Third Person Limited: A Books Podcast

The inimitable Paige Lewis, “poet who wrote a novel,” joins us to discuss their critically lauded and popular-with-this-podcast’s-hosts epic prose poem Canon, as well as their writing processes and Simpsons fanaticism. You don’t want to miss this one, unless you dislike good things.

Then, Mason reviews the late author James Sallis’s final novel Backwater, and our hosts ponder whether it subverts subversive expectations or is just a meandering story of small-town cop life that doesn’t do much of anything, but does it pretty well.

Canon by Paige Lewis is out now.

Backwater by James Sallis is out now.

Works cited this episode:

The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening, Sim Simon, and James L. Brooks

The Odyssey, dir. Christopher Nolan

Book of Judges, the Bible

Annie Allen, Gwendolyn Brooks

The Descent of Alette, Alice Notley

Inferno, Dante Aligheri

The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis

Out of the Silent Planet, C.S. Lewis

Rejected, dir. Don Hertzfeld

It’s Such a Beautiful Day, dir. Don Hertzfeld

Peep Show, created by Andrew O’Connor, Jesse Armstrong, and Sam Bain

The Iliad, Homer

Babylon, South Dakota, Tom Lin

Drive, James Sallis

The Killer is Dying, James Sallis

The Departed, dir. Martin Scorsese

Taxi Driver, dir. Martin Scorsese

Goodfellas, dir. Martin Scorsese

Boogie Nights, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

There Will Be Blood, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

One Battle After Another, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

Shadow Ticket, Thomas Pynchon

Crime fiction legend George Pelecanos sat down with us to talk about his latest novel, The Blue Flame, and his approach toward writing for the page and the screen. George’s attention to realism and reflecting the world as it is makes him one of the greats in this genre (even though he killed off so many characters on The Wire).

Then: How dare an expert on The Odyssey (8th Century BCE) have opinions about The Odyssey (2026) that don’t align with those of fans of The Odyssey (2026). We critique the critics criticizing a critic.

The Blue Flame is out now.

Works cited this episode:

Hard Revolution, George Pelecanos

Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett

Yojimbo, dir. Akira Kurosawa

A Fistful of Dollars, dir. Sergio Leone

Miller’s Crossing, dir. The Coen Brothers

Last Man Standing, dir. Walter Hill

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett

“Honaloochie Bookie,” Mott the Hoople

“Cleaning up,” S1E12, The Wire, created by David Simon

“Middle Ground,” S3E11, The Wire, created by David Simon

Treme, created by David Simon

Creed, dir. Ryan Coogler

The Odyssey, Homer

The Odyssey, dir. Christopher Nolan

“An Uncomplicated Man,” Emily Wilson, London Review of Books

“Kicking up Cosmic Dust,” A.O. Scott, New York Times

O Brother, Where Art Thou, dir. The Coen Brothers

Jurassic Park, dir. Steven Spielberg

Blonde, Joyce Carol Oates

Predator Badlands, dir. Dan Trachtenberg

Interview with the Vampire, dir. Neil Jordan

Circe, Madeline Miller

The Epic of Gilgamesh

Interstellar, dir. Christopher Nolan

It’s a books-to-movies summer blockbuster episode! We’re joined by author and (former?) podcaster Mike Vago to talk about what works when translating literature to film, and what falls flat. You will not be surprised to learn that we think this process is pretty successful when Steven Spielberg is the director.

Then, Nate must grapple with the reality that his book was, in fact, published earlier this year, forever changing our relationship with Shakespeare, Descartes, and early modern philosophy.

Mike’s book The Planets are Very, Very, Very Far Away is on Amazon, and his podcast Why is This Not a Movie? can still be streamed almost anywhere.

Nate’s book Cartesian Theaters, Shakespearean Minds is out now

Adaptation, dir. Spike Jonze

Jaws, Peter Benchley

Jaws, dir. Steven Spielberg

Star Trek, created by Gene Roddenberry

Inside Out, dir. Ronnie Del Carmen and Pete Docter

Jurassic Park, Michael Crichton

Jurassic Park, dir. Steven Spielberg

One Battle After Another, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

Magnolia, dir. Paul Thomas Anderson

Frankenstein, dir. Guillermo del Toro

Hamnet, dir. Chloe Zhao

Train Dreams, dir. Clint Bentley

Project Hail Mary, dir. Phil Lord and Christopher Miller

Wuthering Heights, dir. Emerald Fennell

The Housemaid, dir. Paul Feig

Godfather Part II, dir. Francis Ford Coppola

Earthquake, dir. Mark Robson

If Books Could Kill

He’s Just Not That Into You, dir. Ken Kwapis

What to Expect When You’re Expecting, dir. Kirk Jones

The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf, Mike Vago

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

Beloved, Toni Morrison

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Ulee’s Gold, dir. Victor Nuñez

