Bästa Fans Notes podcaster (2024)

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Episode 101: Iris Murdoch 2:01:48

2y ago2:01:48

2:01:48

The day has come. After a very long hiatus, we are back, with a brand new episode in tow. Isaac Butler joins us (at the 35 minute mark) to discuss Murdoch's style, her debt to Shakespeare, and the confounding-but-brilliant way she handled structure and perspective in her novels. An hour later, we switch over to the NBA, with a look at whether any o…

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Episode 100: MOBY. EFFING. DICK. 2:55:16

3+ y ago2:55:16

2:55:16

It is time, on this the 100th and final Fans Notes, to talk about THE GOAT, by which we mean of course THE WHALE. That's right, folks; we decided to enter the belly of the leviathan alongside Ahab, Melville, Queequeg and his husband Ishmael, and all the other presences--mortal, demonic or spermacetaceous-- that may be stowed away on board the Pequo…

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Episode 99: Charles Portis 1:31:00

3+ y ago1:31:00

1:31:00

In our penultimate episode (for now, at least!), we celebrate the work of this master of American comic voice who died early last year. Here's an hour of us giggling and gasping and quoting at length from the five novels he published in his life, and I think it's fair to say that listeners will find the experience to be either joyful or tedious, an…

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Episode 98: THE GO-BETWEEN 40:49

3+ y ago40:49

40:49

In this (formerly) subscribers-only episode, we discuss LP Hartley's great... maybe not great, but pretty darn good 1953 novel, The Go-Between.

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Episode 97: Jane Bowles' TWO SERIOUS LADIES 1:10:44

3+ y ago1:10:44

1:10:44

We're delighted to welcome Elisa Gabbert back to the pod, and grateful that she was willing to come on and talk with us about this odd, hilarious and unforgettable book. Around the one hour mark, we discuss the current state of the NBA MVP race. Join us next time, when we take a look at L.P. Hartley's THE GO-BETWEEN.…

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Episode 96: Our Least Favorite Books 1:27:09

3+ y ago1:27:09

1:27:09

On this hateful, hate-fueled pod, we discuss novels and authors that occupy a special place in our personal circles of book hell. And after that, a discussion of James Harden to the now very hateable Brooklyn Nets!

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Episode 95: Denis Johnson's TRAIN DREAMS 58:17

4y ago58:17

58:17

We regret to inform you that, in the course of our discussion of TRAIN DREAMS, we got waylaid in a STONER-shaped ditch. We spend a good deal of time fruitlessly comparing the two books, while trying to pin down what exactly Johnson is up to in this novella. At the 40 minute mark, we praise the Hawks and Suns for choosing a direction for their respe…

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Episode 94: Pod Le Carre 1:12:18

4y ago1:12:18

1:12:18

We discuss John Le Carre's CALL FOR THE DEAD, the first of the Smiley books. Why is George Smiley such an indelible character, and what was it about the Cold War and East Germany that played to Le Carre's strengths? Then a brief discussion of the Giannis supermax, James Harden, and coolness as a cultural value.…

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Episode 93: John Williams' STONER 1:08:23

4y ago1:08:23

1:08:23

Our mileage varies on STONER, which is either movingly muted or grayly inert, depending on which of us you ask. We interrogate the book's tone for clues as to whether it valorizes or deplores its main character's incurable passivity. At the 50 minute mark, we debrief on the distressed asset trade the Rockets and Wizards made, swapping Russell Westb…

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Episode 92: The Accountability Pod 1:15:04

4y ago1:15:04

1:15:04

On this (possibly not) long-awaited pod, we sift back through five years of NBA Draft episodes. What did we get right, what did we get not so right, and how might we adjust our draft philosophy in the future? And, most importantly, who picked Zhou Qi as a top-five prospect? Join us on a special trip down Hot Take lane!…

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Episode 91: James Hamilton-Paterson's COOKING WITH FERNET BRANCA / 2020 Draft Big Boards! 1:35:21

