We kick off our bicoastal NY/LA season with Judith Krantz’s genre-defining 1978 novel Scruples.

WARNING: not for the kiddos! Judith had a filthy mind, so this ep is definitely NC-17.

Judith Obits: NYT, The Guardian, Economist, Bloomberg.

Clive James review in the LRB.

Clips: 80s miniseries, ABC Pilot Trailer.

Books mentioned: Rita Felsky, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture.

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We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA, and we can't wait to share it with you! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this gem from our Meryl Streep season on The Bridges of Madison County, a true That Book™️.

It’s over the covered bridge to Madison County, Iowa, the setting for Robert James Waller’s The Bridges of Madison County and its (spoiler) exponentially better film adaptation. We cover (ha) tie-in fragrances, Waller’s, um, musical career, and the one and only Painter of Light™, all while paying respects to Our Lady of the Pod, Meryl.

Resources: Waller interview, background on BoMC, Meryl interview, Anthony Lane on the book, Frank Rich on the book, the La-Z-Boy from...heaven(?), Thomas Kinkade’s Christmas Cottage.

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We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA, and we can't wait to share it with you! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this ep from our second season about the poetry of Instagram.

Michael and Hannah take on creators of poetic #content, try to decide what poetry is (eep) and compare the current vogue for Instagram poetry with pop giants Lady Gaga and Robyn. Plus, a quiz!

Poets Cited:

@rupikaur_

@atticuspoetry

@tylerknott

@langleav

@yrsadaleyward

@jewel

Links:

Don’t miss this Molly Fischer profile from The Cut. Or her Rolling Stone profile. Here are a couple articles for Rupi. And a couple that are against her. Also this is where Atticus was Doxed.

Audio Sources:

Rupi Kaur reading, Rupi on the Tonight Show, Yrsa Daley-Ward.

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We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA, and we can't wait to share it with you! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this ep from 2018 about one of the best-selling (and kookiest) authors of all time, Dame Barbara Cartland.

Michael and Hannah unpack pink misogynist Dame Barbara Cartland’s...prodigious output, wading their way through her daughter’s voluminous hair, plagiarism charges, and her deep deep deep hatred of her fellow women.  They also talk about what else their reading, aspirationally or otherwise.

Books mentioned.  A Hazard of Hearts and The Ghost Who Fell in Love by Barbara Cartland.  The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage by Haruki Murakami, A History of Love by Nicole Krauss, and Call Me By Your Name and The Enigma Variations by Andre Aciman.  

Articles mentioned: Plagiarism!, Raine Spencer (the HAIR), Barbara Interview, The will with no money

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We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA and we can't wait to share it with you! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this oldie from 2018 about the queen of Black romance, Brenda Jackson.

Hannah and Michael discuss Brenda Jackson, romance author extraordinaire.  Along the way they address a blind spot, wade through some wild romance subgenres, and discover new innovations in kissing.

This ep owes a huge debt to Phoebe Judge’s This is Love podcast. Check it out!

Books mentioned: Delaney's Desert Sheikh and The Savvy Sistahs by Brenda Jackson, Calypso by David Sedaris, The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Leguin, The City & the City by China Miéville.

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See you on Brenda’s cruise!   

Black Lives Matter. How we’re going to do better. Plus books by black authors we’re excited to read. 

Books mentioned:

• Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye
• Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half
• Brandon Taylor, Real Life
• Claude McKay, Romance in Marseille
• James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room
• Octavia Butler, Kindred
• Samuel R. Delany, The Einstein Intersection
• N.K. Jemisin, The City We Became
• André Leon Talley, The Chiffon Trenches
• Rebecca Carroll, Surviving the White Gaze: A Memoir
• Jasmine Guillory
• Alyssa Cole

Links:

• Molly Young on Romance in Marseille (Vulture)
• Jeremy O. Harris on Real Life (NYT)
• Rebecca Carroll on The Chiffon Trenches (NYT)
• The Bronx’s Lit. Bar 
• Black-owned bookstores
• Anti-Racism Resources

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Updates on everything everyone’s reading (and NOT reading, side-eye straight to Thrift Books) in lockdown. 

