Two Month Review

Tom Flynn from Volumes opens up today's episode with a reading from Brian's first book, Joytime Killbox. Then, along with Chad, they break down the rest of "The Human School" from Monsterhuman, talk about how much they love Skomsvold's voice and sense of humor, look at the way in which she starts playing with first- and third-person narration in the opening bits of "The Herring Factory," and crap on Ben Lerner a little bit. Good fun! 

This week's music is "Please Take Me With You" by Broken Social Scene.

Next episode will cover pages 226-274 and will be livestreamed on YouTube next Wednesday. (All of our past episodes are available on our YouTube channel in case you want to catch up on anything.) You can find the complete reading schedule here.

Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, which was just named to the Booker Longlist.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. Also, follow Tom on Twitter, and buy some books from Volumes! 

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

Even though the first few seconds ("On today's Two Month Review we'll be talking about . . . ") got cut off, Chad gives his most professional podcast introduction to date, before he and Brian talk about the Nansen Academy, the cyclical nature of chronic illness, the idea of plot points vs. events, and reasons their respective spouses would give for leaving them. (Maybe an all-time TMR highlight.) 

This week's music is "Has It Hit You?" by The Regrettes.

Next episode will cover pages 180-225 and will be livestreamed on YouTube next Wednesday. (All of our past episodes are available on our YouTube channel in case you want to catch up on anything.) You can find the complete reading schedule here.

Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, which was just named to the Booker Longlist.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And foll0w Marius on Instagram.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

In this episode, Chad and Brian applaud Kjersti for not getting back together with her ex-boyfriend, talk about circular structures, about the evolution of her written voice, about Antony and the Johnsons, the myth-making behind Babe Ruth, and much more. 

This week's music is "Patterns Prevail" by Young Guv.

Next episode will cover pages 144-180 and will be livestreamed on YouTube next Wednesday. You can find the complete reading schedule here.

Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, which was just named to the Booker Longlist.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And foll0w Marius on Instagram.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

One of the funniest TMR episodes in weeks, Chad and Brian crack each other up over writerly anxieties, the sharp wit Kjersti displays in this section, the White Claw Phenomenon, writer vs. author vs. journaler, Kjersti's distain for bad poetry (and TV) about chronic fatigue syndrome, pop culture references from the early-1990s, and much much more. They do also talk quite a bit about the book itself, how Skomsvold is creating a sort of narrative consciousness, the evolution of the book's voice (in lieu of a strong forward-moving plot), and other craft elements. 

This week's music (maybe the music for the rest of the season?) is "Storyline Fever" by Purple Mountains.

Next episode will cover pages 93-143 and will be livestreamed on YouTube next Wednesday. You can find the complete reading schedule here.

Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, which was just named to the Booker Longlist.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And foll0w Marius on Instagram.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

The new season of the Two Month Review starts here! Through the end of September we'll be discussing Kjersti Skomsvold's Monsterhuman, translated from the Norwegian by Becky L. Crook. Marius Hjeldnes from Cappelen Damm joins Chad and Brian to provide a bit of background on Skomsvold, on trends in Norwegian literature, on that whole "dice" thing, and much more. They cover the first three sections of the book, laying out the main themes and ideas that set-up this novel about a young woman suffering from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, trying to rebuild her sense of self by becoming a writer. An incredibly interesting, episodic novel that you should be able to dive into, even if you don't read every page.

This week's music comes directly from the opening sections, featuring some really tough songs: "Hole in the Head" by Sugababes and "Never Easy" by Kurt Nilsen.

Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann, which was just named to the Booker Longlist.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. And foll0w Marius on Instagram.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

We did it! Chad and Rachel Cardasco (with an assist from Tom Flynn of Volumes) talk about the last sections of Sjón's CoDex 1962. It's been quite the season and they bring it home in old school TMR style with a lot of Twin Peaks talk, many many digressions, acknowledging motifs and ideas that may or may not actually be in the text, and having a lot of fun. This is the most sci-fi section of the novel, which makes it a lot of fun. (THE ROBOTS ARE ALWAYS GOING TO TAKE OVER.) 

Season 9 of the Two Month Review will kick off at the end of July and will feature Monsterhuman by Kjersti Skomsvold. Get your copy now!

And Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests. And foll0w Rachel Cordasco on Twitter and at Speculative Fiction in Translation.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

Things start to come clear in this penultimate episode of this season of the Two Month Review. We get a new story about Joséf's birth, along with some absolutely incredible writing by Sjón. Lots of parallels and mirroring in this section, and the discussion helps set up next week's conclusion.  

The next episode will focus on the first eight chapters of this third volume (pages 345-406). The complete schedule can be found here.

Season 9 of the Two Month Review will kick off at the end of July and will feature Monsterhuman by Kjersti Skomsvold. Get your copy now!

And Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests. 

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

We're into the homestretch! Today episode, featuring special guest Katie Whittemore, kicks off the discussion of the third and final volume of Sjón's CoDex 1962, "I'm a Sleeping Door: A Science-Fiction Story." More origin myths in this volume, ranging from the epic and literary, to the mundane and realistic. A woman gives birth to a daughter made up of sperm from four men, and we get to see the fate of all four thousand Icelandic children born during 1962, many of whom have mutated. We find out who's been talking to whom and (kind of) why. And we find out about a mysterious geneticist. All of these threads are interwoven in a detailed, intricate way that Brian, Katie, and Chad unwind in a fun, intelligent ways. 

The next episode will focus on the first eight chapters of this third volume (pages 345-406). The complete schedule can be found here.

Season 9 of the Two Month Review will kick off at the end of July and will feature Monsterhuman by Kjersti Skomsvold. Get your copy now!

And Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests. And you can read some of Katie Whittemore's translations here and here.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

This week, Tobias Carroll joined Chad and Brian to talk about werewolves, puns that don't exactly work in translation, evil baseball card shop owners, weird Masonic rituals, Party Down South, and Fred Durst and John Travolta's The Fanatic. They also have a lot of praise for Sjón and the wild, fun nature of the second volume in CoDex 1962, and set up volume three: "I'm a Sleeping Door: A Science-Fiction Story."

The next episode will focus on the first eight chapters of this third volume (pages 345-406). The complete schedule can be found here.

Announcements! Season 9 of the Two Month Review will kick off at the end of July and will feature Monsterhuman by Kjersti Skomsvold. Get your copy now!

And Season 10 will be the first English-language title to be included: Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests. And follow Tobias Carroll for information about all his writing, including his story in the forthcoming Dostoyevsky Wannabe anthology.

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

This week's episode covers a lot of ground, from disturbing American racism circa 1917 to codswallop; from werewolves to parliamentary fights, from ghosts to crime/heist narratives. It's a really fun episode that has a good take on this section of the book mixed with some really fun segues and digressions. 

The next episode will focus on pages 303-344 (to the end of the second volume of the trilogy, "Iceland's Thousand Years"). The complete schedule can be found here.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests. And follow Hailey Dezort to improve your PetSmart reading series. 

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions. And preorder Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann so that you're prepared for a future TMR.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.