Three Percent Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Three Percent #161: Will a French Book Win the BTBA? May 28, 2019

Show notes

Chad and Tom took some time off on Memorial Day to bring you this little podcast about the Best Translated Book Award finalists (winner will be announced at 5pm on 5/29 at BEA/NYRF, and there will be an informal afterparty at The Brooklyneer on Houston starting at 7), about the Man Booker International winner, about the quality of book production, anchoring with regard to book prices, and Chad's new obsession with saunas and Norwegian fiction. (He includes a lot of data about Norwegian books in the U.S. that's definitely worth the price of admission.)

This week's music is "raging river" from Sebadoh's new, very muscular and surprising, album, Act Surprised. ("celebrate the void" is a great song as well.)

As always, feel free to send any and all comments or questions to: threepercentpodcast@gmail.com. Also, if there are articles you’d like us to read and analyze (or just make fun of), send those along as well.

And if you like the podcast, tell a friend and rate us or leave a review on iTunes!

You can also follow Open Letter, Riffraff, and Chad and on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Riffraff, Chad) for book and baseball talk.

If you don’t already subscribe to the Three Percent Podcast you can find us on iTunes, Stitcher, and other places. Or you can always subscribe by adding our feed directly into your favorite podcast app: http://threepercent.libsyn.com/rss

Three Percent #160: Double Controversy May 15, 2019

Show notes

One of the calmest podcasts to date featuring two controversial topics: the new Open Letter cover design, and the side-effects of suddenly doubling (or quadrupling) the number of translations published every year.

In terms of recommendations, this week Chad is all about the completely wild Bred from the Eyes of a Wolf by Kim Kyung Ju, translated from the Korean by Jake Levine.

Tom's in love with This Searing Light, the Sun and Everything Else: Joy Division: The Oral History by Jon Savage.

This week's music is "Bike Dream" by Rostam.

And if you like the podcast, tell a friend and rate us or leave a review on iTunes!

You can also follow Open Letter, Riffraff, and Chad and on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Riffraff, Chad) for book and baseball talk.

TMR: CoDex 1962 (Pgs 58-109) May 10, 2019

Show notes

Chad's just back from a 7 hour train ride. Brian is inebriated. Tom Flynn is . . . Tom Flynn? It's a classic episode of the Two Month Review about horny avenging angels, chamber pot dumps, how many books actually last for a hundred years, the name "Karl," whatever Bumble is, and much more. A fun, loose podcast about a brilliant books.

As always, you can watch these episodes live on our YouTube channel the day before they’re released in podcast form.

The next episode will focus on pages 110-155 (chapters 12-15 of "Thine Eyes Did See My Substance: A Love Story"). The complete schedule can be found here.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, Brian Wood, and Tom Flynn for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests

And be sure to preorder Brian's book, Joytime Killbox, which is coming out this fall from BOA Editions. And preorder Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann so that you're prepared for a future TMR.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

Three Percent #159: Publishing in 2025? May 01, 2019

Show notes

Chad and Tom are back to talk about Independent Bookstore Day (and Free Comic Book Day and Record Store Day), the Indie Playlist Initiative, fascists storming Politics & Prose, Alex Shephard's Mueller Report article, how much money Stanford (the Duke of the West?) is wasting on their crappy football program instead of supporting their University Press, and a future of publishing article that might just be an advertorial for a live-streaming conference? (Wait, WAIT: "emoji activist" is a valid inclusion in your bio?)

Chad also thanks Louis Lüthi for sending along A Die with Twenty-Six Faces, and there's a tiny little bit of Avengers: Endgame talk. (Although no baseball! Possibly because Chad doesn't want to jinx the Cardinals, who have the best record AND best run differential in the National League.)

Finally: Nominate writers for the International Writers Hall of Fame! A post including the results will go up later this week, so make your recommendations now.

This week's music is "Something Soon" by perennial podcast favorite Car Seat Headrest. (The TV destruction in this video is top tier.)

And if you like the podcast, tell a friend and rate us or leave a review on iTunes!

You can also follow Open Letter, Riffraff, and Chad and on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Riffraff, Chad) for book and baseball talk.

TMR: CoDex 1962 (Introduction) Apr 26, 2019

Show notes

The new season of the Two Month Review kicks off with a pretty wide-ranging discussion. Sure, there is a bit about Sjón (pronounced SYOHN, which is not how Chad says it) and a few things about his earlier books and CoDex 1962, but a good part of this introductory episode is about patterns in narrative, cinematic realism, the imaginative nature of international literature, boxes and small rooms, Game of Thrones, and Iceland.

As always, you can watch these episodes live on our YouTube channel the day before they’re released in podcast form.

The next episode will focus on pages 1-57 (chapters 1-6 of "Thine Eyes Did See My Substance: A Love Story") and will be an audio only release. (Chad's graduate students will be the guests.)

