Beth Blum, Assistant Professor of English at Harvard, is the author of The Self-Help Compulsion (Columbia University Press 2019). Learn how self-help went from its Victorian roots (worship greatness!) to the ingratiating unctuous style prescribed by the other-directed Dale Carnegie (everyone loves the sound of their own name) before arriving at the “neo-stoical” self-help gurus … Continue reading "38 Beth Blum on Self-Help from Carnegie to Today (JP)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Elizabeth Bradfied is editor of Broadsided Press, professor of creative writing at Brandeis, naturalist, photographer–and most of all an amazing poet (“Touchy” for example just appeared in The Atlantic). Her books include Interpretive Work, Approaching Ice, Once Removed, and Toward Antarctica. She lives on Cape Cod, travels north every summer to guide people into Arctic … Continue reading "37 RTB Books In Dark Times 11: Elizabeth Bradfield (JP)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Black lives matter. Yet for decades or centuries in America that basic truth has been ignored, denied, violently suppressed. Many of the mechanisms that create an oppressed and subordinated American community of color can seem subtle and indirect, despite the insidious ways they pervade housing law (The Color of Law), education (Why Are All the … Continue reading "36 Policing and White Power: (EF, JP) Global Policing Series"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

RTB listeners already know the inimitable Martin Puchner from that fabulous RTB episode about his “deep history” of literature and literacy, The Written World. You may even know he has a family memoir coming out soon, The Language of Thieves. But it took Books in Dark Times to uncover his secret hankering for tales of … Continue reading "35 RTB Books In Dark Times 10: Martin Puchner"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The largest slave uprising in the 18th century British Caribbean was also a node of the global conflict called the Seven Year’s War, though it isn’t usually thought of that way. In the first few days of the quarantine and our current geopolitical and epidemiological shitshow, John and Elizabeth spoke with Vincent Brown, who recently … Continue reading "34 The Caribbean and Vectors of Warfare: Vincent Brown (EF, JP)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ben Fountain is far more than just the author of Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which won RTB hearts and minds (and the National Book Award) long before it became a weird Ang Lee movie. What is consoling and engaging the author of the best novel about America’s dismal experience in Iraq? American novels, especially … Continue reading "33 RTB Books in Dark Times 9: Ben Fountain (JP)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Who better to talk about Dark Times than the author of an unforgettable scholarly book about the grimness of the interwar years, Tense Future? Paul Saint-Amour, Professor of English at University of Pennsylvania and author of various prizewinning books and brilliant articles, joins John to talk about realism, escapism and the glories of science fiction. … Continue reading "32 RTB Books in Dark Times 8: Paul Saint-Amour (JP 5/20)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

U. Sydney professor Vanessa Smith–author of Intimate Strangers, and also of this lovely short piece about Marion Milner–joins John to discuss her pandemic reading. She praises a Milner (quasi)travel book, but she also makes the case for M F K Fisher and a book about the glories of hypochondria. Then the old friends share their … Continue reading "31 RTB Books in Dark Times 7: Vanessa Smith (JP)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 27, David D. Kirkpatrick reported in the N. Y. Times that Oxford’s Jenner Center is close to starting human trials on a potential Covid-19 vaccine. According to Kirkpatrick, “ethics rules, as a general principle, forbid seeking to infect human test participants with a serious disease. That means the only way to prove that … Continue reading "30 In Focus: Nir Eyal on (the deontology of) “Challenge Testing” a Covid Vaccine"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Kim Stanley Robinson, SF novelist of renown, has three marvelous trilogies: The Three Californias, Science in the Capital and, most celebrated of all, Red Mars, Green Mars and Blue Mars. His honors include many Locus, Hugo and Nebulae awards. Small fact connecting him to RTB-land: he completed a literature PhD directed by Frederic Jameson with … Continue reading "29 RTB Books in Dark Times 6: Kim Stanley Robinson (JP)"

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices