What's scarier than an authoritative government that censors and corrupts its artists? The literal devil! This week we're talking about The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, a seminal work in the 20th-century Russian canon and an exploration of just how weird stuff needs to get for the devil to introduce you to Pontius Pilate.Spooky talking points in ... Show More
Aug 17
Ep 763 - Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree
This story is a giant bag of cotton candy, which we mean mostly as a compliment. It's a romance-adjacent found family story set in a cozy coffee shop set against a D&D-flavored backdrop, a place where almost no one is really a villain and the one person who comes close gets the e ... Show More
55 m
Aug 10
Ep 762 - Olive Kitteridge, by Elizabeth Strout
Is it a novel? A collection of stories? A story cycle? A monograph?? It doesn't matter. This one's an award-winner. Strout's a masterful episodic storyteller, diving quickly into the deep end with characters we've met just pages before. However, the titular Olive looms much large ... Show More
1h 10m
Nov 2021
The Devils: Dostoevsky’s novel of political evil
The Devils, The Possessed, or Demons, as it’s also known in translation, is Fyodor Dostoevsky’s most political novel but it’s also his bleakest and funniest. It’s a hundred and fifty years since its publication and two hundred years since its author’s birth. The novel tells the s ... Show More
40m 4s