Andy Weir’s The Martian is about a man who gets trapped on Mars. It’s about all of the actually plausible-sounding science he uses to get himself out of one scrape after another. It’s about the efforts of people back on Earth to get him home. It’s about (we suppose) triumph in the face of adversity, and the innate goodness of humanity.
In this case, what hurts the book the most is what it isn’t: it isn’t a particularly interesting character study, since the wisecracking astronaut Mark Watney seems to sail over every obstacle the red planet throws at him without much physical or psychological damage. It isn’t a treatise on solitude (Watney rarely seems particularly affected by his loneliness in any lasting way) or on the darker side of human nature (there are no adversaries aside from Mars itself). What’s here is a breezy read that’s got some entertainment value, but it doesn’t have quite the impact it could have had, which is a shame.
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It is time to ascend Mount Doom and end our time in Middle-Earth with Tolkien's The Return of the King. Many goodbyes are said; scores are settled; and brains are filled with dense volumes of poetry and lore.
Other talking points include birthday songs and copyright law, King Charlie Brown, the breaking of oaths, and High Fantasy football.
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This week we continue the Lord of the Rings saga with The Two Towers, a book that moves beyond Fellowship’s table-setting and dives right into the action. We spend time talking about why this book is more satisfying than the first as a standalone volume, and why the first book serves better as the first book of three than as its own story.
We also spend quite a bit of this episode talking about the mixed listener reaction to the Fellowship episode, about the way Tolkien treats “mythical” creatures within his own mythical world, and a little about just why Sam Gamgee is the best.
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Join us for the second installment in our four-part journey down to Mordor with J.R.R. Tolkien and his Lord of the Rings series. Craig's sister Jillian remains in the fellowship for a Family Size episode on The Fellowship of the Ring.
Talking points include elven paradises, stranger danger, bath time songs, and the difference between dipping and bouncing.
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Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic of American literature, and for good reason. The follow-up-slash-first-draft, Go Set a Watchman, doesn't have the same impact, but it's a fascinating look at how books change during the editing process.
This show was recorded live in Philadelphia, PA. Thanks to everyone who came out!
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There's a reason why words like "Orwellian" and "thoughtcrime" have stuck in the public consciousness for more than 65 years, and that reason is George Orwell's 1984.
A denser, more complex read than Orwell's also-famous Animal Farm, 1984 is a story about systemic government oppression and the dark side of humanity. We lighten up the proceedings a bit with talk about not one but TWO Hank Williams Jr. songs, the wonders of modern technology, and criticism of criticism of criticism.
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This is the first entry in our four-part journey down the J.R.R. Tolkien rabbit hole that so many of you wanted us to journey down. Andrew and Craig have both already read The Hobbit, the shorter, lighter prequel to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, so Craig's sister Jillian joins us for the ride.
Join us for a talk about Tolkien, bedazzled dragons, and one weird trick that giant spiders will HATE.
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Robert Penn Warren's 1947 Pulitzer Prize winning novel All the King's Men has been called "uneven as a corduroy road," "sloppy," and "one of American literature's definitive political novels." That all seems accurate when you consider that it's a 600-page melange of detective work, City Hall intrigue, and philosophizing about the fallibility of man.
Join us this week for a discussion of headgums and selling out, movie-burping, New Criticism, meat axes, Huey Long, and the bummer that is American politics.
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Not all mystery novels are about stolen jewels, secret passageways, and shifty butlers. Sometimes, they're just about a man in a hospital bed who becomes obsessed with Richard III.
Joining us this week is special guest Lauren Spohrer of the true crime podcast Criminal, who takes us through Josephine Tey's renowned mystery The Daughter of Time
Other talking points include how winners write history, the dos and don'ts of detective work, the Society of Richard III, and a Very Private Person.
You can find out more about Criminal at thisiscriminal.com or by following Lauren on Twitter.
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If you've ever worked in an office, at least a passage or two in Joshua Ferris' Then We Came To The End is going to resonate with you. Few books so accurately capture the extremely important, unimportant minutiae of office life.
Join us for our office ruminations, some fall follies, and some email-related observations. It's just as fun as it sounds!
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