Three Percent Podcast

Aside from talking about how we're all about five days away from becoming Howard Hughes, Chad, Brian, and special guest Derek Maine talk about dreams vs. rationality, Nabokov and Bob Dylan, dream lovers and MTV videos,  Twin Peaks  and fantasy baseball. (OK, not the last one.) It's a fun podcast, a minor distraction that hopefully adds a bit of joy into the world. So enjoy! If you'd prefer to watc...

Chad, Brian, and special guest Mark Haber tried their damnedest to bring some levity to our current crisis on this week's episode. They laughed  a lot  while discussing Chad's surprisingly dull dream city, the way  The Dreamed Part just drops you right into the flow, dream logic, how Fresan is the exception that proves the rule, and Chad's quarantine situation. If you'd prefer to watch the convers...

In this week's preview episode for Season 11 of the Two Month Review--featuring  The Dreamed Part  by Rodrigo Fresán and Will Vanderhyden--Chad and Brian try their best to recall details from the plot of  The Invented Part , the first book in the trilogy. They do . . . well, question mark? As cracked out as their descriptions might seem, you're in for a really fun season and a really fun book from...

Today's episode is all about small presses. Chad and Tom breakdown, discuss, elaborate on, and praise, Matvei Yankelevich's recent  Poetry  post ' The New Normal: How We Gave Up the Small Press. " This is a rather wide-ranging conversation about grant applications, distribution for small presses, AWP, professionalization, how to value books aside from sales, the emotional side of publishing, and m...

After a bit of banter about how baseball front offices  might  be as bad at naming things as book people, and a plug for Paul Vidich's  The Coldest Warrior , Chad and Tom each draft four forthcoming books from a total of eight different presses that they've both agreed to read and discuss in future episodes. How could this possibly go wrong?  Also: On the next episode they'll be discussing Matvei...

After a bit of a hiatus, Chad and Tom return to talk about the two biggest things to happen during Winter Institute: The  American Dirt  controversy and the launch of Bookshop.org . If you haven't been following the  American Dirt  debacle, here are a couple pieces to read: Laura Miller's piece in  Slate ,  Rebecca Alter's in  Vulture , and Ron Charles's from the  Washington Post . And here's Chad...

On this week's episode, Chad and Tom discuss Tom's recent piece on J ean-Patrick Manchette for  LARB   and talk about which of his books are best to start with, and why there haven't been more breakout international noir authors. Then they pivot to this  Publishers Weekly  article on the " Top News Stories of 2019 ," discussing the impact of each of the ten. They finish with a joint plug for  Dead...

We did it! Chad and Brian reflect on the somewhat surprising ending to Ducks, Newburyport  and reflect on all 1,000+ of its glorious pages in the season finale to this Two Month Review. They debate whether the book is hopeful or pessimistic, the way in which its solipsism infects the reader's way of seeing the world, and they take one last shot at anti-mom nut job, Dr. Phil. This week's music is "...

Elizabeth DeMeo (assistant book editor at Tin House) joins Chad and Brian in the penultimate episode of this season of the Two Month Review. They talk family therapy. They talk about the Jim's encounter with the lioness. They make predictions about how the book will end. They debate whether it's better to read the book in a few days or a few months. They manage to make it through with a minimal am...

Chad and Brian go it alone on pages 777-862, talking about Galley Beggar's "go fund me" campaign, hardcovers vs. paperbacks, Stacy, what makes something Kafkaesque, the narrator's stasis, and much more. This week's music is " The Surprise Knock " by The New Pornographers. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along with all our past episodes . Monday's episode (up t...

This week, Chad is joined by Rebecca Hussey ( BookRiot ) and Josh Cook (Porter Square Books,  An Exaggerated Murder ) to talk about pages 700-776 of Ducks, Newburyport.  They make comparisons to any number of modernist authors (Proust, Woolf, Joyce), discuss mother-daughter relationships, "mom shaming," Stace's general sense of rebellion, whether or not the "stories" are getting longer as we move...

Jeremy Kitchen (Chicago Public Library,  Eye 94 ) joins Chad and Brian to talk about "a list of definites" about the future, the (pretty silly) controversy surrounding Lucy Ellmann's recent Guardian interview , the way the themes of Duck, Newburyport make it difficult for some people to read, the ways in which this novel is subversive, and much more. This week's music is "Never Been Wrong" by Waxa...

