Ep 077 - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard Feynman

Safecracker, prankster, bongo drummer, painter, teacher. Richard Feynman was many things in addition to being a Nobel Prize-winning physicist, and he seemed to enjoy the incongruities of his varied interests.

His collection of anecdotes Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! chronicles some of these pursuits, while also shedding light on Feynman's years at Los Alamos working on the atomic bomb in the company of J. Robert Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr and others.

Join us this week to find out how a man goes from illuminating the behavior of subatomic particles to spending his free time in California banging on the bongo and sketching nude models.

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Ep 076 - This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz

This week's story, This Is How You Lose Her, is a loosely connected collection of short stories that blurs the line between protagonist and author. Junot Diaz's upbringing and personal history are clearly related to that of Yunior, the character the book spends the most time with. But how much of Diaz is in Yunior, and how does that affect the way we feel about them both?

Also on the docket: back-to-school, some talk about how your gender may affect how you come at this book, and lots of other diversions. Enjoy!

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Ep 075 - The Hairy Ape, by Eugene O’nEill

"I'm a hairy ape, get me? And I'll bust youse in de jaw if you don't lay off kiddin' me."

When Eugene O'Neill wants to get his point across, he leaves nothing to chance. In his 1922 work of expressionist theatre, The Hairy Ape, the four-time Pulitzer Prize winner spells out exactly how you're supposed to feel about the dehumanizing effects of Capitalism and industry. Men resemble gorillas, crowd after crowd spurn individuals, and a chilling ending leaves us wondering where any of us belong.

Join us as we talk about O'Neill's family life, butcher some key facts about his life, and take a trip to the monkey house.

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Ep 074 - Orange Is The New Black, by Piper Kerman

There's a fair chance that you're familiar with Piper Kerman's Orange Is The New Black through the award-winning Netflix drama. This week we wanted to go to the source material and read the original memoir, not just to compare and contrast the book and the show but so we could separate fact from fiction and learn more about what's really going on in women's prisons.

Like the show, the book is sometimes funny, often sad, and occasionally bleak. Kerman's stance against mandatory minimum sentencing—an aspect of the justice system that makes even first-time drug offenders do hard time—and the waste inherent to America's massive prison system is often more eye-opening than the heightened drama presented on the show. Even though Piper has an extensive support network and a "normal" life waiting for her when her sentence is not, many of these women do not.

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Ep 073 - Portnoy's Complaint, by Philip Roth

Things get a little hot and heavy on this week's episode dedicated to Philip Roth's 1969 novel Portnoy's Complaint. We do, however, start off with some reactions to our Pride and Prejudice episode before diving headlong into the mishmash of sex, psychoanalysis, and American Jewish life that is Portnoy and his titular complaint.

Caveat Lector: This book necessitated discussing some rather graphic subject matter, so we decided to slap the "Explicit" tag on the episode. Not only did this mean talking about a few choice scenes in detail, it also means we're a bit freer with language than we are on a regular basis. Don't say we didn't warn you!

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Ep 072 - Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

This week, we take another run at Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice is, in Andrew's words, "a book where a bunch of people eventually get married to each other."

It's also more than that, of course—it gives us an opportunity to talk about class, wealth, social standing, love, the institution of marriage, Milton Bradley jingles, and one Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy (Fitzy to his friends).

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Ep 071 - Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

Go Tell It on the Mountain, the first novel by revered American author and essayist James Baldwin tackles a whole host of serious issues ranging from slavery to the Great Migration, religion to racism, and Southern oppression to broken Northern promises.

Naturally, we break up our earnest discussion of these weighty subjects with frequent admissions of our own perpetual ignorance, as well as a few tangents on Very Important Topics such as Orange is the New Black, erotic wrestling, Wilson from Home Improvement, and the age old question: Kirk or Picard?

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Ep 070 - Girl With a Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier

This week's book, Tracy Chevalier's Girl With a Pearl Earring, is historical fiction that purports to tell the story of the painting of the same name. If that's not a good elevator pitch for a book, we haven't heard one.

Join us for a discussion of art and artists, historically accurate historical fiction, and what happens when you take the sex scenes out of romance novels. We also kick the show off with a discussion of Amazon's new Kindle Unlimited and its possibly negative effects on self-published authors—this CNet article describes the issue in more detail.

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Ep 069 - The Reader, by Bernhard Schlink

Bernhard Schlink's The Reader was published just five years after the reunification of Germany, and the ways in which it explores the country's troubled history were quite verboten while the wall still stood.

A young man falls in love with an older woman, a woman with a number of secrets, and their tempestuous relationship becomes an allegory for Germany's relationship with itself - with its history, its people, and its uncertain future.

Join as we admit our lack of German book-learnin', discuss the ethical quandaries that arose after the Holocaust, and ask the toughest relationship questions Schlink has to offer.

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Ep 068 - Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by robin sloan

Robin Sloan's debut novel, Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, tackles the literary world's imminent digital future with an adventure tale that Andrew describes as "like a Dan Brown book but good."

Through the eyes of a recently unemployed college graduate, Sloan shows us a world where Googlers and ancient cryptographers race to discover a centuries-old secret. It's a world where data visualization is sexy, search engines are evil all-powerful, and Aldus Manutius is on the tip of everyone's tongue.

Join us for a show brimming with puns, Andrew's misgivings about Google, and more nerdy sleuthing than you can shake a ruler at.

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