Stay ConnectedA blessing, a curse, a podcast, since 2014. Christopher (@cdhermelin) invites folks to the Damn Library to talk about reading, literature, publishing, and trying to make it through the never-dwindling stack of things to read. All with a themed drink in hand. Recorded at the Damn Library in Brooklyn, NY. For show info, book lists, and drink recipes, follow @somanydamnbooks and visit somanydamnbooks.com
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Copyright: © 2023
Here are the first three (of six!) mini interviews with So Many Damn Books Readers, talking favorite recent reads, current reading projects, and giving a book to a famous person, amongst many other bookish subjects.
My thanks to Michael for Portland, Daniella from London, Canada, and Noah from NYC for hanging out and chatting books. Part two goes up next week!
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.
Sarah, partner of Christopher and co-owner of the Damn Library, drops into some of the space she pays rent for to chat about working with the backlist for Penguin Random House, the world of publishing unionization efforts, and of course, what drinking a French 75 feels like.
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.
Sara Nović webcams into the Damn Library Zoom Zone to talk her new novel, True Biz. We discuss the limitations of prose in comparison to ASL, how she tried to mimic ASL on the page, some fantasies of Eyeth, and the propulsive nature of short chapters. Also a lot of other stuff. Plus, Sara brought along The Days of Afrekete by Asali Solomon, a book that both agree is "a feat of engineering" just like the NYT said.
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.
Sasha Fletcher physically drops in to the Damn Library. In the flesh. Christopher and Sasha are actually in the same room, chatting over cocktails. This is great, because Sasha’s novel Be Here to Love Me at the End of the World is a very fun book to discuss without any zoom lag, and the conversation ranges from the Medicis to the purposes of art to the agony of first drafts. Plus, Sasha brings along When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamín Labatut, which elucidates the beauty and savagery of math and physics. Giddy up!
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.
Sequoia Nagamatsu, author of How High We Go in the Dark steps into the Damn Library Pocket Universe and covers a lot of ground, both real and metaphysical. We get into why most pandemic novels don't focus on pandemics, how he put together some of the more wild chapters, and of course robot dogs. And then he brings out Brenda Peynado's The Rock Eaters, a collection of short stories that takes the figurative and makes it have weight - so of course Sequoia talks on what makes for a successful short story. Listen up!
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.
Dana Stevens stops into the Damn Library to talk about her new book, Camera Man: Buster Keaton, the Dawn of Cinema, and the Invention of the Twentieth Century, and it allows for lots of subject hopping, from the birth of movie reviews to Buster Keaton's model trains to the trick of describing movies dynamically. Plus, she brings along Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Disquiet, a fascinating posthumous tome from a prolific contemporary of Keaton who Dana Stevens is also obsessed with.
contribute! https://patreon.com/smdb
for drink recipes, book lists, and more, visit: somanydamnbooks.com
music: CDH, Disaster Magic
(https://soundcloud.com/disaster-magic)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Sara Gran joins Christopher in the Damn Library to talk The Book of the Most Precious Substance, which is wildly exciting - her books are some of the most cited in So Many Damn Books history. They get into plants, and spells, and the lure of rare book buying. Plus, Sara goes into what made her decide to self publish this book after so many years in the industry. And then she brings Generation Lost by Elizabeth Hand to discuss, a novel about not having a camera at the right time, amongst other things, Get into it!
(also, some fun news for the Claire DeWitt fans!)
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.
Drew is saying goodbye and vacating his role as co-host. That means one last episode with all the normal trappings, plus a wander into a chat about how the reading this year went, and if he achieved any goals he wanted to achieve when we started. Join us on this chilly, nostalgic stroll.
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.
Eugene Lim stops by the Damn Library to discuss his novel Search History, which sends the conversation careening from AI to authenticity to writing theatrically to songwriting to rainy day ideas, and that spiral leads (as it often does) to discussing César Aira and his work, particularly Conversations. Listen up!
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.
Uli Beutter Cohen, stops into the Damn Library for the third time, but for her first time as an author. She wrote Between the Lines: Stories from the Underground, and she talks about the culmination of her project of interviewing people about the books they're reading underneath the clamoring city, teases her pop-up store underneath Union Square (open until December 12th 2021!), and more. Plus, she brought us Wintering by Katherine May, a book that was sorely needed by all three folks.
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.
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