We're joined by Elisa Gabbert (The Unreality of Memory) to discuss Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World, a book that is mostly nonfiction--about scientists whose discoveries pushed them in the direction of madness--with some fictional flourishes. We talk about genre distinctions, reading works in translation, and why fall is the best season.

We also rope Elisa into helping us answer a couple questions from the NaNoWriMo forums about naming cars and what life is like under the sea.

You can find Elisa on Twitter @egabbert.

Or check out her website, which features links to her work: http://www.elisagabbert.com/

You can also read the poems she referenced in her answer to "what reading experience has mostly recently made you cry." The Mark Leidner poem is here: https://sixthfinch.com/leidner4.html. And the Ezra Pound poem is here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47692/the-river-merchants-wife-a-letter-56d22853677f9.

Finally: if you like the show, please consider subscribing to our Patreon, where $5 a month gets you access to two monthly bonus episodes, plus our entire back catalog: https://www.patreon.com/BookFight

Thanks for listening!