Podcasts by Book Fight

Ep 263: Winter of Wayback, 1994 (Rick Moody, "The Grid") from 2019-02-04T11:00

Boy, the '90s are just flying by! We're already up to 1994, a year marked by tragedy (Kurt Cobain, Nicole Brown Simpson) and triumph (Mike's high school graduation). Our reading this week is a s...

Ep 262: Winter of Wayback, 1993 (John Edgar Wideman) from 2019-01-28T11:00

This week we time-travel back to 1993 to see what was going on in literature, technology, and pop culture. For our reading, we're diving into the John Edgar Wideman short story, "Newborn Thrown ...

Ep 261: Winter of Wayback, 1992 (Larry Brown and Oxford American) from 2019-01-21T11:00

This week we're time-traveling back to 1992, and the first issue of The Oxford American, which in its early years was frequently referred to as "The New Yorker of the South." We read an...

Ep 260-Winter of Wayback, 1991 (Nelson Algren winners) from 2019-01-14T13:19:20

This week, as we continue our adventure through the 90s, we're discussing both the winner and runner-up stories from Listen

Ep 259: Winter of Wayback, 1990 ("The Things They Carried") from 2019-01-07T11:00

Welcome to another Winter of Wayback season, Book Fight friends! After last year's run through the 1950s, this year we're skipping ahead to take on the 90s. Over the next ten weeks, we're going ...

Day Jobs: Bud Smith from 2019-01-02T11:00

Hello, Book Fighters! This is the second episode of Mike's new podcast Day Jobs, where he talks to writers, artists and other creative people about how they make a living. In this episode Mike's...

Ep 258: Holiday Spectacular 2018 from 2018-12-17T11:00

We made it, everyone! To the end of another year (of Book Fight, that is). As per usual, we're closing out the year by reading a ridiculous Christmas-themed book. Actually, this year's selection...

Ep 257: Essays from Andrea Kleine and Jamila Osman from 2018-12-10T11:00

This week, having wrapped up our Fall of Finales but not quite ready for our annual Holiday Spectacular, we decided that we'd each pick a short piece we read recently and loved. Which led us to ...

Ep 256: Fall of Finales, A.A. Gill from 2018-12-03T11:00

This week we're diving into the work of the late A.A. Gill, a famous British journalist and essayist who died of cancer at the tail end of 2016. His final book, Lines in the Sand, collects a bun...

Ep 255: Fall of Finales, Denis Johnson from 2018-11-26T11:00

This week we're talking about Denis Johnson's final book, the short story collection The Largesse of the Sea Maiden. Prior to reading this one, we'd both been fans of Johnson's work, an...

Ep 254: Fall of Finales, Helen Dunmore ("Girl, Balancing") from 2018-11-19T11:00

Neither of us had ever read the work of Helen Dunmore, but the more we looked into her career, the more we felt like we should have. For this week's episode we discussed the story "Girl, Balanci...

Ep 253: Fall of Finales, William Trevor from 2018-11-12T11:00

William Trevor died in 2016, at the age of 98. Two years later, his final book of short stories appeared--titled, appropriately enough, Last-Stories. For this week's episode, we read one of thos...

Ep 252: Fall of Finales, Philip Roth (Nemesis) from 2018-11-05T11:00

This week we're back into our Fall of Finales season, in which we consider the final published work of notable authors. Philip Roth published the novel Nemesis 2010, about two years before he an...

Ep 251: Henry Miller, The Air-Conditioned Nightmare (w/ Evan Madden) from 2018-10-29T10:00

We're taking a little break from our Fall of Finales season this week to chat with special guest Evan Madden, drummer with many hardcore and metal bands over the years, most recently Listen

Ep 250: Fall of Finales, Ernest Hemingway from 2018-10-22T10:00

This week we continue our Fall of Finales season, in which we read and discuss the last published work of various authors. The Strand Magazine recently published a previously unpublished Ernest ...

Ep 249: A Grace Paley Reader, w/ special guest Emma Eisenberg from 2018-10-15T10:00

This week we welcome Emma Eiesenberg to the show. Emma is a writer of fiction and nonfiction, as well as the co-founder of Blue Stoop Philly, an organization which is pulling together all kinds ...

Ep 248: Fall of Finales, Flannery O'Connor from 2018-10-08T10:00

This week we're reading the last published story by Flannery O'Connor, "Parker's Back," which she apparently wrote while in the hospital. We talk about the story itself, O'Connor's humor--which ...

Ep 247: Fall of Finales, Barry Hannah from 2018-10-01T10:00

This fall we're reading authors' final works, and talking about whether it's better to burn out, or to fade away. Barry Hannah is often described as a "writer's writer," and while he never had a...

Ep 246: Fall of Finales, Oliver Sacks from 2018-09-24T10:00

This week marks the beginning of our fall season, during which we'll be talking about finales. That will include the last published works of some famous authors, and possibly some more obscure o...

Ep 245: Romance novels with Dave Thomas from 2018-09-17T10:00

This week we welcome special guest Dave Thomas (no, not that Dave Thomas), a writer of literary fiction--and founding editor of Lockjaw Magazine--who, with his wife, has recently taken a turn to...

Ep 244: Summer of Spouses, Helen Knode (and James Ellroy) from 2018-09-10T10:00

This is it, folks: the last episode in our Summer of Spouses season. We're talking about the writer Helen Knode, who was married for a time to James Ellroy, and who seemed unable to escape his s...

Ep 243: Summer of Spouses, Holiday Reinhorn (and Rainn Wilson) from 2018-09-03T10:00

We're back with another installment in our Summer of Spouses series. This week we've read a short story by Holiday Reinhorn, "Last Seen," from her 2005 collection, Big Cats. The book was well-re...

Ep 242: Summer of Spouses, Margaret Millar (and Ross Macdonald) from 2018-08-27T10:00

We've got another installment this week in our Summer of Spouses, in which we've been reading work by the less-famous partners of well-known authors. Interestingly, early on Margaret Millar's ma...

Ep 241: Summer of Spouses, John Bayley (and Iris Murdoch) from 2018-08-20T10:00

This week we're returning to our Summer of Spouses season to discuss John Bayley's Elegy for Iris, a memoir about his marriage to Iris Murdoch, written while she was suffering from Alzheimer's. ...

Ep 240: Special Guest Daniel DiFranco from 2018-08-13T10:00

This week we welcome another special guest to the podcast: writer, guitarist, high-school music teacher, and debut novelist Daniel DiFranco, whose book, Pan...

Ep 239: Special Guests Stephanie Feldman and Nathaniel Popkin from 2018-08-06T10:00

This week we're taking a quick break from our Summer of Spouses discussions to welcome two guests to the podcast: Stephanie Feldman and Nathaniel Popkin, co-editors of the recently published ant...

Ep 238: Summer of Spouses, Margerie Bonner Lowry from 2018-07-30T10:00

We're still in our Summer of Spouses season, in which we're exploring the lesser-known spouses of famous writers. This week's marriage is a particularly interesting one, and a particularly sad o...

Ep 237: Summer of Spouses, Siri Hustvedt from 2018-07-23T10:00

Welcome to another week in our Summer of Spouses season, in which we read and discuss the work of writers who are married to (or otherwise partnered with) more famous authors. For this week's sh...

Ep 236: Summer of Spouses, John Gregory Dunne from 2018-07-16T10:00

Welcome to another week in our Summer of Spouses season, in which we read and discuss the work of writers who are married to (or otherwise partnered with) more famous authors. We're interested i...

Ep 235: Summer of Spouses, Michael Dorris from 2018-07-09T10:00

We're continuing our Summer of Spouses, in which we read work by the less-famous halves of literary couples. This week it's a couple stories by Michael Dorris, who was married to the writer Loui...

Ep 234: Tess Gallagher, "Instead of Dying" from 2018-07-02T10:00

We're continuing our Summer of Spouses, in which we read work by writers who may have sometimes been overshadowed by their more famous partners. This week our author is Tess Gallagher, a celebra...

Ep 233: Summer of Spouses! from 2018-06-25T21:41:26

This week we're starting our new summer season, in which we'll read work by the less-famous halves of writer couples. To kick it off, we discuss an essay called "Listen

Ep 232: Erika Krouse, Comfort Woman from 2018-06-18T10:00

This week is the final installment in our Spring of Scandal season, and we're wrapping it up with an essay by a writer who saw a scandal from a unique perspective: as a private investigator hire...

Ep 231: Mark Greif, "Afternoon of the Sex Children" from 2018-06-11T10:00

This week we're continuing our Spring of Scandal season with a discussion of Mark Greif's "Afternoon of the Sex Children," first published in N+1, and later appearing in Greif's collection Again...

Ep 230--Sarah Marshall, Remote Control from 2018-06-04T10:00

This week we continue our Spring of Scandal with an essay by Sarah Marshall, first published in the Believer, called "Remote Control: Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan, and the Spectacles of Female ...

Ep 229-Pat Jordan, Trouble in Paradise from 2018-05-28T10:00

This week we're delving into the world of sports, and also the world of the 1980s, and also the world of essays that are maybe kind of mean? Pat Jordan is a real titan of sports writing, one of ...

Ep 228-Edna O'Brien, The Country Girls from 2018-05-21T10:00

This week we're discussing Irish writer Edna O'Brien, and her debut novel from 1960: The Country Girls. The book's frank depiction of sex--or, more accurately, the sexual thoughts of young girls...

Ep 227: Robert Clark Young, Brad Vice, Barry Hannah and Wikipedia from 2018-05-14T10:00

This week we've got a real scandal to unpack: the strange case of a writer named Robert Clark Young, who apparently "revenge-edited" the websites of several authors connected to the Sewanee Writ...

Ep 226-Zhu Wen, "I Love Dollars" from 2018-05-07T10:00

This week we're continuing our Spring of Scandal season with a novella by the Chinese writer Zhu Wen, who stirred controversy by writing about sex, money and Chinese capitalism.

In the se...

Ep 225-Michel Houellebecq, The Elementary Particles from 2018-04-30T10:00

This week we're continuing our Spring of Scandal by discussing author Michel Houllebecq, who's been a polarizing figure in the literary world for years now, particularly in France, where his boo...

Ep 224: Danilo Kis, A Tomb for Boris Davidovich from 2018-04-23T10:00

This week we're talking about another literary scandal--the case of Danilo Kis's A Tomb for Boris Davidovich, for which he was accused of plagiarism, though it eventually became clear there were...

Ep 223: J.T. LeRoy, The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things from 2018-04-16T10:00

This week we resume our Spring of Scandal by diving into the strange story of "J.T. LeRoy," the early-aughts It Boy of the literary scene, who attracted celebrity fans including Bono, Madonna, a...

Bonus: Book Fight After Dark, Caveman Lover Edition from 2018-04-12T12:41:43

We're giving you a special mid-week bonus episode, Book Fight friends, on account of how much we love you, and also as a bit of a teaser for our ongoing Patreon series, Book Fight After Dark, wh...

Ep 222-Not Here, by Hieu Minh Nguyen from 2018-04-09T10:00

This week we welcome special guest Dan Brady, author of the new poetry collection Strange Children, from Publishing Genius Press. Dan is also the longstanding poetry editor of Barrelhouse Magazi...

