Just In Case We Die

Send us Fan Mail The first movie released in the DVD format was the 1996 disaster film Twister . Bullfrogs never sleep. The nation of China is credited with the invention of ice cream. Africa is the only continent with land in all four hemispheres. Queen guitarist Brian May holds a PhD in astrophysics. Aaron, Rodney, and Rebecca are going to remember these five random bits of trivia before they ev...

Send us Fan Mail Remember last year when we decided to celebrate National Short Story Month by discussing six short stories hand-selected by the cast? Well, we had so much fun last year that we decided to do it again! This year, Rodney actually chooses a short story instead of a novella, Rebecca reveals an interesting way to select material for our show, and Aaron must endure insulting words about...

Send us Fan Mail So what happened was this . . . At the end of the episode on “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, the random number generator gave us #355. The book corresponding to this number was “Emma” by Jane Austen. Rebecca ixnayed that itshay quicker than quick, but she then had to use the random number generator to pick a tome from her veto list. The redraw gave us A Heartbreaking Work of Stag...

Send us Fan Mail Did you know that there is a library in Oslo doing quite possibly the coolest literary event that we have ever read about? Too bad none of us will be alive to experience it! It's National Library Week, and the cast here at Just In Case We Die are celebrating with some reminiscing about our favorite memories of the library. They talk about Aaron's mother and what she is d...

Send us Fan Mail A nameless narrator commits a murder. As a result, he must traverse an absurdist landscape of two-dimensional buildings, bumbling police officers, and philosophical meanderings about bicycles. What percentage of one man can become a bicycle before he ceases to be more man than bicycle?  Born in 1911, Irish novelist and playwright Brian O'Nolan made a name for himself in the m...

Send us Fan Mail On Saturday, February 22, 2025, Rodney and Aaron spent a rather brisk winter day wandering around the town of Rockford for an annual event called The Independent Bookstore Crawl. It's like a bar crawl with books. There was also comics, though. And vinyl. There was lunch at a local burger joint. We bought battered paperbacks of Robert Heinlein, fantasy novels written by a Rock...

Send us Fan Mail Victor Hugo's epic novel of the French revolution is inarguably a classic. Originally published in 1862, it has endured and rightfully been considered one of the greatest novels of all time. It's long, though-- clocking in at 1,662 pages in one version we found-- and tangential, which causes a good amount of trouble for Aaron. Rodney and Rebecca are quick to defend Les M...

Send us Fan Mail This week’s episode is a milestone for us, as it is the first episode of our third season. Our very first episode premiered in February of 2023. Here we are– two full years later– with a larger cast, more monthly content, and a decent-sized dent in our list of 1,316 novels. Fun fact: we are actually only 1.6% of the way through the curated list. At our current rate of one novel pe...

Send us Fan Mail T. C. Boyle has written nineteen novels. He is the celebrated author of more than 150 short stories. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award and been shortlisted for the National Book Award. He is Aaron's favorite living novelist, and has been since 1998. In "Drop City", Boyle does what he does best-- biting satire, sympathetic villains, remarkable sense of place-- in a s...

Send us Fan Mail Some of the greatest movies ever made started out as novels. A vast majority of contemporary stage plays started their life as a book. Written prose have proven to be a wellspring of inspiration for television shows. Les Miserables , Victor Hugo's 1862 epic masterpiece and our selection for discussion in February, by itself has been fodder for comic books, stage plays, televi...

Send us Fan Mail The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Klaus? No one here has ever heard of it. No one here has ever even heard of the author. This book was approached with a high degree of trepidation. As it would turn out, this novel was one of the more thought-provoking works to ever be explored on this podcast. By turns amusing and disturbing, Hugo Klaus’s meandering and emotional examination of a chi...

Send us Fan Mail It's Christmas time! But it's also National Read A New Book Month! Which do we celebrate? It seems strange to make a big deal out of reading new books since the majority of novels the random number generator assigns are new to at least one member of the cast. "New books" are, basically, what they do here every month.  Rodney was inspired to combine Christmas an...

