Kaija’s jet-lagged but back, ready to digress and digest double entendres with Chad and Brian. Along with recapping this volume of Tristram Shandy—Toby and Trim’s plan, the collision between Obadiah and Dr. Slop, Yorick’s Sermon, Walter’s midwifery ideas—they talk about the initial reception of this book, the worst type of footnotes, the editorial inclination to favor the transmission of information over voice-driven joyful meanderings, and one of many reasons why Bret Stephens sucks.

This week’s music is “Planet Desperation” by Car Seat Headrest.

Next week’s episode will cover Volume III. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

Upcoming Open Letter Events

Friday, September 25, 4:30pm ET: What French and Francophone Literature Offers the American Imagination at Albertine Books, NYC.

All October: Asymptote Book Club for The Strongest Woman in the World.

Friday, October 2, 1pm ET: Open Letter Salon for The City.

Saturday, October 3, 1pm ET: Time and Water: Film Screening and Conversation at Scandinavia House, NYC.

Tuesday, October 6, 7pm ET: The 2026 Icelandic Translator Triptych at Scandinavia House, NYC.

Saturday, October 10, 4pm CT: Spotlight on Icelandic Women Writers at Open Book, Minneapolis, MN.

Saturday, October 17, 2pm ET: Translating Scandinavia at Scandinavia House, NYC.

Friday, October 23, 5pm ET: Boudoir Book Club at The Siren and the Sea, Rochester, NY.

And click here for more information on Open Letter’s Icelandic-themed Translator Triptych.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Kaija (“Medically Confirmed Sleepyhead,” her words) was asleep for the recording of this, so you only get Chad and Brian this week. They introduce Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by going over Volume I. There’s some biographical info at the start, then they talk about shaggy dog stories and digressions, “nominative determinism,” some interesting ideas from the 1700s about sperm and conception, the em-dash problem in the Penguin Classic edition, and how to handle all the footnotes without destroying the flow of reading.

They also discuss the other Substack currently reading Tristram Shandy, and the discussion group they’re having on the first and third Fridays of every month—which is open to the public both in person at the CUNY Graduate Center and on Zoom. (Subscribe for free to get the Zoom link.)

This week’s music is “Fingers and Thumbs” by Tristram Shandy.

Next week’s episode will cover Volume II. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Instead of breaking down any books this episode, Kaija, Brian, and Chad talk about some of the books they read this past summer, including a few Nabokov titles, Big Bang by David Bowman (NOT the 2001 character), Helen of Nowhere by Makenna Goodman (longlisted for the Booker Prize!), and several more. Then, they lay out the next three seasons of TMR, explaining some of the connections between these various books . . .

This week’s music is “Summertime Clothes” by Animal Collective.

The next three seasons of TMR are announced in this episode, and the reading schedule for the first one will be available on September 10th. What, you think I would tell you which books we’re doing here in the show notes?

The three forthcoming books in the Icelandic-centric Translator Triptych curated by Lytton Smith are:

* Boudoir by Sigrún Pálsdóttir, translated by Lytton Smith

* The Strongest Woman in the World by Steinunn G. Helgadóttir, translated by Larissa Kyzer

* 12 Women + Under a Volcano by Svava Jakobsdóttir, translated by Esja Alyssa Matich

And you can get all three for $35 (almost 40% off) in this special bundle, and you can subscribe to receive the next 5 or 10 Open Letter titles here.

Information about “The 2026 Icelandic Translator Triptych” (October 6, 7pm) and “Translating Scandinavia” (October 17, 2pm), both taking place at the Scandinavia House in New York City is available here.

Finally, if you’d like to support Open Letter’s publications, our podcasts, Three Percent, the Translation Database, etc., please consider contributing via this link. Thanks in advance!

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

This week, Kaija, Chad, and Brian talk about how well Morgner landed the plane, the ethics of recommending books to bar patrons, what the second and third volumes of this trilogy might be like, how the book works as parody, Viktor Shklovsky, and much more.

This week’s music is “Detachable Penis” by King Missle.

We’ll announce a new slate of TMR seasons in the upcoming weeks. Till then, stay tuned, and explore our extensive back catalog of more than 150 episodes.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

This week, Brian, Kaija, and Chad talk about the unknown world of references Morgner is playing with, picaresque novels, the joys of writing tedious prose, the American healthcare system, and Beatrice’s fate.

This week’s music is “Out of This Place” by Car Seat Headrest.

Next week: We finish this!

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

This week’s episode opens with some World Cup talk, before diving into the “Sixth Intermezzo” and first half of “Book Eleven.” According to Brian, “family” is the best way to sum up Fast & Furious this week’s reading, which revolves around Laura’s marriage to Benno, and the return of Beatrice from her unicorn hunt. There’s also a speech justifying the “law on the termination of pregnancy” and a terrible poem by Paul Wiens. (Chad: “Who?”)

This week’s music is “Connect the Dots (Song of Secretariat)” by Car Seat Headrest.

Next week’s episode will cover the rest of “Book Eleven,” which ends on page 424. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

Covering two sections of the novel—the “Fifth Intermezzo” and “Book Ten”—this episode of TMR starts by discussing how life didn’t turn out how Oskar Pakulat had hoped, and then meanders through Beatrice’s search for the unicorn Anaximander, along with Benno’s all too honest conversation with Laura, before wrapping with an anti-AI reading of the golem/robot section. There’s more talk about how Imtraud Morgner is disrupting patriarchal literary forms, incorporating a dazzling array of literary structures, and having a great time writing this book. Also: Chad discovers the “Glossary” and learns about Paul Wiens for the second time this season.

This week’s music is “Brothers” by Dan Deacon.

Next week’s episode will cover up through page 360. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

This week, Kaija, Brian, and Chad talk about the various levels of narration to this book and the interplay between the “books” and the “intermezzos.” They also end up comparing and connecting The Life and Adventures of Trobadora Beatrice to a number of books and authors, including Mulligan Stew, Samuel Beckett, The Golden Notebook, I the Supreme, and Flann O’Brien. Finally, they focus in on the idea of a “montage novel” and how this upends male-dominated patterns of fiction.

This week’s music is “Not Today” by Kim Gordon.

Next week’s episode will cover up through page 299 (“Fifth Intermezzo” and “Book Ten”). If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

In an episode as scattered as the book itself, Brian, Chad, and Kaija spend this week wrestling with the wild fragmentation of Morgner’s novel. They talk about co-opting stories, about brains like waffles vs. those like plates of spaghetti, and about what they think might lie ahead. Also: ton of jokes in this one. And some terrible music references.

This week’s music is “Pony” by Ginuwine. (Blame Brian.)

Next week’s episode will cover up through page 242. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.

On this episode, Chad admits to Brian and Kaija that he’s been wrong about something for decades . . . or has he? After that, they discuss the story of Jonah and the whale and Melusine, the poetry generator, Morgner’s general subversions, and more!

This week’s music is “Der blaue Planet” by the GDR band Karat.

Next week’s episode will cover through page 179. If you want to follow along, the complete schedule can be found here.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad W. Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. If you haven’t already, subscribe to the Three Percent substack for information about Open Letter Books and literature in translation writ large.

Also consider subscribing to the Mining the Dalkey Archive substack and its respective podcast (Apple, Spotify) for all things Dalkey Archive.