Two Month Review

Hello! I meant to write a proper post welcoming you to the Three Percent substack earlier this week, but have been too anxious and distressed to do it right . . . Still am, if I’m being honest, but we all need a distraction, and talking about books are mine. This Substack will be, for the time being, a duplication of the Three Percent blog , which has been active since 2007, but, honestly, feels l...

Not the happiest day in which to record a podcast, but Chad, Brian, and Kaija speak their fears and then dive into Melville's  Confidence-Man , talking about grifters, the value of footnotes, and just how modern and amazing Melville's prose is. They guess at who the "confidence man" might be, the burnt over district of western New York, Mormons, and a lot more.  This week's music is " All Bets Are...

After referencing  Joytime Killbox on hundreds of TMR episodes, we finally break it down with the author himself! Conversation includes ideas about short stories and how they function, the nature of endings, and how Brian has grown as a writer since this collection first came out, while also examining the intent behind a number of the stories, and how they work.  This week's music is " All My Frie...

On the first ever one-off episode of the Two Month Review, Chad breaks down Virginie Despentes's Dear Dickhead for Kaija and Brian, a novel about . . . well, just listen. (It'll be more fun if you don't know what's coming.) This new format really digs into the book in a way that you can't in (to quote Zoé Katana) "lamestream media," and, simply put, rocks.  This week's music is " Cannonball " by G...

It all gets wrapped up with a "Catastrophe,." "Explanation," an "End," and a "Tailpiece." Chad, Brian, and Kaija discuss global capitalism, the fight for love and the be human, AI, the Bardo, and much more on this final episode of Season 23. Listen to the end for an announcement about changes to the podcast and what to look for going forward! This week's music is " When I Was Dying " by Dan Deacon...

From the Olympics to the most meta moment of the whole of  Lanark , this week's podcast has you covered! Brian, Chad, and Kaija banter about divorce, plagiarisms versus influences, and how to read this book as a whole. There are a ton of amazing lines throughout this section of the novel, making this one of the most fun episodes of the season. This week's music is " Entropy " by El Ten Eleven. You...

The reviews were right: Once you hit page 410, the Unthank sections of  Lanark  snap into place. Chad, Brian, and Kaija discuss that, capitalism, how terrible advertisements are, jobs, J.D. Vance and his proclivities, politics, unintended consequences, and how  Deadpool & Wolverine  is the Kamala Harris of film.  This week's music is " Hollywood " by Car Seat Headrest. You can find all previous se...

If you want to send Chad through the roof, simple crap on his conceptual publishing project five years in the making . . . To that end, everyone reading this should preorder Attila   by Javier Serena and  Attila   by Aliocha Coll and prove our distributor wrong. And then, after you do that, listen to this discussion about art and audience, the frontispiece for Book 4 of  Lanark , parallax views ex...

Duncan Thaw feels like he's on the brink in this week's episode which includes conversations about incels, kind fathers, painting and art, perfection and Aliocha Coll, and much more.  This week's music is " Here's Your Future " by The Thermals. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our  YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with oth...

Chad and Brian break down the loss of Duncan Thaw's mother, his entrance into art school, his reasons for creating art, religious imagery throughout the book, fathers who are better than Bandit, mispronounciations, the "engine" that drive the two distinct parts of this novel, and much more. This week's music is " It's All Gonna Break " by Broken Social Scene. You can find all previous seasons of T...

Come for the book discussion, stay for Thaw's unproven remedies for asthma! One of the most fun, and conventional, sections of the book so far, Chad, Kaija, and Brian follow Duncan Thaw through his childhood, discussing his reasonable dad, why math sucks, school journals, and a tinge of sinister violence that might presage things to come. This week's music is " Isimo " by Bleachers. You can find a...

As mentioned from the top, we had  severe  technical difficulties, so the sound quality on this is janky. (Mostly Chad's voice is quiet, which, for many, is likely to be a relief.) Nevertheless Chad and Kaija power on, talking about "The Institute" as a metaphor, the allusions to Duncan Thaw, dragons, dragon scales as metaphor, the prologue and stories within stories, and then the opening "quest"...

Mostly a set-up episode about Alasdair Gray and  Lanark , in which Chad, Kaija, and Brian discuss the introduction (weird), the start of the novel (which opens with "Book 3"), the influence of Dante's Divine Comedy and Kafka, and much more. There are some good laughs, a bit of insight into where we are, all building toward next week's episode, which will finish Book Three, cover the Prologue, and...