Ep 221: Chuck Palahniuk, "Guts" from 2018-04-02T10:00

This week we kick off the spring season of Book Fight with a discussion of a Chuck Palahniuk story that apparently made upwards of 50 people pass out. You can check out the story for yourself at...

Ep 220: Winter of Wayback, 1959! from 2018-03-27T04:09:11

This week we're talking about Allen Ginsberg and Diana Trilling. Specifically, we're talking about an essay Diana Trilling wrote for The Partisan Review about attending an Allen Ginsberg reading...

Ep 219-Winter of Wayback, 1958! from 2018-03-19T10:00

Welcome back to our season-long exploration of the 1950s in literature and pop culture! This week we're discussing a 1958 Truman Capote essay, "A House on the Heights," originally published in H...

Book Fight Classic: The Sailor Steve Costigan Stories from 2018-03-15T12:10:22

We had some technical difficulties this week involving accidentally deleted files, so we're reposting this "classic" Book Fight episode from our 2015 Winter of Wayback season, when we visited th...

Crossover Special: Book Fight vs The Drunken Odyssey from 2018-03-12T12:10:23

Tom, along with Barrelhouse Poetry Editor Dan Brady, joined the hosts of The Drunken Odyssey for a special crossover episode, recorded at this year's AWP conference in Tampa. Enjoy!

For m...

Ep 218-Winter of Wayback, 1957 from 2018-03-05T11:00

In 1957, Pulitzer Prize-winning author James Gould Cozzens published the novel By Love Possessed, which took the literary world by storm. Glowing reviews poured in: from Harper's, The New York T...

Ep 217: Winter of Wayback, 1956! from 2018-02-26T11:00

This week we're continuing our exploration of the 1950s in both literature and popular culture. And you can't talk about the 50s without talking about science fiction. We checked out three stori...

Ep 216: Winter of Wayback, 1955 from 2018-02-19T11:00

We're midway through this year's Winter of Wayback: 1950s Edition. For those of you just joining us, we're walking through the decade one year at a time, reading stories and novels as we go, whi...

Ep 215: Winter of Wayback, 1954 from 2018-02-12T11:00

This week on the Winter of Wayback we're visiting 1954, which happens to be the year in which John Updike published his first story, "Friends from Philadelphia," in the New Yorker. He wrote the ...

Ep 214: Winter of Wayback, 1953 from 2018-02-05T11:00

It's the third week in our Winter of Wayback season, and we're diving headfirst into 1953. Our reading this week is a story by Margaret St. Claire, a sci fi and fantasy writer who was quite acti...

Ep 213: Winter of Wayback, 1952 from 2018-01-29T11:00

We're traveling back to 1952, a year in which panty raids were taking America's college campuses by storm, and when Las Vegas was learning to love the bomb--and use it as a marketing tool to dra...

Ep 212: Winter of Wayback, 1951 from 2018-01-22T11:00

It's the second week of our annual Winter of Wayback, and we're diving into 1951! We've got a story from Harris Downey, who isn't a household name these days but was quite the rising literary st...

Ep 211: Winter of Wayback, 1950 from 2018-01-15T11:00

This week we're kicking off another Winter of Wayback season, but this year with a new wrinkle: instead of visiting randomly selected years each week, we've chosen a decade--the 1950s--and will ...

Ep 210: Victor LaValle, The Ballad of Black Tom from 2018-01-08T11:00

This week we welcome special guest Dave K., whose novel—The Bong-Ripping Brides of Count Dragado—you can order from Mason Jar Press. We talked to him about genre, black metal, H.P. Lovecraft...

Ep 208: Charles Lamb, "New Year's Eve" from 2018-01-01T11:00

Happy New Year's, Book Fight family! This week we're ringing in 2018 with a Charles Lamb essay, though as usual we spend most of the episode talking about other stuff: that "Cat Person" story in...

Ep 208-2018 Christmas Spectacular from 2017-12-18T11:00

It's that time of year again, Book Fight family: time to throw a couple logs on the fire, pour yourself some eggnog, and listen to us make our way through another terrible Christmas-themed book....

Ep 207: John Cheever, "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor" from 2017-12-11T11:00

Hey, here's another holiday-themed episode. We discuss a John Cheever story, "Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor." You can read it online, Listen

Ep 206: Peter Straub, Ghost Story from 2017-12-04T11:00

You may be asking yourself how this week's pick is a "holiday book," exactly. Fair question! But one which Mike explains, more or less, in the episode. It's also one of our only forays, thus far...

Ep 205: Mary H K Choi, "Korean Thanksgiving" from 2017-11-27T11:00

This week we're talking about this essay from Aeon, about spending your Thanksgiving in a cemetery with...

Ep 204: Ann Beattie, The Women of This World from 2017-11-20T11:00

We've decided to dive into some holiday-related stories, essays and books to close out the year. First up is "The...

Ep 203: Tom Williams, Don't Start Me Talkin' from 2017-11-13T11:00

This week we're discussing our final novel of the Fall of Frauds, a book about two "authentic" bluesmen who turn out to be not quite what they seem. The music is real enough, but they've adopted...

Ep 202: Live from the Temple Library! from 2017-11-06T11:00

This week's episode was recorded live at Temple University's Paley Library. We were joined by local writers Jason Rakulek and p.e. garcia for a discussion of literary community, balancing the wo...

Ep 201: Fall of Frauds, Jorge Luis Borges from 2017-10-30T10:00

This week we're back with another fraud-themed story, this one from an upstart indie author named Jorge Luis Borges. Probably you haven't heard about him. He's pretty obscure. Anyway, early in h...

Ep 200: Martin Suter, The Last Weynfeldt from 2017-10-23T10:00

This week we're back with another fraud-themed novel, this one from best-selling Swiss author Martin Suter. His fourteenth novel, The Last Weynfeldt, is about art forgery, femme fatales, and wha...

Ep 199: Patricia Highsmith, The Talented Mr. Ripley from 2017-10-16T10:00

This week we continue our Fall of Frauds season by discussing one of the most famous fraud-themed novels out there, Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ripley. If you haven't read the book, do...

Ep 198: Fall of Frauds, Carmen Machado ("Help Me Follow My Sister into the Land of the Dead") from 2017-10-09T10:00

This week we continue our Fall of Fraud theme by examining a story that is, like the Michael Martone story we discussed a couple weeks ago, something of a "fraudulent artifact." In "Help Me Foll...

Ep 197-Fall of Frauds, Robert Olen Butler ("Mid-Autumn") from 2017-10-02T10:00

To be clear, right from the start, the point of this week's episode is not to call Robert Olen Butler a fraud. In fact we both quite enjoyed his story, "Mid-Autumn," from his 1992 collection, A ...

Ep 196: Fall of Frauds, Michael Martone by Michael Martone from 2017-09-25T10:00

This week we continue our Fall of Frauds season with a book that's a kind of "fraudulent artifact." Michael Martone's book Michael Martone (published by FC2) is a series of stories in the form o...

Ep 195: Fall of Frauds, Gordon Haber, "Uggs for Gaza" from 2017-09-18T10:00

This week we're diving into our new fall season, in which we'll be reading stories, essays, and books with a "fraud" theme. That could mean stories in which characters are actually defrauding pe...

Ep 194-Summer of Selfies, Kevin Fanning ("No More Selfies: A Kardashian Dystopia" from 2017-09-11T10:00

This is the last week for our Summer of Selfies, and we're turning our attention to a story about selfies. It's also fan fiction (depending on how one defines fan fiction), so it was pr...

Ep 193-Karl Ove Knausgaard, My Struggle, Book 2 from 2017-09-04T10:00

This week we continue our "summer of selfies" with a book we knew we'd have to read as soon as we conceived of the season's concept. Nearly everyone in the literary world seems to have an opinio...

Ep 192: Summer of Selfies, Gaute Heivoll (Before I Burn) from 2017-08-28T10:00

This week we're continuing our discussion of literary "selfies" with this novel by Gaute Heivoll, which is about a string of arsons in 1970s Norway, though it's also about the writer who is haun...

Ep 191: Summer of Selfies, Jennifer Lunden ("Evidence, in Track Changes") from 2017-08-21T10:00

This week we continue our discussion of literary "selfies" with a piece by Jennifer Lunden that appeared recently in Diagram, called "Evidence, in Track Changes". The piece includes an essay wri...

Ep 190-Summer of Selfies, Curtis Sittenfeld ("Show Don't Tell") from 2017-08-14T10:00

This week we're discussing a recently published story from The New Yorker by Curtis Sittenfeld, author of a number of books, including Prep and An American Wife. In "Show Don't Tell," Sittenfeld...

Ep 189-Summer of Selfies, Tom Chiarella ("My Education") from 2017-08-07T10:00

This week we're continuing our Summer of Selfies theme by discussing confessional essays, including one by Tom Chiarella, a long-time writer and editor for Esquire. In an essay called "My Educat...

Ep 188-Pam Houston, Contents May Have Shifted from 2017-07-31T10:00

This week, as part of our "Summer of Selfies," we discuss the latest book from Pam Houston, a work of fiction that borrows heavily from the author's life and even names its protagonist Pam. We t...

Ep 187-Summer of Selfies, Hunter S. Thompson from 2017-07-24T10:00

This week we're discussing Hunter S. Thompson's famous essay on the Kentucky Derby, which many people credit as the starting point for his gonzo style of journalism. Neither of us had read the p...

Ep 186-Summer of Selfies #1 (Jia Tolentino, "The Personal Essay Boom is Over") from 2017-07-17T10:00

We're kicking off a new season for Book Fight, with a slight change in programming. This week marks the first episode of the Summer of Selfies, in which we'll be discussing some of the best--and...

Book Fight After Dark (free preview) from 2017-07-13T18:30:12

This is a free preview of our first Book Fight After Dark episode. The full version is available to monthly subscribers, via our Patreon page Listen

Ep 185-Bohumil Hrabal, Closely Watched Trains from 2017-07-10T10:00

This week we seek to settle an age-old debate: do you read the foreward first, or wait until you've read the book? Also: Nazis, animal cruelty, impotence, and classic Czech literature.

Th...

Ep184-Daniel Clowes, Patience from 2017-07-03T10:00

We talk about the latest graphic novel by Daniel Clowes. Also we talk about Garfield fan fiction. You're welcome.

Ep 183-Spring Fling, Lydia Davis ("Break it Down") from 2017-06-26T10:00

It's the last week of our spring season, in which we've been discussing stories about different kinds of flings. For this final installment, we're discussing the Lydia Davis story "Break It Down...

Ep 182-Carolyn Nowak, Diana's Electric Tongue (with Claire Folkman and Kelly Phillips) from 2017-06-19T10:00

This week we welcome back fan favorites Kelly Phillips and Claire Folkman, the duo behind Dirty Diamonds, an all-girl comic anthology. They're currently working on their 8th book, Listen

Ep 181-Spring Fling, Samuel Delany ("Ash Wednesday") from 2017-06-12T10:00

This week we're talking about a new essay by Samuel Delany, self-described sex radical. "Ash Wednesday," from the Boston Review, is about a weekend trip the author takes to participate in a seni...

