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Books podcasts were talking about in May 2015
In May 2015, literary discussions on podcasts like The Book Review and The Joe Rogan Experience highlighted several distinct works. Dr. Dan Engle appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience to recommend Michael Gershon's The Second Brain while exploring the gut-brain connection. On The Book Review, Sam Tanenhaus advised readers to approach Saul Bellow's work chronologically, starting with Dangling Man. Later in the month, guest Liesel Schillinger joined The Book Review to present a roundup of travel and cultural titles, which included Mark Adams's Meet Me in Atlantis, Steven Nightingale's Granada: A Pomegranate in the Hand of God, Michael Booth's The Almost Nearly Perfect People, Paolo Rumiz's The Fault Line, and Huan Hsu's The Porcelain Thief. Also on The Book Review, Alexandra Alter discussed David Lagercrantz's continuation of Stieg Larsson's series with The Girl in the Spider's Web. Together, these conversations spanned scientific deep dives, chronological literary journeys, travel writing, and ongoing bestselling series.
The Book Review
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Meet Me in Atlantis
Discussed“meet me in Atlantis my obsessive quest to find the sunken city by Mark Adams”
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Granada
Discussed“as well as Grenada a pomegranate in the hand of God by Steven Nightingale”
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The almost nearly perfect people
Discussed“we're also going to talk um at least in part hopefully about the rest of them the almost nearly perfect people behind the myth of the Scandinavian Utopia by Michael Booth”
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The Fault Line
Discussed“we're getting to the end here the fault line traveling the other Europe from Finland to Ukraine by Pao rise”
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The porcelain thief
Discussed“and finally the porcelain Thief searching the Middle Kingdom for buried China by Juan Sue”
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The Girl in the Spider's Web
Discussed“speaking of girls in the title there will be another St Larson book although the author is deceased they found someone to continue on the series and it's called the girl in The Spiders web”
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The Wright Brothers
Discussed“on the top of the non-fiction L someone who's a little bit more accustomed to being number one yeah uh David Mulla remains at number one this week with um the Wright brothers his biography”
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Women of Will
Discussed“co-author of the essential Shakespeare handbook uh will come in handy discussing these two books we're going to talk about Tina Packer's book women of will following the feminine in Shakespeare's plays and Chris Le arar's book Shakespeare and the Countess the battle that gave birth to the globe”
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Letter to a Future Lover: Marginalia, Errata, Secrets, ...
Discussed“the other one you said uh was a favorite was letter to a future lover marginalia Arata Secrets inscriptions and other ephemera found in libraries by Ander Monson”
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Ongoingness
Discussed“let's start with Sarah Mango's book uh ongoingness the end of a diary”
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Discontent and Its Civilizations
Discussed“the final um essay collection is by someone who we more uh closely associate with the novel um mammed um his collection is discontent and its civilizations dispatches from laor New York and London”
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Luckiest Girl Alive
Discussed“a former editor at Cosmo and self magazine named Jessica null has a kind of a suspense thriller called luckiest girl alive that is garnering some comparisons to Gone Girl or girl on the train”
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The Great War of Our Time
Discussed“the former deputy director of the CIA Michael Morell has written a book with Bill harlo called the Great War of our time a title that sort of harks back to Gandalf from Lord of the Rings”
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You Only Live Twice
Discussed“we came back after that with season five Don and Megan's relationship it ends with With You Only Live Twice with him really calling his marriage quits on some level and and going in a bar for are you alone”
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Walt Disney's Snow White and the seven dwarfs
Discussed“I could tell you the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and start with her in the glass coffin with the prince coming up and just tell you she got poisoned the witch was after blah blah blah so now the guy's coming he's going to kiss her and and she's going to wake up”
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Shadow Work
Discussed“she reviews on our cover this week two books rise of the robots technology and the threat of a jobless future by Martin Ford and Shadow work the unpaid unseen jobs that fill your day by Craig Lambert”
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Outlander kitchen
Discussed“Random House is publishing the perfect book it's called Outlander kitchen and it's a recipe book that's inspired by the novels which are about a nurse who time travels back to 18th century Scotland”
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A Confederacy of dunces cookbook
Discussed“you know what I'm looking forward to more than that I have to say is the Confederacy of dun's cookbook which is coming this fall”
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Hallucinations
Discussed“the book he did just before this um hallucinations was also surprisingly revelatory in that um in the excerpt that ran into the New Yorker first he confessed that he had been a drug addict”
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14th Deadly Sin
Discussed“then new it number one is a novel called 14th deadly sin that's by James Patterson and his uh frequent co-writer Maxine Petro it's uh part of their Women's Murder Club series book 14”
