Skylight Books Podcast Series

Once upon a time, Joe Strummer was known as Woody Mellor... (because he was such a Woody Guthrie fan). Before the UK music scene made international headlines with punk rock, there was another movement of musicians who were tired of the prog rock and glam that was dominating the culture. Their back-to-basics music was performed in tiny pubs, so it became known in the press as pub rock. In this epis...

Nepo babies are a necessary byproduct of our modern world. They've been with us always, and yet only recently have they become fodder for internet scuttlebutt, thinkpieces, and the like. Vulture writer and comedian Fran Hoepfner has provided the average joe with the public service of her handy new book, The Field Guide to Nepo Babies , a fully illustrated, often tongue-in-cheek guide to unpacking...

You may be hyped for Disclosure Day, but the BTTM crew is taking you back 65 mill-- well, 33 years to another of director Steven Spielberg's iconic summer blockbusters: Jurassic Park ! Writer, artist, and bookseller Val Lesser joins the podcast to discuss the classic film and its Michael Crichton source material. Allan also watched all seven (!) Jurassic movies in the lead-up to this episode, so y...

Cartoonist and illustrator Jim Rugg (Street Angel, The Plain Janes) joins comics creator (and Skylight's own) Sina Grace to talk about Rugg's forthcoming book in the Marvel Age of Comics criticism series: Wolverine: Weapon X - An Exploration (street date June 11). From the iconoclastic Barry Windsor-Smith, Weapon X is a brutal look at the long-secretive and hazy origins of mutant superhero Wolveri...

Minimalist music is not about minimal materials. It's about time. It's a process that puts the experience of time into sound. In discussing  Minimalist Music , his new book for 33 1/3's GENRE series, musician and critic George Grella, Jr. ( Miles Davis' Bitches Brew ) looks at the classical music history that pushed composers like Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Meredith Monk, and Arvo Pärt to pursue a...

In the early 2000s, Marvel Comics decided to create a new line of books that would set aside four decades of continuity and offer modern readers fresh entry points into their classic characters. The Ultimates was their new Avengers title that would prove enormously influential, helping shape the future of the superhero genre - in comics, in movies, and on TV. In this episode, IDW Publishing co-fou...

This podcast will go down on your permanent record! Novelist Nic Brown joins the podcast to discuss his new nonfiction book on the self-titled debut album, Violent Femmes . This acoustic post-punk landmark is an album that took nearly a decade to go platinum -- and then it appeared briefly on the Billboard Top 200 Albums charts. Tunes like "Blister in the Sun" and "Gone Daddy Gone" have gone from...

Calling all Dornstars! You're going to love this loose and lively chat about Anna Dorn's new novel,  American Spirits . It's the story of a superfan who becomes the assistant of her favorite pop star as a stepping stone for her own twisted ambition. Bookseller David Kimbel talks with Anna Dorn about fan cultures, Pitchfork writers, Reddit communities, Millennials who look young, Gen Zers who look...

JEOPARDY! champion Buzzy Cohen returns to Better Than the Movie for a third short-story-to-film adaptation discussion. This time it's the tragicomic showbiz/political tale A FACE IN THE CROWD (1957), written by Budd Schulberg and directed by Elia Kazan, based on Schulberg's short story, "Your Arkansas Traveler." Future lovable sitcom dad Andy Griffith stars as Larry "Lonesome" Rhodes, a vagabond s...

Novelist Hannah Lillith Assadi makes her podcast debut to discuss her new book,  Paradiso 17 , about a Palestinian man's restless lifelong search for home. Writer and bookseller Sina Grace talks with Assadi, who is a longtime friend, about the process of funneling the grief from the recent passing of her father into a novel that is partly his story and partly her own. They talk character, they tal...

This year is the 40th anniversary of Jim Henson's beloved cult classic film Labyrinth, and author Jes Battis is on the podcast to discuss their new book on the film:  It's Only Forever: Labyrinth (available April 7, 2026). Starring Jennifer Connelly, David Bowie, and a slew of goblins and goodies from Jim Henson's Creature Shop, the film is a storybook fantasy that transcended its original box off...

Weird Al for all! On this episode, we are joined by Wes Locher, the author of the new biography aimed at middle-grade readers,  Who Is "Weird Al" Yankovic? , from the Who HQ series of nonfiction children's books. He talks with writer and bookseller Justin Remer about the process of researching and writing nonfiction for kids, as well as exploring his favorite aspects of writing about Weird Al. Sin...