Praiseworthy  ends with some praise, a bit of exhaustion, questions about satire and the ending, and a dirty phrase Chad can't quit competing. Then there's the TMR Class Draft in which Chad, Kaija, and Brian each selected five previous TMR titles to create imaginary classes: "Dismal Lady Stuff," "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor," and "Laying Brick." Now it's up to you to choose which class "wins." Fi...

Like a first time marathon runner, Chad, Brian, and Kaija are losing steam this season, but persist in talking about the book and their mixed feelings. They do learn some things about donkeys and mules though! And they set up next week's game: each co-host will draft five books from the twenty-two seasons of the podcast which would constitute a reading list (and listening list) for a college class...

Little discussion of Priaseworthy  in this episode. Instead there's a longer discussion about publishing, art, sales, how do these books get made?, favorite lines, future games, and much more. It's a 20,000 foot view of book culture with an emphasis on success, investment, and more. Enjoy! This week's music is " Pedestrian at Best " from Aussie musical savant Courtney Barnett. You can find all pre...

Talk of Australian cartoons—and not just  Bluey— morphs into a look at several specific passages in Wright's  Praiseworthy , discussion what makes the book "difficult" to read, the style of humor, what pushes us away from the text and then re-grabs out attention, and much more. This week's music is " Frontier Psychiatrist " from The Avalanches. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our  YouT...

Chad and Kaija make up this week's panel as they play the "Slang Game," then discuss the elliptical meta-structure of the book and how this impacts their reading and the book's effectiveness. They also discuss Sam Rutter's  New York Times  review of the novel, addressing the difficulties of discussing the workings of the text itself given the burden of having to contextualize so much for a foreign...

"Who's Stronger?" is the game of the week in this episode about the Maximum Superhero Cop-God's arrival in Praiseworthy to quell the frantic search for Aboriginal Sovereignty. There are lots of moths, discussion about acknowledging the land which we occupy as a good first step, and more about the difficult reality of life in this part of the country even without government interventions. This week...

Emmett Stinson ( Murnane ) joins Chad W. Post and Kaija Straumanis this week to educate us about Australian culture and literature and things we should keep in mind while reading Praiseworthy.  He also participates in a round of the world-famous trivia game: "Australian Baseball Player or Indigenous Australian Writer?" There is, of course,  Bluey  talk and cuck jokes, along with analysis of the en...

This episode could be titled, "Dead Bodies in Water," as Chad and Brian talk about the unfortunate situation in Rochester and the juxtaposition of Absolute Sovereignity trying to drown himself while his brother, Tommyhawk!, watches, doing nothing to save him. There's also more talk about Bluey, but also the tone of the book, the nature of the life challenges Tommyhawk! and First Nations children f...

From discussion of Ohio and disturbing news about everyone's favorite Australian export, this episode skirts talking too deeply about Alexis Wright's  Praiseworthy    ( New Directions , And Other Stories , Giramondo ) to discuss challenges of getting into particular books, what the purpose of this podcast is in trying to assist in that and get whatever it is we get out of finishing something we mi...

The first episode of the new season of the Two Month Review—covering Alexis Wright's  Praiseworthy  ( New Directions , And Other Stories , Giramondo )—start off with Chad crapping on golf, then rolls on into book design and books as objects, the pacing and rhythms of Wright's work, its humor, its orality, what ancillary information is beneficial, and how the introduction of the two children really...

We've reached the end which, in Chad and Brian's opinion, Ed Park totally lands. There's  Friday the 13th  talk. Reagan makes an appearance. The structure of the book is revisited. As are all the ideas of mirrors and patrimony, assassins and conspiracy theories. Note: Information about the "Opening the Channel" translation and creative flow retreat being organized by former co-host Katie Whittemor...

The threads all come together in this week's section as the book barrels toward its conclusion. On this episode, Chad describes his visualization of the book's structure, Tim Hortons and Dunkin Donuts get crapped on, 2333 gets a new meaning, the Moonies make an appearance, as does Ronald Reagan (boo, hiss), Philip Roth, and PDK. Also, a Sleeper Awakes. Just remember, dreams are everything that's n...