Ep 180-Marcy Dermansy, The Red Car from 2017-06-05T10:00

This week's book is a brand new novel by Marcy Dermansky, about a woman who heads to San Francisco for the funeral of her former boss and, once there, begins to realize she might want to change ...

Ep. 179-Spring Fling, Anton Chekhov ("The Lady with the Dog") from 2017-05-29T10:00

This week we continue our "spring fling" theme by discussing one of the most famous stories about affairs: Chekhov's "The Lady with the Dog." We also talk about Robert Lowell's romantic life, an...

Ep 178-Kiese Laymon, Long Division (with Andre Carrington) from 2017-05-22T12:18:48

We welcome special guest Ande Carrington (author of Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction) to discuss a novel by Kiese Laymon, Long Division. We also talk to Andre about h...

Ep 177-Spring Fling, William Trevor ("A Bit on the Side") from 2017-05-15T10:00

This week we're talking about a short story that traces the end of a long-running affair. Plus literary gossip, dating advice, and more!

Ep 176-Emily St. John Mandel, Station Eleven (w/ Dave Housley) from 2017-05-08T10:00

We welcome special guest Dave Housley (Barrelhouse founding editor and author of several books, most recently Massive Cleansing Fire, a story collection). Dave chose this week's book, the bestse...

Ep 175-Adrian Tomine, Killing and Dying from 2017-05-01T10:00

Look, these episodes can't all be winners. Sometimes we're tired, and easily distracted, and for some reason we talk about onions a lot? But this week's book--a collection of graphic short stori...

Ep 174-Spring Fling, A.M. Homes ("A Real Doll") from 2017-04-24T10:00

This week we're discussing an A.M. Homes story about an adolescent boy who starts "dating" his sister's Barbie. Also, we revisit the time Robert Olen Butler went viral for the wrong reasons (los...

Ep 173-Spring Fling, Mary Gaitskill ("The Secretary") from 2017-04-17T10:00

This week kicks off another special seasonal series: Spring Fling! We'll be reading stories about romance, sex, and affairs of the heart. This week we discuss Mary Gaitskill's story, "The Secret...

Ep 172-George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo from 2017-04-13T12:12:13

This week we're talking about the new George Saunders book, Lincoln in the Bardo, about a bunch of spooky ghosts who hang out in a graveyard with Abraham Lincoln's son. Also: Cheers fan fiction....

Book Fight Classic: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (first released April 2013) from 2017-04-03T10:00

Hey, listeners! Due to a death in Tom's family, there's no new episode this week. But we're reposting this one from the archives (first released in April 2013) in which Tom's old college roommat...

Ep 177-Evan S. Connell, "Mrs. Bridge" (w/ Lauren Grodstein) from 2017-03-27T10:00

We welcome special guest Lauren Grodstein (author of, most recently, the novel Our Short History) to discuss a 1959 novel that's become something of a cult classic, one which never earned its au...

Ep 170: Winter of Wayback, 1866 (Silas Weir Mitchell) from 2017-03-20T10:00

We travel back to 1866 to read "The Case of George Dedlow," a story about Civil War amputees (and a seance!) written by Silas Weir Mitchell, the physician who would later become famous for "the ...

Bonus Ep: AWP 2017 with Lyz Lenz from 2017-03-15T10:00

We talk to Lyz Lenz (writer and managing editor of The Rumpus) from inside a wind tunnel at AWP 2017 in Washington, D.C. Topics include: New York pizza vs. Chicago pizza, misandry, Little House ...

Ep 169: Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea from 2017-03-13T10:00

This week: a good book for a change! Plus a new segment about impenetrable academic writing, and a brief installment of Fan Fiction Corner. What more could you want?

Ep 168: Winter of Wayback, 1961 (Tillie Olsen) from 2017-03-06T11:00

This week we've set the time machine for 1961, and we're reading a story by the author and activist Tillie Olsen. We talk about Olsen's career arc and continued reputation, as well as lots of ot...

Ep 167-Mary Kubica, Don't You Cry from 2017-02-27T11:00

Spoiler alert: this book kinda blows.

Ep 166-Winter of Wayback, 1877 (Deadwood Dick) from 2017-02-20T11:00

We're traveling back in time to 1877 to read a popular, serialized dime-store novel about lots of people shooting guns in the Old West. We talk about the popularity of dime-store novels, and how...

Ep 165-John Connolly, The Book of Lost Things from 2017-02-13T11:00

This novel combines elements of familiar fairy tales and mythic narratives to create a world that feels pretty original. It's a dark world, and a pretty sad one, yet the book also has a sense of...

Ep 164: Winter of Wayback, 1978 (L. H. Sintetos, "Telling the Bees") from 2017-02-06T11:00

L.H. Sintetos had a story featured in the 1978 Best American Short Stories anthology and then seemed to disappear from the literary world. Which is especially surprising, given how good the stor...

Ep 163-Sara Novic, Girl at War from 2017-01-30T11:00

Our book this week is about a young woman whose life was ripped apart by the Yugoslav Civil War, which took her parents and turned her, briefly, into a child soldier, before she made it to Phila...

Ep 162-Winter of Wayback, 1988 (Mary LaChapelle) from 2017-01-23T11:00

This week we're traveling back to 1988 to read a story by Mary LaChapelle, who that year won a Whiting Award and had her debut story collection praised in a number of publications, including The...

Ep 161-Jennifer Weiner, Good in Bed from 2017-01-16T11:00

We've talked about Jennifer Weiner on the show before, usually when she's written (or tweeted) something that's caused a stir in the literary world, or when she and Jonathan Franzen have gotten ...

Ep 160-Winter of Wayback, 1966 (Philip K. Dick) from 2017-01-09T11:00

Our first Winter of Wayback episode for 2017! We're time-traveling back to 1966, a year when the Beatles were bigger than Jesus, the Church of Satan was founded, and Philip K. Dick published the...

Ep 159-Christmas Spectacular 2016 from 2016-12-26T11:00

As is our holiday tradition, we've got two Christmas books this week in a jam-packed, super-sized episode of Book Fight. First we talk about a novel ostensibly about Christmas but really more ab...

Ep 158-Karan Mahajan, The Association of Small Bombs from 2016-12-19T11:00

This week, prompted by a book that's been named to a bunch of Best of 2016 lists, we talk about how those lists are constructed, and whether they're a good representation of a given year's liter...

Ep 157-Fall of Food, Jack London ("A Piece of Steak") from 2016-12-12T11:00

This week's story is about an aging boxer who just wants one last payday (and a big juicy steak). But first he'll have to use all his wiles to defeat a younger, fitter opponent. We also enjoy a ...

Ep 156-Lester Bangs, Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung from 2016-12-05T11:00

We welcome guest Hanif Willis-Abdurraqib (author of, most recently, The Crown Ain't Worth Much) to talk about the collected writings of music critic ...

Bonus: NaNoWriMo 2016 from 2016-12-01T14:37:48

I know you probably think we forgot, but we did not forget. Here at the close of November, we're bringing you a special bonus episode for National Novel Writing Month 2016. We take our usual div...

Ep 155-Fall of Food, "Who Owns Southern Food?" from 2016-11-28T11:00

This week we read an essay from The Oxford American co-written by John T. Edge and Tunde Wey, "Who Owns Southern...

Ep 154-Han Kang, The Vegetarian (guest Sam Allingham) from 2016-11-21T11:00

This week we welcome guest Sam Allingham (author of The Great American Songbook) to discuss the South Korean novel The Vegetarian, which won the Man Booker International Prize. We also talk abou...

Ep 153-Fall of Food, Canada Special (Alice Munro, "Family Furnishings") from 2016-11-14T11:00

A listener sent us a big box of Canadian snacks, so we're devoting this episode to our friendly neighbor to the north. We're talking about an Alice Munro story, "Family Furnishings," and specifi...

Ep 152-W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe from 2016-11-07T11:00

You may know the name Kinsella from the Kevin Costner character Ray Kinsella in Field of Dreams. But it's also the name of the author who wrote the novel, Shoeless Joe, on which that movie was b...

Ep 151-Halloween Spooktacular 2016 from 2016-10-31T10:00

We're talking about two super-spooky short stories for Halloween this year: Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" and Joe Hill's "Abraham's Boys." We talk about what scares us, and the qualities that ...

Ep 150-Fall of Food Special Episode w/ Guest Sarah Sweeney from 2016-10-24T14:21:26

This week we've got a special Fall of Food episode with guest Sarah Sweeney, who chose an essay for us to read: Listen

Ep 149: Fall of Food, Anthony Bourdain ("Don't Eat Before Reading This") from 2016-10-17T10:00

This week we're discussing an Anthony Bourdain essay that became part of his breakout book, Kitchen Confidential, plus we talk about our very different experiences working in food service, and w...

Ep 148-Michael Crichton, Jurrasic Park from 2016-10-10T10:00

This week we welcome special guest Jim Miller to talk about one of his favorite books, Michael Crichton's 1990 bestseller Jurassic Park. We discuss dinosaur knowledge, books we loved as children...

Ep 147-Fall of Food, Stuart Dybek ("Pet Milk") from 2016-10-03T10:00

Do you like food? Do you eat it several times a day in order to survive? Then you will love our new seasonal theme! This fall we'll be reading stories and essays in which food plays a major role...

Ep 146: Cormac McCarthy, The Road from 2016-09-26T10:00

Have you heard of this Cormac McCarthy fellow? Pretty good writer! Somehow, neither of us had ever read The Road, and we thought it was time to rectify that. Especially since America seems to be...

Episode 145: Summer of Second Chances, Matthew Quick ("Do Not Hate Them Very Much") from 2016-09-19T10:00

In the first half of this week's show we discuss this 2007 Matthew Quick story, originally published in Agni. Long-time liste...

Ep 144-Javier Marias, A Heart So White from 2016-09-12T10:00

This week we're reading the critically celebrated 1992 novel by Javier Marias, a writer we've both been meaning to check out for a while now. We talk about what people expect from novels, unusua...

Ep 143-Summer of Second Chances, Sheila Heti ("My Life Is a Joke") from 2016-09-05T10:00

Back in Episode 15, we talked about Sheila Heti's novel How Should a Person Be, which neither of us loved. This week we're giving Heti a second chance, reading a recent story of hers from The Ne...

Ep 142-John McManus, Bitter Milk from 2016-08-29T10:00

Tom picked this novel, the author's first (though he'd already published two story collections, the first of which made him the youngest-ever winner of a Whiting Award). Reading the book made Mi...

Ep 141-Summer of Second Chances, Agatha Christie ("Witness for the Prosecution") from 2016-08-22T10:00

Agatha Christie is one of the world's best-selling authors of all time, yet when we read her novel And Then There Were None earlier this year, we gave it mixed reviews. So we're giving Christie ...

Ep 140-Gregoire Bouillier, The Mystery Guest from 2016-08-15T10:00

Mike first read this book nearly a decade ago, and decided to revisit it after pulling it randomly from his shelf and reading the inscription inside, which he'd managed to forget. We talk about ...

Ep. 139-Summer of Second Chances, Penelope Lively from 2016-08-08T10:00

Back in 105, we were less than thrilled with Penelope Lively's novel Making It Up. This week we're giving her work a second chance by reading a couple short stories from her 1997 collection, The...