4y ago1:35:21

1:35:21

It's feast and famine on today's pod, beginning with the peculiar delicacy that is James Hamilton-Paterson's acridly farcical 2004 novel COOKING WITH FERNET BRANCA. Whether it adds up to anything more than a collection of delectable jokes is not clear, but it sure tastes good on the way down. Alas, at the 28 minute mark, we turn our attention to th…

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Episode 90: Formative Books 1:05:24

4y ago1:05:24

1:05:24

On this episode, we discuss the books and authors that have shaped us as writers and readers. Never before, probably, have Roald Dahl, Gore Vidal, Joan Didion, and Elmore Leonard (and many others) been featured in the same conversation!

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Episode 89: Jan Morris' HAV 1:05:36

4y ago1:05:36

1:05:36

In this episode, we discuss Jan Morris's delightful imaginary travelogue HAV, as well as the fact that with the election looming, we may not quite be in the mood for delightful imaginary travelogues. After that, we recap an NBA Playoffs that, unlike most things in 2020, was not soul-destroyingly awful. Next up James Hamilton-Paterson's COOKING WITH…

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Episode 88: The Woman in the Window 41:32

4y ago41:32

41:32

In this formerly subscribers-only episode, we discuss AJ Finn/Dan Mallory's execrable/nefariously brilliant 2018 thriller THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW, which has since been turned into a splashy and terrible Netflix movie. What do we look for in commercial thrillers? And how does this very bad book succeed where better-written versions fail?…

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Episode 87: The Papa Pod 1:04:50

4y ago1:04:50

1:04:50

It's time to discuss Ernest Hemingway. How did he become online enemy number one? Is he underrated at this point? And have we actually read any of his books? Plus: a preview of the Lakers-Heat NBA Finals!

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Episode 86: Elisa Gabbert's THE UNREALITY OF MEMORY 1:59:13

4y ago1:59:13

1:59:13

We're delighted to welcome Elisa Gabbert onto the pod to talk about her brilliant essay collection The Unreality of Memory, which was published in August. (Buy it! It is certain to be one of the best books you read this year.) Elisa also joined us for a discussion of Heinrich von Kleist's the supremely odd and wonderful nineteenth century novella M…

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Episode 85: Sandra Newman and the return of the NBA 1:29:56

4y ago1:29:56

1:29:56

We're extremely grateful to Sandra Newman for taking the time to talk about her 2019 novel THE HEAVENS with us. It's a moving and wondrous book, and one that we highly recommend people read. After our conversation with Sandra, at about the fifty minute mark, we turn our attention to the NBA restart. We marvel at the remarkable success of the bubble…

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Episode 84: Ben Lerner's The Topeka School 1:21:06

4+ y ago1:21:06

1:21:06

We spent so much time arguing (productively!) about whether or not the ending of this book is any good that we almost didn't leave ourselves time to discuss the rest of the book, which we agree is exceptionally good! For our next episode, we'll be reading Sandra Newman's most recent novel, THE HEAVENS.…

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Episode 83: Sally Rooney's Conversations with Friends 1:08:59

4+ y ago1:08:59

1:08:59

In this episode we discuss Sally Rooney's debut novel, with frequent tootling interruptions from a nearby Carolina wren. Next up: THE TOPEKA SCHOOL by Ben Lerner, whose first novel, LEAVING THE ATOCHA STATION, we discussed way back in episode 23. And please consider donating to organizations at work to end police brutality and white supremacy in it…

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Episode 82: Franzen-pod 1:28:39

4+ y ago1:28:39

1:28:39

Maybe quarantine wasn't the best time to hunker down inside a 600-page book called Freedom that tracks the hill-of-beans problems of three unhappy midlifers across the Bush era. Nevertheless, we persisted. The result is a mandatorily spaced pod recorded en plein air on Adam's front porch, with shimmering wind and truck noise as accompaniment. Enjoy…

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Episode 81: Joseph O'Neill's Netherland 1:04:30

4+ y ago1:04:30

1:04:30

In what may be the last pod we record face-to-face for a while, we dig into Joseph O'Neill's wonderful 2008 novel about marriage, cricket, and 9/11. Its portrait of a man flailing about for a proper response to a world in crisis chimed eerily with the vibe in America at the moment, as we enter the first full week of social distancing to combat coro…

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Episode 80: The Great Secret History Debate 1:32:49

4+ y ago1:32:49

1:32:49

No basketball talk today, the better to make room for a friendly sparring contest over Donna Tartt's 1992 debut novel. It's a book dear to Adam's heart across multiple readings; it's also one that Jesse, reading it for the first time, thoroughly disliked. Our discussion is repetitive and seemingly endless (very much like the book in question jkjk.)…

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Episode 79: The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake 1:18:13

4+ y ago1:18:13

1:18:13

We'd like to thank our listeners Matthew Ballou and Jason Ahuja, who suggested this week's book. The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake was first published in 1983, a few years after Pancake committed suicide at the age of 26. We discuss the way Pancake writes about his home state of West Virginia, and our sadness that he didn't live to extend the promi…

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Episode 78: Toni Morrison's Sula 1:20:20

5y ago1:20:20

1:20:20

Today we discuss Sula, Toni Morrison's 1973 follow-up to her debut novel The Bluest Eye, before pivoting at the 50 minute mark to talk about some of the things we've found most surprising about this NBA season, including the shockingly fun Oklahoma City Thunder, the frisky Memphis Grizzlies, and the better-than-expected Los Angeles Lakers. Join us …

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Episode 77: Robert Coover's The Universal Baseball Association 1:24:25

5y ago1:24:25

1:24:25

We'd like to extend a big thanks to listener Jeff Schroeck, who suggested we pick up Coover's 1968 fantasy-baseball fantasia as our selection from the 1960s. It was weird and smart and provoked a wide array of thoughts about postmodernism (both as a literary movement and as an operating condition of the second half of the twentieth century and beyo…

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Episode 76: Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House 1:11:22

5y ago1:11:22

1:11:22

We tarry cheerfully in the obscure and creepy corridors of Shirley Jackson's late novels, sites of psychic ambiguity and authorial (and architectural!) precision. Then, at the 46 minute mark, we assess the credibility of various trends of the young NBA season, as well as use the phrase "round into form" countless times. Next up, the postmodern 60s,…

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Episode 75: The Barring Injury edition 1:16:12

5y ago1:16:12

1:16:12

Here at long last is the second half of our recent podstravaganza, featuring Charles Chace and all of our misguided pre-season predictions. Feast your ears on all the things we were wrong about! Thanks to Charles for coming in (and bringing his fancy microphone and shock mount to boot.) We hope to have him back in later on in the season when we can…

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Episode 74: Under the Volcano 1:12:57

5y ago1:12:57

1:12:57

Recorded as part of a three-hour podstravaganza earlier this week, here's our discussion of Malcolm Lowry's daunting, forbidding, and rewarding 1947 novel. The rest of the podcast, in which we preview the newborn NBA season with our friend Charles Chace, is still being edited and will be released soon. Going forward on the books side, we have final…

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Episode 73: Modernist poetry with Emma Catherine Perry 1:05:23

5y ago1:05:23

1:05:23

For our 1930s episode, situated as it is between Mrs. Dalloway in the 1920s and Under the Volcano in the 40s, we decided to linger in the shadow of Modernism awhile longer. But rather than read an emblematic novel from the decade, we wanted instead to think about Modernism's impact on poetry. Where did it come from, in what ways did it break with t…

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Episode 72: Mrs. Dalloway and David Shields 1:08:18

5y ago1:08:18

1:08:18

On today's show, we mostly take turns reading passages that moved us from Virginia Woolf's tremendous novel about London in the wake of the great war, since there's nothing we could say that the book doesn't convey more artfully. At the 33 minute mark, we are joined by David Shields, author of Reality Hunger: A Manifesto, to talk about his newest p…

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Episode 71: Ford Madox Ford's The Good Soldier 58:57

5y ago58:57

58:57

We staked out opposite corners of the ring for this one: Adam holding firm to the notion that the narrator is the world's most gullible dolt; Jesse convinced that the narrator is a psycho killer whose reality grows more unstable with every just-remembered detail. Who won? The truth is neither of us. In the end we were rope-a-doped into inarticulacy…

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Episode 70: Edith Wharton's The House of Mirth 1:11:03

5y ago1:11:03

1:11:03

We've made it to the nineteen aughts, the terminus of our journey into the past, and we've chosen a book that beautifully captures that first decade of the twentieth century. Wharton's 1905 novel stands as an all-time great, drawing on tendencies of the nineteenth century novel but gesturing toward the future of the novel as well. Given that we're …

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Episode 69: Willa Cather's My Ántonia 1:10:30

5+ y ago1:10:30

1:10:30

There's a real pioneer spirit to this edition of the podcast, which was recorded en plein air in a remote mountain location along the border between Tennessee and North Carolina. Nat sounds -- including, at one point, the crackle of rifle shots -- lend background authenticity to our discussion first of Cather's novel, and then, at the 43 minute mar…

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Episode 68: Aspects of the Draft 1:45:11

5+ y ago1:45:11

1:45:11

We evaluate the flat and round prospects in the 2019 NBA Draft, after a discussion of Aspects of the Novel, E.M. Forster's a droll and delightful collection of lectures he gave at Trinity College in Cambridge in 1927. (NB: our draft big boards starts at the 45 minute mark.) Next up, the nineteen-teens and that staple of high school reading lists, W…

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Episode 67: Appointment in Samarra 59:34

5+ y ago59:34

59:34

For our 1930s book, we read the 1934 debut novel of John O'Hara. We discuss how successful O'Hara is in toggling back and forth between his book's two chief interests: that of the demise of a wealthy car dealer on the one hand and, on the other, his nearly topological rendering of the fictional town of Gibbsville, where the action is set. At the 47…

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Episode 66: Henry Green's Loving 1:25:25

5+ y ago1:25:25

1:25:25

Here's an odd book. Green's style is all his own, delightful and perverse, marked by clipped adverbs and a disdain for interiority. It's a talky book; like much of Green's work, the action takes place mainly in dialogue. Set among the English servants at a castle in Ireland during World War II, Loving is funny and confounding and a bit horny. It se…

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Episode 65: The Beau Monde of Damian Lillard 1:13:09

5+ y ago1:13:09

1:13:09

We begin in the 1950s, with Evan S. Connell's Mrs. Bridge, a sneakily moving novel comprised of short, comic vignettes in the life of a Kansas City housewife. At the 47 minute mark, we turn to the second round of the NBA Playoffs. We check in on Warriors-Rockets, Raptors-Sixers, Bucks-Celtics and Nuggets-Blazers, before finishing with an exaltation…

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Episode 64: The Prime of Pascal Siakam 1:35:18

5+ y ago1:35:18

1:35:18

In the first pod recorded in Jesse's distinctly unsoundproofed new office, we tackle Muriel Spark's wonderful 1961 novella The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. At the 42 minute mark, Lynwood Robinson joins us to predict the various playoff series. Apologies to Charles Chace, who we wanted to call in for his takes on the 3-6 matchups; we realized too late…

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Episode 63: Renata Adler's Speedboat 1:03:24

5+ y ago1:03:24

1:03:24

This book is great! Highly recommended. And for the first 20 minutes or so we remain focused on a discussion of what it does so expertly. After that we pursue like cats after a laser pointer a long digression of what autofiction means and whether it's a genre distinction that holds value. It may be of interest; it may be utterly tedious. Our apolog…

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Episode 62: Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine 1:06:07

5+ y ago1:06:07

1:06:07

This book has it all: busted shoelaces, advances in drinking straw design, a subtle and supple close reading of the intimacies and formalities of the late 20th Century American workplace. It's delightful and poignant and only 132 pages long! We chew it over, and at the 53 minute mark -- you'll know by the chime of music that plays! -- we move to a …

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Episode 61: Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai 1:22:55

5+ y ago1:22:55

1:22:55

Today we marvel at The Last Samurai, the maddening, brilliant debut novel byHelen DeWitt, before turning (at the 53 minute mark) to discuss the various machinations and maneuverings of the NBA trade deadline. Next up: Renata Adler's Speedboat.

