That Book
That Book is about those books you've always heard of but have no idea what their deal is. Hosted by Hannah Weaver and Michael Goldsmith, readers with high expectations and low standards.
Episodes
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
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, John Milton;Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwoo...
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 editor...
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
In part one of our (first ever!) two-episode investigation, we tackle the surprisingly irrational 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:
...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
- Rewritin...
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:
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
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 Read more
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 Rea...
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,
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 Po...
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.
...
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 Jes...
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...
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
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 B...
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
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