Ep 138-Walter Mosley, Devil in a Blue Dress from 2016-08-01T10:00

This week's book is Mosley's first Easy Rawlings novel, in which we're introduced to a war vet in 1948 Los Angeles. We talk about the qualities that make for a good detective novel, and why Rawl...

Ep. 137-Summer of Second Chances, John Barth ("Lost in the Funhouse") from 2016-07-25T10:00

A few years ago we read a John Barth story collection (On With the Story) that Mike enjoyed and Tom did not. So this week Mike's making Tom read one of Barth's most-loved short stories to see if...

Ep 136-Rachel Kushner, The Flamethrowers from 2016-07-18T10:00

We read Rachel Kushner's National Book Award-nominated second novel and try to figure out what we think about it. Is it a great book? Is it an ok book with the scope and ambition and atmospheric...

Ep 135-Summer of Second Chances, Harlan Ellison ("I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream") from 2016-07-11T16:00

Welcome to the first of our new summer series, in which we revisit work by authors who we've panned in the past. We read a Harlan Ellison essay last spring, and found it lacking, but perhaps we'...

Ep 134-M. John Harrison, Light (with Sandra Newman) from 2016-07-04T10:00

We're joined by writer Sandra Newman (author of, most recently, The Country of Ice Cream Star) to discuss a much-revered and deeply weird sci fi novel by M. John Harrison. We talk to Newman abou...

Ep 133: Spring of Success, Jennifer Weiner ("Tour of Duty") from 2016-06-27T10:00

We wrap up our Spring of Success series by checking out the first published story of Jennifer Weiner, which appeared in a 1992 issue of Seventeen Magazine. We talk about Weiner's path to success...

Ep 132-Kanan Makiya, The Rope from 2016-06-20T10:00

Kanan Makiya is probably best known for his 1989 book, Republic of Fear, a nonfictional account of Iraq under Saddam Hussein. He's also known as one of the key Iraqi agitators for the U.S. invas...

Ep 132-Spring of Success, Jonathan Franzen ("Facts") from 2016-06-13T10:00

Welcome to the Franzone! This week we're reading the first published story of celebrated author Jonathan Franzen, which was featured in a 1987 issue of Fiction International. We also talk about ...

Ep 130-John Knowles, A Separate Peace from 2016-06-06T10:00

One of us read this famous WWII coming-of-age novel in high school, while the other is encountering it for the first time. Will it hold up to adult scrutiny? Should today's high school students ...

Ep 129-Spring of Success, Elizabeth Gilbert ("Pilgrims") from 2016-05-30T10:00

This week we read Elizabeth Gilbert's debut story, "Pilgrims." It was originally published in Esquire. We did not care for it.

For more, visit us online at Listen

Ep 128-Jennifer Egan, The Goon Squad (guest Josh Fruhlinger) from 2016-05-23T10:00

We welcome special guest Josh Fruhlinger, proprietor of the popular and long-running blog The Comics Cumudgeon, as well as the author of a recent novel, The Enthusiast, to discuss Jennifer Egan'...

Ep 127-Spring of Success, Donald Ray Pollock ("Bactine") from 2016-05-16T10:00

An unconventional literary success story this week, as we talk about Donald Ray Pollock's 2008 debut story collection, KNOCKEMSTIFF, which he wrote after quitting his job at a paper mill and giv...

Bonus Episode: Matthew Vollmer from 2016-05-12T00:51:27

A special mid-week treat for you, Book Fight fans. Tom was recently in Blacksburg, Virginia, for a conference at Virginia Tech, and sat down with Matthew Vollmer, author of Inscriptions for Head...

Ep 126: Gary K. Wolf, Who Censored Roger Rabbit? from 2016-05-09T10:00

We welcome guest Jen A. Miller (Running: A Love Story) who helps us unpack the 1981 novel that served as inspiration for the famous film, Who Framed ...

Ep 125-Spring of Success, Amy Hempel ("In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried") from 2016-05-02T10:00

Amy Hempel's first published story was a breakout success, and has gone on to be one of the most anthologized stories of the last few decades. We talk about her path to success, and why this sto...

Ep 124-Don DeLillo, Zero K from 2016-04-25T10:00

We talk about DeLillo's forthcoming novel--a meditation on death, love, language and the permanence/impermanence of objects. If that sounds kinda heavy ... well, it is a DeLillo novel. In the se...

Ep 123-Spring of Success, Jhumpa Lahiri ("A Temporary Matter") from 2016-04-18T10:00

Our second installment in the Spring of Success has us considering the breakthrough of Jhumpa Lahiri, who had two stories in The New Yorker within a few months of each other, then a story collec...

Ep 122-Agatha Christie, And Then There Were None from 2016-04-11T10:00

One of the most popular mystery novels by one of the world's best-selling mystery novelists. Also: weirdly racist? In America, the title of this Christie novel has always been And Then There Wer...

AWP Extra: Elisa Gabbert from 2016-04-07T02:55:16

In this free bonus episode, we meet up with poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert on the floor of the AWP conference in Los Angeles. We talk with her about what kind of poetry goes over well at bars, ...

Ep 121-Spring of Success, Wells Tower ("The Brown Coast") from 2016-04-04T10:00

Welcome to the Spring of Success! During these seasonal episodes we'll be reading writers' breakthrough stories or essays and talking about how they achieved success. We'll also talk about vario...

Ep 120-CS Lewis, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe from 2016-03-28T10:00

This week we're reading the first novel in C.S. Lewis's beloved Narnia series, which Mike loved as a child and somehow Tom missed out on entirely. Will the book hold up to the scrutiny of two sk...

Ep119-Winter of Wayback, 1975 (Harry Crews) from 2016-03-21T10:00

It's the last week for our Winter of Wayback episodes this year, and we're investigating 1975. We've got a Harry Crews essay from Playboy about a day spent with some local grits in Johnson City,...

Ep 118-Joseph Mitchell, Joe Gould's Secret from 2016-03-14T10:00

This week's book is actually two New Yorker profiles of a famous bohemian, writer, poet and all-around Greenwich Village eccentric. Mitchell first wrote about Gould in 1942, then wrote a much lo...

Ep 117-Winter of Wayback, 1935 (John Dickson Carr) from 2016-03-07T11:00

We've zoomed back in time to 1935, a year in which Philly politics got ugly, and monkeys ran wild on the streets of New York City. It was also the "golden age of detective fiction," so we read t...

Ep 116-Lillian Ross, Picture (w/ guest Jason Fagone) from 2016-02-29T11:00

Guest Jason Fagone (Horseman of the Esophagus) picked Lillian Ross's famous work of embedded Hollywood journalism, PICTURE, for which the writer followed along as John Huston tried to bring Step...

Ep 115-Winter of Wayback 1958 (Alfred Chester) from 2016-02-22T11:00

On this week's episode we're discussing Alfred Chester, whose life took enough bizarre twists and turns to inspire this 2008 Blake Bailey...

Ep 114: Chris Bachelder, Abbott Awaits (with guest Andrew Brininstool) from 2016-02-15T11:00

Join us as we talk earnestness versus cynicism, Philly vs. Dallas, and owning a Himalayan salt block versus maintaining your dignity! We're joined by Andrew Brininstool, author of Crude Sketches...

Ep 113-Winter of Wayback, 1883 (Sarah Orne Jewett) from 2016-02-08T11:00

This week we're zooming back in time to 1883, where we read a story by Sarah Orne Jewett, noted chronicler of New England life, and discuss so many other things: art theft, drinking the water of...

Episode 112: Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl from 2016-02-01T11:00

This week we're talking about the blockbuster thriller Gone Girl, and whether it's a feminist masterpiece or a men's rights activist's wet dream (or both? or neither?). 

For more, includi...

Ep 111-Winter of Wayback 1922 from 2016-01-25T11:00

We're time-traveling back to 1922, where we check out an early edition of Best American Short Stories, including a story by Ring Lardner and another that, in a review of the collection, was call...

Ep 110-Sarah Shotland, Junkette from 2016-01-18T11:00

This week we're talking about Sarah Shotland's 2014 novel Junkette, about a young woman trying to escape both heroin addiction and a seriously codependent relationship--maybe two codependent rel...

Ep 109-Winter of Wayback, 1914 (The Smart Set) from 2016-01-11T11:00

Back by popular demand, we're embarking on another Winter of Wayback, in which we pick a year, then read a story or essay from that year and research a variety of literary and non-literary happe...

Ep 108-Elizabeth Hardwick, Sleepless Nights from 2016-01-04T11:00

Welcome to the new year, Book Fighters! This week we're talking about an Elizabeth Hardwick book that is something of a cult classic, though at least one of us is decidedly not in the cult. Also...

Ep107-2015 Christmas Spectacular from 2015-12-21T11:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year! A time for gathering with family, drinking lots of egg nog, and reading some absurdly terrible Christmas-themed books. First up this year is Christmas L...

Ep 106-Isaac Fitzgerald, High for the Holidays from 2015-12-14T11:00

In celebration of the holidays, this week we're talking about an Isaac Fitzgerald essay, originally published b...

Ep 105-Penelope Lively, Making It Up from 2015-12-07T11:00

Penelope Lively has written more than thirty books, and Tom picked this one, for some reason. The novel purports to explore the line between fiction and nonfiction, but it does so in a way neith...

Ep 104-Elspeth Davie, "The Night of the Funny Hats" from 2015-11-30T11:00

This week we're discussing the title story of Scottish writer Elspeth Davie's 1980 story collection. Though her story collections were well-reviewed, Davie is far from a household name. We talk ...

Ep 103: Renata Adler, Speedboat from 2015-11-23T11:00

A long episode about a short book: it's the Book Fight way! In the first half of the episode we try to figure out Adler's 1976 novel, which has been cited as a touchstone by many writers, includ...

Ep 102-Lyz Lenz, "Swinging with Absalom" from 2015-11-16T11:00

For today's episode we read this essay from The Toast, about the author's trip to Jerusalem, her religious parents, and the rift i...

Ep 101-James Tate Hill, Academy Gothic from 2015-11-09T11:00

This week's book is both a detective story and an academic satire. We talk about the genre conventions of noir novels, and some of the more frustrating and ridiculous aspects of academia. In the...

Ep 100: Dennis Lehane, "Before Gwen" from 2015-11-02T11:00

This week we talk about a story by the crime writer Dennis Lehane (author of Gone Baby Gone, Mystic River, and lots of other stuff). We also dip back into the NaNoWriMo forums to offer our advic...

Ep 99-Karl Ove Knausgaard, A Time for Everything from 2015-10-26T10:00

Everyone's been talking about Karl Ove Knausgaard's six-volume series of autobiographical novels, My Struggle. But we're reading the doorstop of a novel that won him acclaim in his home country ...

Ep 98: Road Trip Special from 2015-10-19T10:00

This week we're hitting the road, recording while driving to the Barrelhouse-sponsored Conversations and Connections writers' conference in Pittsburgh. To make our conversation thematically appr...

Ep 97: Jeff Sharlet, "#Nightshift: Excerpts from an Instagram Essay" from 2015-10-12T10:00

We discuss Jeff Sharlet's Instagram essay, created with the hashtag #Nightshift and later featured on Longreads (Listen

Ep 96-Emily Carroll, Through the Woods from 2015-10-05T10:00

This week we've got a pair of guests, Kelly Phillips and Claire Folkman, editors of Dirty Diamonds: An All-Girl Comics Anthology, and recent winners o...

Ep 95-Elissa Washuta, "Consumption" from 2015-09-28T10:00

This week's reading is an essay about college binge drinking from a recent issue of Okey-Panky. We contemplate wh...

Ep 94: Elfriede Jelinek, Greed from 2015-09-21T10:00

This week's book was a donor pick, and man it sure was weird. Jelinek won the Nobel Prize just before this novel came out, though the award was not without controversy (one committee member actu...

Summer of Love: Frederick Barthelme, "Shopgirls" from 2015-09-14T13:01:17

Summer is coming to an end, and so is our Summer of Love feature. Join us for one final lap in the pool as we discuss this second-person story about how you're a real creep who should maybe stop...

Ep 93-Rachel B Glaser, Paulina and Fran from 2015-09-07T10:00

We welcome special guest Helen McClory this week, who traveled all the way from Scottland to make us discuss the new novel by Rachel B. Glaser, Listen

Summer of Love: Charles D'Ambrosio, "Drummond and Son" from 2015-08-31T10:00

This week's story is one of Tom's favorites, which he teaches often as an antidote to his usual depressing fare. Though it's debatable whether D'Ambrosio's story of a man caring for his psycholo...

Ep 92-Marguerite Duras, The Lover from 2015-08-24T10:00

Duras wrote this short, 110-page novel late in her career, in 1984, claiming it was "purely autobiographical," which created a bit of a scandal in certain corners, since the plot revolves around...

Summer of Love: Lorrie Moore, "How to be an Other Woman" from 2015-08-17T10:00

This week we revisit a story about adultery from Lorrie Moore's debut story collection, Listen

Ep 91-Neil Stephenson, Snow Crash from 2015-08-10T10:00

Tom tries to get Mike to enjoy some science fiction, and Mike says: no, thank you. We discuss predictions of the future, annoying robots, 90s slang, and information overload. Also this week, a n...

Summer of Love: David Sedaris, "I Like Guys" from 2015-08-03T10:00

Ths week we're discussing the David Sedaris story, "I Like Guys," from his book Listen

Ep 90-Sarah Hepola, Blackout: Remembering The Things I Drank To Forget from 2015-07-27T10:00

On this week's episode things get real: after reading Sarah Hepola's recent memoir we're prompted to discuss our own drinking habits, and whether we should be concerned about them.

We als...

Summer of Love: George Saunders, "The Barber's Unhappiness" from 2015-07-20T10:00

This week we're discussing George Saunders, generous humor vs mean-spirited humor, computer and online dating, and top wedding songs. Also, Tom talks about a lady he dated who isn't his wife! An...

Ep 89-Gaiman and Pratchett, Good Omens from 2015-07-13T10:00

This 1990 book is something of a cult classic, one many people first read in their teenage years, though neither of us ever did. So we're reading it now, for the first time, and trying to figure...

Summer of Love: Allan Gurganus, "Minor Heroism" from 2015-07-06T10:00

This week we're kicking off our new seasonal feature, the Summer of Love, with what is supposedly the first story with gay characters to appear in the New Yorker (in 1974). The story was also th...

Ep 88-Marlon James, The Book of Night Women from 2015-06-29T10:00

We welcome guest Asali Solomon, author of the new novel Disgruntled, to talk about Marlon...

Spring of Spite: Edgar Allan Poe, "The Cask of Amontillado" from 2015-06-22T10:00

Our final installment in the Spring of Spite, and we've got a story that is spiteful in two ways. The story's narrator is almost certainly motivated by spite, and it would seem that Poe himself ...

Ep 87-Paul Beatty, The Sellout from 2015-06-15T10:00

Paul Beatty's latest book, The Sellout, ...

Spring of Spite: Stanley Elkin from 2015-06-08T10:00

This week's spiteful story is "A Poetics for Bullies," which Stanley Elkin has described as the best story he ever wrote. In it, Push the Bully comes up against his greatest challenge: a new kid...

Ep 86-Maggie Nelson, Bluets from 2015-06-01T10:00

This week's discussion centers on a genre-bending book by Maggie Nelson, an unconventional memoir and a treatise on perception, pain, love and loss, and the color blue. Listen

Spring of Spite: Harlan Ellison from 2015-05-25T10:00

This week we're reading an essay by Harlan Ellison called "The Three Most Important Things in Life," which was suggested to us by a list...

Ep.85-Donald Antrim, Elect Mr Robinson For a Better World from 2015-05-18T10:00

This week is another donor pick, Donald Antrim's first novel, which presents a kind of dystopic view of an American suburb, one where people build moats around their houses and a town mayor is d...

Spring of Spite: Thomas Bernhard, My Prizes from 2015-05-11T10:00

For this installment of the Spring of Spite we read a few selections from Bernhard's collection MY PRIZES, which includes essays about his experiences with prize ceremonies and some speeches he ...

Ep 84: Alexander von Humboldt, Personal Narrative of a Journey to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent from 2015-05-04T10:00

This week we're reading (part of) this famous work of natural history from the early 19th century. Alexander von Humboldt traveled extensively in Latin America and recorded all sorts of stuff: g...

Spring of Spite: Flannery O'Connor from 2015-04-27T13:52:34

Week two in our Spring of Spite, and we're reading a delightfully odd Flannery O'Connor story called "Enoch and the Gorilla," about a man who is very excited to insult a famous ape. Though thing...

Ep 83: DJ Waldie, Holy Land from 2015-04-20T10:00

This week's book is an unconventional memoir: in 300 short, numbered sections, Waldie investigates the origins of his hometown, a suburb outside of Los Angeles considered the Levittown of Southe...

Spring of Spite: Richard Yates from 2015-04-13T10:00

Welcome to your first installment in the Spring of Spite! This week we're reading a Richard Yates story, "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired," which paints a pretty rough portrait of the author's mother an...

Ep 82: Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World from 2015-04-06T10:00

This week is a Tom pick, by a writer who is Mexico's greatest novelist, if the blurb on the front cover is true. The novel--Herrera's only, so far, to be translated into English--follows a young...

Winter of Wayback: 1916 from 2015-03-30T10:00

It's our last Winter of Wayback episode before we have to finally admit that spring has sprung. This week we're traveling to 1916, where we read a P.G. Wodehouse story ("Jeeves Takes Charge"). W...

Ep 81: David Carr, The Night of the Gun from 2015-03-23T10:00

This week's book is an addiction and recovery memoir by celebrated journalist David Carr, who recently lost a battle with cancer (after surviving lymphoma, as detailed in the book). Carr takes a...

Winter of Wayback: 1932 from 2015-03-16T10:00

A bit of a reading detour this week as we take up two stories from pulp writer Robert E. Howard, who invented both Conan the Barbarian and Sailor Steve Costigan, the sailor who loved to fight. W...

Ep 80-Nathan Rabin, You Don't Know Me But You Don't Like Me from 2015-03-09T10:00

We're joined this week by Dave Housley (author of the new story collection Listen

Winter of Wayback: 1944 from 2015-03-02T11:00

This week we're traveling back to 1944, reading a Raymond Chandler essay about what makes a good story, and talking about various events not related to D-Day, because we're pretty sure that's be...

Ep 79-Emmanuel Carrere, The Adversary from 2015-02-23T11:00

This week we're reading the breakout 2001 book by French writer Emmanuel Carrere, a true-crime story about a man who killed his wife, children, and parents after living a life of, as the book's ...

Winter of Wayback #4: 1894 from 2015-02-16T11:00

This week we've set the Wayback Machine to 1894: We're reading a Kate Chopin story and talking about phonographs, anarchists, and shooting your guns into the air as if you didn't particularly ca...

Ep 78-A.J.A. Symons, The Quest for Corvo from 2015-02-09T11:00

This week we're reading a 1934 cult classic (subtitled "An Experiment in Biography") that sees its author on the hunt for information about one Baron Corvo, also known as Frederick Rolfe, writer...

Winter of Wayback: 1941 from 2015-02-02T11:00

This week we're talking about Kay Boyle's story "Defeat," an O'Henry winner from 1941. We also talk about a number of interesting things that happened in 1941, including: alien sightings, the ti...

Ep 77-Robb Forman Dew, Dale Loves Sophie to Death from 2015-01-26T11:00

We're back with another book episode, this one about the 1982 National Book Award winner for best debut novel. We talk about "quiet" novels, prickly female protagonists, portrayals of parental a...

Winter of Wayback: 1982 from 2015-01-19T11:00

Astute listeners might note that we're supposed to have a book episode this week. Unfortunately, we lost that episode in a technical snafu. Fortunately, we already had the next Winter of Wayback...

Winter of Wayback: 1977 from 2015-01-12T11:00

We're kicking off our next seasonal series, the Winter of Wayback, in which we'll read a prize story or essay from a given year and talk about that year's pop culture--movies, music, books, weir...

Ep 76: James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk from 2015-01-05T11:00

We're joined by guest Annie Liontas (Let Me ...

Fall of Failure 8: Brian Oliu and the Psychology of Failure from 2014-12-29T11:00

This is the last week for our Fall of Failure. We're reading a short, unconventional essay by Brian Oliu called "As Is," in which the auth...

Episode 75: 2014 Holiday Spectacular from 2014-12-22T11:00

Pour yourself some eggnog, light a fire, and curl up with a couple Christmas books of questionable quality. As we have the last two years, we're taking a break from our usual reading list to che...

Fall of Failure #7: Stefan Zweig and Failed Comebacks from 2014-12-15T11:00

This week's story is Stefan Zweig's "The Royal Game," which he sent off to his publisher along with the manuscript of his memoir and also his suicide note. We also talk about a variety of failed...

Ep 74-Greg Baxter, A Preparation for Death from 2014-12-08T11:00

In keeping with our fall theme, this week we're reading a memoir about failure: personal, professional, artistic ... basically all the failures. Greg Baxter moved to Dublin after failing to sell...

Fall of Failure #6: Daniel Hoyt and Poe's Nemesis from 2014-12-01T11:00

Our short story this week is called "Here I Am," about a man who goes on living after his head is separated from his body. We also talk about artistic failures: in particular, the story of Poe's...

Ep 73-Mark Binelli, Detroit City Is The Place to Be from 2014-11-24T11:00

We're joined this week by Gina Myers (poet, reviewer, recent transplant to Philadelphia) to discuss Mark Binelli's examination of Detroit. Binelli gre...

Fall of Failure Ep 5: Kevin Sampsell and Failed Utopias from 2014-11-17T11:00

This week we're reading Kevin Sampsell's essay "I'm Jumping Off The Bridge" and talking about failed utopias: shakers, fr...

Ep 72-Ravi Mangla, Understudies from 2014-11-10T11:00

This week's book is a Tom pick, and was also the runner-up in last year's listener poll, narrowly losing out to The Silver Linings Playbook. Also: it's November, so we're once again talking abou...

Fall of Failure: Eula Biss and Failed Amusement Parks from 2014-11-03T11:00

This week's essay is a Tom pick, an essay by Eula Biss called "Time and Distance Overcome," which is about, among other things, early telephone technology, resistance to telephone poles, and the...

