Three Percent Podcast

Latest Episodes:

2MR: Radiant Terminus (Chapters 1-3) Feb 01, 2019

Show notes

From Tarkovsky to Jessica Jones, this week's episode covers a lot of ground. Anthony and Chad are joined by Hailey Dezort to walk through the first three chapters of Antoine Volodine's Radiant Terminus. There's a lot to unpack, from the plant names, to the nature of men, to horrible fathers, to the humor found in Gramma Ugdul talking to the core of a failed nuclear reactor. Given how plotted this novel is, you can definitely follow along, even if you haven't read the section yet.

Also, we get to find out who Hailey thinks Khrili Gompo is, and we officially changed this season's contest: Whoever sends in the best drawing of one of the imaginary plants found in Radiant Terminus will receive copies of both of his previous published Open Letter titles AND all forthcoming ones.

If you want to get one of these t-shirts, email Open Letter and let us know!

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 be recorded live the evening of Wednesday, February 6th.

You can also get 30% off Radiant Terminus, or any other Volodine book, by using the code VOLODINE at checkout from the Open Letter website. (Offer is only good until midnight Eastern on 1/31.)

Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in general—either on this post, or at the official GoodReads Group.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, Brian Wood, Anthony Blake, and Hailey Dezort 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 "Symphony for a Spider Plant." (A very Volodine title.)

2MR: Radiant Terminus (Introduction) Jan 29, 2019

Show notes

We’re back! . . . And a few days late. Chad explains why on the podcast itself, but suffice it to say that last week was a bit, um, stressful. But Brian and Chad finally got together to talk about Antoine Volodine in general, post-exoticism, Brian Evenson’s introduction to Radiant Terminus, similarities between Evenson’s writing and Volodine’s, this season's game (SEND US YOUR DREAMS!), Volodine's essay in The New Inquiry, and much more.

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 be recorded live on Wednesday, January 30th at 11am Eastern.

You can also get 30% off Radiant Terminus, or any other Volodine book, by using the code VOLODINE at checkout from the Open Letter website. (Offer is only good until midnight Eastern on 1/31.)

Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in general—either on this post, or at the official GoodReads Group.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Pessoa 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 the opening track from the album, "Plantasia."

BONUS EPISODE: Interview with Jonathan Dunne Jan 23, 2019

Show notes

As part of this month's ongoing series of posts about literature from Spain, I talked to author, translator, and publisher Jonathan Dunne, whose Small Stations Press has produced more translations of Galician literature into English than anyone else. On this bonus episode of the Three Percent Podcast, we talk about how to pronounce "Galician," how he got into translating and publishing these works, the challenges of running a small press, the importance of voice and flow over individual words, why translating poetry is easier than translating long novels, and much more.

Jonathan also recommends a number of Galician authors and books, all of which can be found on the Small Stations website.

This week's music is "Here to Fall" by Yo La Tengo.

You can also follow Open Letter and Chad on Twitter and Instagram (OL, 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 #152: Seven (Or So) Insights Jan 16, 2019

Show notes

Getting back on schedule for the new year, Chad and Tom convene to talk about two articles: "7 Publishing Insights Revealed by Last Year's Top 100 Bestselling Books," and "Virginia Woolf? Snob! Richard Wright? Sexist! Dostoyevsky? Anti-Semite!" They also talk a bit about YA books and the precipitous decline in reading as people age, terrible Instagram poetry, and the difficulties in getting books from a particular publisher.

They also recommend a few titles:

Scar by Sara Mesa

Tentacle by Rita Indiana

All That Is Evident Is Suspect: Readings from the Oulipo, 1963-2018 by Daniel Levin Becker and Ian Monk

This week's music is Los Campesinos! cover of "Frontwards" by Pavement.

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.

2MR: THE BOOK OF DISQUIET Sections 394-END Dec 21, 2018

Show notes

It's all over! After eleven weeks of Pessoa, Chad and Brian have finished The Book of Disquiet. And to celebrate, they each wrote some jacket copy and blurbs and went hard at trying to get BINGO for someone. They also preview the next season of TMR and come up with a very marketable Pessoa-themed product idea . . .

As always, you can find the video for this episode on our YouTube channel, where we livestream the episodes. Stay tuned for more details about the schedule for Season 7: Radiant Terminus by Antoine Volodine.

Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in general—either on this post, or at the official GoodReads Group.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Pessoa 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 opening music is "E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim" by contemporary fado star Cristina Branco. And the episode ends with an energetic blast of bad music.

Three Percent #151: A Time for Gifting Dec 19, 2018

Show notes

After a long conversation about a rather strange Rochester gathering of arts organizations, Chad and Tom get down to business: recommending their favorite books of 2018. Except, rather than just make a list, they decide which of their friends or relatives should receive each of these titles. Then they talk about a couple movies, heists, and NXIVM.

A (hopefully) complete list of the recommended titles:

The Shift by Russell Carleton

Seasonal Associate by Heike Geissler

Ivory Pearl by Jean-Patrick Manchette

Lost Empress by Sergio De La Pava

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

The Overstory by Richard Powers

Paradise Rot by Jenny Hval

CoDex 1962 by Sjón

Madame Victoria by Catherine Leroux

Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants by Mathias Énard

This week's music is "Young Lady, You're Scaring Me" by Ron Gallo.

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

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

2MR: THE BOOK OF DISQUIET Sections 359-393 Dec 13, 2018

Show notes

Probably the most controversial Two Month Review to date, so buckle up! Are there unhinged rants? You bet! Questions regarding the marketing and "completeness" of the New Directions edition? Yep! A long discussion about the differences in voice between the both excellent Margaret Jull Costa and Richard Zenith translations? That too! It's a jam packed penultimate episode that's not to be missed.

As always, you can find the video for this episode on our YouTube channel, where we livestream the episodes. Next week's podcast will cover sections 359-393 (pages 388-421 in the U.S. edition). Stay tuned for more details about the exact time.

Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in general—either on this post, or at the official GoodReads Group.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Pessoa 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 opening music is "E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim" by contemporary fado star Cristina Branco. And for next season can we please finish each episode with good music?

2MR: THE BOOK OF DISQUIET Sections 316--358 with David Smith Dec 06, 2018

Show notes

This week David Smith—former Open Letter intern and current grad student at the University of Iowa—joins Chad and Brian to debate poetry vs. prose, separating the p.o.v. of Pessoa's heteronyms from his own personal viewpoint, Soares's morality and metaphysics, how to judge the quality of a translation, and much more. As a bonus, Brian shares his first ever work of erasure poetry!

Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in general—either on this post, or at the official GoodReads Group.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Pessoa 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 opening music is "E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim" by contemporary fado star Cristina Branco. And wow, Taking Back Sunday really sucks.

Three Percent #150: Canadian Publishing Dec 05, 2018

Show notes

This week, Kevin Williams of Talonbooks out of Vancouver, British Columbia joins Tom and Chad to talk about the state of publishing in Canada. He recaps his career in the book business—as a bookseller, distributor, agent, and publisher—and provides a lot of insight into the Canadian funding structures, the not-so-great state of the bookstore scene, the difficulties of breaking out a book, and the struggle to get American readers and reviewers to pay attention to Canadian writers.

If you're not already familiar with Talonbooks, you can check them out online, and Kevin recommends The Weight of Snow, a forthcoming title by Quebec author Christian Guay-Poliquin.

(Meanwhile, Tom recommends the new Énard, and Chad is still on about Rodrigo Fresán's forthcoming The Dreamed Part.)

This week's music is

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

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

2MR: THE BOOK OF DISQUIET Sections 274-315 Nov 24, 2018

Show notes

Chad and Brian fly solo this week, filling in dozens of TMR Bingo squares, and trying to come up with "rules for writers" based on this particular section of The Book of Disquiet. It's a pretty imprecise set of rules, but whatever, in the words of Pessoa, "perfection is inhuman." They also talk a bit about a "Mount Rushmore of American Literature," whether or not listicles can hit a saturation point in which they're all useless, and much more.

As always, you can find the video for this episode on our YouTube channel, where we livestream the episodes. Next week's podcast will cover sections 316-358 (pages 337-387 in the U.S. edition). Stay tuned for more details about the exact time.

Feel free to comment on this episode—or on the book in general—either on this post, or at the official GoodReads Group.

Follow Open Letter, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for more thoughts on Pessoa 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 opening music is "E Às Vezes Dou Por Mim" by contemporary fado star Cristina Branco. And this week's closing music is the most Pessoa-like song we've included to date . . .

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