Monthly round-up · All months
Books podcasts were talking about in September 2017
In September 2017, podcast discussions frequently centered on contemporary fiction, memoirs, and recovery narratives. On The Book Review, Pamela Paul highlighted Celeste Ng's novel Little Fires Everywhere, while Jennifer Szalai discussed Dezső Kosztolányi's Skylark. John Williams explored works by Barbara Comyns, mentioning Our spoons came from Woolworths and noting his intention to read Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. Greg Cowles shared that he picked up Lily King's novel Euphoria after his wife recommended it, and Jen Senior discussed Samantha Hunt's The Invention of Everything Else. Beyond literary interviews, personal struggles and historical figures emerged in other spaces. On This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von, the host recommended a documentary about Bill W and the founding of Alcoholics Anonymous titled My Name Is Bill by Susan Cheever to a caller dealing with addiction. Concurrently, the ChooseFI host praised Scott Lynch's fantasy novel The Lies of Locke Lamora after receiving recommendations from a community group. Together, these selections reflected a strong thematic focus on interpersonal relationships, fantasy world-building, and personal resilience.
The Book Review
-
Deadly Rumors
Discussed“I mean one of them here this sherff hodges's deadly rumors which you reviewed from the sound of it it feels like a thriller”
-
Everything I never told you
Discussed“it's interesting because your first book everything I never told you your debut began with a dead girl”
-
Killing England
Discussed“in this book it's killing England it's about the American Revolution”
-
Killing the Rising Sun
Discussed“it's not great considering that last year killing the Rising Sun sold more than 250,000 copies in its first week”
-
A Russian Novel
Discussed“it's called my life is a Russian novel”
-
Undue Influence
Discussed“this one is called undo influence”
-
Leave It to Psmith
Discussed“um I've got PG W House's leave it to Smith”
-
A Perfect Spy
Discussed“um I'm sort of trying to read Laray novel a perfect spy and I mentioned last week that I was having a little bit of trouble getting into it”
-
Little Fires Everywhere
Recommended“the novel again is called little fires Everywhere by Celeste Ang”
-
Purpose & desire
Discussed“there's one Scott Turner's purpose and desire is one that this happens fairly often he's attempting to add something not to completely disrupt Darwin's theory”
-
Darwin's First Theory
Discussed“and it's his journey that Rob Wesson both recreates and follows on foot in his book Darwin's first Theory”
-
Bitterblue
Discussed“it wasn't hard for me to leave it behind just because bitter blue was so hard and so dark and really had a lot to do with my my own life”
-
The Ginger Man
Discussed“and last week or maybe the week before JP Don leevy died the 91-year-old Irish American author who is really known best for one novel called The Ginger Man so I've been reading that because I've been meaning to for many years”
-
After the Tall Timber
Discussed“it's rata Adler's collected non-fiction it's called after The Tall Timber and because I'm a a bit of a masochist I've been greatly enjoying um a piece that she did that just lays into the New York Times”
-
Unbelievable
Discussed“um so I'm finishing up Katie tur's Memoir unbelievable which um it is pretty unbelievable”
-
Game Change
Discussed“and Game Change for instance which was a huge success after the 2008 campaign had was full of that and people just ate that up”
-
Living history
Discussed“her first of course living history the second was hard choices and now what happened how does this book compare to those first two well I have to admit I did not read um the book that she wrote hard Choice”
-
A kind of freedom
Discussed“another one is Carol zoro's Baron Island and another one is Margaret Wilkerson seon's novel a kind of Freedom yeah the Margaret ston we just reviewed in the book review”
-
Simple justice
Discussed“well the book is simple Justice by Richard kuger and it's a book that I think this is the 2004 Edition so it was released because of the 50th anniversary of brown View Board”
-
Aftermath
Discussed“and I just for some reason picked up Rachel cusk's 2012 Memoir aftermath the subtitle is on marriage and separation this is like known I think among readers as like the divorce book”
-
A life's work
Discussed“I'm not sure because I actually haven't read aftermath but just from my understanding just the sort of objection from what I recall at the time was just her treatment of the marriage just H also she was really attacked I I think as a mother she was attacked for a life's work I love that book”
-
The once and future liberal
Discussed“that's Mark Lila's new book The Once and Future liberal which is a very short book and it is based on a an oped that he wrote for the New York Times last year”
-
Notes on a Foreign Country
Discussed“I'm now reading Susie Hansen's new book it was on our cover a couple of weeks ago it was on the podcast notes on a foreign country”
-
There Was and There Was Not
Discussed“I read a book A couple of years ago um by by another Young American journalist named malen tumani I think it was the name of that book was there was and there was not which comes from a a Turkish saying”
-
Paris: A Love Story
Discussed“she was clearly reading it and she quoted from a part where I'm in Paris and she was like have you read my book Paris a love story”
-
Gorbachev
Discussed“William Talman will join us to talk about his new biography Gorbachev his life and times”
-
The Broken Earth Trilogy: The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, The Stone Sky
Discussed“and she just finished her broken Earth Trilogy in the process winning two Hugo awards for best novel in a row”
-
Graceling
Discussed“I'm reading a fairly complicated ya novel right now that has a lot of fantasy Elements by chrisen Kure and her first Trilogy the Graceling Trilogy”
-
The Obelisk Gate
Discussed“uh had one for shorter fiction and then for the obelis gate you just won for the second time”
-
The Stone Sky
Discussed“and the third book The Stone Sky which came out in August just made the New York Times bestseller list”
-
The Hunt for Red October
Discussed“that's the novel that was adapted Into The Hunt for Red October”
-
Anna
Discussed“so about a decade ago I had read a book by him called Anna ades which is really an amazing novel about another couple”
-
The Vet's Daughter
