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Two Month Review #3.1: Reunited! (Intro to Mercè Rodoreda)

Brian Wood is BACK. Complete with a poem he wrote in his time away from the Two Month Review . . . In the introduction to season three, Chad and Brian talk about Catalan literature (briefly), Mercè Rodoreda’s career and comps, possible approaches to discussing Rodoreda’s stories, and more. As noted ...

Two Month Review #8: "Many Fêtes, or Study for a Group Portrait with Broken Decalogues" (The Invented Part, Pages 301-360)

On this week’s Two Month Review, Chad and Brian talk about F. Scott Fitzgerald and Tender Is the Night, puzzles, how to properly introduce the show, the Modern Library list of top 100 novels of the twentieth century, Booth Tarkington, and much more more. Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in ...

Two Month Review #7: "A Few Things You Happen to Think About When All You Want Is to Think About Nothing" (The Invented Part, Pages 231-300)

This week, Jonathan Lethem (Motherless Brooklyn, Chronic City) joins Chad and Brian to talk about The Writer’s trip to a hospital, where he assumes something horrible is happening, which is countered by a gushing forth of new story ideas. Jonathan tells of his own experience coming up with one of his most famous books ...

Two Month Review #6: "The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin: Part 3" (The Invented Part, Pages 208-230)

This week, Speculative Fiction in Translation founder and Best Translated Book Award judge Rachel Cordasco joins Chad and Brian to talk about the nature of time, deals with the devil, conflagrations, and writerly desires, or, in other words, the third part of “The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin” ...

Two Month Review #5: "The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin: Part 2" (The Invented Part, Pages 99-207)

This week’s episode is all about Penelope and her experiences with the Karmas. (And a Big Green Cow.) A lot of the Odyssey, Wuthering Heights, and William Burroughs are in this section, which is hilariously dissected by Brian, Chad, and their guest, Tom Flynn, the manager of Volumes Bookcafe in Chicago. One of the ...

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Three Percent #130: French Fun and BookExpo

Delayed for a couple weeks due to travel and work schedules, Chad and Tom are back to talk about the inaugural Albertine Prize (won by Antoine Volodine’s Bardo or Not Bardo, translated by J. T. Mahany), Houellebecq’s no show, and BookExpo and the forthcoming New York Rights Fair. They also talk a bit about the Two ...

Two Month Review #4: "The Place Where the Sea Ends So the Forest Can Begin: Part 1" (The Invented Part, Pages 46-98)

This week, author and journalist Mark Binelli joins Chad and Brian to discuss the first part of the second section of Rodrigo Fresán’s The Invented Part. In “The Place Where the Seas Ends So the Forest Can Begin,” we meet The Young Man and The Young Woman, who are making a movie about The Writer after his ...