Three Percent Podcast

Back at last! Chad and Tom reunite after a month in which Tom finished building an entire bookstore and bar , which is now open! In addition to talking about Riffraff's first week of business, they talk about the NCIBA statement against publishers selling direct to consumers and institutions, about Tyrant Books tweeting about never again working with agents, about "Cat Person," and about the relea...

This week, fresh off a publication in the Boston Review , Jess Fenn (JR Fenn) joins Chad, Brian, and Best Translated Book Award judge Patrick Smith (P.T. Smith) to talk about the second part of Death in Spring . They trace a few motifs, talk about dystopias and literary world-building, and much more. Another very informative and captivating episode about one of the greatest novels of the past hund...

Welcome to one of the strangest villages in all of fiction! Now that Chad and Brian have gone through the stories, they turn their attention to Rodoreda's Death in Spring , which was published posthumously in 1986. They're joined by Catalan researcher and translator Meg Berkobien and Anastasia Nikolis, who you might remember from the season on Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller . This episode is loaded wit...

After yelling at Skype a bunch, Chad, Brian, and special guest Tom Flynn of Volumes Bookcafe discuss the merits of some of Rodoreda's final stories, especially "The Thousand Franc Bill," "Paralysis," and "The Salamander." Then they manage to slightly diss groups upon groups of people--in a rather entertaining way. And they discuss the state of the short story collection and how stories are perceiv...

After doing a bit of a deeper dive into the situation in Catalonia--and discussing the LIVE recording that will take place on December 12th at the new McNally Jackson--Chad and Brian are joined by George Carroll to talk about this batch of Rodoreda's stories. Although a couple of the stories discussed in this episode (especially "Before I Die") fit in with her more domestic stories, there is a dis...

Things are a bit rough for Chad the morning after the Open Letter gala, but he powers through and talks about this new phase of Rodoreda's stories. He and Brian break down some of the more challenging of her stories, including "Noctural" and "The Bath," and talk about what does and doesn't work in creating an authentic voice, and how to behave on airplanes.   Both Selected Stories and Death in Spr...

This week, Mark Haber of Brazos Bookstore and the Best Translated Book Award committee joins Chad and Brian to talk about the next seven stories in Mercè Rodoreda's collection. Although they touch on a number of them, a lot of time is spent focusing on "Carnival" and the literary antecedents to Rodoreda.   Both Selected Stories and Death in Spring  are available through the Open Letter website ,an...

After discussing the incredibly long Dublin Literary Prize longlist , Chad and Tom discuss Polish Reportage, Stanislaw Lem's book covers, ordering books for Riffraff, and a serial killer.   This week's music is " Turning " by Beaches.   One other note: The next season of the Two Month Review  kicked off on Thursday, October 26th with an episode introducing Mercè Rodoreda and the two books of hers...

This week, Chad and Brian dive into the first six stories in Mercè Rodoreda's Selected Stories  and call up Quim Monzó, arguably the most important contemporary Catalan author, to talk about the precision and emotionality in her work. They also talk about Catalan literature as a whole, A Thousand Morons , Catalan independence, and much more. An incredibly fun and funny episode, this one really lay...

Brian Wood is BACK. Complete with a poem he wrote in his time away from the Two Month Review . . . In the introduction to season three, Chad and Brian talk about Catalan literature (briefly), Mercè Rodoreda's career and comps, possible approaches to discussing Rodoreda's stories, and more. As noted elsewhere, this season will start with Mercè Rodoreda's Selected Stories followed by one of her nove...

After an impassioned pitch for why you should support Open Letter's annual campaign , Chad and Tom talk about ALTA, about how best to promote international literature to common readers, about the moral argument for reading translations, about Tim Parks and Han Kang's Human Acts , and about how baseball is broken and breaking Chad's will to live. Enjoy!   One other note: The next season of the Two...

Here it is--the infamous LIVE recording of the Two Month Review ! Chad and Lytton travelled all the way to Brooklyn to record this episode as part of the "Taste of Iceland Festivities." As a result, they recap the book as a whole and reflect on the speech from Iceland's First Lady that prefaced the recording (and which you don't get to hear) before diving into the particulars of the final section...