Discussed“although her probably her best known book which is also in the series is is just called the vet's daughter”
-
Coming Through Slaughter
Discussed“I almost picked up to reread Michael andi's book coming through Slaughter because I had just recommended it to John”
-
Skylark
Recommended“um so the book that I'm reading right now is a book by a Hungarian author named deer kolani very nice and thank you and uh the title is Skylark”
-
Our spoons came from Woolworths
Recommended“so I picked up the one of the two that I have which is from New York Review books and it's called our spoons came from Woolworths”
-
Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead
Recommended“the other book that I want to read of hers soon is called who was changed and who was dead”
-
Euphoria A Novel
Recommended“you should read lily kings Foria and I I don't know what made her you know suggest that at this time it's a book that the book review named as one of the 10 best books a couple of years ago”
-
Warner Bros
Discussed“film critic and historian David Thompson will tell us about his new book Warner Brothers”
-
But Beautiful
Discussed“last week I talked about having read Jeff Dyer just richly imagined an incredibly written book about jazz called but beautiful and because of that I kind of not only listened to some of the musicians that he wrote about”
-
Miles, the autobiography
Discussed“and the first one that I picked up is Miles Davis's autobiography which a Jazz playing friend of mine had recommended just as kind of an outrageous you know storytelling exercise because it's I was expecting it to be chatty”
-
Deep in a Dream
Discussed“and then I I also started reading deep in a dream which is James Gavin's biography of the trumpet player chat Baker trumpet player and singer”
-
The Dark Dark: Stories
Discussed“so right now I just picked up actually or I picked up again a book that I had started a while back and then put it aside for a bit called the dark dark which is a collection of stories by Samantha hunt”
-
The Kingdom
Discussed“the other was the ual career book The Kingdom which is about the early days of Christianity and John took up the kingdom after you left on vacation and he was hoping last week career wouldn't come up”
-
The Baron in the Trees
Discussed“but I had never read his short novel The Baron in the trees which was one of the ones on this new releas table it's not a new release it was published like 60 years ago”
-
South Pole Station
Discussed“and the next book I picked up was one that elot Becker our colleague reviewed in the times called South Pole station which I thought had a really fun premise it's a first novel by a woman named Ash asley Shelby”
-
Jane, Unlimited
Discussed“and then I started reading uh a novel that I'll talk about in few weeks on the podcast because the author is going to come on um which is a ya novel by a writer Kristen Kure who I like a lot called Jane unlimited”
-
The invention of everything else
Recommended“yes okay she has a her her book I think it's called The Invention of every everything else which was her sort of second ago novel is really great”
-
Mr. Splitfoot
Recommended“and I I can vouch for Mr splitfoot too which is a kind of ghost story you know really a wonderful also dark and very much like a a kind of fairy tale”
The Joe Rogan Experience
-
The Society of the Spectacle
Discussed“I'm just like there's the society of the spectacle which is one of the books that he wrote and there's like two two books that he that he wrote he did”
-
Stupid White Men
Discussed“and I just looked over and there was a Michael Moore book from the 90s called stupid white men”
-
Hitler's Table Talk
Discussed“now when I was sorting this out I was reading Hitler's Table Talk and Hitler's Table Talk is a very interesting book it's a book of his spontaneous mealtime utterances from 1939 to 1940 -”
This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von
-
Indecent Proposal
Discussed“There was a movie Indecent Proposal and that was a billionaire offers a million dollars to a young married couple for one night with the wife”
-
My Name Is Bill
Recommended“I just watched a movie the other day called Bill W and it's the older one there's an older one it's like a documentary if you get a chance it's on Amazon”
-
Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Fiction, Classics, Action & Adventure
Discussed“Tarzan was this it was his character I think in the early 1900s that went into that was raised in the woods by Apes and in the story the Apes don't even exist you know the story I think I'm trying to remember who even wrote that the story of Tarzan”
ChooseFI
-
The Lies of Locke Lamora
Recommended“and a bunch of people mentioned this fantasy novel called The Lies of Lock lamora and I actually picked it up and I'm just flying through this thing I've read I'm up to page like 5 25 right now at a 700 and change and already grabbed the books two and three in the series out”
-
The Total Money Makeover
Discussed“My husband and I got started on the path to financial Independence about six months ago when I randomly picked up Dave Ramsey's book um our experience with Dave Ramsey is similar to what you guys had talked about on the podcast meaning that I really loved his book and I read it in like a day actually I read”
The Rubin Report
-
The Strange Death of Liberal England
Discussed“not many readers will get to a slightly known history textbook or the strange death of liberal england which described the decline of the Liberal Party in the early part of the 20th century”
-
The Party of Death
Discussed“and some lefty bloggers found a piece a short blog post that I wrote in college like 11 years ago praising a book by Ramesh Ponnuru which was called the party of death And it was about abortion”
Conversations with Tyler
-
The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids
Discussed“you've actually delivered a lecture at University of Chicago Law School on the herman melville short story paradise of bachelors tartarus of maids”
a16z Podcast
-
Theatrum Orbis Terrarum Abrahami OrtelI Antuerp. Geographi Regii.
Discussed“so the first atlas was published in 1570 by abraham ortelius and it was actually the best-selling book in Europe years and years and years”
-
The Green Beret Survival Guide
Discussed“so i'm also drawing on some of aaron beck's work in my chapter on mind tricks that protect your soul in in just ways so that even though you're in an objectively bad environment in this case that it doesn't upset you so much”