Chad and Tom play a short game on this podcast—when Tom isn't ranting about Amazon. They also discuss Bookshop, when the decade officially ends, favorite translations of the past ten years, Chad's upcoming hiatus from writing for Three Percent, and much more.   Next episode Chad and Tom will discuss Tom's recent article on Jean-Patrick Manchette . This week's music is "Smash Yr Radio" by Nobody. ...

Chad and Brian deliver a true Thanksgiving treat in this episode, digging in deep to the narrative patterns in the book, the way Ellmann constructs the narrator's subjectivity, how the novel is a radical call to action, how some facts aren't really  facts , terrible new slang terms, save the turtles , and much much more. This is maybe the most critical episode of the season in terms of understandi...

Another late night conversation about  Ducks, Newburyport ! This week, P.T. Smith joins to discuss illness, the verbal virtuosity in this novel, sadness, relationships between parents and kids, and much more. Lots of quotes are read throughout this episode, and in honor of Lucy Ellmann's stated like of whisky, some of that takes place as well. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can fin...

Founded in 2016 with their first releases coming in late 2017, Charco Press is one of the most recent additions to the growing number of publishing houses focused on literature in translation. And although they've established a solid reputation in the UK, they just started distributing their books Stateside in October 2019. Chad talked to co-founders Carolina Orloff and Sam McDowell about their vi...

Anastasia Nikolis (poetry editor for Open Letter Books) and Emma Ramadan (translator, co-owner of Riffraaff) join Chad and Tom to breakdown ALTA 42, talk about poetry in translation, and go on a handful of minor rants—and one major one. (Thanks, Emma!) The Sarah Dessen controversy pops up, as does this article about AmazonCrossing , and LitHub's Best Translated Novels of the Decade .  As always, f...

This week's Two Month Review was recorded pretty late (on the east coast), so things are a bit loopy. Nevertheless, James Crossley from Madison Books joins Chad and Brian to talk about pages 429-487 of Ducks, Newburyport.  They talk a bit about the cultural references in this section—the old movies, Blossom— flip ahead to connect the mountain lion's path to the mental landscape of the narrator, an...

Chad and Brian break format a bit and discuss a number of the concerns, anxieties, and social issues that the narrator of  Duck, Newburyport  thinks about. From spiders to Morning Routine videos, active shooter situations to Trump feeling up Kurt Suzuki, this episode is a deep, yet funny, dive into our neuroses and fears. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find it on YouTube along...

A bit of a disorienting podcast for anyone  not  attending ALTA, but in this episode, Chad addresses the recent ALTA book fair controversy, and then they go over the general schedule , highlighting a number of interesting-sounding panels, previewing some off-site events, and recommending non-ALTA bars for attendees to hang out at.  This week's music is "I've Got Reason" by Mikal Cronin. As always,...

Lori Feathers of I nterabang Books in Dallas joined Chad and Brian for this special episode to talk about the destruction of her bookstore, what's next for Interabang, and information about how you can help. (Answer: Order Joytime Killbox   and  The Dreamed Part   from their website.) Then they talk about Lori's interview with Lucy Ellmann, the Serpent Mound (and some conspiracy theory nonsense)....

Rhett McNeil (translator of Machado de Assis, Gonçalo Tavares, Antonio Lobo Antunes, and more) joins Chad and Brian to talk about the way in which  Ducks, Newburyport  is less of a single-sentence and more of a never-ending list, about how it is and isn't like  Ulysses , about time in the novel, about Ellmann's playfulness, about entropy vs. eternal recurrence, and giving the middle finger to Stru...

This week's podcast is about two kerfuffles: the Booker Prize one and the one between King County Library and Macmillan. There's also some discussion as to why UK book culture allows for critique and small voices to be heard (vs. the American way in which everything is  fine ), Chad goes on and on about On Becoming a God in Central Florida , Tom inadvertently recommends  The Invented Part , and ev...

Vanessa Stauffer from Biblioasis came on this episode to talk about the Booker Prize, about the jacket copy she wrote for the  Ducks  galley, about types of moms, about things in the book that pay off and mysteries that remain mysteries, about the ways in which Ellmann is breaking form and the strong feminist perspective underlying this narrative, and much more. It's a fun, free-wheeling conversat...

Due to an unforeseen illness, Chad and Brian ended up going this one alone, and focus mostly on the way that "the fact that" functions, both in building the character and impacting the reader. Chad asks Brian some craft questions, they debate what makes a book "difficult" (and whether this is difficult or just long), more talk about mothers (go moms!), the difficulties of raising children, a hiera...