“Much Apu About Nothing,” The Simpsons

The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean

Ghost World, dir. Terry Zwigoff

Ulysses, James Joyce

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, dir. Mel Stuart

The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde

Casablanca, dir. Michael Curtiz

The Shining, dir. Stanley Kubrick

Star Wars, created by George Lucas

The Chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander

“Brush with Greatness,” The Simpsons, created by Matt Groening

Shadowplay: The Hidden Beliefs and Coded Politics of William Shakespeare, Clare Asquith

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

It's the big one here: Sam Spade and The Maltese Falcon. With this classic, Hammett pushed himself and the boundaries of the hardboiled genre he'd already mastered to create a gem of a novel that still resonates today, nearly 100 years after its publication. The inimitable cast of stylized characters swim against an undercurrent of noir cynicism that finally defeats them all. Plus, a statue of a bird.

Works cited this episode:

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

The Glass Key, Dashiell Hammett

Reservoir Dogs, dir. Quentin Tarantino

The Maltese Falcon, dir. John Huston

Satan Met a Lady, dir. William Dieterle

The Black Bird, dir. David Giler

Return of the Maltese Falcon, 

Monsieur Spade, AMC networks

The Big Sleep, dir. Howard Hawks

The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler

The Da Vinci Code, dir. Ron Howard

"The Big Knockover," Dashiell Hammett

"$106,000 Blood Money," Dashiell Hammett

"This King Business," Dashiell Hammett

We welcomed legendary novelist and short story writer T.C. Boyle to the show, to discuss his latest novel, No Way Home. T.C. also shared some very depressing thoughts about environmental catastrophe, which he has chronicled extensively in his fiction, and some less depressing thoughts about his approach to the craft of writing. 

Then, Nathan explains why he doesn't like the Black Eyed Peas, but isn't mad about it, either. Maybe we should all aspire to such equanimity.

Works cited this episode:

Already Dead, Denis Johnson

A Friend of the Earth, T.C. Boyle

The Tortilla Curtain, T.C. Boyle

Blue Skies, T.C. Boyle

The Terranauts, T.C. Boyle

“After the Plague,” T.C. Boyle

October Light, John Gardner

“Let’s Get It Started,” The Black Eyed Peas

A Court of Thorn and Roses, Sarah J. Maas

The Sea, John Banville

Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson

We launch the Summer of Dashiell Hammett with our deep dive on the Continental Op, the unnamed private investigator who starred in 28 stories and two novels. The San Francisco-based Op delivered a hardboiled fist to the drawing rooms, tea parties, and other twee scenarios that constituted detective fiction before his advent, changing the face of the genre forever.

We also dug into Angel Down, the most recent Pulitzer winner for fiction, and found this story of a celestial being who is dragged through the muck of World War I’s trenches compelling in spite of the gimmick that Nate didn’t like.

Works cited this episode:

Red Harvest, Dashiell Hammett

The Dain Curse, Dashiell Hammett

“This King Business,” Dashiell Hammett

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle

“The Tenth Clew,” Dashiell Hammett

Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche

Truth and Method, Hans-Georg Gadamer

Angel Down, Daniel Kraus

Herscht 07769, László Krasznahorkai

House of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski

Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace

Angels in America, Tony Kushner

Dracula, Bram Stoker

Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen

ttyl, Lauren Myracle

Ulysses, James Joyce

The Odyssey, Homer

O Brother Where Art Thou, dir. Ethan and Joel Coen

We were excited to have novelist and musician Willy Vlautin join us for a discussion about his career in both fields and his newest novel, The Left and the Lucky, which John Mulaney called “electric.” Willy covered his influences, why it was great to learn that some random lady hates him, and the interplay between his career as a songwriter and writer of fiction.

Then, what’s it like to read everything a single author wrote over just one summer? For us, of course, this means tackling crime fiction master Dashiell Hammett’s entire output. Hammett might not be on the New York Times’ “Best Summer Reads” list, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t curl up on a beach towel with his highly polished stories of violence, irony, and bootleg whiskey.