Send us Fan Mail The book for November provides a great opportunity for listeners to engage with the cast. They are urging someone out there to read this book and then email them to explain why they believe that this book should be on a list of books that are essential novels to read before we die.  Remembering Babylon , the Booker Prize-winning novel by Australian "master" David Malouf,...

Send us Fan Mail The bonus material this month has its genesis in the book discussion from last month. You may recall that Rodney and Rebecca were less than pleased with the ending of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time , citing it as abrupt and implausible. Does the ending ruin an otherwise great book? This month, the discussion centers around the art of the ending. Are there really...

Send us Fan Mail This novel-- Mark Haddon's emotional depiction of a teenager with Asperger's Syndrome-- meant a lot to Aaron when he first read it back in 2007. He selected it for his choice off of the list because he thought that Rebecca would have a personal attachment to it and he wanted Rodney to appreciate a post-modern novel that wasn't as complicated as The Recognitions . Th...

Send us Fan Mail It’s October! All three cast members of Just In Case We Die are in agreement that autumn is the best time of the year. It’s not just because of the cool temperatures or the pumpkin spice. It’s not just because of the beautiful changes in scenery as the leaves and foliage change color before winter. Fall is also their favorite season of the year because that’s the best time to brea...

Send us Fan Mail The temptation to accurately depict the general consensus on this (apparently) "essential" "novel" by leaving this space wordless and blank is almost overwhelming. That would be poor form, though. This is a website and it must have content.  Novels should have content, too, though. We're talking to you, Colette!

Send us Fan Mail For the bonus material this month, the crew at Just In Case We Die takes a deep dive into the life and works of beloved children's author Roald Dahl. Listeners may know him as the mastermind behind such classic works as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and James and the Giant Peach . Would they also realize that he also penned a good amount of racy work for adults? Do listen...

Send us Fan Mail In 1898, William Heinemann published H. G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds in novel form for the very first time. In the 126 years that have passed since, this novel has never been out of print. It has been adapted into movies, television shows, radio productions, comic books, and musicals. It has also been the base inspiration for multitudes of other well-known science-fiction proje...

Send us Fan Mail The final day of August has been declared as We Love Memoirs Day. The gang here at Just In Case We Die has no idea how that holiday should be celebrated, but it did give them a good topic for this month’s bonus episode. This month, the discussion centers around memoirs. What is a memoir? What makes for a good one? Are there specific memoirs that might be recommended? What happens...

Send us Fan Mail Rodney: Meh. Rebecca: Blech. Aaron: OHMIGERD! OHMIGERD! Yeah. That pretty well sums up the direction this week’s discussion goes. In 1997, Peter Carey, perhaps Australia’s most important contemporary novelist, presented a pastiche of Charles Dickens with this enigmatic examination of inspiration. The cast of Just In Case We Die has never been more divided.

Send us Fan Mail This month, the crew here at Just In Case We Die took an opportunity to discuss a genre that doesn’t normally come up on a podcast that discusses fine works of literature: “trashy” summer beach reads. You know, the books that only take you a couple of days to read and are utterly forgettable? The books you might not admit to loving in conversation with your college literature prof...

Send us Fan Mail This month’s selection was hand-picked from the curated list by Rebecca. She selected this novel because she is an ardent admirer of this author’s work and this work was one that she had not personally read. Her selection– The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster– proved to be an excellent choice. Not only did everyone involved here at Just In Case We Die really enjoy this book, but i...

Send us Fan Mail Aaron can hear just well enough to record if all three cast members are within a few feet of each other, so, at long last, Just In Case We Die presents the bonus material for June. This month, the discussion celebrates Pride Month with an exploration of some personal favorite writers in the LGBTQIA+ community. There are horror writers, journalists, science-fiction writers, Booker...

Send us Fan Mail The Martian Chronicles,  Ray Bradbury’s 1950 collection of loosely-connected stories that chronicle the human colonization of Mars has long been a favorite of Aaron. Aaron is, in fact, a devoted acolyte of all of Ray Bradbury’s work and thinks it unfathomable that at least one work by this stalwart of the golden age of science-fiction isn’t included on the original list. In this e...