SEAL Jon Tumilson and his dog Hawkeye

Mark endorses Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game.

We also mention

Data-driven literary criticism

Spoilers Don’t Spoil Anything by Jonah Lehrer (Wired Science)

The Mechanic Muse Column in the New York Times

War Horse entry at Wikipedia

Toronto scientists determine that fiction can change personalities in Quill and Quire

Ender's Game covers over time. 1, 2, 3, 4.

"The Starship Trooper's version of Harry Potter." ~ Jon.

Heinlein's Starship Troopers

Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash

Orson Scott Card's Wikipedia entry

Asimov

The Hunger Games

Hat Rack River -- Orson Scott Card's official site