So Many Damn Books

I found a book list I made on Facebook in September 2014. Right before this show started. I revisit the list, and then I make a new one. Lists are fun! Reading is fun! You, reading this right now: you are fun. For the drink recipe, every book mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episodes/episode-262 Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive...

A list of short books, because life is short, and you need to make your reading goals. (a sequel to the episode “ 22 Short Books ”) For the drink recipe, every book mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episodes/episode-261 Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year!...

Meg Richardson stops by the Damn Library for some kid wine (or is it adult Martinelli’s?) and book chatter. We get into whether she’s the Jackie or the Kayla, her time as a pawn shop employee, and the journey of this book through lots of different forms before resolving back to the one with all her “darlings.” Plus, she brings along her War and Peace: Curtis Sittenfeld’s Prep. For the drink recipe...

Two-time Survivor contestant, cohost of the Survivor podcast We Know Survivor , as well as the literary podcast Paraphrase, Stephen Fishbach drops onto the island SMDB and brings along the swashbuckling spirit of his novel Escape! As you might expect, Survivor is discussed, as is the jungle in general, and self-mythologizing, and then we tear into the savagery of William Golding’s classic, Lord of...

Ailsa Ross uses the power of the internet to join Christopher and chat about the pleasure of destruction, letting mosquitoes bite, the cost of licensing museum photos, and other things too. Plus, she brings along a Jean Rhys novel that wasn’t Wide Sargasso Sea , Voyage in the Dark , and both enjoy the embattled, embittered voice. For the drink recipe, every book mentioned, and more, visit: https:/...

I hang out and chat a bit about books I've read recently! Fun, right? So much fun. For the drink recipe, every book mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episodes/episode-257 Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb music: Disaster Magic h...

Casey Scieszka squeezes through the internet’s tubes to arrive safely on the podcast and talk The Fountain , her debut novel. We get into immortality, and alcohol etymology, and the Spruceton Inn residency, and growing up the daughter of famous children’s author, Jon Scieszka. Plus, we dive deeper into Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting . Were the Tucks faeries or what? For the drink recipe, every...

Lior Torenberg zooms into the Damn Library to chat about Just Watch Me , an early entry in the run for “best book of the year.” She goes into just how deep her love for hot sauce goes, some terribly cramped apartments, and chats about the trope of the sad girl grifter. Plus, we get to talk about Rufi Thorpe’s Margo’s Got Money Troubles , a much different book about making money online. For the dri...

Kathleen Boland road trips into the Damn Library Hyperspace to talk about her novel Scavengers , which also means talking about karaoke, the magic of Utah, treasure hunts, and complicated mother-daughter relationships. Plus, she brings along Christopher’s first Joy Williams’ work, The Quick and the Dead which complements Scavengers nicely. Get on the road and listen in. Join the Patreon and hang o...

Drew Broussard (former co-host of this show, current Lit Hub Radio host, Manager at Rough Draft) stops in for a SPOILER-FILLED chat about the dichotomy that is Richard Bachman/Stephen King, and both the book and the movie of The Running Man (the Edgar Wright one). [note: we stop spoiling plot points for the book and movie at 48:55 or so] Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, list...

Christopher re-read all of Aimee Bender and decided to talk about it. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episodes/episode-252 music: Disaster Magic https...

Alix E. Harrow drops into the Damn Library to talk about the everyday magic of being alive and writing really good books, like her newest one The Everlasting , Christopher’s favorite book of the year. Plus, she recommended Nicola Griffith’s Menewood and it leads to encomiums galore, because it’s a fantastic series that earns every one of its many pages. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly...

250 episodes in, Sarah interviews Christopher about some of the behind the scenes details about making So Many Damn Books. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks...

Erin Somers returns to the Damn Library, this time virtually, for a punny cocktail and a chat about her novel The Ten Year Affair , expanding her lens, millennial marriage, and how she feels about her debut novel Stay Up with Hugo Best six years on. Plus she brings the quietly devastating/sardonically funny Susie Boyt’s Loved and Missed . Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, lis...

Patrick Ryan drops into the Damn Library Soda Shoppe for a chocolate peanut butter egg cream and a chat about his much-lauded novel Buckeye . We chat about a family secret that fueled the book, how he achieves the right tone, and how he discovered the spirit realm on the page. Plus, he brings along Christopher Isherwood’s A Single Man , and we slightly debate the ending. Join the Patreon and hang...

Mona Awad becomes the most frequent guest of So Many Damn Books with this appearance, chatting We Love You , Bunny , how it’s a good time to make fun of yourself, and the pleasure of getting too deep into a narrative, even if you can’t find your way back out. Plus, she brings along the classic The Wind in the Willows , and talks why she almost didn’t want to recommend it. Join the Patreon and hang...

Kerry Cullen drops in, in person, so I smoke a cocktail (and forget to mention that Manhattans contain vermouth). We get to talking about working in books and then writing a book, shocking your writing group, and the best places to write. And then we talk about Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez, another book about a character revisiting their past and finding ghosts. Join the Patreon and hang out in the mon...

Held it together pretty well interviewing Leonie Swann, the author of one of my favorite novels of all time, Three Bags Full , about her recently translated sequel Big Bad Wool , and all the pleasures of stepping back into the river a changed person. Plus, she brings along The Tainted Cup by Robert Jackson Bennett, a surprisingly fun fantasy detective novel series beginning. Join the Patreon and h...

We only have five months of the year left, so that means it’s time to look back and reminisce. It’s always a good time to look back and reminisce, baby, you better believe it. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link me...

Pencils UP, everyone! Point their sharpened points straight to the sky, because Allison King, author of the endlessly inventive Phoenix Pencil Company , drops by the virtual library to talk all things pencils and magic and the one book that changed her life. Plus, she brings along Anton Hur’s novel in stories, about AI and robots and poetry, Toward Eternity . Join the Patreon and hang out in the m...

Former co-host of the show, current writer and bookseller and host of The Lit Hub Podcast Drew Broussard stops by to chat about our Top 6 of 2015 episode from 10 years ago, plus some other random bookish thoughts. As listenable as a quaffable white wine is quaffable! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop...

Tyler Wetherall, author and sole force behind the indispensable literary reading series newsletter, Reading the City visits the Damn Library in person in order to have a very involved mezcal margarita, and chat about her novel Amphibian , and mermaids, her memoir No Way Home, and the fun part of research for a new project. And then we also get into (and spoil, to some extent, if you go for that so...

Kate Folk flies into the Zoom Damn Library and boy are her arms tired! That’s an airplane joke, and it’s very fitting, actually, because she’s here to discuss her madcap Sky Daddy , as well as the more subdued but no less crazy The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. Put your tray tables up and your seatbacks in the full upright position, it’s time to listen! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly boo...

Jeanne Thornton physically drops by the Damn Library to talk A/S/L, her incredible novel about amateur video game coders in the 90s and how they’re doing a couple decades years later, and also a bit of her novel Summer Fun as well, because why not. Plus, she brings along Anton Solomonik’s Realistic Fiction , an excitingly strange and very funny short story collection. Join the Patreon and hang out...

Kate Slotover of The Book Club Review drops in again, virtually this time, to talk about a visit to a posh library, her reading life of late, and Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume Vol. 1 , and also we talk about Volume 2 some. Get on the train bound for November 18th! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual...