Three Percent Podcast

Today's podcast is a special one, featuring PEN Translation Committee co-chair (and talented Czech translator) Alex Zucker to talk about what translators do and should get paid, and to break down where all the money goes in publishing a work of international literature. In comparison to some other Three Percent podcasts, this one is wall-to-wall information, and is sure to spark a number of debate...

It's time for our annual music podcast in which Chad, Nate, and Kaija all share songs from their favorite albums of 2014. Although we only talk about four songs each on this podcast, we put together a Spotify playlist featuring 86 songs and running almost six hours. Enjoy!   Next week we'll be back to normally scheduled book talk. Specifically, Chad and Tom will be talking with Alex Zucker about t...

This week's podcast is all about Denis Johnson's The Laughing Monsters , which came out last year and is "a high-suspense tale of kaleidoscoping loyalties in the post-9/11 world that shows one of our great novelists at the top of his game."   Writer, critic, and Johnson fan Patrick Smith joined us for this book club discussion, which goes off in a few different directions--how everyone's untrustwo...

In this week's episode, Chad and Tom discuss some of the books they read in 2014 and make specific "reading resolutions" for 2015. They also talk about Mark Zuckerberg's book club  and Tom's alma mater playing for the National Championship.   Next week, they'll be discussing Denis Johnson's The Laughing Monsters , so if you have any questions, suggestions, comments, opinions, rants or raves, email...

On this week's podcast, Chad and Tom dish about the idea of a Translators Union, Dalkey's Korean literature series, and the Melville House edition of the "Torture Report," as well as a mini-rant about the Serial podcast, and a mini-rave about a dear friend who's passed.   As always, you can write to us at threepercentpodcast@gmail.com with complaints, suggestions, ideas for future episodes, or you...

We're back! And, actually, now that Tom has a more regular schedule at Albertine we're planning on recording a new episode every other week. More great (sports) book talk! This week's episode centers around John O'Brien's BookBrunch article, " Don't Blame the Readers for Lack of Interest in Translations ." It's a piece that understandably upset Tom's French employers . . . This is a public episode...

This week's podcast covers four major topics: Nobel Prize winner Patrick Modiano, Michael Henry Heim and The Man Between , the upcoming ALTA Conference , and Atavist Books. And we barely talk about sports at all! But Tom does have a "rave" that includes a a particularily confusing cover.   As always, you can write to us at threepercentpodcast@gmail.com with complaints, suggestions, ideas for futur...

Finally, after weeks of putting this off, here is the long anticipated podcast about Roberto Bolaño's Little Lumpen Novelita . The reason it took so long to get to this was because of Tom's new job as the Deputy Director at Albertine , the most beautiful Franco-centric bookstore in New York (and/or the whole U.S.). We talked shortly after the official launch of the store, which generated a ton of...

This week's podcast is mostly about a BBC article  on Hieroglyph , a collaborative project between scientists and science-fiction writers that was inspired by the Neal Stephenson article " Innovation Starvation ." Basically, this is a call to create fewer dystopian novels, and more positive sci-fi ideas that can help inspire the scientists of tomorrow. More or less.    We also read some fan letter...

In this podcast, Chad and Tom discuss Tom's recent article in Publishing Perspectives (which he wrote in response to Amazon's infamous letter to readers ), along with some thoughts on why we shop at bookstores, and Julian Gough's Litcoin project .    Also, as mentioned at the end of the podcast, Chad and Tom will be discussing Roberto Bolaño's A Little Lumpen Novelita on an episode at the end of S...

With Tom on vacation, Chad recorded a special episode of the podcast with Heather Cleary and Jason Grunebaum, both of whom have a book on the National Translation Award longlist . They talk about Sergio Chejfec's The Dark , Uday Prakash's The Girl with the Golden Parasol , air shows, the future of the American Literary Translators Association, and other non-sports related topics. (Seriously, this...

This week's podcast focuses on two main things: This article by Tim Parks about the sales of Knausgaard's books , and the sale of BookLamp  to Apple for an obscene amount of money .  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit threepercentproblem.substack.com

On this week's podcast, Chad and Tom preview the semifinals of the World Cup of Literature (both suspect Chile will meet the US in the Championship), and then discuss The Truth about the Harry Quebert Affair and a  New Yorker piece about its limited U.S. success. Also, the Penguin Cup  is stupid.    In relation to the rants and raves portion of the podcast, there are videos to be watched from the...

On this week's podcast, Chad and Tom review the opening round of the World Cup of Literature  and make some predictions, talk about the Amazon-Hachette kerfuffle, and discuss the awfulness of The American Outlaws  and the awesomeness of a couple Wikipedia pages. (You have to listen to find out which ones.)  And don't forget that we have a dedicated podcast email address now. So, send your podcast-...

In this week's podcast we talk about the forthcoming World Cup of Literature  and about some of the summer books that we're both looking forward to reading. Almost all are translations; a few are authors you may have already heard of (Knausgaard); and others will be new to a lot of listeners. In our "Rants and Raves" section, Chad raves about a poem (?!--seriously, but it's a really depressing one...

Inspired by Bromance Will's blog , this podcast is all about how New Directions came to publish László Krasznahorkai and how they stuck with him--a situation that resulted in back-to-back Best Translated Book Award victories.    Also, we now have a email address for you to send all your complaints, corrections, and suggestions. Just write to us at threepercentpodcast@gmail.com . So, if you have an...

As a bonus for dedicated Three Percent listeners (both of you!), this podcast features the two Fulbright students studying in the translation program this past year: Ayoub Al-Ahmadi from Yemen and Jan Pytalski from Poland. We talk about their individual projects--both of which are likely to be published by Open Letter in the next few years--cultural differences, the classes they took with me (whic...

OK, that's a totally lame way to try and combine the two main topics of this week's podcast: Gabriel García Marquez, and the awful amazingness of the NY Times Style section article on soccer's popularity in creative circles . Our conversation ranges a bit to include other authors from "el Boom," contemporary Spanish-language writers, and Beyond the Pampas , a GoodReads reading group focused on Lat...

In this week's podcast, Tom and Chad talk about the works of British writer David Peace. Peace was part of the 2003 version of Granta' s " Best of Young British Novelists " (along with Toby Litt, Nicola Baker, David Mitchell, Adam Thirlwell--really solid list), and is the author of nine novels, including the "Red Riding Quartet" ( Nineteen Seventy-Four , Nineteen Seventy-Seven , Nineteen Eighty ,...

In this bonus mini-podcast, Chad and Tom talk about the NCAA tournament, making many definitely wrong predications in over-confident tones. Of course, depending on your level of knowledge of the NCAA tournament (pro wrestling, I think?), you may have to choose a more sarcastic interpretation of the word "bonus." However! If the NCAA Tourney is your bag, then you've hit the jackpot--which is also t...

This week's podcast is EPIC. With a minimum of digressions, we review every single book on the 2014 Best Translated Book Award Fiction Longlist , providing descriptions, some commentary on its chances of winning, other remarks about the titles we've read, etc. This may be a really long episode, but it's also one of the most informative ones we've done, and I'm willing to guarantee that you come aw...

As an interlude in our 2013 round-up series, Tom and I decided to talk about his recent trip to L.A., where he met with Michael Silverblatt of the amazing Bookworm , and about a couple of recent articles that have been making the rounds in social media and whatnot. Namely, we decided to talk a bit about George Packer's Amazon article in the New Yorker . This is a public episode. If you would like...

This week, we finally continue our series of podcasts summing up the books, music, and movies of 2013. Because summing up 2013 only gets old when we say it does! Anyway, the entire Open Letter office is featured on this podcast, with each of us sharing our favorite albums from last year.    And like with the books podcast , each of us wrote a little (or, in Chad's case, of Biblical Length) post ab...

Rather than do our normal "favorite books of XXXX" podcast, we decided to focus on four books from last year that we really liked: Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge , Javier Marias's The Infatuations , Keith Ridgway's Hawthorn & Child , and Arnon Grunberg's Tirza . (Chad also snuck in a reference to Julia Deck's Viviane , which is coming out in April.) Then things devolved--as is probably expected by...

From the choice of the opening song--"Royals" by Lorde--to the main topic of great midwestern bookstores and Wisconsin's beer culture, this podcast is All About Tom. And it's fantastic. Mostly because we get to talk about a lot of great bookstores.    Some of the stores mentioned in this podcast are:   The Book Stall  (Winnetka, IL) Boswell Book Company  (Milwaukee, WI) City Lit Books  (Chicago, I...