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Episode 60: Andrew Martin's Early Work 1:04:29

6y ago1:04:29

1:04:29

We ponder the depths of the satire and self-awareness in Andrew Martin's 2018 debut novel Early Work. Fifty minutes in, pivoting off a scene in the book in which its characters watch James Harden in the 2015 Western Conference Finals, we discuss Harden's astonishing level of play over the last month, and whether that means he'll be usurping the MVP…

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Episode 59: Gabe Habash's Stephen Florida 1:12:36

6y ago1:12:36

1:12:36

On this episode we discuss Gabe Habash's 2017 novel Stephen Florida, which leads us to wonder what we mean when we say a book is "voicey." Around the 59 minute mark, we revisit some of our preseason NBA predictions to see what we got right and what we got wrong. Don't miss Dončić Corner (1hr 6 mins), wherein Jesse describes what it was like to see …

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Episode 58: Ottessa Moshfegh's Eileen 57:10

6y ago57:10

57:10

In this episode we chat about the novel Eileen, before pivoting, at the 36 minute mark, to an appreciation of Luka Dončić, the Slovenian phenom currently taking over the NBA and making the Dallas Mavericks appointment television. Next up, we'll be reading and discussing Gabe Habash's novel Stephen Florida.…

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Episode 57: Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream 1:22:26

6y ago1:22:26

1:22:26

On today's show, we discuss Schweblin's seriously creepy novel Fever Dream, which was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker prize. We highly recommend it, although you may need to sleep with the lights on afterwards. 47 minutes in, we chat about the Jimmy Butler trade and the Draymond-Durant dust-up, and how to determine the cost-benefit of star playe…

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Episode 56: Rachel Cusk redux 1:13:30

6y ago1:13:30

1:13:30

Picking up where we left off in Episode 21, with a look at Rachel Cusk's Kudos, which closes out her landmark "Outline" trilogy. At the hour mark, we move to a brief discussion of how the early season returns indicate the NBA as a whole has entered the pace-and-space era, possibly for good. Next up we'll be reading Samanta Schweblin's 2017 novel Fe…

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Episode 55: NBA Season Preview! 1:37:27

6y ago1:37:27

1:37:27

Just in time for the start of the new NBA year (give or take a few games), we invited our old friend Lynwood Robinson as well as a new guest, Charles Chace, to talk about what to expect from the season. Which teams are overrated, underrated, who's poised to break out, and who'll regress. It's long and book-free, so if you're not up for a rangy bask…

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Episode 54: Mary McCarthy 1:06:48

6y ago1:06:48

1:06:48

We discussed The Company She Keeps, the 1942 novel-in-stories by a young Mary McCarthy, the twentieth century intellectual who would go on to mass acclaim with 1963's The Group. The Group is great — McCarthy in general is great! — but we're here to stump for her under-read debut as a wonderful work in itself, modern and resonant and ahead of its ti…

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Episode 53: Richard Yates 1:21:16

6+ y ago1:21:16

1:21:16

It's the Age of Anxiety on today's pod, as we delve into the collected stories of Richard Yates, and then fret over Trae Young's inauspicious debut at NBA Summer League. (We transition to basketball, 46 minutes in, with talk of LeBron's move to the Lakers.) Next up is Mary McCarthy, whose famous short story "The Man in the Brooks Brothers Suit" is …

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Episode 52: Philip Roth 1:21:06

6+ y ago1:21:06

1:21:06

Philip Roth died last month at age 85. To help us make sense of his place in American writing, we invited our friend Ben Felton, who last joined us to talk Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, to come back on to discuss The Ghost Writer, as well as Roth's work more generally. 00:00-00:35 The Ghost Writer 00:35-00:57 Roth and the question of…

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