In A Canticle for Leibowitz, the 1959 post-apocalyptic classic by Walter M. Miller, Jr., a secluded order of future monks have dedicated themselves to preserving knowledge that predates an apocalyptic event several centuries prior. But what to do when people come asking for it? Is mankind doomed to repeat its mistakes forever?
This week we're doomed to chat about cyclical history, the first rule of improv, space monks and desert priests, and Casey Kasem's Roaring 20s.
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Good Omens was written by a sort of science fiction supergroup, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. It's one of those books where it's as fun to chew on the turns of phrase as it is to find out what happens, which is pretty amazing since it's literally about the end of the world.
Join us for a chat about humanity's innate goodness and evilness, a moratorium on Serial jokes, and some sleepy giggles.
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Odd's fish! It's time to reveal the identity of The Scarlet Pimpernel, the hero of Baroness Emma Orczy's 1908 novel.
(No seriously, we're going to tell you who he or she is.)
Other spoilers during our Reign of Terror include what finally tipped the public against Robespierre, some truly terrible accents, and secret identities stretching from Batman to Zorro.
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This month, first-ever patron guest host Asma walks us through Edith Wharton's The Age of Innocence, a story about upper-class people of marriageable age in 19th-century New York City.
It's not the harshest criticism that Wharton ever wrote about the upper crust (that would be The House of Mirth, published earlier), but the book still isn't overly kind to these people and their rigid hierarchies.
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What exactly IS a Cormoran Strike? Did J.K. Rowling's publisher leak her pen name to make big big bucks? To answer these questions and more, we invited on friend of the show Margaret H. Willison to talk The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (aka J.K. Rowling.)
Other mysteries solved include the origins of Godbucks, the power of Reddit detectives, and how much Andrew likes Bones.
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Welcome to the wild world of movie novelizations! This week, we read Todd Strasser's (mostly) faithful novelization of the hit 1990 family comedy Home Alone.
Join us for an occasionally musical discussion of Krampus, taking ideas from the page to the screen and back again, the realities of being hit in the head with an iron, and the Wet Bandits' branding issues.
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We're back to finish the fight - this week we take on the third and final book in EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
It's not that a book about a BDSM relationship (complete with graphic sex scenes) can't be good, it's just that THESE books are intensely frustrating. The repetitive prose and awkward sex end up back in our crosshairs, but this time around we pay especial attention to Ana and Christian and just how frustrating they are as characters.
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This week we're going around the world -- in 80 days, no less! Well, actually, Andrew read Jules Verne's classic globetrotting adventure Around the World in Eighty Days, but we still TALK about a lot of places even if we don't go there.
Other travel tips include cultural broad strokes. fast food pranks, and scientific romance.
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Our belated bonus episode for November tackles Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a seminal work of Nigerian literature and a look at the bad things that can happen when cultures clash.
Join us for a treatise on present wrapping, discussions of colonialism and yams, and a tiny, disturbing sneak peek into our next 50 Shades of Grey talk.
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War...war never changes. But it does get more and more absurd the deeper you dive into Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
Join us for a discussion of potato tips, alternate podcast titles, double binds and logic traps, and the celebrity resemblance of one Major Major Major Major.
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