how to win the lottery: a book club podcast

literally show me a healthy person by darcie wilder is one of our favorite books this season, and today we’re talking to darcie all about it (and a whole lot more). after calling for ducks, newburyport in every port, we talk about darcie’s process to writing, how film school informed her structure, and how rad harmony korine is. darcie’s dog coco stops by as we talk about skunks and armadillos and...

please note: this conversation contains spoilers for both mount chicago and the instructions. on today’s installment of tips and tricks to win the lottery, we talk to adam levin, author of mount chicago and the instructions. we compare adam levin to adam levine before talking about the literal influence of the adam’s writing (and how it feels like a magic trick) and the inclusion of pop culture in...

we’re taking a slight detour this module (and returning to the work of adam levin) for a bonus episode about mount chicago. we compare mount chicago to the instructions, rank some birds, and hear why bob hates robert redford. we discuss autobiography as a metafictional trick, the idea of the “face” of a narrative, and finding context in an author’s work. we discuss behaviorism, acid and shitting,...

we continued our season about the internet last week with katie runde’s the shore, and today we’re talking to katie about the jersey shore, boardwalk games, and catfishing your mom. we talk about how to avoid writing misery porn, different generations of internet, and the types of deception the characters in the shore embody. katie talks about how her life experiences (and tech advancements) shift...

our internet module continues as we seek community in online forums and talk about the shore by katie runde. after struggling with scheduling details that no one needs to know or care about, we talk about the epistolary nature of the shore (and the timeless quality of that). bob does a terrible james joyce impression and we talk about the american sniper, chris kyle. we discuss the ethics of our o...

we kicked off our third season with a touch of jen by beth morgan, and today we’re talking to beth about her novel. we find out what she thinks of the internet, her thoughts on the novel’s specific time and place, and how she wanted to subvert the hero’s journey. bobby and beth talk about exclamation points before she psychoanalyzes him for receiving this book as a gift. beth discusses the movies...

we're kicking off our season about the internet with a touch of jen by beth morgan. we start by naming famous remys, wondering who the titular "jen" is, and work through a loud groan coming from outside joey's house. we talk about despising remy (yet relating to him), being caught off guard by the novel's unexpected twists, and trying to make sense of the novel's third act. joey talks about why he...

we're logging onto the internet for season three of how to win the lottery. all of our books prominently feature the internet and online life. find the full reading list below, and email in your thoughts about any of these books to lottery@cageclub.me. as always, keep reading, and -- like bobby says -- "get off the internet." reading list for season three a touch of jen by beth morgan the shore by...

we’re following up last week’s episode on teenager by bud smith by talking to bud about his work (and his friendship with bobby). we talk about new jersey, bud rejecting bobby’s criticisms of a previous draft of teenager, and bud’s process of re-writing (and re-typing) his novel. bud shares thoughts on writing to keep yourself interested (and surprised), lessons learned from teaching writing, and...

our campus season (officially) wraps up with teenager by bud smith, which follows the first how to win the lottery field trip. after serge gainsbourg drops by, we talk about elvis, the “lovers on the run” template, and how the book dissects american systems failing people. we talk about the novel’s underlying darkness, its cinematic nature, and how it demystifies grand american myths. our podcast...

campus season continues with either/or, our second elif batuman novel in a row, and this time, we’re following selin’s sophomore year at harvard. we talk about how selin’s story is an unusual (in a good way!) type of book series and how these novels manage to capture the american experience of late adolescence. we talk about noticeable growth within selin, debate her level of agency in the story,...

surprise! the idiot by elif batuman is no longer our season finale, as she wrote another book about selin that we'll cover next episode: either/or. today, though, we're kicking things off with the (presumed?) start of a series as we discuss autofiction, bob's embrace of "boring" as a theme, and yet another book about language (including, finally, math as a language!). we note the importance of it...

in spite of this episode about the instructions by adam levin being our longest episode to date (by far!), it still feels woefully incomplete. how do you sum up more than 1,000 pages? it turns out… it’s very difficult! there are backroom deliberations about a second episode about the instructions, but for now… we talk about our youngest protagonists so far, yet ones who speak and act and seem like...

