Welcome to a new episode of The Book Report! This week Mike and Janet talk about six literary villains they liked even though they weren’t supposed to.
Discussed in this episode: Jurassic World; Jeffrey Eugenides’s burn book; Janet in high school, again; crooked politicians; and what possibly could have been so bad about the tsarist regime.
The Book Report The Book Report is everyone's favorite weekly, literary show. Hosted by Janet Potter and Michael Schaub.
Welcome to a new episode of The Book Report presented by The Millions! This week, Janet and Mike talk about two books they enjoyed. Or, more specifically, one book that Janet enjoyed and one book that Mike mostly enjoyed but Janet did not enjoy. They don’t always have to agree on everything, okay?
Discussed in this episode: twirly chairs, “housesitting” (breaking and entering), wine, The Lost Time Accidents by John Wray, time, physics, the Czech Republic, watch factories, Nazi war criminals, the Church of Scientology but not really, science fiction, Leo Rosten but not really, Dog Run Moon by Callan Wink, the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Gen. George Armstrong Custer, exotic game, Western masculinity, fishing.
Dialogue cut from this episode because Mike was holding a three-foot-long water pipe that he likes to call “Bong Crosby” while saying it: “But, Janet, I mean, what if, like, time isn’t…I mean, what if it’s all just some kind of illusion? Like, have you ever really thought about…wait, hold on, I dropped a Dorito. Never mind, the dog got it. Anyway, what was I saying?”
Welcome to a new episode of The Book Report presented by The Millions! This week, Janet and Mike get inspired by Harper Lee’s new Go Kill a Watchbird, and talk about sequels to classic books they’d like to discover.
Discussed in this episode: Go Set a Watchman and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, racist Atticus Finch, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, A Christmas Story by Charles Dickens, Scarface (dir. Brian De Palma), Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, The Family Stone (dir. Thomas Bezucha), Dermot Mulroney, Sarah Jessica Parker, Claire Danes, Animal Farm by George Orwell, middle school plays, old-timey editorial cartoons, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, Scarlett O’Hara’s nonsense, The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, Holden Caulfield’s stupid cap, selling out, the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling, the forgotten students of Hogwarts, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jean Valjean.
Cut for time from this episode but likely to be included as an extra on the eventual DVD: 2 Naked 2 Dead by Norman Mailer.
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Welcome to a new episode of The Book Report presented by The Millions! This week, Janet and Mike discuss characters from literature they’d like to see join the already hilariously crowded Republican 2016 presidential primary. Why stop at 17? Come on! We’re just getting warmed up, y’all!
Discussed in this episode: Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James, Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird and Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee, Gregory Peck, Christian Grey, Grey by E.L. James, Edmund Pevensie, The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, Rep. Greg Stillson (I-N.H.), The Dead Zone by Stephen King, air pollution, Donald Trump (R-N.Y.), Mitt Romney (R-Utah), the Frank Bascombe books by Richard Ford, Eloise by Kay Thompson and Hilary Knight, pugs.
Not discussed in this episode: 15 of the 17 Republican candidates actually running for president, including Jeb Bush (R-Fla.), Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisc.), Rep. John Whiteman (R-Ohio), Sen. Robert “Bobby” Dollar (R-Wash.), and that one governor who yells at people all the time (R-Ohio).
Welcome to a new episode of The Book Report presented by The Millions! This week, Janet and Mike have “Seven Millions Questions” with Alina Simone, author of the new Madonnaland: And Other Detours into Fame and Fandom.
Discussed in this episode: Madonna, existential angst, The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, libertarian cultists, In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the USS Jeannette by Hampton Sides, explorers, Antarctica, Mt. Everest, New York, George Washington De Long, jealousy, Jonah Lehrer, Cat Power, “La Isla Bonita” by Madonna.
Not discussed in this episode: Mike’s bizarre insistence that Shanghai Surprise (dir. Jim Goddard) is an underrated movie. (Yeah, we don’t get it either.)
Say what?! The Marriage Plot is about DFW, JE, and Mary Karr? I really need to go back and reared it. Really like this series. — reaching for the Beowulf directly.
Great episode! I had heard about the Wallace character in The Marriage Plot (and it was pretty obvious when I read it), but didn’t know about the triangle with Mr. Eugenides. Loved the book. Bold choice of Nixon as likable villain. He did like bowling. So he’s got that going for him.
Janet scores empathy points for Frankenstein & the Romanovs.
Mike makes an inspired choice with Nixon who, coincidentally, played a helluva piano.
But nobody picks Raskolnikov? Come on! DFW but no RRR? He’s like a 3rd-year MFA’er going into debt and…murder!
Re: Grendel–Mike should check out hot-shot 70s author John Gardner’s “Grendel,” which is an examination of 12 big ideas of civilization from the perspective of the “monster” who channels J. P. Sartre. Gardner was a short-lived literary lion back then, sort of a cross between John Irving, Robert Pirsig and Robert James Waller (!)
He died young (late 40s) in a motorcycle accident, which may have kept him from being as well-remembered as he deserves to be.
How about Count Fosco in The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. He is so charming, witty and enlivens every page he is on, as opposed to the cardboard hero and heroines. And speaking of Counts, there is another I can think of who also brightens up the story he is in by his rare but very entertaining presence.