Book Spider

While the title of this episode might sound like that of a textbook from an alternate reality in which robots are the prime lifeform, it's still a perfect description of the contents of Sierra Greer's enjoyable novel Annie Bot .

In which the Spiders try to make whatever sense should be made of M. John Harrison's  The Course of the Heart,  a novel in the tradition of semi-sensical vibes books, which pulls a strong emotional core from an uncertain set of events.

In which we discuss the mixed success of JG Ballard's super experimental, multi-modal and even multi-generational work, "The Atrocity Exhibition."

In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck. Hans thinks it's sanctimonious, but Patrick and Chris don't really care, because it's awesome all the same.

In which the Spiders are really quite unimpressed by Caro Claire Burke's enormously successful debut novel Yesteryear.

In which we discuss Kafka's prophetic qualities and the importance of finding a good translation. The translation we recommend in this instance is that by David Wyllie (hint: search for the Dover thrift edition). 

In this episode, the Spiders discuss the essays of Montaigne, with mixed feelings.

In which the Spiders ponder Couples, by the now-underappreciated John Updike, a breathtakingly wrought and shockingly lovely work that evinces a now-alien disinterest in judging its characters.

In which we close our discussion of one of Bolanyo's masterpiece. 

In which we discuss the lesser discussed parts of this giant, shaggy novel, and stop just before the door to Hell.

In which we discuss The Part About the Critics, section 1 of Roberto Bolaño's posthumous masterpiece, "2666."

In this episode, the Spiders discuss A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. While interesting as an historical artifact, the novel leaves at least one of the Spiders bored.

In which the Spiders take on Vincenzo Latronico's  Perfection,  a perfectly satisfactory novel which perhaps doesn't give them the sense of mystery and intrigue that some readers have experienced.

In which we discuss the brutal, hilarious, and deeply moving stop motion film, "Mad God," in development for 30 years and finally released in 2024. 

In this episode, the Book Spider hosts ask what genre and literary fiction are, and they wonder about the quality of a sci-fi book like The Left Hand of Darkness.

In which the Spiders discuss Charles Dickens's unwieldy, uneven Bleak House, how it may or may not be emblematic of the larger decline of literate culture, and whether we're sure we'd miss it.

In which Hans gets a little upset about Chris and Patrick's responses to the album kew. rhone. by John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Hermans.

In which the boys discuss Pynchon's delightful drug-haze California novel, Inherent Vice, and Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation to film. Both are good hangs. And honestly, perhaps uniquely, are better for being read and watched together than on their own. 

In this episode, the Spiders discuss the devastating Atonement, by Ian McEwan.

In which the Spiders discuss two email newsletters hybridizing fiction and nonfiction, Sam Kriss's "The law that can be named is not the true law" and Naomi Kanakia's "Lonely Island Adventures," two pieces whose uncertain mingling of fact and invention may either bolster or undermine their points and their readability.

In which we discuss the hangout novel/non-novel (should be a memoir? a collection of lyric essays?), and the intense fall-off from her masterpiece, "No one is talking about this."

In this episode, the Spiders chat about Homage to Catalonia, Orwell's journalistic account of the Spanish Civil War. This memoir may in fact be his best work.

The Spiders briefly discuss Clinical Trials,  Violet Lucca's scholarly analysis of David Cronenberg's filmography, focusing primarily on the downsides of theory-oriented analysis, then go into more depth on the relationship between Cronenberg's new film  The Shrouds  and his earlier work  Naked Lunch.

In which we debate whether Polanski's grounded interpretation is better than Joel Cohen's hallucinatory interpretation, but ultimately circle back to the original play and the undying ritual of embodying, ingesting, and interpreting it. 

In this episode, the Spiders discuss Post Office, the first novel of infamous womanizing, drunkard poet Charles Bukowski. While it shows some promise in a few areas, it is, overall, pretty bad.