There's a fried cat, a woman who trains pumas, and a murder plot that goes sideways. Our new season explores the gritty world of noir, full of crime, antiheroes and snappy dialogue.

We're getting things started with James M. Cain's 1934 debut novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice.

Our sponsor this season is Perfect Books, booksellers you can find near the corner of Elgin and Somerset in downtown Ottawa. All of the books we're reading this season are available for sale there now.http://perfectbooks.ca/wp/

We're back! For season 2, we're diving into the gritty, crushing world of noir.

Here's our reading list, so you can read along:

The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M Cain

Double Indemnity by James M Cain

Strangers On A Train by Patricia Highsmith 

Black Wings Has My Angel by Elliot Chaze

L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy

The Expendable Man by Dorothy B Hughes

Cutter and Bone by Newton Thornburgh

 Out by Natsuo Kirino

The City and the City by China Mieville 

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

It’s our season finale! We discuss the last book Philip K. Dick wrote, a non-scifi story about a radical bishop. It’s part three of the Valis trilogy: The Transmigration of Timothy Archer.

Here’s that end-of-life interview with Philip K. Dick that Kevin references:

https://philipdick.com/literary-criticism/frank-views-archive/philip-k-dicks-final-interview/

A woman has to smuggle a god to Earth in her womb in Philip K. Dick's 1981 novel The Divine Invasion. The pink beam of light from VALIS reappears, as a cast of characters including the prophet Elijah, a stinky goat and a folk singer navigate multiple realities.

Horselover Fat experiences a religious awakening when he’s hit by a beam of pink light. Fat's quest for meaning is populated with rockstars, a godlike toddler, his buddy's dead cat, and Philip K. Dick himself.

Rooted in Philip K. Dick's own experience, the Valis Trilogy are his most explicitly religious books and the last ones he published before he died. We'll continue with parts 2 and 3 of the trilogy in our next episodes.

Steven Spielberg takes on Philip K Dick’s 1956 story Minority Report. We’ve got future crimes, we’ve got gross eye stuff, we’ve got moldy sandwiches, and we’ve got weird mutant plants. 

We watch PBS's 1980 made-for-TV version of The Lathe of Heaven, a cult classic based on the Ursula K. Le Guin book.

You can watch it on Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8VRbaVNvSA&t=4737s&ab_channel=kliljedahl

Today, a detour: we read The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin. Le Guin and Philip K. Dick went to the same high school and admired each other’s writing. This book takes inspiration from some of Dick’s work. It’s about a man whose dreams change reality and a therapist who attempts to harness this power as a tool to improve the world. In the process, he creates space turtles, a plague and grey-skinned people. 

Roxane Hudon fills in for Jacob.

Dr. Bloodmoney (1965) is a surprisingly upbeat novel about the nuclear apocalypse. It’s also one of Philip K. Dick's most narratively cohesive books.

All three versions of Total Recall on one podcast! We compare the Philip K Dick short story We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, Paul Verhoeven's 1990 classic movie adaptation Total Recall, and the 2012 Mars-free remake.

It’s unanimous: one of the three is absolute garbage. Find out which one!