This week, Rider and Tod take turns talking about their summer reading: what they’re reading, what they’re planning to read, and what they think you should read. Some of the books include Anthony McCann's Shadowlands, Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home, Peter Houlahan's Norco '80, Kelli Russell Agodon's Hourglass Museum, and more. This week's episode is brought to you by HelloFresh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jun 11, 2019•59 min•Ep. 147
This week on Literary Disco, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss The Man They Wanted Me To Be, the new book out from Jared Yates Sexton about masculinity in America and masculinity in his own life. Before delving into the book, the three discuss the current political climate in the south, how living in California is a moral choice, the choice between avoiding a place you are against or going there to inspire change, and what going to a Trump rally is really like. Learn more about your ad choices. Visi...
May 28, 2019•1 hr•Ep. 146
This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod welcome their old friend Hugh Ryan to the Disco. He is the author When Brooklyn Was Queer, a look at the borough’s LGBTQ history. The trio discusses the history behind the book, the New York Public Library grant that made writing the book possible, and their time together at Bennington. Additionally, they have Hugh pick a book for them to read and discuss: a new edition of Walt Whitman’s poem, Live Oak, with Moss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone...
May 14, 2019•57 min•Ep. 145
This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod get wild as they discuss Jack London’s classic portrait of the unforgiving and brutal life of being a dog in the Klondike Gold Rush. Additionally, the trio discusses their personal relationships with wolves (and pet dogs), Jack London’s ties to Northern California, and why works like London’s are not seen as literary canon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
May 07, 2019•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 144
Today we head back to a classic of English literature as Julia, Rider, and Tod read and discuss one of Jane Austen’s enduring novels of manners and marriage, Sense and Sensibility. Tod and Rider also give an update on their recent experiences at the AWP and Emerald City Comic Con conferences, respectively, and the debate on who is the favorite host amongst listeners. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Apr 16, 2019•56 min•Ep. 143
This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss Terese Marie Mailhot‘s short and powerful memoir, Heart Berries. In the sledgehammer of a book, Mailhot addresses the traumas she has gone through in her life, from the sexual abuse she endured as a young child to later hospitalization for posttraumatic stress and bipolar disorders and her conflicted relationship as a parent to three children, something that has endured for multiple generations in her family. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaph...
Apr 02, 2019•44 min•Ep. 142
This week, the Literary Disco trio sit down with Mallory O’Meara to discuss her new book, The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Millicent Patrick, the true story of Disney’s first female animators and the only woman in history to create one of Hollywood’s classic movie monsters. Mallory then picks a book for everyone to discuss, and her choice is Kill the Next One by Federico Axat, which proves to be a decisive choice. Let the fight begin! Learn more about you...
Mar 21, 2019•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 141
This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss Helen Dewitt’s novel The Last Samurai, which, they are compelled to point out, has nothing to do with the horrible Tom Cruise movie of the same name. Recently named the Best Book of the 2000s by Vulture, the Literary Disco trio debates the novel’s current relevance, the pressure of child prodigies, and how we deal with the family we’re given. Will they recommend the book? Listen to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 05, 2019•51 min•Ep. 140
On this week's episode, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss what each of them are reading to Literary Disco’s second generation, from Frog and Toad to The Rainbow Goblins and Barnyard Dance! Also, the three discuss whether Winnie-the-Pooh is actually any good, how animals are essential to the reading experience, and why narrative is still important in children's literature. Have a glass of milk, brush your teeth, and tuck yourself into bed, because Literary Disco is ready to tell you tonight's bedtime...
Feb 19, 2019•1 hr 25 min•Ep. 139
No better way to start the new month than with some of Literary Disco’s classic book games. First, Rider presents “Judge a Book By Its Cover,” where he reads the first lines of a book and Julia and Tod must guess what the book is with no other context. Then, Tod presents a new game, Rock Paper Scissors, where Rider and Julia must decide what is a real poem, lyrics from a pop song, lines from a Rupi poem, or a poem written by our very own Tod Goldberg. Let the games begin! Learn more about your a...
Feb 05, 2019•44 min•Ep. 138
The debut novel from Tommy Orange has been on almost every Best Of 2018 list, but does the Literary Disco trio agree? In this week's episode, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss the complex and multifaceted approach to identity—and how Orange avoids the usual MFA clichés—as “There, There” follows a collection of Native American characters in the build-up to a powwow in Oakland, California. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 22, 2019•53 min•Ep. 137
Welcome to a new year, with your favorite literary podcast. We start 2019 with the classic tale of Tarzan. We all know the story: after the death of his parents a boy is raised by apes, and encounters humans again years later when an expedition enters the jungle. How has this story aged over time? Will Tarzan be Rider's next project? Join Julia, Rider, and Tod this week to find out! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 16, 2019•48 min
Nick Drnaso's Sabrina is the first graphic novel to be nominated for the Man Booker Prize. It's also a beautiful and heartbreaking rendering of the current American psyche and a pointed commentary on how media has allowed conspiracy and paranoia to run absolutely rampant in the absence of answers. Join Julia, Rider, and Tod as they discuss this very important work, along with the graphic novel's realistic depiction of the male human body (mostly in their underwear), feeling empathy for those wit...
