We recorded this ages ago and I only just got around to editing it. Sorry, life takes time and so does editing and sometimes it’s hard to do both. Before the edits there was a lot more Dillinger Four talk. You’re welcome.

Ray is a joy. So is Elena Ferrante. I hope you like this one.

These podcasts have slowed down. I really apologize to you, my fans. Someday when life takes less time I hope they pick up again.

Enjoy!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

This was supposed to go out on Tuesday. I had Covid. My dog is dying. I forgot. Sorry.

When Most Useful Information is celebrating 50 years of spamming inboxes and millions of fans vote on their favorite episodes of the podcast this episode will unanimously be voted number one.

Taylor is very funny. Also smart. She came prepared. Enjoy.

Recorded in July. Edited it in July. Unlistened since. Whatever contained in the podcast is a mystery to you and to me.

Thanks for listening.

See you soon.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

Before Bella suggested it, I’d never heard of Cousins. It sounded cool. It started cool. By the end I wasn’t so sure. Expectations can be a bummer. It was nice to talk about it though.

Sometimes I kind of use this podcast just to chat with people I haven’t seen/spoken to in a long time. I hadn’t seen/spoken to Bella in a long time. Since we last chatted we had both quit are very professional jobs, gone back to school, graduated, and moved across several state lines. Very good to chat again.

Most Useful Information highly recommends calling someone on the phone and talking to them. It doesn’t even have to be someone you haven’t spoken with in a long time, but it’s cool.

For reasons inexplicable to humankind Bella’s audio sounds great and mine sounds like trash. Sorry!

See you soon!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

Again no written Most Useful Information. My apologies. Life at the MUI HQ is still bonkers. Soft goal of writing something in June to send out in July. No promises. Again instead of a written Most Useful Info, a podcast.

Adin and I are fans of Katie Kitamura. Her book A Separation is a book both Adin and I read on vacation each in our own covid fugue. It’s about grief I think. Intimacies isn’t about grief. It’s about intimacy I think. Maybe also about the difficulty of communication. Both books are good in and out of fugues.

Speaking to one another deepened our appreciation of Intimacies specifically and Katie Kitamura generally. Hopefully listening to our conversation will do the same for you.

If you wanna do one of these podcasts with me shoot me an email. They’re easy and fun.

See you next month pukesters!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

Normally on the first Thursday of each month you get a newsletter. Two weeks later on a Tuesday you get a podcast. I had planned a newsletter as normal for May but with a small announcement that over the next three months the Most Useful Information both newsletter and podcast would be less frequent and less scheduled. Instead they’d be so random! The print newsletter would pause all together.

In late may things at the Most Useful Information Headquarters were going to get a bit crazy, so promising things at certain times would be foolish. I didn’t want to be a fool. Well, things got crazy a month early. I am a fool! May’s edition of Most Useful Information is half-finished and not going out until it’s finished. I have at least two other groupings of books planned, but only the Lord knows when I’ll read them and type up a newsletter.

So instead of a May newsletter here is a podcast I recorded with my friend and fellow substacker Zander Abranowicz. We talk about Hunger by Knut Hamsun. Hunger was one of my favorite books in my late teens/early twenties. He doesn’t mean as much to me now, Hunger least of all (Mysteries and Pan pull me). There’s no denying what Hamsun and Hunger meant to a younger me. Reading him is like catching up with an old friend.

Talking with Zander is like catching up with a new friend. Listening to our podcast is like doing both at the same time. You can find Zander at buzzcut.substack.com.

Take care and I’ll see you when I see you!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

Valis is one of the weirdest, most difficult books I’ve read.

Keith is one of my oldest friends. A few months back he texted me that he found Valis in a thrift store and was gonna read it. I said I’d read it too and we’d record a podcast.

I first started reading Valis in 2003 but quit after forty pages cuz I didn’t understand anything. As our conversation reveals, twenty years later I still don’t understand anything.

Valis talk ends after thirty minutes. If you’re only here for book stuff, unplug after thirty. Keith and I go on to shoot the s**t like old friends. It’s for sure boring, but some of you freaks might be into it.

My apologies for the audio quality. Rather than use computers and microphones I downloaded an app while on the phone with Keith that recorded our phone conversation. It doesn’t sound good. Would not recommend the app. Sorry!

Enjoy!

P.S. Get in touch. Recommend a book. Make a podcast with me. It’ll be fun.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

This is the point

Another month. Another Tuesday. Another podcast.

Clay and I grew up in the deep eastside of Moscow, Idaho. Before I met Clay someone told me about him. My memory tells me the same someone borrowed Forty Stories by Donald Barthelme from me to loan to Clay. I was promised he carried the book around in a plastic zip lock bag for protection. It worked. I still have that copy of Forty Stories.

More recently Clay and I read Jane Bowles’s 1943 novel Two Serious Ladies. It’s a re-read for both of us and we find it hard to talk about. The audio quality is less good this month. There’s an echo. I don’t know what I did different. Sorry! The conversation is long. Sorry!

When talking to Clay I mention reading The Sheltering Sky and copying a passage about cigarettes into a notebook. I found the notebook. Here is the passage:

“I used to think that life was a thing that kept gaining impetus. It would get richer & deeper each year. You kept learning more, getting wiser, having more insight, going further into truth” —she hesitated.

Port laughed abruptly. “And now you know its not like that. Right? It’s more like smoking a cigarette. The first few puffs it tastes wonderful, & you don’t even think of its ever being used up. Then you begin taking it for granted. Suddenly you realize it’s nearly burned down to the end. And that’s when you’re conscious of the bitter taste.”

“But I’m always conscious of the unpleasant taste & of the end approaching,” she said.

“Then you should give up smoking.”

Enjoy!

P.S. Podcasts should now be available on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. If they aren’t, let me know. Any other podcast provider is a mystery.

If you wanna podcast send me an email with a book you wanna read and we’ll do it.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com

This is the point:

February 2022 I launched my first hit newsletter. Now, one year later, I am launching my first hit podcast. Call me the charlatan of all media.

The premise is easy. A friend suggests a book. We both read the book. We record a conversation about the book. The conversations are casual as if two friends were simply chatting.

Hopefully there’s either something funny or insightful in the conversation. If not, sorry!

Huge, huge, huge thanks to Em for doing this with me when I clearly have no idea what I’m doing. Also, for having smart things to say when I clearly have none.

If you, reader/listener, are at all interested in being on this podcast please, please, please get in touch. There’s no requirement for being well read, or thoughtful, or even liking books. It’s just for fun. I’ll quickly run out of people to talk to if you don’t.

Thanks, as always, for your time and your attention. I deeply appreciate it. If you know someone who might like Most Useful Info please pass this along to them.

Also, if you ever wonder why I’m putting this out on Valentine’s Day, it’s because Picnic at Hanging Rock takes place on Valentine’s Day, lol.

-Tim B.

P.S. Maybe at some point I’ll figure out how to put this trash on apple podcasts/spotify but until I do substack is the only place to listen to it. Sorry!

Also, if there are any audio oddities, it’s because I don’t know what I’m doing and I’m too lazy to listen back and check for mistakes! Sorry!

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mostusefulinfo.substack.com