Episode · The Book Review · 2024-07-18
Books mentioned on How Octopuses Are Like Aliens
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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The Sellout
The Sellout by Paul Beatty is a bold, satirical novel about race and racism in contemporary America that made history as the first American novel to win the Booker Prize in 2016.
Discussed“and another one that um was one of our 10 best last year is Paul Bey is the sellout and it went on of course to be the first American novel to win a Booker prize in 2016”
Where to get it
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The Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historical fiction novel that reimagines the antebellum South by turning the secret network of abolitionist routes into a literal subterranean railway system utilized by an enslaved woman named Cora seeking freedom.
Discussed“probably if you were looking at a commercial literary crossover book this year would be Coulson whitee heads the underground real road which got so much Awards attention as well as an Oprah boost”
Where to get it
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Stoner
Stoner by John Williams is a quiet, powerful mid-century novel that traces the unassuming academic life and quiet tragedies of William Stoner, an impoverished farmer's son who discovers a profound, enduring passion for English literature at the University of Missouri.
Recommended“in fact one of the books that I'm hoping to read this year is one I bought at Northshire last year which was um John Williams no relation um John williams' Stoner which I've been meaning to read for years”
Where to get it
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Bleak House
Bleak House is an expansive 1853 novel by Charles Dickens that uses the convoluted legal case of Jarndyce and Jarndyce to excoriate the failures of the British judicial system and expose the deep inequalities of Victorian society.
Recommended“um last year I think or the year before I read um Bleak House uh which was to me sort of per perfect like winter vacation reading”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (5) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“I at first I thought about um The Magic Mountain which I haven't read so I picked these sort of big ambitious things”
“and you also had Hamilton the revolution which was the book based on Hamilton the musical which itself was based on the biography by Ron Cho”
“your first book was crowdsourcing”
“um and it's it's it was amazing to see the extent to which as as late as 40 years after the publication of Adam Smith's uh Wealth of Nations most people even I mean Merchants investors you know still had not put together the implications of of capitalism and and becoming industrialism”
“the book again is called Whiplash how to survive our faster future by Joey Ido who is the director of mit's media lab and by Our Guest Jeff how who is the author previously of crowdsourcing”