Book Fight

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Ep 291: Roland Barthes, A Lover's Discourse Aug 26, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to Week Two of a series we didn't intend to undertake: Tom and Mike Read Books They're Not Quite Smart Enough to Understand. Actually, we did a slightly better job with this one than we did with last week's reading, Jenny Boully's The Body. Though we can already hear the sound of 1,000 grad students rolling their eyes in response to our discussion of Barthes. But hey, we're giving it our best. We can't help it if there are rocks where our brains are supposed to be.

This week's book was a Mike pick, because he's been on the English department faculty of a major university for too long to not have read anything by Roland Barthes. A Lover's Discourse was billed as one of his more accessible works, so we figured it could make a good starting place. And it wasn't bad! At least the parts that we understood. Which were some of the parts!

If you like the show, please consider subscribing to our Patreon, which helps us make a bit of money each month and keep the show going. For just $5 a month, you'll get access to a monthly bonus episode, Book Fight After Dark, in which we visit some of the weirder, goofier corners of the literary world. Recently, that's involved reading a paranormal romance novel, the debut novel of Jersey Shore's Snookie, and the novelization of the movie Robocop.

Ep 290: Jenny Boully, The Body Aug 19, 2019

Show notes

This week we're talking about a lyric essay that was first published in 2002 and has since become part of a new canon of creative nonfiction: Jenny Boully's "The Body," which first appeared in The Seneca Review and was re-released in book form by Essay Press. The big question of this episode: are we smart enough to understand this piece, which is written in footnotes to an invisible text? Or is it even a thing meant to be "understood" in a traditional narrative sense? Is it a beautiful evocation of a language that's just beyond conventional meaning? Is it a whole bunch of word salad? And, seriously, are we big dummies who just barely manage to get our pants on each morning?

Also this week: In Mike's continuing search for a good donut, he pits two bitter Pennsylvania rivals against each other. That's right, it's Sheetz vs. Wawa.

Ep 289: John McPhee, "Levels of the Game" Aug 12, 2019

Show notes

Welcome back to our Summer School season, in which we're reading books, stories, and essays we feel like we should have read by now. John McPhee was in that category for Mike, especially as he's been teaching (and writing) more creative non-fiction. McPhee is a celebrated essayist who started out at Time Magazine and then moved on to a lengthy career at The New Yorker. In 1969 he wrote a long piece about a tennis match between Arthur Ashe and Clark Graebner that became a short book, Levels of the Game. Renowned as not just a piece of sports writing, but as a study in two contrasting characters at a pivotal moment in American history, McPhee's essay/book is considered a master of its form.

We talk about the essay, and about the very different turns the lives of its principle subjects took after it was published. We also talk about how McPhee put the piece together, which involved lugging a suitcase-sized projector down to Puerto Rico for a U.S. Davis Cup match.

Also this week: Mike tries again to eat a good donut.

Ep 288: Thom Jones, "The Pugilist at Rest" Aug 05, 2019

Show notes

Thom Jones graduated from the Iowa Writers Workshop in the late 70s, but didn't truly find his voice--and critical success--until "The Pugilist at Rest," which was published in The New Yorker in 1991. After that story, Jones published pieces in other big-name magazines and pretty quickly had a story collection out in the world. Journalists really latched onto the late-bloomer story, as well as the fact that Jones was working as a janitor when "The Pugilist at Rest" was published.

We talk about the story, and also about the mythology around Jones, who died in 2016. Also this week: Mike's continuing quest to eat a good donut, and why Tom is so tired of reading stories about the 60s.

Ep 287: Sally Rooney, Conversations With Friends Jul 29, 2019

Show notes

Neither of us had read anything by Sally Rooney, who has been called "the first important Millennial novelist" and "Salinger for the Snapchat generation." Both of her novels have garnered high praise from both critics and celebrities, including Zadie Smith and Sarah Jessica Parker. So it seemed like time for America's Most Important Books Podcast to finally weigh in.

We chose Rooney's first novel, Conversations With Friends, about a kind of love triangle (love rhombus?) between a young woman named Frances, her former girlfriend/current best friend Bobbi, and an older married couple, Melissa and Nick.

We talk about the book's politics, the narrator's voice, and what it means to be a "Millennial novelist." Also this week: Mike's continuing quest to find a good donut gets complicated.

Ep 286: Annie Dillard, "Total Eclipse" Jul 22, 2019

Show notes

This week we're discussing Annie Dillard's famous essay, "Total Eclipse," about the time she saw a total eclipse. Neither of us had read it before, and neither of us is quite sure whether we like it. We get Geoff Dyer's opinion, and Robert Atwan's, and a couple dissenting opinions from Goodreads, as we try to decide what to make of it. If you've never read the piece, you can do so here, via The Atlantic.

Also this week: Mike tries Indonesian food, and continues his quest for the perfect donut. And Tom has opinions about the best way to cook a s'more.

Ep 285: Carson McCullers, Ballad of the Sad Cafe Jul 15, 2019

Show notes

We're continuing our Summer School season of the podcast, in which we're reading things we feel like we should have gotten to by now. This week is Mike's pick, a novella set in a gossipy small town and ending with a knock-down, drag-out fist fight between a woman and her ex-husband. We talk about McCullers' writing and her life, including her apparent inability to successfully bed a woman, despite many attempts.

Also this week: Is the word hunchback offensive? Why is so much academic writing impenetrable? And Mike finally sees Jaws!

Ep 284: James Baldwin, "Notes of a Native Son" Jul 08, 2019

Show notes

We're continuing our Summer School season of the podcast, in which we're reading things we feel like we should have gotten to by now. This week is a Tom pick, a particularly famous essay by James Baldwin about the death of his father, bitterness, and race in America. Tom had read other Baldwin works before, but never this piece.

We talk about the ways this essay still feels relevant to American life, and the strength of Baldwin's prose and his intellect. We also check out some middling Goodreads reviews of Baldwin's work, to see what the people are complaining about. Plus: bad donuts, missed opportunities, Eagles songs, and why every poet is into astrology.

Ep 283: John D'Agata, "Round Trip" Jul 01, 2019

Show notes

This week we're kicking off a new season of Book Fight: Summer School! The idea is that we'll dive into books, stories, and essays that we feel like we should have read by now. That could mean classics, but it could also mean contemporary work that's been sitting on our to-read pile for a long time, or that we've been avoiding for one reason or another.

For the first Summer School episode we've got a Mike pick: an essay from John D'Agata's book Halls of Fame. Mike's been meaning to get to some of D'Agata's work for years now, despite having mixed feelings about his relationship to the truth and "truthiness" (as explicated in the book The_Lifespan_of_a_Fact, which traced the back-and-forth between D'Agata and a fact-checker at the Believer who found a number of factual errors in his piece about suicides in Las Vegas).

Book Fight After Dark: Snooki, A Shore Thing Jun 24, 2019

Show notes

We're taking a quick break between seasons of the show, getting our ducks in a row for Summer School--in which we'll be reading books, stories, and essays that we feel like we should definitely have read by now, but have skipped for one reason or another. In the meantime, here's a bonus episode that was originally available only to our Patreon subscribers. Back in the fall, we read the debut novel by Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, star of the MTV reality show Jersey Shore. A Shore Thing follows a Snooki-like character and her BFF as they navigate the Jersey Shore boardwalk for a summer--jobs, drinks, and lots of boys.

If you like this episode, you can subscribe to our Patreon and get one like it every month. For just $5 a month you can support the show and also get a Book Fight After Dark episode delivered to you each month.

Thanks for listening!

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