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Books podcasts were talking about in March 2019
March 2019 brought an eclectic mix of literary reviews, historical studies, business strategies, and psychological guides across multiple podcast platforms. The Book Review dedicated an episode to several notable releases, featuring critic Dwight Garner discussing Namwali Serpell's debut novel, The Old Drift. Jennifer Szalai joined the segment to review William Sturkey's Hattiesburg: An American Story in Black and White, and Farhad Manjoo discussed David Shields's diagnostic work, The Trouble with Men. On the entrepreneurial and personal development front, Brian Scudamore appeared on The Jordan Harbinger Show to highlight Seth Godin's Purple Cow regarding business differentiation, while Brian Koppelman discussed Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way on the a16z Podcast to explain the writing technique of morning pages. In a lighter moment on Behind the Bastards, Robert Evans recommended Daniel O'Brien's How to Fight Presidents as an entertaining and educational palate cleanser following a heavy episode. Psychedelic exploration and medical history also surfaced when Tim Ferriss recommended Myron J. Stolaroff's The Secret Chief on The Tim Ferriss Show to illustrate effective psychedelic guidance, and Lindsey Fitzharris appeared on The Joe Rogan Experience alongside Joe Rogan to promote her historical medical book, The Butchering Art.
The Book Review
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Doing Justice
Discussed“prara will be here to talk about his new book doing Justice”
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Bending Toward Justice
Discussed“joining us now from Washington senator Doug Jones of Alabama author of a new book bending toward Justice”
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The Old Drift
Recommended“and I read this novel this week called the old drift by a first novelist she's born in Zambia her name is namwali surel if I'm getting that correctly”
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Hattiesburg
Recommended“so this week I reviewed a book called Hattisburg an American story in black and white by an historian at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill named William sturky”
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The Trouble with Men
Recommended“I reviewed a new book by David Shields called the trouble with men and big broad diagnostic title”
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Truth in Our Times
Discussed“our own Deputy general counsel David McCraw will be here to talk about his new book truth in our times”
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I
Discussed“Isaac mrai joins us now he is a fashion designer a cabaret singer an author and many other things and he has written a memoir called I am Isaac”
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A history of private life
Discussed“in the very first paragraph of of your introduction or your prologue you write about reading the multivolume series a history of private life which was not”
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Be More Chill
Discussed“I I recently wrote about be more chill which is H based on a novel by Ned Vini and it became this viral hit when it was put on Off Broadway”
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It's Kind of a Funny Story
Discussed“Nini next novel It's Kind of a Funny Story does because it was based on his actual experience in a mental hospital after he had a brush with suicide when he was uh younger”
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Arturo's Island
Discussed“Elsa morante the the Italian novelist there's a new translation of her novel Arturo's Island and the translation's been done by the great translator Anne Goldstein”
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History
Discussed“I poked around in her other novels one of them called history and I I read a fair amount of it and it's slightly different but but but basically the same”
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The Trial of Lizzie Borden
Discussed“I reviewed a book by Cara Robertson it's called the trial of Lizzy bordon and it revisits the trial”
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Last Days at Hot Slit
Discussed“so I reviewed a new anthology of Andrea dorkin's work called last days at hot slit and it's edited by Joanna Fatman and Amy shoulder”
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Pornography
Discussed“and she was known particularly for two books pornography and intercourse both of which are excerpted here”
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Intercourse
Discussed“and she was known particularly for two books pornography and intercourse both of which are excerpted here”
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Ice and fire
Discussed“the first one ice and fire is sort of written in a more sort of minimal style”
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Mercy
Discussed“and then the second one Mercy is really sort of this rolling and very disturbing but also in Parts very funny”
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An American Summer
Discussed“Alex kotlowitz will be here to talk about his new book an American Summer Love and Death in Chicago”
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The Wall
Discussed“John Lanchester will be here to talk about his new novel The Wall”
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Capital
Discussed“I want to go back to the other part of that origin story the novel that you were in the middle of because your previous book Capital was a kind of big sprawling novel looking at the economy and the property bubble and and this is this is a very taught fast-paced little book The Wall”
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Einstein's Dreams
Discussed“and also just kind of the nature of time in a way it put me in mind of the Alan Lightman novel Einstein's dreams which plays with different Notions of what time is and is it circular or spiraling and you or linear the way that we experience it”
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Mama's Last Hug
Discussed“dwall will be here to talk about his latest book Mama's Last Hug animal emotions and what they tell us about ourselves”
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Dr. Seuss's Horse Museum
Discussed“Dr Seuss's horse museum is going to be released this fall by Random House children's book his longtime publisher”
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War Diaries, 1939–1945
Discussed“I'm actually reading ostd lindgren's War Diaries she's the Pippy long stalking author”
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Pippi Longstocking
Discussed“it was during this time when she began to tell bedtime stories that clearly became Pippy Longstocking and after finishing this I feel like I understand more where the story of a com a spunky Authority defying child came from”
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Kafka Was the Rage
Discussed“the first one is called kafco was the rage by anatol brard who was a longtime critic book critic for the New York Times”
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Giving Up the Ghost
Discussed“and now I'm about 50 or 60 pages into a memoir called giving up the ghost by the novelist Hillary mantel which is unsurprisingly written a lot like a novel”
The Tim Ferriss Show
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The 13 Clocks
Discussed“Then sometimes, you know James Thurber I was told I could bring you know that that they would bring them the 13 clocks back in the print if I wrote an introduction to it”
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Johnny and the Dead
Discussed“He took he wrote a book called Johnny and the dead which was sort of taking some of the stuff but it wasn't close enough that I couldn't then still do my story”
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The Secret Chief
Recommended“One of the recommendations I've made is read some of the books that that MAPS maps.org publishes like the secret chief about Leo Zeff who is a stellar guide or I think it's healing journey or the healing journey by Claudio Naranjo from Chile so that you understand what a good guide looks like and then you will at least”
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Essays After Eighty
Discussed“and Donald hall essays after 80 and this is for just to develop an ear for writing”
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How Life Imitates Chess
Recommended“okay another book that I really enjoyed was his book life imitates chest I love that book and a little bit for a lot of reasons”
Behind the Bastards
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Inside Central Asia
Discussed“Here's the book inside Central Asia. Inspired by what he believed to be a semi- divine revelation. He decreed that the life of a Turkman consisted of nine stages of 12 years each”
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How to Fight Presidents
Recommended“if you could use a pick-me-up after all of these horrible stories of child molestation, Dan O'Brien has a really fun and entertaining and educational book called How to Fight Presidents.”
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White Genocide Manifesto
Discussed“That phrase was first written by David Lane, a member of Robert Matthews criminal gang, The Order. While he was in prison, Lane also wrote a three-page tract called White Genocide Manifesto.”
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The Nation
Discussed“According to the book for race and nation, quote, Rockwell told television reporters that the A&P was growing every minute, but that his goals had been misrepresented by newspapers.”
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American Fuehrer
Discussed“I'm going to read a description of the evolution of that strategy from the book American Furer by Frederick Simelli. Quote, in the 1940s, Dr. Solomon Antill Fineberg of the American Jewish Committee devised a strategy of containment”
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Adolf Hitler
Discussed“In 1951, deep in this anti-communist obsession, Rockwell decided to read the autobiography of the greatest anti-communist of them all, Adolf Hitler. He would later claim that reading mine comp was the most powerful moment of his spiritual life.”
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Trump U
Recommended“Uh download that Trump University playbook for yourself. Give a give some of those sections a read through. Don't start at the beginning because it's kind of boring, but go to that sales section.”
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Trump 101
Discussed“So the first major textbook for this not a university was called Trump 101, the way to success. You can still find the book on Amazon.com. It's a little over 200 pages, which seems like a lot to say.”
