That Book

We pop back in from the void to tell you about a new project we've been working on: Proust Curious . It's a podcast about the experience of reading Marcel Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu – all seven volumes. Hosted by Hannah and Cambridge professor Emma Claussen with Michael producing, it's a fun, deeply-considered dive into one of the most intimidating novels in the canon. Please check it...

Our year-end survey. What the hell did we read in 2021???  Books mentioned:  Run, Don't Walk: The Listening House , Mabel Seeley; Hidden Valley Road , Robert Kolker; Piranesi , Susanna Clarke; Intimacies , Katie Kitamura; Visitation , Jenny Erpenbeck; Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee;  Thumbs Up: The Plot , Jean Hanff Korelitz; The Copenhagen Trilogy , Tove Ditlevsen; To Sleep in a Sea of Stars , Chr...

RIP Eve Babitz. Here's our episode on her from September 2020.  Books mentioned: Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming , Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A , Lili Anolik; Catch-22 , Joseph Heller; The Day of the Locust , Nathanael West; Play It as It Lays , Joan Didion; Essays , Michel de Montaigne; Paradise Lost ,...

Re-releasing this episode in tribute to our vampire queen! RIP, Anne. Books mentioned: The Witching Hour and Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice; Dracula by Bram Stoker. Of interest: Amazon reviews , Guardian Q & A , Anne's Youtube Channel , Anne's opinion on editors . Email us at thatbookpod@gmail.com. Don't forget to friend us on Goodreads and follow us on Instagram , Twitter , and Facebook .

In Part 2 of our Rand investigation (our season finale!), we visit Galt's Gulch and figure out what the deal is with Rand's magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged . What's Ayn Rand's favorite color??? Go on, guess. Resources: Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009)  Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009) The Whitaker Chambers on A...

In part one of our (first ever!) two-episode investigation, we tackle the surprisingly ir rational life of Ayn Rand, the polarizing capitalist whose legal name was Alice O'Connor, and who was born Alissa Zionvievna Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Russia. What. A. Ride. Resources: Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009)  Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American...

The man who launched a thousand screams and his alter-ego who launched a thousand "wait, who?"s. It's Stephen King/Richard Bachman day! Happy scary season, everyone! King books mentioned: On Writing, The Shining, Carrie, Needful Things, Salem's Lot, Misery. Bachman books mentioned: The Long Walk, The Regulators.

A dive into the hiveminds behind Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. We raise questions like: what do The Hardy Boys eat? Does Nancy = feminism? And what counts as a clue?  Resources: Nancy Drew's Father , The New Yorker, Meghan O'Rourke Rewriting the Past in Children's Literature: The Hardy Boys an Other Series , Robert L. Crawford (academic article) Books mentioned: Franklin W. Dixon, While the Clock...

One of the most extraordinary pen name tales. Sci-fi savant James Tiptree Jr. had accolades, admirers and many, many pen pals. Problem was, he didn't exist.  James Tiptree Jr. stories discussed in this episode: The Last Flight of Dr. Ain The Women Men Don't See Books mentioned: James Tiptree Jr., Her Smoke Rose Up Forever Julie Phillips, James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon

Our Pseudonym Season kicks off with a look into political miracle-worker Stacey Abrams' other life as romance author Selena Montgomery. Books Mentioned: Stacey Abrams, While Justice Sleeps. Selena Montgomery, Secrets and Lies ; Deception . Robert Caro, The Years of Lyndon Johnson. Callista Gingrich, Sweet Land of Liberty. Next week's James Tiptree Jr. story: The Women Men Don't See

Michael and Hannah gossip about books + preview their upcoming Pseudonym Season! We're thrilled to be back in your ears! Articles and newsletters mentioned: Hermans and Le Carré (The Guardian) The Great Gatsby Glut (NYT) Read Like the Wind (Vulture) The State of the Literary Jonathans (Vanity Fair) Books mentioned: John Le Carré, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold Willem Frederik Hermans, The Darkr...

What we read in this t errible, horrible, no good, very bad year.  Books : The Vanishing Half , Brit Bennett; Field Work , Mischa Berlinski; I Remember You , Yrsa Sigurdardóttir ; Kindred , Octavia Butler; The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle , Stuart Turton; This is How You Lose the Time War , Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; Cleanness , Garth Greenwell; The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes , Suzann...

