Pencils UP, everyone! Point their sharpened points straight to the sky, because Allison King, author of the endlessly inventive Phoenix Pencil Company , drops by the virtual library to talk all things pencils and magic and the one book that changed her life. Plus, she brings along Anton Hur’s novel in stories, about AI and robots and poetry, Toward Eternity . Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a coup...
Jul 08, 2025•52 min
Former co-host of the show, current writer and bookseller and host of The Lit Hub Podcast Drew Broussard stops by to chat about our Top 6 of 2015 episode from 10 years ago, plus some other random bookish thoughts. As listenable as a quaffable white wine is quaffable! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link mentioned,...
Jun 13, 2025•1 hr 11 min
Tyler Wetherall, author and sole force behind the indispensable literary reading series newsletter, Reading the City visits the Damn Library in person in order to have a very involved mezcal margarita, and chat about her novel Amphibian , and mermaids, her memoir No Way Home, and the fun part of research for a new project. And then we also get into (and spoil, to some extent, if you go for that sort of thing) The Ice Palace by Terjei Vesaas, and how it inspired some of the shape of Amphibian . J...
May 22, 2025•1 hr 13 min
Kate Folk flies into the Zoom Damn Library and boy are her arms tired! That’s an airplane joke, and it’s very fitting, actually, because she’s here to discuss her madcap Sky Daddy , as well as the more subdued but no less crazy The Wall by Marlen Haushofer. Put your tray tables up and your seatbacks in the full upright position, it’s time to listen! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a...
May 02, 2025•55 min
Jeanne Thornton physically drops by the Damn Library to talk A/S/L, her incredible novel about amateur video game coders in the 90s and how they’re doing a couple decades years later, and also a bit of her novel Summer Fun as well, because why not. Plus, she brings along Anton Solomonik’s Realistic Fiction , an excitingly strange and very funny short story collection. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book sto...
Apr 15, 2025•1 hr 12 min
Kate Slotover of The Book Club Review drops in again, virtually this time, to talk about a visit to a posh library, her reading life of late, and Solvej Balle’s On the Calculation of Volume Vol. 1 , and also we talk about Volume 2 some. Get on the train bound for November 18th! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link...
Mar 25, 2025•1 hr
A list of 22 long books because sometimes you need to get lost in a book, like really lost, like 400 pages in and not even halfway there and every tree looks just like the one that came before. But you’re happy about it, because getting lost in a book was the point. That kind of lost. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book a...
Mar 04, 2025•20 min
A list of 22 short books for short attention spans because we all hey look at that dog! he’s trying to catch a butterfly!! Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episodes/episode-235 music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Ac...
Feb 13, 2025•20 min
Cynthia Weiner zooms in and starts off the year right with her 80s New York novel, A Gorgeous Excitement . We talk all the trappings of true crime and female friendship and mental health, plus Cynthia brings along Susanna Moore’s 90s cult classic In the Cut . Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link mentioned, and mor...
Jan 30, 2025•51 min
Christopher chooses some favorites from the reading year that just passed, and answers some questions from the Patreon patrons. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the drink recipe, every book and link mentioned, and more, visit: https://www.somanydamnbooks.com/episodes/episode-233 music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted ...
Dec 18, 2024•24 min
Emily Habeck swims on in to chat the book Christopher can’t stop recommending to anyone and everyone, Shark Heart: A Love Story. Thrill to this episode where we get into the long and winding road from theater to novel writing, and the pleasures of re-reading Jenny Offill’s Dept. of Speculation , 10 years on. Join the Patreon and hang out in the monthly book club, listen to exclusive episodes, and get access to the SMDB virtual book stoop a couple times a year! https://patreon.com/smdb For the dr...
Nov 27, 2024•56 min
If you do something two years in a row, that makes it a yearly tradition right? With that in mind, here’s the very traditional Holiday Gift Guide episode. I’m joined by Sarah in our Damn Library and we talk some books and get down to the business of gift giving this season. It’s a present, open it up! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Nov 06, 2024•45 min
Rosalind Brown makes her airwaves debut in this one, talking about her debut novel Practice , which means talking about Shakespeare, and using white space on the page, and the various intimacies of point of view. Plus, she brought along The Baudelaire Fractal by Lisa Robertson, a jubilant novel of thoughts that feels perfectly aligned with Practice. Pick up your pens and your pencils and your listening devices, it’s time to podcast! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book li...
Oct 23, 2024•1 hr 20 min
Our old pal Drew drops into the Damn Library, in Brooklyn, in person, for the first time since February 2020, to celebrate 10 years of So Many Damn Books. The show gets done like it usually does, only with a lot of trips down memory lanes and nostalgia avenues. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Lena Valencia drops by the Damn Library, physically, and it’s a real nice time complete with a flashing drink you can’t see, because this is a podcast. Lena and I discuss her blockbuster, nearly a decade in the making, short story collection debut, Mystery Lights , and she brings along Muriel Spark’s Driver’s Seat , which is just as good as it gets. Read on! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://sou...
