In the book's preface, Vonnegut called Breakfast of Champions  an attempt to "clear his head of all the junk in there." He wasn't kidding. Breakfast  is a melange of narrative, sketches, and character sketches - and Andrew totally dug it. 

This week we discuss current events (specifically royal babies), Vonnegut's voice, and the benefits of self-insertion. 

What is Antony and Cleopatra ? Tragedy? Romance? History? Comedy ? The conventional wisdom is to pick tragedy, but this messy entry in the later chapters of Shakespeare's canon dances between the Bard's genres like a "high-coloured" Lepidus.

This week we struggle with Shakespeare's portrayal of the titular heroine, get lost in the play's globe-trotting plot, and - for good measure - debate the finer points of Sister, Sister .

One note for this one: while every episode has a general spoiler warning attached to it, we spoil Yann Martel's Life of Pi in a pretty big way in this show, so if you have the movie next in your Netflix queue or something you may want to hold off.  

That said, if you don't care about spoilers, join us for a lively discussion of the current heat wave, swearing, religion, and tigers in boats!

Craig and Andrew team up with their evil selves this week to read Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Well, not really. But in honor of our 20th episode, we did  both read the book this week, mixing up our usual format a bit.

What follows is a discussion on the duality of man, abridged books, and that thing that happens when stories like this gloss over scientific explanations so as to avoid boring the audience.

We're back from our hiatus, and to kick the rust off we're diving right into a thorny discussion about race, sexuality, and poverty with Alice Walker's The Color Purple.

Also, we have a brief discussion of the movie version of World War Z, our overdue book from a few weeks back.

"You know Frankenstein's the name of the doctor, not the monster - right? "

Despite decades of metal bolts and flat green foreheads muddying the waters, Mary Shelley's original Frankenstein  has endured. So much so that it almost seems old hat to correct people for thinking that lumbering monstrosities in big heavy boots are called Frankensteins.

Turns out there's still plenty to learn from Shelley's Modern Prometheus. On this week's episode, we discuss the finer points of creature creation, bum out over Nature vs. Nurture, and answer some of your questions. 

A.A. Milne's famous bear is almost ninety years old. The first collection of Winnie-the-Pooh stories was published in 1926, yet many of us first traveled to the Hundred Acre Wood via the many cartoons and movies released by Disney.

In this week's episode, we discuss the first appearances of all your old favorites: Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, and more. Tune in to learn about Bears of No Brains At All, sad birthday parties, and how to save a Piglet in a rainstorm.​

Max Brooks' World War Z, soon to be a not-awesome-looking motion picture, takes an interesting approach to the zombie apocalypse story: it's told through interviews with multiple survivors of a global conflict, rather than viewing an outbreak through the eyes of a handful of people.

Brooks also uses the story to comment on American warmongering, deep-seated conflicts between countries, and the psychological impact of war. Even if you don't like zombie fiction, this one's worth a try.​

Whether or not you’ve read The Elements of Style, the writing rules and techniques you learned in grade school likely came from Strunk and White’s “little book.” 

Craig had never read the book, and he thought chatting up Andrew – who gets paid to put words on the Internet – about S&W’s various axioms might prove entertaining.

Join us as we (dis)agree on a few key rules, chat incessantly about segues/segways, and tie ourselves in linguistic knots.

When you talk about a witch-hunt, you aren't normally referring to sane, procedural, and fair trials. You're talking about a fear-driven investigation driven by suspicions rather than facts, where personal agendas can be more influential than ​alibis and evidence.

That's the thrust of Arthur Miller's 1953 play The Crucible, which Andrew read this week. We also talk about how the events of the play reflect the then-current Red Scare, and how witch-hunt mentality continues to persist even today.