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Sjón and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

Order a copy of Brian's book, Joytime Killbox from BOA Editions.

Three Percent #158: 2019 Best Translated Book Award Longlists Apr 17, 2019

Show notes

Best Translated Book Award fiction judge Kasia Bartoszynska joins Chad and Tom to talk about the recently released longlists. After providing some insight into the committee's thinking and discussions (and confirming that Chad had no knowledge of the lists beforehand, while not 100% confirming that Chad isn't Adam Hetherington), Kasia returns to her drive through Peoria and Chad and Tom read through all thirty-five longlisted books, commenting on the titles they're familiar with, and projecting the shortlists.

They also recommend two other titles: Ways of Hearing by Damon Krukowski and Meander, Spiral, Explode by Jane Alison.

This week's music is "Tugboat" by Galaxie 500.

And if you like the podcast, tell a friend and rate us or leave a review on iTunes!

You can also follow Open Letter, Riffraff, and Chad and on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Riffraff, Chad) for book and baseball talk.

BONUS EPISODE: Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Sean Bye on Polish Reportage Apr 11, 2019

Show notes

As part of Nonfiction in Translation Month at Three Percent, Polish translators Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Sean Bye came on the podcast to explain Polish Reportage, talk about some key figures and forthcoming books, and more or less introduce Open Letter's new nonfiction line.

Some of the titles mentioned on this podcast include:

Dancing Bears by Witold Szablowski (trans. by Antonia)

Foucault in Warsaw by Remigiusz Ryziński (trans. by Sean)

Nobody Leaves: Impressions of Poland by Ryszard Kapuscinski (trans. by ?? not on Penguin's site or Amazon)

Chasing the King of Hearts by Hannah Krall (trans. by Philip Boehm)

Roosters Crow, Dogs Whine by Wojciech Tochman (Antonia is working on a sample)

History of a Disappearance by Filip Springer (trans. by Sean)

You can find Antonia here, and Sean on the Cedilla & Co. website.

The intro/outro music on this episode is from "On the Luna" by Foals.

You can also follow Open Letter and Chad on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Chad) for book and baseball talk.

Three Percent #157: Post-Portland AWP Apr 03, 2019

Show notes

On this atypically subdued episode, Chad recounts some of his adventures in Portland at the AWP conference, and speculates about why this was his favorite one to date. Tom helps illuminate some of the mysteries behind IndieBound and what might be next for independent stores trying to capture some online sales. (And how this relates to customers and ABA's overall mission.) Finally, Chad tries to do the self-promotion Tom should be doing by highlighting a recent feature on Riffraff and the release of The Boy by Marcus Malte, which Tom and Emma translated.

This week's music is "Bodys" by Car Seat Headrest.

And if you like the podcast, tell a friend and rate us or leave a review on iTunes!

You can also follow Open Letter, Riffraff, and Chad and on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Riffraff, Chad) for book and baseball talk.

2MR: Radiant Terminus (Chapters 39-END) Mar 22, 2019

Show notes

Chad and Brian finish off Radiant Terminus and talk about possible interpretation of the ending, whether anyone came out of this book OK, the balance between humor and horror, written vs. oral culture, possible readings or approaches to the novel, and a desire for a "Post-Exotic" journal.

They also revisit Volodine's two-part series, "Post-Exotic Novels, Novelles, and Novelists" from The New Inquiry, and mention McKenzie Wark's "The October Revolution of Antoine Volodine."

As always, you can watch these episodes live on our YouTube channel the day before they’re released in podcast form.

Season Eight will launch in mid-April (details TK) and will focus on Sjón's CoDex 1962. Get your copy now!

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, Brian Wood, and Rachel Crawford for more thoughts on Volodine and literature in general, and for information about upcoming guests.

You can find all the Two Month Review posts by clicking here. And be sure to leave us a review on iTunes. It really helps people to discover the podcast.

This season's music is all from Mother Earth's Plantasia by Mort Garson, which is Moog music for plants. This week you can hear "A Mellow Mood for Maidenhair."

Three Percent #156: The Netflix of Titles Mar 19, 2019

Show notes

On this week's podcast, Chad and Tom talk laugh about how HarperVia conceives of itself, praise this year's National Book Award for Translation judges, give some spotty analysis of the Man Crankstart (?) Booker International longlist, the idea of an International Writers Hall of Fame (vote here), the one NCAA Basketball Bracket Pool you should join, and Christian Lorenzen's "Like This or Die."

Again, vote for who you think should make the International Writers Hall of Fame now (full results are forthcoming).

This week's music is "Summon the Fire" by The Comet Is Coming.

And if you like the podcast, tell a friend and rate us or leave a review on iTunes!

You can also follow Open Letter, Riffraff, and Chad and on Twitter and Instagram (OL, Riffraff, Chad) for book and baseball talk.