Ep 770 - She Waits Where Shadows Gather,...

Heinlein's sci-fi classic is rather different from the campy satire of Paul Verhoeven's 1997 adaptation. You can ask similar questions of both. Do they gleefully depict fascism? Do they glorify militarism and violence? Do they successfully subvert either? In our experience, both ... Show More

For this show-within-a-show, Craig and Andrew learned about the world of Middle-Earth by reading J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumously published legendarium THE SILMARILLION. This episode posted first for our Patreon supporters in October 2025. If you want to hear our current longread pr ... Show More

They'll never write a time travel story that Andrew won't try! This week's riff on the formula includes megalomaniac tech billionaires, millennial malaise, and an astoundingly dangerous amusement park in northern New Jersey.This episode is sponsored by Squarespace. Go to squaresp ... Show More

With James Naughtie.Donna Tartt discusses her cult debut novel The Secret History, first published in 1992."I suppose at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell."In a rare visit to t ... Show More

<p>Donna Tartt's novel The Secret History is a loveletter to Greek tragedy, that begins with a dedication from Nietzsche and Plato. Central to the story is the concept of the Dionysian, and the attempt of the main characters to experience the Dionysian. Richard Papen's fatal flaw ... Show More

It’s the groves of academe: Bennington College, the wildest and wickedest school in America. In the last great decade: the 1980s. Bennington class of ’86, class of Bret Easton Ellis, future writer of American Psycho and co-leader of the literary Brat Pack; Jonathan Lethem, future ... Show More

On our first Best Books episode, Lily King discusses Five Tuesdays in Winter (Grove, Nov. 9), one of Kirkus’ Best Books in fiction for 2021. Kirkus: “The first collection of stories from an acclaimed novelist…. Full of insights and pleasures” (starred review). Then fiction editor ... Show More

<p>The Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Strout joins Isy Suttie to discuss the third book in her Lucy Barton series, ‘Oh, William!’.</p><br><p>Using objects like a ring gifted to her by a great aunt and a postcard of the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald as a starting point, Stro ... Show More