Works cited this episode:

Don’t Skip Out on Me, Willy Vlautin

"Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" Joyce Carol Oates

The Night Always Comes, Willy Vlautin

Lean on Pete, Willy Vlautin

Northline, Willy Vlautin

A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin

The Deverry Cycle, Katharine Kerr

The Murderbot Diaries, Martha Wells

Breaking Bad, created by Vince Gilligan

The Sopranos, created by David Chase

The Millennium trilogy, Stieg Larsson

The Space Trilogy, C.S. Lewis

The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien

iCarly, created by Dan Scheider

Executive Orders, Tom Clancy

Dombey and Sons, Charles Dickens

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens

Jazz, Toni Morrison

Sula, Toni Morrison

The Maltese Falcon, Dashiell Hammett

Spade and Archer, Joe Gores

The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum

We’re going to Hell with literary man-about-town Ed Simon, founder of the Pittsburgh Review of Books (with which our podcast is affiliated) and author of Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain. Ed helps us figure out why the legend of Faust still feels fresh in our world today, where nobody ever makes short-sighted deals that turn out badly in the end.

Then, we put Catcher in the Rye on trial. Does it deserve its vaunted position in the high school curriculum? And what do we want high schoolers reading, anyway, you big phony?

Ed Simon has several books out now.

Works cited this episode:

“Hypergraphia: On Prolific Writers and the Persistent Need to Produce,” Ed Simon, LitHub

“The New Fabio is Claude,” The New York Times

The Tragical History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, Christopher Marlowe

“Bart Sells His Soul,” The Simpsons

Hellraiser, dir. Clive Barker

Morphology of the Folk Tale, Vladimir Propp

“The Devil Went Down to Georgia,” Charlie Daniels Band

“Theophilus,” The Book of Drama, Hrotsvitha

On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, Timothy D. Snyder

“High School English and the Making of American Readers,” Alexander Manshel, American Literary History

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

“Texts Most Frequently Taught in U.S. Secondary Classrooms are Nearly Identical to List from Decades Ago,” National Council of Teachers of English

Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Crucible, Arthur Miller

Macbeth, William Shakespeare

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee

Night, Elie Wiesel

Hamlet, William Shakespeare

Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury

Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

King Dork, Frank Portman

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

Tom Brown’s School Days, Thomas Hughes

The Outsiders, S.E. Hinton

1984, George Orwell

Brave New World, Aldous Huxley

Julius Caesar, William Shakespeare

Women everywhere have an indescribable urge to get up and go west. That would be weird if it was real; in the hands of Alice Martin, author of the novel Westward Women, it’s not only weird but an incredible conceit for a thoughtful work of literary fiction that’s among the best books we’ve read this year. We were lucky to get Alice as a guest.

This was followed by some deep thoughts about exposition in fiction, such as “what is it” and “is it for girls?” Turns out it’s for everyone, but there may be some expectations about how manly men writers don’t do much of it, because it’s not masculine to tell people what you’re thinking, I guess?

Westward Women is out now.

Works Cited this episode:

A New Home, Who’ll Follow? Caroline Kirkland

On the Calculation of Volume, Solvej Balle

Bunny, Mona Awad

The Husbands, Holly Gramazio

Once and Again, Rebecca Serle

The Sun Also Rises, Ernest Hemingway

The Orchard Keeper, Cormac McCarthy

Brighton Rock, Graham Greene

One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

Legends of the Fall, Jim Harrison

Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov

The Housemaid, Freida McFadden

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins

Legends of the Fall, dir. Edward Zwick

We had a great time with Nina McConigley, author of the new novel How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder, which hits all the beats you want from a book where a character named Agatha Krishna says, “We blame the British.” Nina shared with us her thoughts on how colonialism divided not only countries but selves, and where characters (and real people) find themselves within those divides.

Then, how can you tell if a translated work is good when you don’t know the author’s language? Maybe the translator created something great that isn’t really true to the original version, or brought down a great work with their bad translation. (Note to translators: We think you are cool and the above scenario is purely hypothetical.)

How to Commit a Postcolonial Murder is available now.

Works cited this episode:

Angels in America, Tony Kushner

Cowboys and East Indians, Nina McConigley

Murder on the Orient Express, Agatha Christie

Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie

Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Sympathy for the Traitor: A Translation Manifesto by Mark Polizzotti

The Odyssey, Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa

Our Share of Night, Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell

On the Soul (De Anima), Aristotle, translated by Hugh Lawson-Tancred

The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri, translated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams