About the Episode 

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

Please enjoy our discussion about East of Eden by John Steinbeck

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction and biblical allusino

5-10 min — Initial feelings about the novel

10-25 min — Plot and casting the characters

25-30 min — On Nature vs nurture

30-35 min — Plot continued

35-45 min — Inner narratives and Dan’s acting gig

45-50 min — Religion in fiction and reality

50-55 min — Is free will an illusion?

55-60 min — Final thoughts and ratings

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In the main episode for Native Son by Richard Wright, Dan urged Jeremy to watch the West Wing. In the mini, Jeremy and Daniel stay on point by discussing another theme they have no credibility to discuss: politics. If you haven't already heard enough uninformed political drivel, this mini may just turn you off from political chatter for a good while. If we can do that, it's a job well done — time's better spent reading, or listening to the Good Scribes Only podcast...

Enjoy!

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

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About the Episode 

To honor our watching of Back to the Future for the first time… we went back to 1940s Chicago with Richard Wright’s Native Son which deals with racial and social inequality. It’s a powerful novel and an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America. Wright is one of those exceptionally intelligent writers and it shows. We learned a lot from this book and think it’s an important read for a variety of reasons that you’ll hear about in this episode.

Please enjoy our discussion about Native Son by Richard Wright.

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-10 min — Intro and a brief discussion of race

10-15 min — Casting the movie

15-25 min — Plot first third

25-35 min — On Richard Wright and communism

35-40 min — Plot second third

40-45 min — Chicago in the 1940s

45-55 min — Plot final third

55-60 min — Conclusion

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Set in the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the tragic romance of Dick and Nicole Diver and young actress Rosemary Hoyt. Dick is a brilliant young psychiatrist who marries his mentally ill patient, Nicole, who also happens to be an heiress. The novel explores themes of social class, mental illness, sexual abuse, and codependent love and is considered one of the best books of the 20th century. Tender Is the Night was Fitzgerald's fourth and final novel, and was based almost entirely on his relationship with Zelda. 

Enjoy!

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

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About the Episode 

Set in the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the tragic romance of Dick and Nicole Diver and young actress Rosemary Hoyt. Dick is a brilliant young psychiatrist who marries his mentally ill patient, Nicole, who also happens to be an heiress. The novel explores themes of social class, mental illness, sexual abuse, and codependent love and is considered one of the best books of the 20th century. Tender Is the Night was Fitzgerald's fourth and final novel, and was based almost entirely on his relationship with Zelda. 

Enjoy!

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-8 min — Casting

8-12 min - Ryan Gosling, Alan Tudick, Hugh Jackman, Charlie Day

12-20 min — Plot summary begins

20-25 min — Alcoholism and writing

25-30 min — How mental illness is portrayed

30-35 min — Writing what you know

35-40 min — James Joyce vs Scott Fitzgerald

40-45 min — Plot continued

45-50 min — Wrapping up the story

50-55 min — Conclusion and ranking

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In this 5th episode, you have now entered the 1920s. Well, sorta.

For this decade we read Virginia Woolf's Orlando  which has been called 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature.' Orlando is the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, except Orlando (the character) lives for three hundred years, so kinda relevant to this season eh? We meet characters like the Queen of England, James I, and ultimately our main character awakes in Constantinople to find that he is now a woman. The novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of gender in the 18th and 19th centuries and the novel ends in 1928, the year when women’s suffrage became reality.

Woolf is the type of literary master we want to read more of and we loved the way she stepped out of her comfort zone with this book, as Dan does every time he attempts to pronounce a name on this show.

Please enjoy this window into Orlando by Virginia Woolf. 

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

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About the Episode 

In this 5th episode, you have now entered the 1920s. Well, sorta.

For this decade we read Virginia Woolf's Orlando  which has been called 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature.' Orlando is the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, except Orlando (the character) lives for three hundred years, so kinda relevant to this season eh? We meet characters like the Queen of England, James I, and ultimately our main character awakes in Constantinople to find that he is now a woman. The novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of gender in the 18th and 19th centuries and the novel ends in 1928, the year when women’s suffrage became reality.

Woolf is the type of literary master we want to read more of and we loved the way she stepped out of her comfort zone with this book, as Dan does every time he attempts to pronounce a name on this show.

Please enjoy this window into Orlando by Virginia Woolf. 

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction and main themes

5-10 min — On Virginia Woolf and genre

10-15 min — Casting the movie

15-20 min — Gender in a modern context

20-30 min — Plot summary

30-35 min — On Criticism

35-45 min — The gap between fact and fiction

45-50 min — Chasing fame and notoriety

50-55 min — Conclusion

55-60 min — Ratings

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About the Episode 

GOAT ALERT 🐐 

For the 1910's episode of Season 4, we read Portrait of the Artist as a Man by James Joyce

Rich in details that offer vital insights into Joyce's art, this masterpiece of semi-autobiographical fiction remains essential reading in any program of study in modern literature. The book follows its main character, Stephen Dedalus, from childhood to adulthood on a  quest to find identity. Through art, Dedalus gradually emancipates himself from family, religious, and claims of Ireland itself. Both an insight into Joyce's life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.

We hope you enjoy!

About the Book

Rich in details that offer vital insights into Joyce's art, this masterpiece of semi-autobiographical fiction remains essential reading in any program of study in modern literature. The book follows its main character, Stephen Dedalus, from childhood to adulthood on a  quest to find identity. Through art, Dedalus gradually emancipates himself from family, religious, and claims of Ireland itself. Both an insight into Joyce's life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

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About the Episode 

In this 3rd episode of Season 4, we read Portrait of the Artist as a Man by James Joyce

Rich in details that offer vital insights into Joyce's art, this masterpiece of semi-autobiographical fiction remains essential reading in any program of study in modern literature. The book follows its main character, Stephen Dedalus, from childhood to adulthood on a  quest to find identity. Through art, Dedalus gradually emancipates himself from family, religious, and claims of Ireland itself. Both an insight into Joyce's life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.

We hope you enjoy!

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Poor excuse for Irish accents

5-10 min — Introduction to James Joyce

10-15 min — Plot summary

15-20 min — Irish Independence

20-25 min — Meaning of the title

25-30 min — Genius in art

30-40 min — Plot continued

40-45 min — On retreats

45-50 min — Religion at the time

50-55 min — Final thoughts on the book

55-60 min — Ratings and conclusion

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About the Book

In this 1st episode of Season 4, we read a book whose original version has never been seen. The Jungle that we know, by Upton Sinclair, is the version that was highly censored because of its political context.  To gather information for this novel, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover working in the meat packing plants of Chicago, ultimately exposing the horrific conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, that led to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The main reason for the censorship, however, as Sinclair’s belief in socialism. It’s at that point that Dan and I start to goof in good old Upton Sincy. It’ll make sense why if you manage to make it to that point in the pod.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

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TikTok

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Jeremy's Website

Dan's Website