Once upon a time, we were both major fantasy geeks. We decided to spend an episode walking down fantasy lane, stopping off at Raymond E Feist, Janny Wurts, Robert Jordan, Ursula le Guin and Neil Gaiman. We also get unexpectedly deep into how fantasy books helped form our identities. Listen to this one! 

From Ryu Murakami and Chuck Palahniuk to Maxine Hong Kingston, we delve into dark, dark places and circle back round to our mothers. Shit got weird. 

We're back! After an unaccetably long break, we meander from Toni Morrison to Twin Peaks and back round to James Baldwin. Merry belated Christmas folks. 

We go from Cocaine to Harry Potter very quickly. Along the way we stop at Russian fiction, likeable villains and reasons why Dutch fiction sucks (in our opinion.) 

In Episode 3, we hate on Dickens, fall in love (again) with Shakespeare and get angry about blies. If you don't know what a blie is, you're not alone. Listen and find out. 

Reading

Alicia Erian

Towelhead

Charlotte BrontëJane Eyre

NPR Morning Edition “If Literature’s Great Characters Could Text, They’d Charm Your Pantalets Off”

Thomas HardyTess of the D’Urbervilles

Charles DickensPenguin Author Page Great ExpectationsOliver Twist cartoon from 1972

George EliotMiddlemarchJane Austen Official (?) Website

Ellen Fein and Sherrie SchneiderThe Rules

William ShakespeareRomeo and Juliet

We talk about Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker. We also touch on Geoff Dyer, Robert Burton, Ring Lardner and Robert Benchley. Also Harry Potter. 

Further Readings

DOROTHY PARKER!

Biography

The Collected Dorothy Parker

Paris Review interview

Robert Burton

The Anatomy of Melancholy

In Our Time podcast on The Anatomy of Melancholy

Geoff Dyer

Books we talk about: 

Zona

Out of Sheer Rage

But Beautiful

Otherwise Known As The Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews

Ring Lardner

Short Bio

Lardnermania

Robert Benchley

Bio and Further Info

Edmund Wilson

NY Times 

Wilson’s review of Ulysses

Sinclair Lewis

Babbitt

Some incredible books for a credible first show. In our first ever episode, we talk about The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Marilynne Robinson’s novels Home and Gilead. We also detour into James Joyce and Stalin. You don’t have to have read (or have heard of) any of these books to have a good time with us. And by good we mean interesting and delightful, at the very least. 

Further ReadingFor the keen beans, here are some further readings and links to buy the novels we mention in the episode. We have linked to Foyles because we think they might pay their taxes, but we encourage you to seek books out at your local indie bookshop. Feel free to tweet us with your favourite local bookshops!

Chinua Achebe

Interview with Achebe in The Paris Review

Achebe and the Great African Novel in The New Yorker

Marilynne Robinson

Interview with Robinson in The Paris Review

Nick Flynn

Interview with Nick Flynn on Fresh Air

Another Bullshit Night in Suck City

Donna Tartt

Article in Vanity Fair

The Goldfinch

The Secret History

Charles Bukowski

http://bukowski.net

Lionel Shriver 

We Need to Talk About Kevin

James Joyce 

Ulysses

Henry James Portrait of a Lady

Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things