Icelandic novelist and poet Kári Tulinius joins Chad and Lytton this week to talk about three of the darkest sections of Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller and the history of this novel's reception in Iceland. They also talk about the recent scandal that brought down the Icelandic government--and how it ties into Tómas Jónsson --about why the book was out of print in Iceland for a couple of decades after i...

After a bit of a hiatus, Chad and Tom are back to talk about Riffraff's new location , break down Catalonian politics and the recent editorial gathering the Ramon Llull Institute put on in Barcelona, and somewhat pick apart this article about Deborah Smith's translation of The Vegetarian .   This week's music is " Day I Die " by The National.   As always, feel free to send any and all comments or...

CORRECTION: Throughout this podcast, we joke about having recorded the final episode of the season live at Spoonbill & Sugartown   last weekend. This is a lie! The live event will take place THIS SATURDAY (September 30, 2017) as part of the Taste of Iceland events. Eliza Reid, Iceland's First Lady, will start things off at 2pm, and Lytton and I will follow her. So please ignore all our childish ba...

This week Patrick Smith (Best Translated Book Award judge, The Scofield ) joins Chad and Lytton to talk about this incredibly powerful section of the book, which raises all sorts of topical ideas about adhering to national myths and the problems of masculinity. This is also the section where Hitler shows up, and where a character literally eats himself out of house and home. And this podcast is a...

This week Norwegian translator and ALTA Fellowship recipient David Smith joins Chad and Lytton to talk about the next forty pages of Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller . The two sections covered this week are wildly different from one another, opening with a much more fragmented, poetic bit then transitioning through a hilarious, yet creepy, moment in which Tómas pees all over the laundry room into a more...

This week author and translator Idra Novey joins Chad and Lytton to talk about one of the most challenging sections of the book so far. Not only is there a proliferation of children whose voices constantly interrupt Tómas's thoughts, but there are a few more unsettling bits that raise questions about what we should believe about Tómas's narrative and morality. (Questions that will be further addre...

This week, Jacob Rogers--translator from the Galician and bookseller at Malaprop's in Asheville, North Carolina--joins Chad and Lytton to talk about Tómas Jónsson's next two "composition books." Included in these sections are a long bit about the "board" and the general hierarchy of Tómas's dining hall, the ways in which he's both an insider and someone on the fringes, and the role of the U.S. mil...

In this episode--covering Tómas Jónsson's fourth composition book--a number of the themes of the overall novel are put on display: Tómas's relationship to his body, the way he tries to create a narrative for himself, possible injustices he's suffered during his life, the way his lodgers are like an army, and more. And there's no one better to help parse these elements than author and critic Scott...

This week, Ph. D. candidate Anastasia Nikolis joins Chad and Lytton to talk about the real meat of Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller --chamber pot usage! They also discuss the way our grumpy narrator's mind works, the way he finds beauty in ambiguity, how Lytton translated a very specific word game, and a couple cues to help keep track of "when" particular sections are taking place. A lively and learned e...

And with this episode, we launch the second season of the Two Month Review ! Over a ten-week period, we will be breaking down Tómas Jónsson, Bestseller  by Guðbergur Bergsson, helping explain and explore what makes this book (often referred to as "Iceland's Ulysses ") so influential and interesting. This season, translator, poet, and professor Lytton Smith will join Chad Post to talk about the boo...

On this episode of the Three Percent Podcast, Chad and Tom talk about Peter Straub's 2010 article about genre , the existence (or not) of translation as a genre, Hudson Bookstore's attempt to co-op the indie bookstore "ethos," and this stupid infographic . They also touch on Women in Translation month (with promises of future data to analyze), and the Rochester Plates promotion .   This week's mus...

As a special bonus episode, both Rodrigo Fresán and Will Vanderhyden joined Chad and Brian to talk about The Invented Part as a whole, the first season of the Two Month Review, what's next in the trilogy, technology's revenge on Rodrigo, David Lynch, and, how to write jacket copy .    Feel free to comment on this episode--or on the book in general--either on this post, or at the official  GoodRead...

We did it! After two months, eleven episodes, and a half dozen different guests, Brian and Chand finished their discussion of Rodrigo Fresán's The Invented Part ! Joining them this week to wrap things up is Valerie Miles, translator, publisher, co-founder of Granta en Español , and editor of A Thousand Forests in One Acorn . She's also friends with Rodrigo and offers amazing insight into this wild...