The Infinite Library

Happy New Years, Book Heads! In this bonus epsiode, John and Ben sit down to ring in 2025 by talking about their favorite books of 2024. We hope you enjoy!

For our first episode of the New Year, John and Ben are discussing Ryan Ruby's poem about the history of poetry: "Context Collapse". Topics of discussion include jongleurs, Ezra Pound, and romanticism. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation!

Merry Christmas! John and Ben are flying solo again this week to discuss "The Final Solution" by Michael Chabon. We're officially halfway through our readthrough on Chabon's works, and in this episode, we discuss Sherlock Holmes, Chabon's development as a writer, and genre fiction more broadly. Special Bonus: We return to Movie Land to discuss "The Seven Per-Cent Solution", the 1979 Sherlock Holme...

Pow! We're back with part 2 of our discussion of "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay" with Nat of Collective Action Comics. As always, enjoy the conversation.

It's the big one, the book that won Michael Chabon the Pulitzer Prize, the 600-some page behemoth known as "The Adventures of Cavalier & Clay". The Book Boys knew that they were going to need some backup for this one, so they called in Nat of Collective Action Comics for a Two-Fisted Team-Up! We had so much fun talking about this one that it ended up being our first two-parter. As always, we h...

Happy Thanksgiving, Bookheads! We're taking a week off for the holiday, but fear not, we have a special, John-free bonus episode to tide you over till the next regular ep. If you're a Big Ben fan, this one's for you, because he's sitting down with previous guest of the pod, Ana, to have a more casual chat about another banger from the Roberto Bolaño Fascism Extended Universe: "The Savage Detective...

In this unfortunately timely episode of The Inifinite Library, the Book Boys return to the Roberto Bolaño Fascism Extended Universe to discuss "Distant Star". Topics of conversation include the place of the individual in history, Right Wing kitsch, and how there's a Cheeto in the frickin' White House. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

Surprise! It's a Halloween bonus episode! Friend of the show Molly Tanzer returns to the Infinite Library to discuss H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness". We discuss our individual relationships with Lovecraft and Lovecraftiana, cosmic horror, and shoggoths. As always, we hope that you enjoy the conversation. Works Cited Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran The Gods of Pegana...

On this very spooky Halloween episode of The Infinite Library, special sci-fi correspondent Sam Chirtel is back in the stacks to discuss "Cyclonopedia: Complicity with Anonymous Materials" by Reza Negarestani. Topics of discussion include "theory fiction", the CCRU, and how dang spooky oil is. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

For our second episode of Chabon-a-mania, Ben and John had the rare pleasure of recording in-person, so this episode is a little more meandering than usual. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation!

John and Ben sit down with Filipino sword and sorcery author, Dariel Quiogue, about his upcoming novella, "The Walls of Shira Yulun", which will be coming out soon as part of the "Double-Edge Sword & Sorcery" collection from New Edge Sword & Sorcery. As always, we hope you enjoy our conversation. You can support the campaign for the "Double-Edge Sword & Sorcery" here: https://www.backe...

This week, John and Ben finally get around to discussing patron saint of the pod: Jorge Luis Borges. We discuss a selection of short stories including: "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius", "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote", and "The Library of Babel". As always, we hope you enjoy our conversation!

John and Ben are back from their summer vacation and ready to get back to work on a new project: reading the collected works of Michael Chabon! We discuss our favorite beach reads from the break, why we’re interested in exploring Chabon as an author, and then dig in and talk about “The Mysteries of Pittsburgh”. As always, we hope you enjoy our conversation.   Summer Books! Works Referenced Bartima...

John and Ben are still luxuriating on their summer vacation, but a little while back they invited the illustrious Phil Ford of the Weird Studies podcast into the Library to discuss P.G. Wodehouse's "Right Ho, Jeeves". We discuss humor in literature, the idea of being "well-read", and the changing nature of genre fiction through history. We hope you enjoy the conversation! W...

This week, John and Ben are discussing "Telluria" by Vladimir Sorokin, translated by Max Lawton. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation! Works Referenced: The Ice Trilogy by Vladimir Sorokin The Norm by Vladimir Sorokin The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin The golden notebook by Doris Lessing Pervert’s Guide to Cinema - Slavoj Zizek Twin Peaks the Return Waiting for Godot - Samuel Becket...

This week, John and Ben are joined by Ben's friend Sam to discuss one of the great works of scifi-horror: Peter Watts' "Blindsight"! Topics of discussion include "metal science fiction", AI, the nature of intelligence, and (of course) the Gothic. We hope you enjoy the conversation. Texts Mentioned this Episode Jane Austen - Persuasion  Adorno & Horkheimer - Dialecti...

This week, we're joined by fantasy/science fiction author Molly Tanzer to discuss the Jirel of Joiry stories by C.L. Moore. Topics of discussion include H.P. Lovecraft, Sword & Sorcery as a genre, and Molly's upcoming project: "Jirel and the Mirror of Truth"! We hope you enjoy our conversation! Links: - New Edge Sword & Sorcery: https://newedgeswordandsorcery.com/ - Preor...

Hey Bookheads, apologies for the unscheduled hiatus over the last couple of weeks. To make it up to you, we've got a frosty cool episode discussing "The Ice Palace" by Tarjei Vesaas with Kate Marshall. Topics of discussion include the novella as a form, the bewitching power of nature, and the social utility of magical thinking. As always, we hope you enjoy the discussion. You can che...

Biff! Bang! Pow! In this week's thrilling installment of The Infinite Library, your Leading Lads of Literature enlist the aid of an Amazing Ally -- Walt Lewellyn of The Black Casebook podcast -- to discuss the first comic book: "City of Glass" by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli! As always, we hope you enjoy our conversation! Note: We apologize dearly for the episode being late. W...

In celebration of National Crime Fiction Month, John and Ben discuss one of the greatest fat guys in the history of literature: Nero Wolfe. As always, we hope you enjoy the conversation.

On this week's episode of The Infinite Library, we're treading the old boards and discussing our first play: Noel Coward's "Blithe Spirit". We talk about sex, death, and how movies aren't sending their best. We hope you enjoy our discussion as always.

John and Ben return to the historical novel on this week's episode of The Infinite Library. We tackle British-Palestinian novelist Isabella Hammad's 2019 debut: The Parisian: a book that, much like its protagonist and the country he hails from, is curiously divided. We discuss the novelist as national representative, the perils of tying your family history directly into your fiction, &quot...

Get in your big cars and pull out your old time-y type writers, because this week John and Ben are celebrating Easter by discussing “Spring and All” by William Carlos Williams. Topics of conversation include democracy and art, Williams’ concept of the “Imagination”, Williams’ vision of art and how it contrasts with his contemporaries, and Walter Benjamin. This episode is a little different than ou...

It's the big one! It's the middle of March, and Ben decided to mark the occasion by making John read one of the great doorstops of English literature: George Eliot's "Middlemarch". The Book Boys enjoy a particularly long, winding conversation about the many marvellous characters inhabiting Eliot's pages, free will vs. determinism, science and religion, and doddering old u...