That Book

We pop back in from the void to tell you about a new project we've been working on: Proust Curious. It's a podcast about the experience of reading Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu – all seven volumes. Hosted by Hannah and Cambridge professor Emma Claussen with Michael producing, it's a fun, deeply-considered dive into one of the most intimidating novels in the canon. Please check it out at Public Books, on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.

And, for old times' sake, enjoy some book chat.

Our year-end survey. What the hell did we read in 2021???

Books mentioned:

Run, Don't Walk: The Listening House, Mabel Seeley; Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker; Piranesi, Susanna Clarke; Intimacies, Katie Kitamura; Visitation, Jenny Erpenbeck; Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee;

Thumbs Up: The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz; The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen; To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Christopher Paolini; The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin; Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich; Clockwork Boys, The Wonder Engine, A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher; My Year Abroad, Chang-rae Lee; No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood; Matrix, Lauren Groff; Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann; Under the Whispering Door, The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune; A Separation, Katie Kitamura; The 10,000 Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind; Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen; Billion Dollar Loser, Reeves Wiedeman.

Thumbs Down: A Man of Parts, David Lodge; The Midnight Library, Matt Haig; The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Ayatsuji; Little, Big, John Crowley;

Pumped to Read: Klara and The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro; To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara; Leviathan Falls, James S.A. Corey; The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim; The Hare, Melanie Finn; Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers; Maggie Hope Series, Susan Elia MacNeal.

Articles and Links:

• Tweet Thread on Anne Rice
• Jenny Erpenbeck Profile (New Yorker)
• (Sigh) Bad Art Friend (NYT Magazine)
• Jeremy Strong Profile (New Yorker)
• Review of Yanigihara's To Paradise (Harpers)
• 100 Notable Books of 2021 (NYT)
• Joan Didion Archive at the New York Review of Books
• Sign up for Molly Young's books newsletter here (NYT)

RIP Eve Babitz. Here's our episode on her from September 2020.

Books mentioned: Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming, Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A, Lili Anolik; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West; Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion; Essays, Michel de Montaigne; Paradise Lost, John Milton;Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood; Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney; How Should a Person Be?, Sheila Heti; Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino.

Resources:

• All About Eve--And Then Some (Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair)
• Eve Babitz is Better Than Ever (OLIVIA AYLMER, Vanity Fair)
• Jia Tolentino on Eve (New Yorker)
• The Eve Babtiz Revival (Penelope Green, NYT)
• My Favorite Year: In Los Angeles with Eve Babitz in 1971 (Dan Wakefield, LA Review of Books)
• Eve Babitz's Vision of Total Freedom (Marie Solis, The Nation)
• L.A. Confidential (Holly Brubach, NYT Style Magazine)
• Germans in L.A. (Alex Ross, New Yorker)

Re-releasing this episode in tribute to our vampire queen! RIP, Anne.

Books mentioned: The Witching Hour and Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice; Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Of interest: Amazon reviews, Guardian Q & A, Anne's Youtube Channel, Anne's opinion on editors.

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In Part 2 of our Rand investigation (our season finale!), we visit Galt's Gulch and figure out what the deal is with Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. What's Ayn Rand's favorite color??? Go on, guess.

Resources:

• Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
• Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009)
• Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009)
• The Whitaker Chambers on Atlas Shrugged in the National Review

In part one of our (first ever!) two-episode investigation, we tackle the surprisingly irrational life of Ayn Rand, the polarizing capitalist whose legal name was Alice O'Connor, and who was born Alissa Zionvievna Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.

What. A. Ride.

Resources:

• Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009)
• Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009)
• Thomas Mallon, "Possessed," New Yorker

The man who launched a thousand screams and his alter-ego who launched a thousand "wait, who?"s. It's Stephen King/Richard Bachman day! Happy scary season, everyone!

King books mentioned: On Writing, The Shining, Carrie, Needful Things, Salem's Lot, Misery.

Bachman books mentioned: The Long Walk, The Regulators.

A dive into the hiveminds behind Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. We raise questions like: what do The Hardy Boys eat? Does Nancy = feminism? And what counts as a clue?

Resources:

• Nancy Drew's Father, The New Yorker, Meghan O'Rourke
• Rewriting the Past in Children's Literature: The Hardy Boys an Other Series, Robert L. Crawford (academic article)

Books mentioned: Franklin W. Dixon, While the Clock Ticked; Carolyn Keene, Mystery of Crocodile Island; Bobbie Ann Mason, The Girl Sleuth; Melanie Rehak, Girl Sleuth.

Series mentioned: The Rover Boys, Tom Swift, Outdoor Girls, The Bobbsey Twins, The Boxcar Children, The Baby-Sitter's Club, The Bailey School Kids, Choose Your Own Adventure, Animorphs, Sweet Valley High, Trixie Belden, as well as non-collective fiction series Goosebumps, Harry Potter, The Hunger Games & Twilight.

One of the most extraordinary pen name tales. Sci-fi savant James Tiptree Jr. had accolades, admirers and many, many pen pals. Problem was, he didn't exist.

James Tiptree Jr. stories discussed in this episode:

• The Last Flight of Dr. Ain
• The Women Men Don't See

Books mentioned:

• James Tiptree Jr., Her Smoke Rose Up Forever
• Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

Our Pseudonym Season kicks off with a look into political miracle-worker Stacey Abrams' other life as romance author Selena Montgomery.

Books Mentioned:

• Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps.
• Selena Montgomery, Secrets and Lies; Deception.
• Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson.
• Callista Gingrich, Sweet Land of Liberty.

Next week's James Tiptree Jr. story: The Women Men Don't See