Ep. 71-Amity Gaige, Schroder from 2014-10-27T10:00

This week we're discussing a novel that ...

Fall of Failure Ep. 3: Melnick and Failed Dog Breeds from 2014-10-20T10:00

This week we're talking about the story "Strawberry Lipstick" from Kseniya Melnik's debut collection, Listen

Ep 70: Faulkner, As I Lay Dying from 2014-10-13T10:00

This week we're reading Faulkner's As I Lay Dying. We talk about stream-of-consciousness narration, and whether the book should be considered a comedy. Also lots of other stuff. For more, includ...

Live in Manayunk! from 2014-10-06T10:00

Our first-ever live episode, recorded at The Spiral Bookcase in Manayunk, just outside Center City Philadelphia and a few blocks from Tom's ancestral ...

Fall of Failure Ep 2: Bechdel and Betamax from 2014-09-29T10:00

This week we're talking about an excerpt from Alison Bechdel's graphic memoir Fun Home. We discuss the ethical issues raised by writing about one's family, and what makes a memoir compelling. We...

Ep 69-Andre Dubus III, Townie from 2014-09-22T10:00

We talk about the younger Dubus's 2011 memoir of growing up in a series of rough neighborhoods, learning to fight, and making his peace with a mostly absent father. Also: raccoon news!

Fall of Failure Ep 1: J.D. Daniels, "Letter from Majorca" from 2014-09-15T10:00

This week we're kicking off our new fall series, in which we read short stories and essays and also talk about various kinds of failure. In today's episode we're talking about J.D. Daniels' essa...

Ep 68-Kenzaburo Oe, A Personal Matter from 2014-09-08T10:00

This 1964 novel is one of the best-known by Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994. The book follows Bird, a new father deciding whether to save his newbo...

Summer of Shorts Ep 8: Lorrie Moore and Shorts Jobs from 2014-09-01T10:00

The summer is over, and so is our Summer of Shorts. In this final installment, we talk about Lorrie Moore's "People Like That Are The Only People Here" and--for those who've fallen in love with ...

Ep 67-Geoff Dyer, Yoga For People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It from 2014-08-25T10:00

This week's book is a Mike pick: an essay collection about travel, displacement, love, loss and occasional psychedelic drugs. We talk about the necessary artifice of narration, and why readers s...

Summer of Shorts Ep 7-Barthelme and Swim Trunks from 2014-08-18T10:00

This week on Summer of Shorts we're talking about Donald Barthelme's "Me and Miss Mandible" and also swim trunks. Tom is headed out on a beach vacation, despite pretty much hating the beach, whe...

Summer of Shorts Ep. 6: Sherman Alexie and Boxers from 2014-08-11T10:00

This week's story is "What You Pawn I Will Redeem," by Sherman Alexie. This week's shorts are boxers. Trigger warning: We're gonna talk about our underpants.

Ep 66-Aglaja Veteranyi, Why the Child is Cooking in the Polenta from 2014-08-04T10:00

We're joined this week by Matt Jakubowski--writer, critic, and interviews editor for the international journal Asymptote--to discuss the English translation of Aglaja Veteranyi's Why the Child i...

Summer of Shorts Ep 5: Gaitskill and Gym Shorts from 2014-07-28T10:00

This week we're discussing Mary Gaitskill's "The Girl on the Plane," and also gym shorts. What more could you possibly need to know?

Ep65-Salinger, Raise High the Roofbeams Carpenter and Seymour an Introduction from 2014-07-21T10:00

This week we read two long stories (novellas, maybe?) by some guy named J.D. Salinger. Maybe you've heard of him. Kind of a recluse? Didn't like phonies? Both stories are about Seymour Glass, an...

Summer of Shorts Ep. 4-Edward Porter and Cargo Shorts from 2014-07-14T10:00

We welcome special guest Dave Housley (Barrelhouse editor, author of the forthcoming If I Knew The Way, I Would Take You Home) to discuss Edward Porter's "The White Guy's Guide to Marrying a Bla...

Ep 64-Anita Konkka, A Fool's Paradise from 2014-07-07T10:00

This week Tom continues his year-long exploration of books outside his usual reading patterns, with Finnish writer's Anita Konkka's A Fool's Paradise, published by Dalkey Archive Press. And Mike...

Summer of Shorts: Beard and Skorts from 2014-06-30T10:00

This week is all about genre-bending. We talk about Jo Ann Beard's essay "Werner," which was included in the 2007 edition of Best American Nonfiction, edited by David Foster Wallace, and which m...

Ep 63-Michael W. Clune, White Out from 2014-06-23T10:00

We welcome guest Leslie Jamson (The Empathy Exams) to discuss Michael W. Clune's memoir White Out: The Secret Life of Heroin. Clun...

Summer of Shorts: Dubus and Jorts from 2014-06-16T10:00

Welcome back to the Summer of Shorts! This week we're talking about an Andre Dubus story, "The Fat Girl," which follows its protagonist, Louise, from childhood through marriage and pregnancy as ...

Ep 62: Peter Sotos, Mine from 2014-06-09T10:00

Our last donor pick of the year, this book by Peter Sotos is pretty disturbing. We talk about trigger warnings, both in general and in relation to this particular book, which delves into pedophi...

Summer of Shorts: Braverman and Bermudas from 2014-06-02T10:00

Today we're kicking off the Summer of Shorts by talking about the Kate Braverman story "Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta Listen

Ep 61-Sylvester Stallone, Rocky II from 2014-05-26T10:00

We're joined this week by Philadelphia native Dan McQuade to discuss the novelisation of Rocky II, which pretty much sticks to the plot of the film, but is narrated by Rocky himself, who turns o...

Writers Ask: Worm Cans from 2014-05-19T10:00

On this week's Writers Ask, we counsel someone who's been rejected from all the MFA programs to which he's applied. Should he simply give up? Choose a different path? Or put his head down, keep ...

Ep 60-Kevin Canty, Into the Great Wide Open from 2014-05-12T10:00

This week's book, Canty's first novel, is one of Mike's favorites, while Tom is reading it for the first time. We talk about doomed teenage romance, small moments carefully observed, and what ma...

Writers Ask: Heaven Is For Real from 2014-05-05T10:00

We revisit the topic of writers conferences, and offer advice on how to choose a good one. Also: do writers need to be well-versed in the literary canon (however that might be defined), or is it...

Ep 59-Tatyana Tolstaya, The Slynx from 2014-04-28T10:00

A dystopian Russian novel that explores life after a mysterious "blast" has turned back history, leaving a barely-literate population toiling in mind-numbing jobs and trapping rodents for curren...

Writers Ask: Book Fight After Dark from 2014-04-21T10:00

We recorded this episode pretty late at night. I am posting this episode recap pretty late at night. We talked about some things, like how much MFAs cost, whether grad student pay rates are fair...

Ep 58-Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question from 2014-04-14T10:00

This book won the Man Booker prize, though at least one of us might have thrown it across his living room. We talk about funny novels versus "comic novels," middle-aged male novelists who can't ...

Bonus Episode: Matthew Quick, The Silver Linings Playbook from 2014-04-11T05:16:29

Finally, listeners, it's here. We're reading the best-selling novel by Tom's nemesis and America's sweetheart, Q. Will Mike be won over by Pat Peoples' struggle to overcome a traumatic brain inj...

Writers Ask: Writing Apps and Unlikeable Narrators from 2014-04-07T10:00

First up this week, Tom checks out several apps promising to provide writing prompts and creative inspiration. In our second segment we're joined by Lucas Mann, author of Listen

Ep 57-Ben Lerner, Leaving the Atocha Station from 2014-03-31T10:00

Well, it's the end of March, and finally Mike gets a pick: Ben Lerner's much-celebrated 2011 novel about a poet on a Fullbright in Spain struggling with a series of major and minor existential c...

Writers Ask: Baby Detective from 2014-03-24T10:00

This week we're answering questions about how to best make use of your limited writing time, and how to jolt yourself into action when you're between projects. How do you pick your next project?...

Ep 56-Anthony Powell, A Question of Upbringing from 2014-03-17T10:00

We're joined by musician and novelist Wesley Stace (who you may also know as John Wesley Harding) to discuss the first book in Anthony Powell's 12-novel cycle A Dance to the Music of Time. Mike ...

Writers Ask: Elevator Pitches and Caviar Dreams from 2014-03-10T10:00

Lots of websites and conferences claim they'll help you hone your "elevator pitch," but is this a useful skill for a writer? This week we're taking writing conferences, the agent querying proces...

Ep 55-George Bataille, Blue of Noon from 2014-03-03T11:00

This modernist classic was a listener pick, and also kind of gross. We talk about unlikeable narrators, depravity, stabbing women with forks, and the Spanish Revolution. In our second segment we...

AWP Special Report #5 from 2014-03-02T16:33:52

Tom talks to fan favorite Katherine Hill, author of The Violet Hour, about AWP burnout, getting old, kissing, dogs, creepy dudes, and confrontational panels.

Non-AWP Special Report #1 from 2014-03-02T00:45:16

Mike gives updates from Philly on what he's doing while not attending AWP, and talks to Lee Klein, author of Thanks and Sorry and Good Luck, about Austrian authors and The Silver Linings Playboo...

AWP Special Report #4 from 2014-03-01T17:43:14

Tom talks with writer (and longtime friend of Barrelhouse) Erin Fitzgerald about flash fiction, fanfic, and unlikeable characters. 

AWP Special Report #3 from 2014-03-01T04:55

Tom talks with Hobart editor Aaron Burch, for some reason.

AWP Special Report #2 from 2014-02-28T14:52:48

Tom reports from the floor of the AWP conference in Seattle. He talks to Tom Williams, author of Don't ...

AWP Special Report: Feb 27 from 2014-02-28T02:25:43

Welcome to the first of our AWP 2014 special reports. Well, not "our," since Mike is still in Philly. Tom chats with Barrelhouse editor Joe Killiany about the best and worst parts of AWP, travel...

Writers Ask: Spies Like Us from 2014-02-24T11:00

On this week's episode we discuss a recent essay in the Chronicle of Higher Education--"How Iowa Flattened Literature...

Ep 54-Ian Fleming, Dr. No from 2014-02-17T11:00

Another listener pick: the 1958 novel that would become the first James Bond movie only four years later. We discuss the book's imperialist politics, Fleming's choice to employ dialect for the J...

Writers Ask: Don't Invite the Spite from 2014-02-10T11:00

This week we're tackling another question about copyright, piracy, and digital publishing. Specifically: How do libraries fit into the mix? We also talk about the effects both self-publishing an...

Ep 53-Jesmyn Ward, Men We Reaped from 2014-02-03T11:00

Ward's memoir recounts the deaths of five young black men in her hometown of DeLisle, Mississippi, including the car accident that killed her younger brother. We talk about de facto segregation ...

Bonus Episode: Copyright, Creative Commons, and Online Piracy from 2014-01-30T11:00

At the suggestion of a listener, in this special bonus episode we're discussing self-publishing, copyright, and how evolving digital technologies might influence both writers and publishers. Sho...