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Deal
Discussed“it's a book called deal by Bill kutzman who is the founding drummer for The Grateful Dead he played with them for all 30 years of that band's existence uh a memoir written with Benji Eisen about his uh Wild Life and Times with the Grateful Dead”
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American wife
Discussed“then at number seven another Memoir uh this one's called American Wife it's by tea Kyle she is the Widow of Chris Kyle who was uh the Navy SEAL who went on to write American Sniper which of course got made into the movie tea Kyle writes this book with Jim def fiz”
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The book of Joan
Discussed“it's by Melissa Rivers who's Joan Rivers daughter uh she wrote a book called The Book of Joan that's looking back on life with her famous comedian mother”
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It's a Long Story
Discussed“then at number five another Memoir um and another musician's story like the bill critzman um Willie Nelson has a book written with David Ritz called it's a long story”
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Life among the savages
Discussed“so the first book is um life among the Savages which came out in 1953”
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Raising demons
Discussed“and raising demons in 1957”
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The witchcraft of Salem Village
Discussed“it's written in the style of the 17th century witchcraft Chronicles uh which she collected and read and then wrote about in a children's book called the Witchcraft of Salem Village”
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An ember in the ashes
Discussed“it's a fantasy novel called an ember in the ashes um about a girl at War um who becomes a spy and it also simultaneously tells this”
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The Life of Saul Bellow
Discussed“Sam reviews this week Zachary leader new biography the life of sa Bellow to Fame and Fortune 1915 to 1964 this is the first in a planned two volume biography”
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The adventures of Augie March
Discussed“the most obvious thing about his breakthrough novel The Adventures of Auggie March which was a kind of latterday Huckleberry Finn is that the first three words in the titled are exactly the same”
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Mr. Sammler's Planet
Discussed“your wonderful colleague Elida Becker at the book review retyped one of Bell's greatest manuscripts Mr samer's Planet when she worked at at the Viking press”
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Seize the Day
Discussed“for instance it's James Atlas who points out that the famous funeral scene in seiz the day where Tommy wilham and you know sees the day Pamela Tommy willhelm goes to the funeral parlor of a stranger”
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Jenny Gerhardt
Discussed“theodore drier's novel Jenny ghard one of his forgotten wonderful early novels”
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Ravelstein
Discussed“all the way through Ravel steam which some people love his novel about Alan Bloom is great friend”
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The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
Discussed“another play that got a lot of nominations was the Curious incident of the dog in the nighttime which is adapted from a 2003 novel by Mark Haden”
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Missoula
Discussed“she reviews John kar's new book Missoula rape and the justice system in a college town”
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Beauty's Kingdom
Discussed“at number 12 there's a book called beauties Kingdom by a writer named a an rore”
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Garden of Lies
Discussed“and she's got a new book called Garden Of Lies set in Victorian London”
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God Help the Child
Discussed“her new novel God help the child enters the list at number five”
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The bone tree
Discussed“it's called The Bone Tree this is book five of the pen cage series”
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And the good news is--
Discussed“she's got a new book called and the good news is dot dot dot dot dot dot kind of looking back at her life”
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Dangling man
Recommended“if you want to be diligent you'll work your way through chronologically from dangling man published in 1944 all the way through Ravel steam”
The Joe Rogan Experience
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Awakening Spirits
Discussed“I mean all of these things you know I was I'm reading this book right now by by Tom Brown called Awakening spirits and he gives this really cool little Fable that explains it”
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You Are the Placebo
Discussed“Joe despenza just wrote a book you're the placebo and he's got all he's got the great scientific background what is his name it's called you are the placebo Joe dispenza”
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The Second Brain
Recommended“that's why there's a really good book I think about Nam Gerson called the second brain and it's this whole deep scientific look at the gut brain connection”
Freakonomics Radio
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Ed Defender
Discussed“The work that we we first found that really I think sowed the seeds for what would become the downtown project was Ed Glazer's book I was very flattered when Tony reached out to me He read my book and seems to have been excited by it”
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Tribal Leadership
Discussed“but if you read books like good to great or tribal leadership there's a clear at least correlation right if not cause between companies that do well in the long term financially”
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How the Mighty Fall
Discussed“Although if you look at the good to Great companies if you looked at those lately well so there's a follow-up book that Jim Collins came up with which was how the Mighty Fall or fail”
