So Many Damn Books

Elaine Hsieh Chou drops into the Damn Library Hyperspace Zoom Zone to chat her incredible new campus satire, Disorientation . We get into the world of academia, writing villains, and of course, why she wrote this book three times. Plus, she brings along Matthew Salesses’ Craft in the Real World . and we talk about the wisdom found therein. And lots more! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for dr...

Here are three more interviews with featured readers! So fun to talk about bookstore ownership, how being an agent affects reading, the trials and tribulations of Topo Chico, and bad advice from The Rules, along with many other subjects besides. Many thanks to Moti from Montreal, Canada, Erin from Portland, and Jacob from Pittsburgh for chatting books with me! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb...

Here are the first three (of six!) mini interviews with So Many Damn Books Readers, talking favorite recent reads, current reading projects, and giving a book to a famous person, amongst many other bookish subjects. My thanks to Michael for Portland, Daniella from London, Canada, and Noah from NYC for hanging out and chatting books. Part two goes up next week! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb...

Sarah, partner of Christopher and co-owner of the Damn Library, drops into some of the space she pays rent for to chat about working with the backlist for Penguin Random House, the world of publishing unionization efforts, and of course, what drinking a French 75 feels like. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Mag...

Sara Nović webcams into the Damn Library Zoom Zone to talk her new novel, True Biz . We discuss the limitations of prose in comparison to ASL, how she tried to mimic ASL on the page, some fantasies of Eyeth, and the propulsive nature of short chapters. Also a lot of other stuff. Plus, Sara brought along The Days of Afrekete by Asali Solomon, a book that both agree is "a feat of engineering" just l...

Sasha Fletcher physically drops in to the Damn Library. In the flesh. Christopher and Sasha are actually in the same room, chatting over cocktails. This is great, because Sasha’s novel Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World is a very fun book to discuss without any zoom lag, and the conversation ranges from the Medicis to the purposes of art to the agony of first drafts. Plus, Sasha brings alo...

Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark steps into the Damn Library Pocket Universe and covers a lot of ground, both real and metaphysical. We get into why most pandemic novels don't focus on pandemics, how he put together some of the more wild chapters, and of course robot dogs. And then he brings out Brenda Peynado's The Rock Eaters, a collection of short stories that takes the f...

Dana Stevens stops into the Damn Library to talk about her new book, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, and it allows for lots of subject hopping, from the birth of movie reviews to Buster Keaton's model trains to the trick of describing movies dynamically. Plus, she brings along Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet , a fascinating posthumo...

Sara Gran joins Christopher in the Damn Library to talk The Book of the Most Precious Substance, which is wildly exciting - her books are some of the most cited in So Many Damn Books history. They get into plants, and spells, and the lure of rare book buying. Plus, Sara goes into what made her decide to self publish this book after so many years in the industry. And then she brings Generation Lost...

Drew is saying goodbye and vacating his role as co-host. That means one last episode with all the normal trappings, plus a wander into a chat about how the reading this year went, and if he achieved any goals he wanted to achieve when we started. Join us on this chilly, nostalgic stroll. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music:...

Eugene Lim stops by the Damn Library to discuss his novel Search History , which sends the conversation careening from AI to authenticity to writing theatrically to songwriting to rainy day ideas, and that spiral leads (as it often does) to discussing César Aira and his work, particularly Conversations. Listen up! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit:...

Uli Beutter Cohen, stops into the Damn Library for the third time, but for her first time as an author. She wrote Between the Lines: Stories from the Underground , and she talks about the culmination of her project of interviewing people about the books they're reading underneath the clamoring city, teases her pop-up store underneath Union Square (open until December 12th 2021!), and more. Plus, s...

Gus Moreno joins Christopher and Drew in the Cosmic Horrorspace of the Zoom Damn Library to talk about This Thing Between Us . First they get into how he wrote about what scares him to write through grief. Then it breaks out into writing dogs, and writing every day, and writing about haunted houses leading to writing about haunted smart speakers. Plus, he brought along The Hellbound Heart by Clive...