Writers Ask: Who Moved My Cheese? from 2014-01-27T11:00

This week we've got questions about getting an MA, submitting to magazines that already published you, and finding a writing group. Also: Chubby Checker's less popular dance crazes, Tom's brief ...

Ep 52-Michael Wayne Hampton, Romance for Delinquents from 2014-01-20T11:00

This week's book is a story collection from Foxhead Books, and features small-town characters whose lives have fallen short of their dreams. We talk about the difference between generous and ste...

Writers Ask: Long Live Beaver College from 2014-01-13T11:00

We're joined by Joshua Isard (author of Conquistador of the Useless, and director of Arcadia University's low-residency MFA program), who answers questions about reading your own reviews, and wh...

Ep 51-Philip Roth, The Plot Against America from 2014-01-06T11:00

We welcome guest Joshua Isard (author of the novel Conquistador of the Useless) to discuss Roth's 2004 novel, which imagines a midcentury America in which Charles Lindbergh is elected president ...

Bonus Episode Free Preview: Rush Limbaugh, Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims from 2013-12-30T18:22:51

Kind of a tease this week: a free preview of a special episode you can get by being a donor to our show's annual fund drive. If you'd like to get the full episode, just visit us at bookfightpod....

Ep 50-2013 Christmas Spectacular from 2013-12-23T11:00

What's that under the tree? Is it a very special episode of your favorite literature-adjacent podcast? (Spoiler: it is.) Since last year's Christmas episode was such a fan favorite, this year we...

Writers Ask: Livin' on Maybes from 2013-12-16T11:00

We welcome back special guest Jaime Fountaine for this week's Writers Ask episode, during which we pepper her with questions about how to run a successful reading series. We also talk about usin...

Ep 49-Richard Yates, The Easter Parade from 2013-12-09T11:00

We welcome special guest Jaime Fountaine to discuss the 1976 novel The Easter Parade, a beautifully sad story about two sisters whose lives are ... well, pretty sad. Talking points include: swea...

Writers Ask: Angry Peacocks from 2013-12-02T11:00

Another super-sized Writers Ask this week, not so much because we're answering lots of questions but because we've got lots of opinions. Do you want to know what Tom thinks about the television ...

Ep 48-Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles from 2013-11-25T11:00

Tom introduces Mike to the Sherlock Holmes universe, which up till now he's known only through various parodies. And Mike wants to know: Is Sherlock Holmes supposed to be a giant dick? We also w...

Writers Ask: Running a Train from 2013-11-18T11:00

A super-sized episode this week. We answer a couple questions about MFA programs, then we dive headfirst into National Novel Writing Month. Mike reads an excerpt of his novel-in-progress, and we...

Ep 47-John Updike, Rabbit Run from 2013-11-11T05:00

A jam-packed episode this week. We talk about the first of Updike's Rabbit books, Mike gives an update on his NaNoWriMo adventure, we consider whether quality television dramas are putting the h...

Writers Ask: Here Comes Your 19th Nervous Breakdown from 2013-11-04T11:00

Last year we made fun of National Novel Writing Month, but this year Mike is actually thinking about participating, and he's got until the end of the episode to make a decision. Will trying to w...

Ep 46: Kurt Vonnegut, Cat's Cradle from 2013-10-28T10:00

Well, it finally happened: we had to re-record an episode because the usually trusty Book Fight laptop ate our first effort. Technological woes aside, this week we're talking about Cat's Cradle,...

Writers Ask: Talkin' Turkey from 2013-10-21T10:00

We're answering questions this week about building an author platform, what to do (and not do) at author events, and whether editors care about all those fantastic writing contests you've won. A...

Ep 45-Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook from 2013-10-14T10:00

Our friend Katherine Hill is back, and making us read this seminal 1962 Doris Lessing novel ("seminal" means super-long, right?). We talk about communism, novels of ideas, novels about writing n...

Writers Ask: Katherine Hill from 2013-10-07T10:00

Katherine Hill, author of The Violet Hour, joins us this week to answer questions about low-residency MFA programs (she went to Bennington) and working a writing-related job while trying to writ...

Ep 44-Salvador Plascencia, The People of Paper from 2013-09-30T10:00

We welcome back guest Justin St. Germain, author of the memoir Son of a Gun and picker of this week's book, a novel largely about the process of writing a novel. We talk about metafiction, audie...

Writers Ask: Justin St. Germain from 2013-09-23T10:00

Justin St. Germain, author of the memoir Son of a Gun, joins us to answer questions from listeners, plus a special Book Fight lightning round. Topics include: college admissions essays, reading ...

Ep 43: Emily Gould, And the Heart Says Whatever from 2013-09-16T04:00

Lots of people on the internet had opinions about this 2010 essay collection by former Gawker editor Emily Gould. The book is essentially a memoir of her early 20s in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Mik...

Writers Ask: Take This Job And Shove It from 2013-09-09T10:00

Summer's over, listeners, and this week shit's getting real. We talk about writers in academia, specifically adjunct instructors. How long should you do it? Do the benefits of teaching outweigh ...

Ep 42: Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake from 2013-09-02T10:00

Tom picked this one because he was interested in reading some sci fi, and Atwood's novel, the first in her MaddAddam trilogy, came highly recommended. We talk about novels rooted in character ve...

Writers Ask: Who Likes to Type? from 2013-08-26T10:00

A question from a teenager about her novel project, and one about the difference between comedy and humor. Plus we dip into the ol' mailbag to talk about a brand-new service being offered to wri...

Ep 41: Joan Didion, The Year of Magical Thinking from 2013-08-19T10:00

Just a little light summer reading: Joan Didion's 2005 memoir about grief and illness and loss. We talk about what distinguishes good nonfiction from bad, whether rich people are allowed to have...

Writers Ask: Are We Not Men? from 2013-08-12T10:00

We're back from vacation to answer questions about agents (how to get one, and whether you need one). We also respond to a listener who accused us of not paying enough attention to YA literature...

Ep 40: David Mazzucchelli, Asterios Polyp from 2013-08-05T10:00

We're finally tackling our first graphic novel, a book lots of our friends have recommended to us. Talking points include: duality, form and function, Ziggy, harsh workshop criticism, novels of ...

Writers Ask: Retweet This from 2013-07-29T10:00

On this week's episode we're answering questions about personal statements for MFA applications, books about religious characters, and why it annoys Tom (but not Mike) when writers retweet peopl...

Ep 39: Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods from 2013-07-22T10:00

A book that's less a conventional novel than a working-through of a delightfully absurd premise, plus some satire of American offices and their human resources departments. We're even more full ...

Writers Ask: Flash Revisited from 2013-07-15T10:00

We talk with author Matthew Salesses about flash fiction, in response to complaints we lodged a while back about that genre. Also we answer listener questions about books we hate, and writing ad...

Ep 38: Katherine Dunn, Geek Love from 2013-07-08T10:00

Our first listener-recommended book, this 1989 novel about a family of traveling carnival freaks was a finalist for the National Book Award. But will it withstand the scrutiny of your persnickit...

Writers Ask: Enter Me, Muse from 2013-07-01T10:00

What role does academic criticism play for a writer of fiction? Should you outline a novel before starting to write? And how and when should you ask for book blurbs? Bonus knowledge: Mike tells ...

Ep 37-Tom Robbins, Even Cowgirls Get the Blues from 2013-06-24T10:00

Mike revisits a book he loved as a 17-year-old, and makes Tom come along for the ride. How could that go wrong? Talking points include: hippies, the band Phish, rubber meatballs, creepy uncles, ...

Writers Ask: A Bridge Too Far from 2013-06-17T10:00

Should you write while you're angry? Is historical fiction on the rise? And should someone's reading habits be a dating dealbreaker? This week we explore Tom's emotional landscape, and the music...

Ep 36: Robert Kloss, The Alligators of Abraham from 2013-06-10T10:00

Historical magical realism and a mythical origin story for America, this week's book makes us second-guess how we're meant to rate the novels we read. Are we aiming for objectivity, or something...

Writers Ask: Down Under from 2013-06-02T20:00

Last week's guest, Dave Thomas, stuck around to help us answer questions about self-publishing, giving away your work for free, the differences between undergrad and graduate workshops, and the ...

Ep 35-James Salter, All That Is from 2013-05-27T10:00

We welcome special guest Dave Thomas to talk about Salter's new novel, Tom as a mentor, horse ejaculate and the sexiness of bakeries.

Writers Ask: On the Nose from 2013-05-20T10:00

We talk writers' desks, literary agents, and grad-school recommendations. Plus Garfield, sexual roleplay, eggs (which are delicious!) and Tom's ill-fated turn on reality television. Get more at ...

Ep 34-Cory Doctorow, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom from 2013-05-13T10:00

Would you like to hear us talk about Disney World for half an hour? If so, then this is the episode for you! Also we dig into Doctorow's first novel, in our continuing efforts to explore some wo...

Writers Ask: Off With Their Heads from 2013-05-06T12:00:32

We offer tips for organizing your files, dealing with your MFA classmates, and Highlandering your enemies. Got questions for us? Email them to bookfightpod@gmail.com, or tweet them to us at @Boo...

Ep 33-Ernest Cline, Ready Player One from 2013-04-29T10:00

We foist a book upon Tom's college roommate, an avowed non-reader. Will he like it? Will he spit it out, like a child being forced to eat spinach? Talking points include: 80s trivia, Sarah Palin...

Writers Ask: M.E.N.T.O.R. from 2013-04-22T10:00

Heartbreaking church lock-ins, awkward rest stop encounters, and also we answer some questions about writing. How does one find a mentor? Once you get some work accepted, do the rejections lose ...

Ep 32-JM Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians from 2013-04-15T10:00

Book Fight road trip! We recorded this episode in a car (Tom's) while driving to the annual Conversations and Connections conference in Washington, D.C. The book this week is Tom's pick, and boy...

Writers Ask: Hurtin' Feelings and Burnin' Bridges from 2013-04-08T10:00

To MFA or not to MFA: that is the question. Also, what's our beef with flash fiction? And how should writers use Twitter and Facebook? Plus Tom burns a bridge, and Mike tries to glean some lesso...

Ep 31-Kingsley Amis, Lucky Jim from 2013-04-01T10:00

One of Mike's favorite books, which means if Tom doesn't properly love it Mike might have to punch him. Also: Britishisms, the Middle Ages, academic ambivalence, Jenga, and ballet.

Writers Ask: Making Lemonade from 2013-03-25T10:00

Rejecting your friends. Dealing with overzealous editors. Plus: Tom's bloody nipples, which magazines we dislike, and what editors do with their urine. For more, visit us at bookfightpod@gmail.c...

Ep 30-Tove Jansson, The True Deceiver from 2013-03-18T10:00

This book won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award, for which our guest, Matt Jakubowski, was one of the judges. We talk translations, Nordicness, strong female characters, and rabbits. Also, we ...

Writers Ask: The Waiting Game from 2013-03-11T10:00

How long is too long for a journal or press to read your submission? How much can you get paid for a short story? What are the worst writerly affectations? Talking points include: therapy dogs, ...

AWP Dispatch #5 from 2013-03-09T15:54:09

We're joined by Tod Goldberg and Julia Pistell, of Literary Disco, to talk bedouin poetry tents, writer costumes, Val Kilmer as Mark Twain, and which small presses sound most like metal bands.