• Bookshop.org
• Thriftbooks.com
• Trailer for The Pieces I Am, Toni Morrison documentary.
• Peter Ackroyd's Venice on Audible, narrated by Simon Vance 

Books mentioned: The Harry Potter Series, J.K. Rowling; His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullman; Ducks, Newburyport, Lucy Ellmann; Slocum’s Inheritance, Jack Logan; Excellent Women, Babara Pym; Accept No Mediocre Life: Living Beyond Labels, Libels, and Limitations, David Foster; Song of Solomon, Toni Morrison; The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Washington Square, Henry James; Little, Big, John Crowley; Venice, Peter Ackroyd.

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Hannah and Michael shelter in place! We have a dramatic reading from friend of the pod Danielle Steel, a brief stop at W.H Auden’s messy apartment and finally lots & lots of book talk--what (and how!) we’re reading in these troubled times.

• ICONIC Danielle Steel interview in the NY Post.
• Auden was a slob.
• Smitten Kitchen will save us all.
• Thrift Books. Sponsor us!

Books mentioned: Alison Roman, Nothing Fancy; Najmieh Batmanglij, New Food of Life; Ken Forkish, Flour Water Salt Yeast; Liu Cixin, The Three Body Problem; Kevin Wilson, Nothing to See Here; E.M. Forster, Howard’s End; Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White; Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient; Joe Hill, N0s4a2; Paul Tremblay, A Head Full of Ghosts; Henry James, Washington Square; Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; Marcel Proust, Swann’s Way; Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre; Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light; Scarlett Thomas, Oligarchy & The Seed Collectors.

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In this off-season ep we cover the death of Mary Higgins Clark, the American Dirt scandal gripping publishing (and Oprah!), and the death of a giant literary butthole. Because the universe is full of whimsy, there’s an Irish angle to all of these stories.

Books mentioned:

Mary Higgins Clark, Mount Vernon Love Story; Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt; Sandra Cisneros, The House on Mango Street; Sonia Nazario, Enrique's Journey; Óscar Martínez, The Beast; Tara Westover, Educated; Tina Brown, The Diana Chronicles; Jason Matthews, Red Sparrow; Barbara Pym, Crampton Hodnet; Jia Tolentino, Trick Mirror; Anne Leckie, Ancillary Justice.

Sources/Further Reading:

• Mary Higgins Clark
• • MHC obit, NYT. 
  • MHC on Central Park South.
  • MHC on Irish Storytelling.
• American Dirt
• • NYT Review
  • Slate Explainer
  • Vulture Explainer
  • Vox Explainer
  • NYT Op-Ed: "Proof That the Publishing Industry is Broken"
  • CNN Op-Ed: “What the American Dirt Author and I Have in Common”
  • Alisa Valdes Rodriguez on Sandra Cisneros
  • Who Gave You the Right to Tell that Story? 
  • Eva Longoria Response
  • Nail Art
  • Centerpieces
• Stephen Joyce obit, NYT.

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Our annual roundup of all the books we read in 2019! We share number of books read (Hannah smokes us all, of course), give out awards, and look ahead to 2020.

Links: 

• NYT 100 Notable books for 2019
• Patricia Lockwood on John Updike
• Taffy Brodesser-Akner on Gwenyth Paltrow/Goop 

Books mentioned:

Furious Hours, Casey Cep; The Topeka School, Ben Lerner; Fleishman is in Trouble, Taffy Brodesser-Akner; Normal People & Conversations with Friends, Sally Rooney; Asymmetry, Lisa Halliday; Trust Exercise, Susan Choi; Transcription, Kate Atkinson; The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson; Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood; Educated, Tara Westover; Ninth House, Leigh Bardugo; Ladies Who Punch, Ramin Setoodeh; Here I am, Jonathan Safran Foer; The Overstory, Richard Powers; Find Me, Andre Aciman; The Patrick Melrose novels, Edward St Aubyn; Circe, Madeline Miller; Frankenstein, Mary Shelley; Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevksy; The Neapolitan Novels, Elena Ferrante; Howard’s End, E.M. Forster.

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