Book Fight

This week we're talking about a short story that traces the end of a long-running affair. Plus literary gossip, dating advice, and more!  

We welcome special guest Dave Housley (Barrelhouse founding editor and author of several books, most recently Massive Cleansing Fire, a story collection). Dave chose this week's book, the bestselling Station Eleven, a book that posits a life after a flu pandemic has killed more than 99% of the human population. Dave also brought with him some interesting fan fiction that he reads in the episode's...

Look, these episodes can't all be winners. Sometimes we're tired, and easily distracted, and for some reason we talk about onions a lot? But this week's book--a collection of graphic short stories by Adrian Tomine--is definitely worth checking out.

This week we're discussing an A.M. Homes story about an adolescent boy who starts "dating" his sister's Barbie. Also, we revisit the time Robert Olen Butler went viral for the wrong reasons (losing his wife to Ted Turner), we remember HBO's Real Sex, and Mike gives some dating advice, this time on "ghosting." For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com . 

This week kicks off another special seasonal series: Spring Fling! We'll be reading stories about romance, sex, and affairs of the heart. This week we discuss Mary Gaitskill's story, "The Secretary," which some people may know as the source material for Secretary, the 2002 Maggie Gyllenhaal / James Spader film. But while some of the fundamental DNA is the same, the story and the resulting film are...

This week we're talking about the new George Saunders book, Lincoln in the Bardo, about a bunch of spooky ghosts who hang out in a graveyard with Abraham Lincoln's son. Also: Cheers fan fiction. Get excited, listeners!

Hey, listeners! Due to a death in Tom's family, there's no new episode this week. But we're reposting this one from the archives (first released in April 2013) in which Tom's old college roommate joined us for a discussion of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One. We hope you enjoy it! And we'll be back with a new joint next Monday. As always, thanks for listening!

We welcome special guest Lauren Grodstein (author of, most recently, the novel Our Short History) to discuss a 1959 novel that's become something of a cult classic, one which never earned its author widespread acclaim but which is consistently mentioned as a favorite by other writers. We also talk about Lauren's new book, her love of plot, and how she manages to get so much writing done while bein...

We travel back to 1866 to read "The Case of George Dedlow," a story about Civil War amputees (and a seance!) written by Silas Weir Mitchell, the physician who would later become famous for "the rest cure."  Also this week: debates over reconstruction; the sex lives of mermaids; racist medical practices; conspiracies about Lincoln's assassination; and a man who was sued for $100k by the woman he fa...

We talk to Lyz Lenz (writer and managing editor of The Rumpus) from inside a wind tunnel at AWP 2017 in Washington, D.C. Topics include: New York pizza vs. Chicago pizza, misandry, Little House on the Prairie, religious faith, and how to not be a creep at a literary conference. 

This week: a good book for a change! Plus a new segment about impenetrable academic writing, and a brief installment of Fan Fiction Corner. What more could you want?  

This week we've set the time machine for 1961, and we're reading a story by the author and activist Tillie Olsen. We talk about Olsen's career arc and continued reputation, as well as lots of other 1961 news: racist conspiracies, gigolos, and the J.D. Salinger backlash. Plus: what were poets up to in 1961? For more, visit us online at bookfightpod.com . 

Spoiler alert: this book kinda blows.

We're traveling back in time to 1877 to read a popular, serialized dime-store novel about lots of people shooting guns in the Old West. We talk about the popularity of dime-store novels, and how they correlated to rising literacy rates in the late 19th century. Plus: a story about coal miners being crushed under the boot of Gilded Age capitalism. And all our usual jibber jabber.  For more, visit u...

This novel combines elements of familiar fairy tales and mythic narratives to create a world that feels pretty original. It's a dark world, and a pretty sad one, yet the book also has a sense of humor, and a strong sense of play.  We also talk about raccoons, since that's a thing we do, and we mark the return of a long lost segment that has to do with Tom's pants.

L.H. Sintetos had a story featured in the 1978 Best American Short Stories anthology and then seemed to disappear from the literary world. Which is especially surprising, given how good the story is. We talk about why we like "Telling the Bees," and we try to figure out what happened to its author. Plus, plenty of other 1978-themed stuff: political turmoil in Philadelphia, serial killers, a Pope c...

Our book this week is about a young woman whose life was ripped apart by the Yugoslav Civil War, which took her parents and turned her, briefly, into a child soldier, before she made it to Philadelphia, where she tried her best to put her past in the past and move on with her life as an American.  In the second half of the show, it's the triumphant return of Fan Fiction Corner. Ever wonder what ki...

This week we're traveling back to 1988 to read a story by Mary LaChapelle, who that year won a Whiting Award and had her debut story collection praised in a number of publications, including The New York Times. Since then, LaChapelle has published nothing that we could find. We talk about her story "Anna in a Small Town," about a mime and a giant, and cover some other crucial 1988 news, including...

We've talked about Jennifer Weiner on the show before, usually when she's written (or tweeted) something that's caused a stir in the literary world, or when she and Jonathan Franzen have gotten into one of their famously catty spats. We also read one of her stories back in the Spring of Success. But this is the first time we've dived into one of her novels. She's argued that her work is unfairly p...

Our first Winter of Wayback episode for 2017! We're time-traveling back to 1966, a year when the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, the Church of Satan was founded, and Philip K. Dick published the short story that would later be the basis for the movie Total Recall. 

As is our holiday tradition, we've got two Christmas books this week in a jam-packed, super-sized episode of Book Fight. First we talk about a novel ostensibly about Christmas but really more about punching and shooting and also racism towards Native Americans. In the second half of the show we talk about a sexy Christmas romance novella in which an undercover cop and a fake stripper fall in love...

This week, prompted by a book that's been named to a bunch of Best of 2016 lists, we talk about how those lists are constructed, and whether they're a good representation of a given year's literature. We also talk about empathizing with murderous characters, and novels that portray contemporary political events. In the second half of the show, we try out some snacks that were sent to us by a liste...

This week's story is about an aging boxer who just wants one last payday (and a big juicy steak). But first he'll have to use all his wiles to defeat a younger, fitter opponent. We also enjoy a grab bag of snacks that are new to us, including Faygo Red Pop, Chocodiles, and some weird and, frankly, unsettling 7-11 chips.  

We welcome guest Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib (author of, most recently, The Crown Ain't Worth Much) to talk about the collected writings of music critic Lester Bangs, assembled as a book after Bangs's death. We talk about good music writing versus bad music writing, how to make an argument about things you love and things you hate, how to keep nostalgia in its proper place, and why the NBA is a better...

I know you probably think we forgot, but we did not forget. Here at the close of November, we're bringing you a special bonus episode for National Novel Writing Month 2016. We take our usual dive into the NaNoWriMo forums to see what the Wrimers are struggling with this year. What kinds of food should the characters eat in your fantasy world? Where do robots go on dates? And much, much more.