The Big Read Cast

Bill and Joel read a bunch of books in 2019, and here they are talking about some of their favorites, ranging wildly from short books on capitalism to meandering sci-fi tomes! Also: the next Big Read is revealed!

Joel and Bill finish their ad hoc "Russian Trilogy" with Leo Tolstoy's vast book War and Peace, sort of the ur-Big Read. Come hang out and listen to us try to make sense of this phenomenal book that is about, you know, all of human existence!

Joel, Bill, and special guest Jarrod read the 1991 uncut edition of Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land! It's a messy book about politics, theology, sex, and language, and we try to talk about at least most of those things!

Bill and Joel read Whittaker Chambers's book Witness, about his life as a Soviet spy, his eventual flight from the Communist Party, and his part in the Alger Hiss trials.

Bill and Joel read Tom Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia, which is a trilogy of plays about mid-19th century Russian thinkers! The Broadway production still holds the record for the most Tony awards won by a play. Spoiler alert: one of us didn't like this one very much!

Bill and Joel also read a big chunk of Isaiah Berlin's Russian Thinkers, which is the book that helped inspire the Stoppard.

Bill and Joel read the third and final book in N.K. Jemisin's Hugo-winning Broken Earth trilogy! Also some discussion of endings in general, and how we felt about the meta-discourse surrounding Game of Thrones! There are no Game of Thrones spoilers, but we definitely spoil the heck out of The Stone Sky!

Bill and Joel read the second book in N.K. Jemisin's Hugo-winning Broken Earth trilogy! How do you talk about the second book in a trilogy? Do we like this one as much as we liked The Fifth Season? But first, a brief discussion of some Important Francis Spufford news.

As always, we spoil the heck out of this book!

Bill and Joel start their read of N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy! First, a discussion of genre fiction vs. literary fiction, the Eternal Conflict. Note: as always, we spoil the heck out of this book here, so don't get mad at us once we reveal all the twists and turns!

Joel and Bill start the new year with a GK Chesterton Double Feature! Tune in for our read of The Man Who Was Thursday and The Napoleon of Notting Hill!

Bill and Joel talk about a bunch of the books they read this year -- stay for some wide-ranging conversations about specific books and about literature as a medium! In no particular order: Francis Spufford! Jeff VanderMeer! Annie Dillard! Muriel Spark! John le Carre! Ted Chiang! PG Wodehouse! Fritz Leiber! Michael Moorcock! Ron Chernow! Douglas Adams! Denis Johnson! Adam Hochschild! Philip Roth! Shirley Jackson! Mr. Rogers! And, of course, more Rebecca West, because Black Lamb and Grey Falcon has taken over our lives!