Dec 27, 2018•41 min•Ep. 135
The last book club you’ll ever need. This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss the best books they read in 2018, including Tara Westover’s Educated, Arthur Krystal’s This Thing We Call Literature, and Jonathan Weisman’s (((Semitism))): Being Jewish in America in the Age of Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Dec 11, 2018•54 min
It’s the holidays! A time to deck the halls, grab some eggnog, and curl up with the SCARIEST book you can find… That’s right. Christmas horror. It’s a real thing. And Blumhouse and editor Christopher Golden have put together a collection of short fiction just in time to fill you with holiday fear. Join us as Tod, Rider, and Julia have fun with this bonkers set of stories. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 26, 2018•52 min•Ep. 133
A couple months ago, Vulture published this crazy, crazy list. It’s an admittedly premature attempt to create a literary canon for the last 18 years. In this episode of Literary Disco, we discuss the titles we were surprised by, the ones we were disappointed didn’t make it, and — mostly — how few of these books we’ve actually read. Get ready to feel like you have a lot of catching up to do… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Nov 05, 2018•49 min•Ep. 132
It’s getting cooler, the leaves are changing, time to curl up with a good book. It’s our Bookshelf Revisit for Fall 2018, an eclectic conversation that covers: Wild children and cults.WWII and China.Robertson Davies.It makes no sense, except that it’s Literary Disco! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Oct 23, 2018•39 min•Ep. 131
Hunter S. Thompson became a legend the moment he published this novel of a drug-fueled trip into the desert. Packed with mind-altering chemicals, extreme paranoia, and claiming to be a scathing journey to “the heart of the American Dream,” Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas established Thompson’s particular style, and purported to give voice to the disillusionment of a generation. But who was included in that generation? Has the book aged well? And what kind of effect did this story have on the city...
Sep 25, 2018•50 min•Ep. 130
You read it in high school. You remember the conch, Piggy, and a boar head on a stick… But do you remember the Beast? That a child disappears the first day on the island? How about the fact that this novel is set during an atomic war? And did you know this book was written in direct response to a 19th Century children’s book that had the same character names? It’s time for us all to re-read William Golding’s classic, Lord of the Flies. Join us. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.f...
Aug 13, 2018•55 min
Today we dive deep into a single poetry collection: Digest, by Gregory Pardlo. Digest won the 2015 Pulitzer, and with good reason. This is one of the most universally loved books we’ve had on the show. It’s incredibly personal, and yet it has enough intertextuality and historical references to keep you re-reading for days. Between bouts of effusive praise, we manage to read and analyze a couple of these magnificent poems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jul 23, 2018•46 min
In the 1920s, a disproportionate amount of people within the Osage nation were dying. The US government had forcibly relocated the Osage to a section of Oklahoma with some of the largest deposits of oil in North America. This quickly made the Osage the wealthiest people, per capita, in the world. And now they were being murdered. Corrupt local “lawmen” were incapable of producing any suspects, and any time a person claimed to have information, they wound up dead. It was up to the Federal governm...
Jun 26, 2018•43 min
(Are we time traveling? Yes, a technical glitch set this episode back a few months…) Kristen Roupenian’s short story “Cat Person” appeared in December 2017 issue of The New Yorker, and promptly became an internet sensation. Some critics pounced, some critics praised, some men were offended, some women were offended that men were offended…and on and on it went, as these things do in this day and age. It seems there is something about this story — something about its point of view and its depictio...
Jun 05, 2018•1 hr 6 min
We didn’t mean for these episodes to be “timely,” but these days in America, that seems unavoidable. Between posting our two-parter about Dave Cullen’s Columbine, there has been another school shooting at Sante Fe High School in Texas. Our hearts are breaking, again. We can only hope to contribute to the conversation and help move our country away from this insanity. Join us for Part Two of our discussion on Columbine. We talk with Rob Bowman, the incredible English teacher who brought us the st...
May 21, 2018•41 min
Dave Cullen’s book Columbine is an exhaustive and brilliant examination of the infamous school shooting that stunned the country in 1999. It is also one of the first books that Tod, Julia, and Rider discussed as friends. Bonding over our love for Cullen’s work is one of the reasons Literary Disco exists. In light of the fact that school shootings have only become more common, we decided to do something different with the next two episodes of the podcast. Tod reached out to his friend Rob Bowman,...
May 14, 2018•1 hr 14 min
I know, it’s a bit confusing, but some tech issues with Episode 123 means we’re skipping it for now. Instead, we zoom to the future! It’s a Bookshelf Revisit episode with a game — a new game Tod is insisting we call “Rock, Paper, Scissors.” As if there isn’t already a game called that. But first, we get to hear all about Julia and Tod getting catfished, what children’s book Julia has rediscovered, Rider’s descent into the Empire of Illusion, and Tod’s recent interview with a very successful nove...
Apr 30, 2018•52 min
Elif Batuman’s novel was a critical darling of 2017. We try to figure out why. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Mar 19, 2018•38 min
Our fantasy and sci-fi correspondent Will Friedle returns! And he’s picked a doozy for us to read. Piers Anthony has written dozens of hugely popular fantasy novels, and many of them are set in the magical, pun-filled land of Xanth. Will asked us to read A Spell for Chameleon, the novel that began it all. And boy, has it not aged well… We thought Sweet Valley High was rapey. There’s literally a rape trial in the first 30 pages of this book, which seems aimed squarely at 12 year old boys. Join us...
Mar 07, 2018•55 min
Jennifer Egan’s a favorite author here on the Disco. But does her latest novel, the New York period piece Manhattan Beach, keep up the winning streak? It made a lot of Best Of 2017 lists, but the Disco trio is a bit divided. Are these characters realistic? Is the dialogue cliched? Even as he rambles on and on about how much he likes it, Rider admits he might be crazy… Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Feb 12, 2018•52 min
We did it. We read the George Saunders book that blew everyone’s mind in 2017. And then we talked about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 29, 2018•40 min
Too often, all we say about children’s books is “awwww.” Not today. Tod, Julia, and Rider dig deep into classics and new books for kids. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Jan 09, 2018•49 min
