Third Person Limited
Third Person Limited is a podcast about books and culture with Nathan Pensky and Mason Stockstill, two writers living in Pittsburgh and Los Angeles. We both work in academia, so we are therefore both tired, but in, like, a droll, entertaining way. Our opinions are numerous and wonderful to behold. Each of our chats will focus on a specific book, author, or cultural trend. Talk will be wide-ranging, with other topics likely to include literary gossip, the importance of Michael Mann’s film Heat to modern culture, snack discourse, family news, philosophy of mind, confessional poetry, very funny jokes, and also much less funny jokes. Episodes will often include interviews with working writers both well-known and up-and-coming. We encourage you to listen to this podcast when jogging or cleaning your apartment. Visit our site at thirdpersonlimited.com
Episodes
All those “best books of the year” lists are bogus marketing material that flattens the distinct reading experience that any individual brings to a book they interact with. We tore apart the very concept of those lists in this episode. Then we shared our own Best Books list! Hypocrisy, or nuanced ability to delicately balance competing perspectives? Eh.
Also, what is Author X up to with that crummy novel they released this year? B...
We’re back with more Short Stories We Love, after Nathan scoured the literary mags to find writers who deserve a closer look. Short stories aren’t just for The New Yorker! In this episode, Joey Hedger brings us a tale of cancer and terrible liqueur; Glenn Clifton joins from Canada with a story of viral infamy and relationships; and Patricia Q. Bidar shares an ode to her hometown featuring a massive explosion.
“Her Jesus Year” by J...
We had a great time welcoming writer Amber Sparks to the show and discussing her new novel Happy People Don’t Live Here, which features a girl detective, abusive men, ghosts, a mermaid, and what it means to keep your love for someone alive long after they — or you — are gone. Amber is conflicted about the idea of Virginia Woolf using social media and, like several guests before her, stands up for the unjustly maligned second person...
We sat down with Jason Diamond, bookish man about town and author of Kaplan’s Plot, a multigenerational Jewish gangster saga in bookstores now. He made a strong case for Chicago as a literary city and for not forgetting the immigrant experience in your ancestry. Then, we pull back the curtain on back-of-the-book blurbs and other publicity tactics. “Riveting!” — Stephen King
Works Cited
The Adventures of Augie March, Saul Bellow...
We’re feeling spooky with horror author Kyle Winkler, back to discuss his latest novel, the creepy and horrifying Enter the Peerless, which starts with a private investigator trying to figure out what happened to a bunch of people who went into an abandoned trailer and never came out. Always a thoughtful and fun guest, Kyle gives us some insight into his process for this novel while establishing a mind-meld ...
The first in an occasional series focusing on short stories we found in various journals, and interviews with those authors. Short stories don't get much love outside of The New Yorker or MFA workshops, but they should! Many of them are incredible. Our guests include writers Billy Irving, Kelly Magee, and Kit McGuire.
Works cited this episode:
Alyoshenka legend Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger “The Sound of Thunder,” Ray Bradbury “The ...
We knew Zuck was a fan of the podcast. We didn’t know he would go so far as to dig up our old articles and use them, along with a million other books, to train Meta’s AI. Oh, you say he didn’t do it himself, and maybe it’s not stealing (legal opinions pending)? This may be true, or it may just be a topic we debate on this episode. Plus: We review the novel Luminous, by Silvia Park, a touching story of humans...
Writer Erin Lyndal Martin joins the show to inform us that Saddam Hussein wrote a romance novel, but only after we wondered if Joe Rogan could do it. Other topics include whether men should read more literature, which we think Yes! They should; and whether men doing so would make the world a better place, which we think is debatable. Also, what to do about books that are capital-I Important but maybe not so great?
Bestselling author of The Confessions and bookstore owner Paul Bradley Carr returns for Part 2 of our conversation about artificial intelligence, the power of narratives, drinking blood, and whether vaping is cool (spoiler: it’s not). The AI chatbots kept trying to disrupt our Zoom session with Paul, but for now, humans remain dominant. We also discuss Tom Comitta’s Patchwork, a novella constructed entirely from snippets of text ta...
Author Kyle Winkler joins this episode to talk about horror fiction and his novel Tone Bone. What's scarier: There's a Wocket in my Pocket or Goodnight Moon? Plus, we review BLOB by Maggie Su, and in the process, we enjoy saying "blob" over and over again. Try it!
We invited former tech journalist and bestselling author Paul Bradley Carr for a rollicking discussion about his new novel, The Confessions. It features an all-knowing Artificial Intelligence that doesn’t want to destroy the world—because it was trained by reading fiction. He also shared his polite and not-at-all derogatory thoughts about several leading tech industry personalities. Plus, our discussion of Nobel Prize winner Patric...
We were joined by author and poet Dan Eastman for a discussion about confessional poetry, second-person POV, and the best memes. I ask you: should poems mention Facebook? Still waiting on our podcast name during this episode. Nice of Dan to not make fun of us for this.
Nate and Mason both have MFAs, but do they go around telling everyone and demanding book deals because of it? Well, yes, if you’re offering. But anyway, a social media firestorm about a take about Sally Rooney not having an MFA got us thinking: Are They Good and Should Anyone Care?
Our first episode, before we even had a name for this podcast. So, it's a big question, whether reading is good. Specifically, is reading fiction inherently good, as well as instrumentally good (meaning, it’s good for some other reason, like making you smarter)? We grapple with this, mostly by talking. Also: Why do so many YA novels use orphans as protagonists?
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