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Books podcasts were talking about in January 2017
In January 2017, literature, history, and political philosophy took center stage across multiple interview programs. On The Rubin Report, Larry Elder referenced Eric Stover, Victor Peskin, and Alexa Koenig while discussing historical mutual aid societies and safety nets. Dennis Prager also appeared on The Rubin Report, citing 'The God that Failed' by Richard Howard Stafford Crossman as a historical analogy for left-wing disillusionment following the Stalin-Hitler pact. Later on the program, Yannis Varoufakis discussed Sophocles's classical play 'Antigone' to draw parallels to the financial and political situation in Greece. Conversations with Tyler featured an extensive literary discussion when Tyler Cowen interviewed author Jhumpa Lahiri. During the episode, Lahiri mentioned her contribution of an essay about Rhode Island to the anthology 'State by State', edited by Matt Weiland and Sean Wilsey, noting how writing it helped unlock the American setting for her novel 'The Lowland'. Cowen and Lahiri also examined other works by the author, including her short story collection 'Unaccustomed Earth' and her novel 'The Namesake', comparing their themes of family, reconciliation, and bittersweet qualities. Furthermore, Cowen brought up Rabindranath Tagore's book 'The Home and the World', discussing its profound influence on Bengali intellectual history and its thematic echoes in Lahiri's own writing.
The Rubin Report
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Hiding in Plain Sight
Discussed“one of the things that um Alexa the Tov wrote about in Democracy in America where where all of these what what were called Mutual Aid societies that were set up this is before Social Security before Medicare before Medicaid”
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The God that Failed
Discussed“it is like the the famous book written when Stalin made his pact with Hitler all these Communists in the left who had followed who had followed Stalin not all many of them thought oh my god I've been believing in nonsense my whole life The God That Failed it's a very famous book from I think the 50s or”
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Antigone
Discussed“and the sitting King of Thieves who was antigon Uncle decided that one of them was in the wrong one of the two brothers”
Conversations with Tyler
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State by state
Discussed“and you know you mentioned the the essay in state by state um one of these books that have been kindly uh assembled here such a lovely display really I'm so touched um but I was asked to to write about Rhode Island um in this anthology called state by state which um invited a number of authors to write”
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The Lowland
Discussed“I mean I think what what was helpful about it is that um it opened up the um the setting of the lowland which um is set you know in part in in in Rhode Island but it's the first of my books in which I can actually mention Rhode Island by its name whereas the other books the preceding”
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Unaccustomed Earth
Discussed“now if you compare interpreter of maladies to your other short Story collection unaccustomed Earth do you think of the latter more recent work as being more about reconciliation and this a greater role for children or families in at least some of the stories or do you think overall your Fiction with time is moving in the direction of”
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The Namesake
Discussed“I think um the the sort of Bittersweet quality of of of say a novel like the namesake you bring up Loland”
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The Home and the World, by Rabindranath Tagore. Translated
Discussed“and what's your literary or maybe even also emotional relationship with the works of tagor so he's a towering Giant in Bengali intellectual history in your stories every now and then someone's reading his poems uh there's a lot of themes from him that that are in your work like home in the world this odd mix of tensions between”
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The Home and the World
Discussed“and what's your literary or maybe even also emotional relationship with the works of tagor so he's a towering Giant in Bengali intellectual history in your stories every now and then someone's reading his poems uh there's a lot of themes from him that that are in your work like home in the world this odd mix of tensions between”
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The Clothing of Books
Discussed“and you were fascinated with Italy way back when right for a long time yeah I mean in a growing way yeah yeah now your most recent book the clothing of books it's about book covers”
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Howl
Discussed“um i mean there's certain presses here that that have that aesthetic philosophy um you know city lights books makes those beautiful little books of like my copy of alan ginsburg's howl and etc”
ChooseFI
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Financial Peace Revisited
Discussed“and about the same time he created a small book called Financial Peace and he started offering it as a free resource to his church but the radio show gave him a platform to sell this book Nationwide and he turned it into a multi-million dollar Dynasty”