Some classic segments today! A brief season wrap-up leads into a To the WHAThouse?!?™️ on Aeschylus's The Oresteia  and Michael's (too) early introduction to it. Then a Tackle That Stackle™️hack for your e-reader. Then What Hannah is Actually Reading™️ and what Michael isn't, because he's a deadbeat. Books mentioned: Aeschylus,  The Oresteia ; Brit Bennett, The Vanishing Half ; Kiley Reid, Such a...

In our final episode of the season, we're in New York City with one of the greats, Edith Wharton and her novel The Custom of the Country . We talk being frenemies with Henry James, half-assed ghosts, and why TCotC is a straight-up bop. Books Mentioned: Edith Wharton, Ethan Frome, The Reef ; Hermione Lee, Edith Wharton . Resources: Dearest Edith (1929 New Yorker profile) Edith Wharton - Hermione Le...

Just as the sun shines on that temperate den of vice known as Los Angeles, we shine our (private) eye(s) on noir fiction set in L.A., with authors James M. Cain and Walter Mosley. Taking bets on which one of us takes this as their cue to do a 10-minute monologue on Barbara Stanwyck.  Books mentioned: James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice, Double Indemnity , Mildred Pierce ; Walter Mosley,...

Y'all might have to down some redbull (+ vodka) to keep up with vanilla suit connoisseur Tom Wolfe and his eighties brick, The Bonfire of the Vanities. It is, let's say, equal parts energetic and problematic. We get into why, then do a juicy dive on the misguided movie adaptation starring, bewilderingly, Tom Hanks. Books mentioned: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test , The Right Stuff, A Man in Full &...

Inspired by this New York Times interview by Lindsay Mannering, we dive headfirst into Jessica Simpson's memoir Open Book . Join us as we travel back in time to the early aughts, when jean waistlines were low, cargo pants were plentiful, and Jessica reigned supreme (behind Britney and Xtina).  Further Reading: Open Book reviews: New Yorker , LA Times , Washington Post . Vintage Dlisted on Papa Joe...

If you don't love our pod, how in the *hell* are you gonna love somebody else? ...Did we get that right??? Queen, multi-hyphenate, fracker: RuPaul André Charles does it all in today's ep. Can we get an amen??  Books Mentioned: Lettin' it All Hang Out, Workin' It: RuPaul's Guide to Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Style,  GuRu, all by RuPaul. Resources: How RuPaul Ups the Ante for Drag (NYT, 1993) A...

This week: uber L.A. woman Eve Babitz. How do you talk about a woman who knew everyone and did everything there is to do?? We give it a shot--covering her life, her work, and her recent revival on #bookstagram. Books mentioned: Eve's Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming , Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A , Lili Anolik...

Hannah and Michael travel back to early 20th-century New York and learn about two so-called "forgotten women" of the Harlem Renaissance. This one's a remedial education!   Books Mentioned: Passing , Nella Larsen; Plum Bun , Jessie Redmon Fauset; The Warmth of Other Suns , Isabel Wilkerson; Their Eyes Were Watching God , Zora Neale Hurston; The Vanishing Half , Brit Bennett; Autobiography of an Ex-...

We kick off our bicoastal NY/LA season with Judith Krantz's genre-defining 1978 novel Scruples . WARNING:  not for the kiddos! Judith had a filthy mind, so this ep is definitely NC-17. Judith Obits: NYT , The Guardian , Economist , Bloomberg . Clive James review in the LRB. Clips: 80s miniseries , ABC Pilot Trailer . Books mentioned: Rita Felsky, Doing Time: Feminist Theory and Postmodern Culture...

We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA, and we can't wait to share it with you! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this gem from our Meryl Streep season on The Bridges of Madison County , a true That Book™️. It's over the covered bridge to Madison County, Iowa, the setting for...

We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA, and we can't wait to share it with you! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this ep from our second season about the poetry of Instagram. Michael and Hannah take on creators of poetic #content, try to decide what poetry is (eep) and compa...

We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA, and we can't wait to share it with you! Meanwhile, we hope you enjoy this ep from 2018 about one of the best-selling (and kookiest) authors of all time, Dame Barbara Cartland. Michael and Hannah unpack pink misogynist Dame Barbara...

We are rebroadcasting some of our favorite episodes before the premiere of our Bicoastal Season on September 1st. This season is all about books set in New York and LA and we can't wait to share it with you! In the meantime, we hope you enjoy this oldie from 2018 about the queen of Black romance, Brenda Jackson. Hannah and Michael discuss Brenda Jackson, romance author extraordinaire.  Along the w...