Episode 5 of Season 2: we get to chat with Robin McLean about Ceremony by Leslie Marion Silko. And, yeah, this is probably our best episode so far, which isn’t shocking because we’re talking about talking with Robin McLean.

So, all that aside, it’s a great conversation and one that could have gone on for hours and hours yet. We could have gone deeper into nuclear weapons/testing, the residential school system, the “fragile web of the world” as Lori describes it, and so much more, but: that’s the joy of reading and of great books.

So thank you Robin.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

In Episode 4 of Season 2 we dig into Muriel Spark’s sophomore effort, Robinson. Gotta say: it’s incredible and we couldn’t be more excited to keep on keeping on with her work. This time around we trade London (mostly) for a lonely island in the Atlantic and a story that is funny, tense, clever, whimsical, and just an all-around masterclass in writerly control. None of which is surprising at this point, but absolutely riveting and delightful.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

Having sorted some annoying technical issues, herewith Episode 3 of Season 2 (our way of apologizing for the delay in uploading this episode) in which we discuss The Conqueror by Jan Kjærstad, translated by Barbara Haveland and published by Open Letter Books.

And to kick off our series of guest hosts, Chad Post of Open Letter Books (and Dalkey Archive Press (and the Two Month Review)) joins to chat about The Conqueror, publishing writ large, publishing works in translation, and, well, to maybe have a go at a few different…peoples? (In fairness to Chad, Tom very much started it.) It’s a fun conversation and a really amazing book.

Titles discussed/mentioned:

Jacob’s Room by Virginia Woolf

kind of all of Knausgaard

also kind of a lot of Dag Solstad

Your Face Tomorrow (you really ought to know who wrote and translated this one)

Njál’s Saga

Egil’s Saga

Dickens, but specifically David Copperfield

W. Somerset Maugham, but specifically Of Human Bondage

Tirza by Arnon Grunberg, translated by Sam Garrett (and the forthcoming Good Men by Arnon Grunberg, translated by Sam Garrett (out 5/23/23 and click here to order from Open Letter)

The Seventh Function of Language by Laurent Binet, translated by Sam Taylor

all of Jean Echenoz: really, all of it

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

We kick off our season-long read of Muriel Spark's novels this week and what a start! The Comforters is Spark's debut, published in 1956, and is, quite simply, magnificent. Lori and Tom wax heavily on how impressive this novel is and how incredibly fun it is, too! It's going to be quite a great season judging by this title alone.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

And we’re back! Welcome to Season Two of Lost in Redonda. We kick things off with a backlist conversation on Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published by Open Letter Books. It’s probably one of the fastest moving 600 page sagas of a Brazilian family you’re likely to encounter. And it’s funny. And gothic. And very campy.

Our big project this season is a complete reading of the novels of Muriel Spark. That kicks off next week with her debut, The Comforters, available from New Directions, and, folks!, it’s absolutely incredible. We’ve already recorded a couple of the Spark episodes and are we ever excited. (Her last name of course being the inspiration for this season’s music.)

We’re trying to keep some spoilers out of our conversations this season (or at least flag them when they happen), so: around the 61 minute mark we start chatting about one of the more profound moments at the end of the novel. If you haven’t yet read Chronicle and would rather not hear this bit, skip ahead to 1:06.25 or so where we chat about other works that, to us anyway, resonate with this one.

Click here for Lori’s (great!) article on Chronicle in Full Stop.

Titles discussed:

The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene

The House of Mist by María Luisa Bombal

Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Crime & Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Go Down, Moses by William Faulkner

And click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “The Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys” by Traffic

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

Here it is, folks, our final episode on Your Face Tomorrow and the last part of our Marías project. It's a longer one, but very worth it if we do say so ourselves.

Our next season and new project will kick off in a couple weeks' time, but before that a thank you for listening along. It's a fun project and one we hope folks are getting as much out of as we are (and do let us know what you think and/or what you'd like to see us dive into next!).

So, stay hydrated as we wrap up our time with Deza and his creator, the late, great Javier Marías.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

It's very strange to be this close to the end of our Marías focus, but that's rather how time moves, ever forward (unless you're Marías and can make time a rather fungible thing in your novels...). This is a fun episode, touching on East End gangsters, Spandau Ballet, the Spanish Civil War, swordplay, and more. And a couple of characters from the previous volume make appearances, though we rather welcome one over the other.

One more episode of Marías, a brief break, and then a new project. Thank you as always for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

And now we enter the homestretch. Over the next few episodes we'll tackle Marías' masterpiece, Your Face Tomorrow. Starting, of course, with the first volume, Fever and Spear.

Once we wrap up the Marías project we're going to take a week or so off and then we'll be back with more backlist dives and a new author whose work we'll spend some time digging into.

As always, thank you for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

This week we dive into Christian Kracht's Imperium, and boy do we ever go deep (sorry/not sorry). It's an incredible piece of historical fiction (one of Tom's favorites and, now, one of Lori's) that follows one man's attempts to manifest his destiny to live in the tropics and subsist only on the noble coconut. And walk around nude. In the German South Pacific holdings at the turn of the 20th Century. There's a lot going on here and we had a great time chatting about it and hope you'll enjoy it, too.

In fact, we had such a good time talking about it we didn't reference any other books, other than the only other title available in English from Kracht, The Dead. So definitely give that one a look, too!

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs

A fun discussion this week of two novels published almost 30 years apart in The Infatuations and The Man of Feeling. We walk down some interesting paths and may get ourselves into a moral quandary or two (wouldn't be a discussion of Marías without some moral murkiness, now would it?).

These are the last two Marías novels we discuss before wrapping this season with a three episode discussion of that absolute beast: Your Face Tomorrow. A backlist episode next week and then we begin the deep dive. As always, thank you for listening.

Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @lostinredonda across most apps (Twitter and Instagram for now; we’re coming for you eventually #booktok).

Music: “Estos Dias” by Enrique Urquijo

Logo design: Flynn Kidz Designs