Sep 24, 2024•1 hr 9 min
Lev Grossman returns to the podcast after a nine year break. That’s a long time! Since he was here last, he wrote his Arthurian magnum opus, The Bright Sword , and he chats about it, along with a good name for a cocktail sword, God, Merlin, and how he likes to be in conversation with someone else’s work. Plus, he brings along Phillip K. Dick’s UBIK , a bizarre sci-fi classic that’s on the verge of fantasy itself. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit...
Aug 01, 2024•1 hr 7 min
Holly Gramazio drops by via the magic of Zoom to talk her magical summer blockbuster of a book, The Husbands . She gets into its origin as a computer game, a lack of supernatural solutions, and why it used to have the moon falling apart. Plus, she brings along the surreal-but-still-relatable Zito Madu’s The Minotaur at Calle Lanza , and reveals she’s just been to Venice. Read on, compadres! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com m...
Jul 16, 2024•1 hr 12 min
Kate Slotover, host of The Book Club Review podcast, joins me in the Damn Library all the way from London! Drinks are had, New York is discussed, along with two different worlds of New York reportage, Helene Hanff’s Letter from New York , and Joseph Mitchell’s Up in the Old Hotel. Such a joy! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy ...
Jun 27, 2024•1 hr 10 min
Melissa Mogollon zooms in to talk her debut Oye, and all the fun she had writing it. That means we talk how her friends are like her sisters, the unusual structure that always felt like it could fail, and how she might write a sequel from the sister’s perspective. Plus, she brings along Jenny Odell’s How to Do Nothing , a book that was great to revisit, and is informing her on how to connect digitally as she releases her book. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, a...
Jun 13, 2024•1 hr 3 min
Our old pal Drew (of Voyage into Genre ) is back! We talk about how the internet used to be, how Drew broke his slump, some literal tea discussion, RPG and video games, and general book chatter. The usual, served up just how you like it, in podcast form. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
May 29, 2024•53 min
Fiona Warnick, author of the charming novel The Skunks , drops by to talk animals and metaphor, how her creative writing program helped her with this book, writing smooth, and more than that, because we also get into Sheila Heti’s Alphabetical Diaries , which inspires a deeper dive into the work of Heti and her influence. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on...
May 15, 2024•1 hr 5 min
Christopher goes through some stuff he read and some stuff he wants to read. Got any modern pirate book recommendations? contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
May 02, 2024•15 min
Alexandra Tanner shares the Damn Library physical space, sitting in the chair across from me and everything. She discusses her sibling’s influence on Worry, writing for an audience of one, money, moms, and more. Plus, she brings Kathryn Scanlan’s Aug 9 - Fog for book club. Listen closely and you’ll hear books mentioned now and again. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magi...
Apr 17, 2024•58 min
Damn Library co-owner Sarah sits to chat about all the things that makes one pick up a book only to put it back down again. A list of reading pet peeves that touches on everything from subject matter, to stylizations, tropes, design choices, and more. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Apr 04, 2024•43 min
Rachel Lyon returns to talk about her new novel, Fruit of the Dead , and how it wasn’t always a Persephone myth retelling, she found that along the way. Plus, we get into the “generative fill” of reading, and I pontificate on dust mote fiction, inspired by the fetid summer heat within the pages of Tessa Hadley’s The Past . Read along! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic (https://soundcloud.com/disaster-mag...
Mar 20, 2024•52 min
GennaRose Nethercott returns to talk about her brand new story collection Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart , stealing details from her friends, telling stories from the periphery, and how each tale in the book is about yearning. Also, thanks to Sabrina Orah Marks’ Happily , we discuss all form of fairy tales, and how they can tubocharge your selling power, you just have to ask us how. Real good listenin’! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somany...
Mar 06, 2024•51 min
Kirsten Bakis makes her podcast airwave debut to discuss her brand new novel, King Nyx. And it’s a doozy. Kirsten reflects on sideways stories and how she first “met” the real life inspiration for her main character, and some reflections on how things have changed in publishing since she first debuted 27 years ago with her modern classic, Lives of the Monster Dogs . Listen up and listen good! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com...
Feb 22, 2024•55 min
Marie-Helene Bertino returns to the Damn Library to discuss her latest triumph, Beautyland . Marie-Helene goes into how she creates some of the book's indelible, otherworldly moments, and why the book's writing process was charmed. Plus, she brought along The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a book that is much more powerful when you're not translating it for french class. Books are back, baby! contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanyd...
Feb 07, 2024•1 hr 8 min
Into the Damn Library Sarah and Christopher go again, to review their respective years on reading, pull out the highlights, and make plans for the year to come. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for the full gift list, every drink recipe, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Deck The Halls Chris Hayes Music Remix Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 13, 2023•34 min
Sarah joins Christopher in the Damn Library she co-owns to drink martinis and talk about good ideas for holiday gifting, from books to subscriptions to games to cocktail accoutrements and more. contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb for the full gift list, every drink recipe, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com music: Disaster Magic ( https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic ) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Nov 29, 2023•42 min