AWP Dispatch #4 from 2013-03-09T01:24:40

The results of our panel dare: Tom goes to a 75-minute session on therapy, while Mike explores the connections between history and poetry. 

AWP Dispatch #3 from 2013-03-08T14:41:44

Hello, morning! We're a little groggy, but there's important conferencing to be done. Talking points: popping and locking, the guy in the newspaper hat, rejection notes.

AWP Dispatch #2 from 2013-03-07T22:51:45

More jibber jabber from the AWP conference in Boston. This time we're on the conference floor, recapping Day One in the belly of the beast.

AWP Dispatch #1 from 2013-03-07T00:25:24

We're at the annual AWP conference in Boston, i.e. ground zero of the American Writing-Industrial Complex. We'll be filing regular brief dispatches from the conference each day. Here's the first...

Ep 29-Lynn Coady, The Antagonist from 2013-03-04T04:47:35

A novel-in-emails whose main character is annoyed to discover that a former friend has fictionalized his life in a book. Talking points include: Canadian rock, SARS, aggrieved exes, epistolary n...

Writers Ask: The Children Are Our Future from 2013-02-25T11:00

On this Very Special Episode we field questions from students at Tom's high school alma mater. Changing lives!

Ep 28-Edward St Aubyn, Some Hope from 2013-02-18T11:00

An intensely dark, often comic novel about the British landed gentry and child abuse. Talking points include: the decision to write a memoir or a novel, mean-spiritedness versus generosity, insp...

Valentine's Special: Viking Warrior, Unwilling Wife from 2013-02-14T05:51:15

Special bonus episode! Our gift to you, listeners. We read a Harlequin Romance novel about Viking love. 

Writers Ask: TGIT from 2013-02-11T11:00

Low-residency MFA programs. Revisiting your old work. And should writers go to AWP? We also debate some new catch phrases, Mike alienates everybody, and we create a new iteration of MTV's Real W...

Ep 27-Jami Attenberg, The Melting Season from 2013-02-04T11:00

A novel that prompts a discussion of how we pick books, and why certain books stress us out. Talking points include: story structure, penis length versus penis girth, athletes versus writers, Me...

Writers Ask: Marry Rich from 2013-01-28T11:00

We answer questions about writers who don't read, the best jobs for writers, and why literature isn't a commodity. Also: naps! And why Tom lives like an old person.

Ep 26-Charles Portis, Norwood from 2013-01-21T11:00

We talk about Portis's picaresque road novel (his first), why we appreciate humor in books, and why it's so hard to do comedy well. Also: another installment of Judge a Book By Its Cover.

Writers Ask: Goofus and Gallant from 2013-01-14T11:00

How to stand out from the crowd when applying for MFA programs, what's wrong with citing Pushcart Prize nominations in your cover letter, and how to find decent books at a Barnes and Noble.

Ep 25-Svetislav Basara, Chinese Letter from 2013-01-07T15:00:33

A Dalkey translation of Serbian writer Svetislav Basara's novel basically landed in Tom's lap, so we figured we might as well read it. And it's crazy in all the best ways. Talking points include...

Writers Ask: The Myth of Ganymede from 2012-12-31T11:00

We tackle questions about Duotrope's recent decision to charge for its services, how to give a good literary reading, and whether it's okay to drink while writing.

Ep 24-2012 Holiday Special from 2012-12-17T11:00

It's the most wonderful time of the year! This week we put aside our usual reading schedule and tackled two Christmas-themed novels: John Grisham's 'Skipping Christmas' (source material for the ...

Ep 23-George Singleton, Stray Decorum from 2012-12-10T11:00

This week's a Mike pick: George Singleton's new story collection, which is set in small-town South Carolina and populated by men who use their intelligence toward questionable ends. Plus a monke...

Ep 22-Jane Bowles, Two Serious Ladies from 2012-12-03T11:00

Special guest Paul Lisicky (Unbuilt Projects, Lawnboy, Famous Builder) helps us get a handle on one of his favorite novels, and discusses his own relationship to structure and linearity. And his...

Writers Ask: Turkey Day Special from 2012-11-26T11:00

This week we tackle questions about personalized rejections, gifts for writers, and how to overcome writers' block. Fair warning: We recorded this after eating a Thanksgiving meal with Tom's rel...

Ep 21-Thomas Bernhard, Correction from 2012-11-19T11:00

We welcome special guest Owen King (We're All In This Together, Double Feature) to discuss Thomas Bernhard's novel about a Wittgenstein-like character who builds a cone in the woods for his sist...

Writers Ask: Swallowed By Anger from 2012-11-12T11:00

Tips for revision. Should you pay reading fees? And Tom goes ham on NaNoWriMo in our special lightning round.

Ep 20-Hurricane Sandy Stir-Crazy Spectacular from 2012-11-05T11:00

This week we're flying without a net. By which we mean the hurricane changed our plans. No guest. No book. Just two grown men who, because of Hurricane Sandy, have been spending too much time co...

Writers Ask: Book Fight Island from 2012-10-29T10:00

This week, we tackle questions about how to promote your book without annoying people, whether writing can be taught, and if you should worry too much about your stylistic influences. Talking po...

Ep 19-Zadie Smith, NW from 2012-10-22T10:00

Zadie's new one is so good it leads us into a larger discussion of the relationship between truth and art. Also, we squabble over the word 'relatable,' Tom's generation vs. Mike's generation, an...

Writers Ask: Airing of Grievances from 2012-10-15T10:00

What kind of blowback can you expect when you portray someone ungenerously in your memoir? What if that person ends up sitting next to you, in your basement, with a belly full of scotch? Also: q...

Ep 18-Theodore Weesner, The True Detective from 2012-10-08T10:00

We're joined by novelist Stewart O'Nan (The Odds, Last Night at the Lobster, many many more) to discuss a book he calls "a great American novel no one has read." In the second half of the show, ...

Writers Ask: Suicide, Don't Do It from 2012-10-01T10:00

Which lit mags should you subscribe to? Should you publish with a small press or hold out for one of the big boys? Should you end your story with a character offing himself? Also: the etiquette ...

Ep 17-Pat Conroy, The Lords of Discipline from 2012-09-24T10:00

This one was a Mike pick, a book he first read as a teenager living in Charleston, South Carolina, only a few miles from The Citadel, which may or may not bear some resemblance to The Institute,...

Writers Ask: NaNoWriMoNoNo from 2012-09-17T10:00

This week Tom tells you why National Novel Writing Month is terrible for humanity. Plus: what books are best for killing bugs, and how much money can a novelist expect to make? Also, the latest ...

Ep 16-Tom Grimes, Mentor from 2012-09-10T10:00

Mike and Tom reminisce (and gossip) about their time at the Iowa Writers Workshop and their memories of Frank Conroy, the larger-than-life writer and teacher at the center of Tom Grimes' memoir....

Writers Ask: No Lifeguard on Duty from 2012-09-03T10:00

Terrible cover letters, faint praise, and what it's like to get beaten by a sack full of doorknobs. It's our third installment of Writers Ask, where we solve all your problems, writing and other...

Ep 15-Sheila Heti, How Should a Person Be? from 2012-08-27T10:00

We welcome back our first repeat guest, fan favorite Katherine Hill, to discuss this "novel from life." Opinions are strong on this one. Talking points include: source material for novels, the n...

Writers Ask: Cousin Joey from 2012-08-20T10:00

In the second installment of Writers Ask, Tom and Mike tell you how to recommend books to your non-literary friends, and how to deal with relatives who think they know what you should write abou...

Ep 14-Percival Everett, Erasure from 2012-08-13T10:00

Sometimes the angriest books are also the funniest. Join us for a discussion of race and comedy, tokenism, Bill Cosby, and Donovan McNabb. Also: Tom is forced to revise his previous all-out ban ...

Writers Ask Ep 1 from 2012-08-06T10:00

Ep 13-John Barth, On With the Story from 2012-07-30T09:00

Tom hates metafiction. Mike tries to get him to love it, or at least appreciate it, using John Barth's 1996 collection On With the Story, linked stories that play a number of narrative games and...

Ep 12-Stephen Graham Jones, Growing Up Dead in Texas from 2012-07-13T14:28:55

SGJ blurs the lines between novel and memoir in his ninth book, an investigation of a mysterious cotton fire in his hometown of Greenwood, Texas, which left several lives permanently damaged in ...

Ep 11-Laura van den Berg and Dave Housley from 2012-07-05T17:27:47

Road trip! We head to State College to talk with writer and editor Dave Housley about a book he recommended to us: Laura van den Berg's debut story collection, What the World Will Look Like When...

Ep 10-Tommy Zurhellen, Nazareth North Dakota from 2012-06-22T03:07

Join your Book Fight hosts as they seek out a possible Messiah in the badlands of North Dakota. Will they choose to follow him into the wilderness? Will they rebuke him? Only one way to find out...

Ep 9-Stephen King, The Dark Tower Book One from 2012-06-15T14:43:31

Stephen King's 4000-page Dark Tower series begins with a sentence that came to him as a 19-year-old: "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed." We're reading (reread...

Ep 8-Chad Harbach, The Art of Fielding from 2012-06-08T03:01

We welcome another guest into the Book Fight Basement, our friend and fellow Temple faculty member Brad Windhauser, to talk about The Art of Fielding, a book which has garnered a ton of praise b...

Ep 7-Hemmingway, A Farewell to Arms from 2012-05-31T03:07

We welcome our second guest into the Book Fight basement: Jason Lewis, who last year published his first novel, The Fourteenth Colony. More importantly for our purposes, Jason has now read A Far...

Ep 6-Lauren Groff, Delicate Edible Birds from 2012-05-15T04:36:46

Tom and Mike dig into their first story collection of the podcast, Lauren Groff's 2009 book Delicate Edible Birds. Topics include: the potential anxiety of reading work by your contemporaries, a...

Ep 5-Mat Johnson, Pym from 2012-05-10T03:14:15

Tom and Mike dig into a book the New York Times named as one of the top five novels of 2011, in which an academic with his career on the rocks travels to Antarctica to (among other things) unloc...

Ep 4-Judy Blume, Forever from 2012-04-23T23:00

Tom and Mike welcome their first guest to the Book Fight basement to help them revisit Judy Blume's YA novel Forever. Topics include: sex ed, awkward teenage romance, and the relative merits of ...

Ep 3-Joan Didion, Play It As It Lays from 2012-04-16T00:22

Mike and Tom try to figure out what separates this novel from the thousands of others that traffic in bleak, amoral human landscapes. Tom shares a story about his 14-year-old self he’s never tol...

Ep 2-Michael Ondaatje, Coming Through Slaughter from 2012-04-08T15:20

Buddy Bolden was a jazz pioneer in turn-of-the-century New Orleans who at the age of 30 suffered a mental breakdown and was institutionalized. Topics include: the line between fact and fiction, ...

Ep 1-Sam Lipsyte, The Ask from 2012-04-01T16:52

For the first episode of Book Fight, Tom and Mike gathered in the Book Fight Basement to talk about Sam Lispyte's 2010 novel The Ask. Topics include: the limitations of ironic detachment, whethe...