Episode · The Book Review · 2018-12-28
Books mentioned on Tyranny in Rome and Fake Drugs in Fiction
Gilbert Cruz recommended The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson, and discussed Mortal Republic by Edward J. Watts, Your duck is my duck by Deborah Eisenberg, My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh, and Gun, with occasional music by Jonathan Lethem and others. Jonathan Lethem discussed Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry, White Noise by Don DeLillo and others, and Hystopia by David Means. Alexandra Alter discussed New Hampshire by Robert Frost. Emily Eakin recommended Bad Blood by John Carreyrou. Greg Cowles recommended Last stories by William Trevor, and discussed Ulysses by James Joyce. John Williams recommended The western wind by Samantha Harvey.
Books mentioned, in the order they came up
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Mortal Republic
Discussed“Yasha monk will be here to talk about Edward watt's book mortal Republic”
Where to get it
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Under the Volcano
Discussed“I mean if you read Malcolm Lowry's Under the Volcano That Mescal that he's constantly drinking is in a way it's a Gateway into the stream of Consciousness super charged Dark Knight of the soul that the the main character undergoes through that book”
Where to get it
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White Noise
White Noise by Don DeLillo is a seminal 1984 postmodern novel that chronicles contemporary consumerism, academic satire, and the omnipresence of mass media and pop culture.
Discussed“and then you definitely get the shift and I think that the the pivotal fictional drug in my scheme anyway is the one that Don delilo introduces in White Noise which is a very much from an experimental pharmacology of interventions you know by science into the human psyche”
Where to get it
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Your duck is my duck
Your Duck Is My Duck by Deborah Eisenberg is a sharp and incisive collection of short stories that interrogates contemporary anxieties, political disillusionment, and shifting social landscapes.
Discussed“I want to go back to some of the specific drugs you mentioned the Deborah Eisenberg that collection is your duck is my duck and she has this drug verx in the title story of that collection”
Where to get it
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My Year of Rest and Relaxation
My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Ottessa Moshfegh is a darkly comic and provocative novel about a privileged young New York woman who attempts to hibernate for an entire year using a cocktail of heavy psychiatric pharmaceuticals.
Discussed“and then you also talked about a Tessa mosag my year of rest and relaxation the drug in that is in forol”
Where to get it
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Hystopia
Discussed“oh boy troid in David mean's book hystopia which is really just an amazing dark dark sort of fantasmagorical trippy historical novel really hard to characterize but it does really marvelous things”
Where to get it
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Gun, with occasional music
Discussed“that's leading very naturally into a book that you wrote your first novel gun with occasional music in which the drug was forgett all you should know the pronunciation”
Where to get it
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New Hampshire
Discussed“vintage Classics which is their paperback imprint is going to be doing several AG the Christi novels this spring which are newly in the public domain and they're going to be doing an addition of Robert Frost New Hampshire with the original wood cart art”
Where to get it
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Bad Blood
Bad Blood by John Carreyrou is an immersive investigative non-fiction book that uncovers the massive corporate fraud behind Elizabeth Holmes and her blood-testing startup, Theranos.
Recommended“I'm reading Bad Blood secrets and lies in a Silicon Valley startup by John carero”
Where to get it
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Ulysses
James Joyce's landmark modernist novel Ulysses chronicles an ordinary day in the life of Leopold Bloom in Dublin, mapping human consciousness and daily existence through a revolutionary stream-of-consciousness technique.
Discussed“I'm I'm still on my extended ulses”
Where to get it
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Last stories
Last Stories is a poignant collection of short fiction by the acclaimed Irish author William Trevor, who passed away a few years prior to the discussion.
Recommended“this is the book last stories by William Trevor who died a couple of years ago”
Where to get it
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The western wind
The Western Wind by Samantha Harvey is an atmospheric historical novel set in a fifteenth-century English parish where a local priest investigates a suspicious drowning in his community.
Recommended“uh I am reading a British novelist named Samantha Harvey her new book which is called the western wind”
Where to get it
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The Warmth of Other Suns
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson is a powerful and extensively researched historical account that chronicles the decades-long Great Migration of black citizens leaving the American South for northern and western cities.
Recommended“and I'm reading her book the warmth of other Sons”
Where to get it
Other mentions in this episode (3) — ad reads, self-promotion and passing references, never counted
“his latest novel is the fal detective but this week he writes about some other novels including one earlier novel of his own which look at fictional drugs in fiction”
“you know William Trevor is a very different kind of Irish writer from James joce”
“this story I I think James Wood reviewed her last book dear thief in the New Yorker”