Moor! Moor! Moor! The Better Than the Movie gang is hanging out where it's wily and windy, and they've brought along filmmaker and labor organizer Paige Gresty to talk about it. The subject is Emerald Fennell's "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" (complete with quotation marks) and its purported source novel, WUTHERING HEIGHTS (no quotation marks) by Emily Brontë. (Justin also watched the 1939 version with Lauren...

Keywords for this episode: Surprising, enlightening, entertaining, provocative, warm, inclusive, thoughtful, required listening. Simona Supekar talks with bookseller Justin Remer about her new book in the Object Lessons series, Stock Photo . Starting with her history as a former keyworder for a stock photography company, Supekar explores the way these largely ignored components of the websites we...

KOSMIC! Novelist, comics writer, and historian Stuart Moore joins the podcast to discuss his new book for the Marvel Age of Comics critical series from Bloomsbury and Marvel, Doctor Strange: A Decade of Dark Magic . As the title promises, Moore's book looks at the first ten years of the character - from its start as a supporting feature in Strange Tales from artist Steve Ditko and writer Stan Lee...

Adorn yourself. Cultural critic and poet Eileen G'Sell joins Skylight's Keila Cone-Uemura to about her new book in the Object Lessons series, Lipstick . They discuss perceptions of beauty in social contexts, in political contexts, and in pop culture. How is Chappell Roan's use of makeup a cultural subversion? What makes "Mar-a-Lago face" such an unsettling phenomenon? These questions and more are...

Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli's classic story arc of Daredevil comics from the mid-'80s, known as Born Again, is the subject of a new book from comics writer and editor Chris Ryall.  Daredevil: Born Again - An Exploration  is part of Bloomsbury and Marvel's new series of small critical books dedicated to classic comics runs, Marvel Age of Comics. Comics writer and artist (and Skylight's own)...

It's the end of an era - or a trilogy - or something. Author and podcaster Garon Cockrell ( Demonic and Other Tales ) returns for his third guest appearance on BTTM to talk Clive Barker! This crew previously reviewed Nightbreed (BTTM episode 11) and Hellraiser (BTTM 22), so there's only one last feature film where Barker adapted himself: 1995's Lord of Illusions, based on the novella The Last Illu...

As a music genre, plunderphonics is somewhat misunderstood. While the genre is based on samples, much like hip-hop, it isn't just music made from other music. It utilizes samples to push the boundaries of copyright -- what is fair use, what is public domain, who truly owns a piece of music? Matthew Blackwell's new book for 33 1/3's GENRE series,  Plunderphonics , traces the genre back to the quote...

The BTTM guys are running their mouths about THE RUNNING MAN. Allan, Tyler, and Justin dig into the recent Edgar Wright-directed film and the same-named 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger star vehicle, which are both adapted -- to different degrees -- from the novel by Stephen King (under his Richard Bachman alias). It's a boisterous discussion among three guys whose reactions range from ambivalent to und...

Ambient Music, as a genre, is one that is meant to be experienced consciously or unconsciously. It can be focused upon or ignored. It can feed your soul, brighten your day, or just counterpoint the din of the everyday. Dusty Henry, in his new book for 33 1/3's GENRE series, focuses upon  20TH CENTURY AMBIENT . The book looks at early and unexpected influences like Erik Satie and Blind Willie Johns...

Ocean waves, ocean waves. One of the best-loved movies of the fall has been Paul Thomas Anderson's ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER. The Better Than the Movie crew is joined by Rene Franco, the head of Skylight's Rabbit Hole Reading Club , to discuss the flick and also the novel which provided some inspiration, Thomas Pynchon's kooky and kaleidoscopic  Vineland .  Hosted by Justin Remer, Allan Traylor, an...

Mwahahaha! The Better Than the Movie crew have gathered again to celebrate R.L. Stine's GOOSEBUMPS horror series for young readers. Rather than just talk ABOUT the books, as they did on the last Halloween special, they talk THROUGH a book. Justin reads a GIVE YOURSELF GOOSEBUMPS title (a kind of CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE sub-series from the late 1990s) while everyone provides color commentary as t...

In Angel City, alchemy is everything. Red City is the new fantasy novel from Marie Lu (Legend, Stars and Smoke). Bookseller Keila Cone-Uemura talks to Lu about the difference between writing for an adult audience and for a YA audience. During this wide-ranging talk, they discuss the inspiration that Lu pulled from her own life and from the city of Los Angeles. They also touch on the unexpected inf...

In advance of the screening of Johnny Mnemonic in Black & White that the BTTM crew is hosting for the American Cinematheque's Friend of the Fest 2025, Allan and Justin get together to discuss the film and the William Gibson short story that inspired it.   If you're going to be in Los Angeles on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, why not come to our movie screening at the Los Feliz 3 theater? Tickets av...