Christopher and Drew hang out and chat about books, which is to be expected. Having just celebrated Halloween, they get into what they did to celebrate the holiday, scary reads, and Drew has an October Country update as well as a life update about new employment. Also, Christopher finds a long lost book title. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: som...

Ruth Ozeki steps on into the Damn Library Hyperverse to shine. We talk about her latest opus, The Book of Form and Emptiness , and how books are magical, and accessing her teenage self, and an unexpected turn of narrative luck with snowglobes, along with many other things. Plus she brings us Walter Benjamin's essay, "Unpacking My Library " and we talk about what book collecting means to all of us....

Alexandra Kleeman is back in the Damn Library! For the third time! This visit, she's brought along her new novel, Something New Under the Sun ! We are thrilled to discuss the menace of water that doesn't taste right, online forums, and what she'd write if she could add to it, and so much more, including André Gide's Marshlands , which renders a writer's life in relatable terms. contribute! https:/...

Christopher and Drew talk about getting rid of books, and trying to be more in the present, and the logic of owning a lot of books. Also, a digression into Gary Paulsen's work. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more informat...

For this one, we had two producers of the new McSweeney's issue into the Damn Library hyper-verse: Julie Shapiro from Radiotopia and Claire Boyle from McSweeney's. We talk all about this "box of stuff" they produced - from how it feels to curate the 64th edition of this storied literary magazine, to putting audio together, to collaboration, and more. Plus, Christopher and Drew get to talk about so...

Mona Awad joins the guys in the zooming Damn Library to talk her new novel, All's Well , which means talk about Shakespeare, and destiny, and magic happening, and chronic pain - all the fun stuff. Then she brought Sara Gran's Come Closer and everyone got to be possessed by the demon that is Sara Gran's writing style. Can you hear that scratching too? contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink...

Meredith Westgate sets the Damn Library Hyperspace glittering, talking with us about The Shimmering State . The trio of us get into the fabric of memory, the joy of the unreliable narrator, how the book is a litmus test for if you like Los Angeles, and also a bit about adapting her own work for the screen. Plus, she brings us Tim Krabbé's The Vanishing (also known as The Golden Egg ) and everybody...

Christopher and Drew are joined in the zoom hysperspace universe with writing duo Laura Blackett & Eve Gleichman, creators of the inventive rom-com thriller, The Very Nice Box . They all get into how Gleichman and Blackett's partnership started, the joys of creating a sideways satire, and the desire to create warmth in the pages even as the book becomes a thriller. Then, they sink their chompe...

Rosecrans Baldwin drops into the Damn Library's online zoom space to chat all about Los Angeles, the subject of his new book, Everything Now: Lessons from the City-State of Los Angeles. We get into many of the things that make up Los Angeles, how it's different from Paris, and how the book's structure was inspired by Wittgenstein. He also brings along Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories and the City...

Christopher and Drew finally conquer Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley novels, talking (and mildly spoiling) all five of the novels concerning Highsmith's most famous creation. They get into why he's a charming character, and also why reading all five in a row might be needlessly punishing. Plus, a lot of Dune by Frank Herbert talk at the end! Books! You can talk about them a lot! for drink recipes,...

Loan Le is hanging in Zoom Hyperspace with the guys, and since she's a triple threat (writer, editor, reader) there is tons to cover. First, the pleasures of the food writing in A Pho Love Story, and writing teenagers on the brink. Then, what it's like to go from professionally editing books to writing and back again. And finally, with her reader hat on, she brought John Searles' Help for the Haun...

When A.E. Osworth drops into the Damn Library to talk about their novel We Are Watching Eliza Bright, that means we get to really talk about the Internet, since that's where their novel is largely set. This is also how we talk about video games, and epistolary novels, and the process of getting a couple different choruses on the page. Plus, we talk about Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About...