The Joe Rogan Experience
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Conan the Barbarian
Discussed“he was uh this guy that do he would do all the covers for Conan the Barbarian books. Just incredible artwork. Like wild crazy fantasy [ __ ] and this is your type of art. Oh just I loved it when I was a kid man. When I was a kid you know when I was like this seems like”
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The Butchering Art
Recommended“and the book is the butchering art you can get it on amazon”
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Kingdom of Fear
Discussed“and then a friend had an audiobook of fear and loathing and so i just remember the first time hearing that old audiobook of fear and loathing were somewhere around barstow on the edge of the desert”
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There and Then
Discussed“He wrote a memoir at 76 about being a fighter pilot among other things in the korean war lyric literary”
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Sticky Fingers
Discussed“and sticky fingers was a great the document of the new book on um the new book on yon winner has great moments of thompson in the 70s just being kind of lost”
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Stories I Tell Myself
Discussed“i want juan thompson writes about it so beautifully stories i tell myself there's some some footage of him when he was writing for i forget what newspaper”
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Playing Off the Rail
Discussed“who's the author of playing off the rail google uh playing off the rail there's a guy who was a journalist what year do you think it was david mccumber”
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Cooking with Grease
Discussed“i i yeah i saw a lot of this when donna brazile released uh her book detailing how the dnc sort of rigged the primaries against bernie sanders and and for clinton there were so many people who were clinton supporters that just didn't want to believe it”
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The Americans
Discussed“did you watch the americans no i do oh i love that show you should definitely heard is great it's great there's too many things to watch totally but what's interesting is the um it does paint a pretty interesting picture of like this um this couple under what's you know deep cover that are engaging with and pretending to”
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Melanie's Marvelous Measles
Critiqued“and that's one of the phony books they put out yeah called melanie's marvelous measles i mean it's it's awful”
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Martin Chuzzlewit
Discussed“in fact there's a whole there's a book written by dickens when he visited the united states called martin chuzzlewitt when he describes all these sickly people in illinois and cairo illinois on the confluence of the mississippi and the ohio river he's clearly describing malaria”
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Malaria
Discussed“so that's a great question um we so there's actually a very nice book written by a medical historian at duke university named margaret humphries called malaria race and poverty and she has a hypothesis but i think she's onto something that um it the decrease the malaria dropped in associated with aggressive economic development”
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Perhaps They'll Listen Now
Discussed“so that's a great question um we so there's actually a very nice book written by a medical historian at duke university named margaret humphries called malaria race and poverty and she has a hypothesis but i think she's onto something that um it the decrease the malaria dropped in associated with aggressive economic development”
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The Other America
Discussed“when i was in high school or junior high school i was forced to read a book and at the time i didn't care about it was called the other america it was written by a fantastic social activist named michael harrington who is a i think someone told me he's very devout catholic actually so and he wrote this”
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Hyperobjects
Discussed“there's this he's actually an english professor named timothy Morton who wrote a book about climate he calls it a hyper object which is like it's a it's a phenomenon that's so big that we can't actually hold it in our heads at once”
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Dark Ecology
Discussed“there's this he's actually an english professor named timothy Morton who wrote a book about climate he calls it a hyper object which is like it's a it's a phenomenon that's so big that we can't actually hold it in our heads at once”
The Jordan Harbinger Show
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Deviate
Discussed“in the meantime here's Bolano your your book deviate in your work in large part is about the idea or the fact that we don't experience the world as it is”
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Purple Cow
Recommended“Seth Godin one of my favorite authors the book purple cow”
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It's All Relative
Discussed“that was my previous book”
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Go the F**k to Sleep
Discussed“he's like oh my kids are such a pain in the ass I'm gonna write a book called go the [__] to sleep”
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Shook One
Discussed“Cuz like this new book shook one is about anxiety”
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Reata
Discussed“in fact Mike Micallef sort of book about this and it used to drive me crazy I used to get FOMO and I think a lot of people listening and watching also get FOMO because they go oh man look at this person's multi They're making a million dollars a month and it's like okay they took a cash injection”
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How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big
Discussed“and a guy like Scott Adams who is very is that where you're kind of all of his books unbelievable win big Lee yes so Scott Adams who's been on the show a bunch of times he's which is probably where I get though I can't believe you're so approached from because I've had Scott Adams in here and then”
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Win bigly
Discussed“and a guy like Scott Adams who is very is that where you're kind of all of his books unbelievable win bigly”
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The ONE Thing
Recommended“like you've had some other people on essentialism gary with the one thing the books will sell for decades this won't”
Modern Wisdom
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The Rational Male
Discussed“like Rollo Tomassi book the rational male one of the rules that he has in there is never let the woman be in charge of the childbirth”
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The Social Leap
Discussed“so to interject that some of the listeners familiar with previous episodes will know William von Hippel who wrote the social leap”
The Rich Roll Podcast
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Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict
Discussed“there's a there's a good audio book read by the author called speaking peace which is sometimes corny at times because he picks up the guitar and sings”
ChooseFI
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Summary: Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong about the World--And Why Things Are Better Than You Think by Hans Rosling
Discussed“I read a book called fact fullness it's 10 reasons we're wrong about the world and why things are better than you think”
a16z Podcast
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Catching the Big Fish
Discussed“And so in reading about I read David Lynch's book catching the big fish and a couple of other books and it made me interested enough.”
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The Artist's Way
Recommended“So, what are morning pages? They are from Julia Cameron's book The Artist's Way.”
Pod Save America
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So Here's the Thing . . .
Recommended“and our good pal Alyssa Mastromonaco joins us in New Hampshire / go by Alyssa's book / so here's the thing doing really well / and we'll be talking to her tonight about it”