real life by brandon taylor continues our journey through the campus semester of our podcast and marks our most recent release in this module. after another seamless opening to the podcast, we dive into the “largely autobiographical” novel and discuss how how quickly brandon taylor wrote it (which bob likens to “a guy puking, in the best way”). we compare the novel to the works of bret easton elli...

campus season continues with college novel by blake middleton, and today’s episode includes our first-ever author interview! we welcome in blake at the top of the show, where he immediately roasts bob and sets a great tone for the interview. bob then tries to re-establish his tough guy (and jacksonville) bona fides before we talk about jag lites and florida man. we ask blake about the time and pla...

campus season continues with sweet days of discipline by fleur jaeggy, our shortest book covered on the podcast so far. after a brief spin-off to “how to score some pottery,” we catch up with shreds and see where reading ranks in his favorite pastimes. we explore some surprising (?) facts about the author and history of the book, talk about goodreads’ description of this as “witchy,” and discuss r...

we’ve got a new release bonus episode coming at you today as we take on the novel devil house by john darnielle. we talk about darnielle’s place in shape and form of our podcast (as well as how his books are of a type), as well as how devil house asks for an uncommon type of empathy. we examine the novel as a takedown of true crime (and rubbernecking?), wonder who the “real” victims are in true cr...

the secret history by donna tartt is a seminal campus novel and the subject of today’s episode. it’s a book we’ve both read before, and likely the best book (so far) this season. after a chaotic kitten interlude, we dive into the trouble history of adapting this novel (featuring car accidents both real and imagined) and explore the impact of bennington college’s writers. bob talks through an idea...

bob wasn’t available for this episode so joey and “shred” (or “shreds”) do their best in his absence to cover loner by teddy wayne. we discuss following an unlikeable narrator in david federman (and compare him to bruce bennett-jones of the virgins) in a surprise (?) thriller this season. we compare it to the netflix series “you.” we shout out chris christie and talk about lessons learned from ame...

the stadium lights are on this week as we talk about football, warfare, and language in all things in end zone by don delillo. it’s another book we’ve both read, and maybe joey’s favorite book (!). we talk about the narrative’s lack of antagonism and end zone as a “hangout book.” we discuss the mysticism of taft robinson and how discussing the erasure of language makes you wake up to the things th...

our campus season continues with the most abstract interpretation of a campus yet in giles goat-boy by john barth, which is joey's least favorite book he's ever read. we talk about the post-modern structure of the narrative, wonder what it's satirizing, and try to parse the meaning of its metaphors. we also talk about how bob totally goofed on the scheduling of this book in our season, the literal...

the campus season (real missed opportunity for #sponcon by not calling it the education season) continues with my education by susan choi. it’s the second book this season bob hasn’t read, and we’re noticing a troubling pattern beginning to emerge. we talk about bob’s issues with cool people from the early 90s, how this book could also fit into our omnipresent “horny” module, and put an abrupt end...

the virgins by pamela erens marks new ground for the podcast: it’s the first book we’ve both read before. does that mean we’ll have more insightful thoughts to share? don’t bet on it! after talking about our new year’s resolutions, bob talks about the movie it’s complicated for a while before we regret not using this book as a backdoor pilot for our inevitable “horny” module. we wonder if there’s...

season two continues onward as we head back in time (for a difficult read) as we talk about the nickel boys by colson whitehead. we talk about the benefits of re-reading books (especially when they contain genre-style twists unusual in a narrative like this), the overly trusting nature of the main character, and how the nickel boys contains all the elements of a traditional prison narrative. we al...

we're headed out to the baseball diamond for today's episode of how to win the lottery as we talk about the art of fielding by chad harbach. after bobby shares a big announcement he should have saved for our patreon, we talk about harbach's ability to capture the beauty of baseball and write a book about predation without really writing a book about predation. we also try to figure out who the mai...