New Year’s is a time for optimism, but instead Christy Admiraal discusses Sylvia Plath’s 1963 roman à clef, the Bell Jar. Also, John totally gets the dates wrong for this book’s complicated publishing history.

John McCoy with Christy Admiraal

The book was first published in the UK 1963 under a pseudonym, then in 1967 in the UK under Plath’s name, and then in 1971 in the US.

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But I sold my Zune to buy you this podcast! Marina and John discuss hair, watches, and O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi.”

John McCoy with Marina McCoy

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It’s turkey time / once again / Dan and Rob / dive right in / we discuss / Buma-Shave!

John McCoy with Dan McCoy and Rob McCoy

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Let your boat of life be light, packed with only what you need—a podcast, for example, where Bill O’Donnell discusses Jerome K. Jerome’s very silly Three Men in a Boat (1889).

John McCoy with Bill O'Donnell

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Grab on to your happy thought and join Shannon Campe in discussing James Barrie’s complicated children’s novel Peter Pan (1911), originally called Peter and Wendy.

John McCoy with Shannon Campe

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Spoon River…wider than a mile. Okay, now that we have that out of our way, join Lisa Schmeiser as we discuss Edgar Lee Master’s poetic collection *Spoon River Anthology *(1915).

John McCoy with Lisa Schmeiser

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Anarchy in the U. K. (LeGuin)! David Woken talks a lot of politics and a little story as we discuss The Dispossessed (1974).

John McCoy with David Woken

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Gena Radcliffe and John don’t blab any drab gab—they chatter hep patter about Jack Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth” (1957) and Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (1954-55).

John McCoy with Gena Radcliffe

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I no I wil be smart won day. Until thin I will diskus Daniel Keyes’s epistolary novel Flowers for Algernon (1966) with Jason Snell.

John McCoy with Jason Snell

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Please invite in Jelani Lee and Matt Skuta to discuss Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1897). We can’t start until you do.

John McCoy with Jelani Sims and Matt Skuta

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