Future Topics

32 Responses

1. Perry DeLay · April 20, 2016 at 06:01:02 · →

   Suggestions for a future topic:

   A Thomas Bernhard novel such as Old Masters, The Loser, Correction, Woodcutters or Extinction.

   Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Space

   1. Roger · April 20, 2016 at 13:55:45 · →

      What serendipitous timing: I was just reading an excerpt from Bernhard’s “Montaigne” in Harper’s and thinking the same thing! Thanks for the ideas.

2. Perry · August 31, 2016 at 07:54:42 · →

   Would you consider devoting a show to Edmond Jabes’ Book of Questions or his Little Book of Unsuspected Subversion?

   1. Roger · August 31, 2016 at 21:45:49 · →

      Definitely. I don’t know Jabès’s work well but I’ve been wanting to read more of it.

3. adam · September 8, 2016 at 05:53:36 · →

   I’d love a William Gass and/or John Barth episode

   1. Roger · September 8, 2016 at 13:55:45 · →

      So would we, I suspect! Thanks for the suggestion, and let us know if you have specific books in mind — I guess my defaults would probably be Omensetter’s Luck for Gass and The Sot-Weed Factor, which I’ve been wanting to read for a long time, for Barth.

4. Adam · September 24, 2016 at 09:03:05 · →

   I would say Omensetter’s Luck for Gass, and Giles Goat-Boy for Barth. I love Sot-Weed Factor, but in my mind GG-B is his masterpiece, & the high point of that kind of bawdy, 60s metafiction.

5. delf · March 21, 2017 at 09:30:56 · →

   How about the criminally neglected poetry of alfred starr hamilton? The song cave have printed a collection called “a dark dreambox of another kind”.

   1. Roger · March 21, 2017 at 10:19:46 · →

      Great suggestion, thanks — I’m unfamiliar with him but a quick search makes him seem right up our alley. We’ll take a look for sure.

6. Adam · June 9, 2017 at 19:35:09 · →

   Just discovered this podcast, really like it. Do Matthew Stover or Celine.

   1. Roger · June 10, 2017 at 12:52:47 · →

      Thanks for listening! I fear both of those might violate our inclination not to do too much hate-reading, but we’ve been thinking about Celine for a while, maybe we’ll work him in sometime.

7. Z · June 20, 2017 at 10:10:50 · →

   looking to delve into this podcast very soon! very excited about the gass and lispector episodes.

   a few humble suggestions:

   • wm. gaddis’s J R
   • joanna russ’s ON STRIKE AGAINST GOD or THE FEMALE MAN or HOW TO SUPPRESS WOMEN’S WRITING
   • musil’s THE CONFUSIONS OF YOUNG TORLESS (pretend there’s an umlaut)
   • sergio de la pava’s A NAKED SINGULARITY
   • machado de assis’s EPITAPH OF A SMALL WINNER

   1. Roger · June 20, 2017 at 10:28:49 · →

      All great suggestions! (Although I sort of doubt we’ll double up on Machado…)

8. JD · July 10, 2017 at 16:28:34 · →

   -AI: Artificial Intelligence (the movie)
   -Hou Hsiao-Hsien
   -Jean Eustache
   -John Ford

   -Ernst Robert Curtius (or early 20th century philology in general)
   -Richard Ellmann’s James Joyce or Oscar Wilde
   -The Auroras of Autumn
   -Giacomo Leopardi’s Zibaldone

   1. Roger · July 10, 2017 at 17:09:10 · →

      Some terrific ideas in there! Thanks for the suggestions.

9. C. · July 12, 2017 at 22:11:41 · →

   -Doris Lessing
   -Lydia Davis
   -Darconville’s Cat, Alexander Theroux
   -Chris Marker, especially one of the political ones like Grin Without a Cat

   This list could nearly be all cat-themed. Oh, and David Markson.

   1. Roger · July 13, 2017 at 10:27:15 · →

      We’re never going to run out of ideas at this point! Lessing is a passion of mine whom I’ve been expecting to get around to at some point; Marker too has been in the back of my head for a while already. Thanks.

10. Casey · July 28, 2017 at 22:06:36 · →

    A Confederacy of Dunces, of course.

11. D · August 4, 2017 at 15:48:54 · →

    Thank you for the episodes so far- they’ve really lifted me out of a reading rut (of my own making)

    My wishlist of discussion would be-

    • anything written by José Saramago
    • Paul Kingsnorth’s ‘The Wake’
    • Russell Hoban’s ‘Riddley Walker’

    • anything you think that covers the irony, authorial voice, language, etc. that my wishlist suggests

    1. Roger · August 4, 2017 at 16:42:32 · →

       Thanks! I appreciate the reminder about the Kingsnorth book, especially — it’d somehow fallen off my mental to-read list.

12. Ian · November 16, 2017 at 11:44:10 · →

    would love a Gertrude Stein show,
    especially Ida, imo,
    or the late Barthelme, also

    1. Roger · January 2, 2018 at 17:53:55 · →

       Great ideas. Do let me know if there’s a Barthelme you’d recommend in particular, I don’t know all his work that well.

13. Gavolt · January 2, 2018 at 16:03:26 · →

    Two suggestions:

    1) Wide Sargasso Sea
    2) Maldoror

    1. Roger · January 2, 2018 at 17:54:59 · →

       Great ideas too. I’m a bit cool on the Rhys book but I haven’t read it in a long time.

14. Gavolt · January 3, 2018 at 13:26:34 · →

    Lol, me too. I was somewhat hoping you guys could convince me to like WSS more. That and I feel like I don’t really understand what it’s up to. But it’s so famous I figured this was my fault.

15. Ian · March 9, 2018 at 14:04:35 · →

    i’d say, for Barthelme, “City Life” or “Sadness” i like a lot; first novel “Snow White” is maybe unsubtle but fun, i think

16. Vic Perry · March 11, 2018 at 12:03:47 · →

    Have now enjoyed 3.9% of your productions out of the 3.9% I have sampled. Subjective facts don’t care about your feelings, but apparently they like you just fine anyway.

    I have a bunch of suggestions that honestly are more “talk about some of my favorite books” than necessarily good ideas. But do let me try to sell you on just this one book as a good episode topic:

    The Book of Fantasy, the (famous?) anthology selected by Borges, Casares & Ocampo. Not only for the high quality of the mix of obscure and famous tales and authors, but because I think you two could do a lot with talking about some of the implicit ideas about Fantasy (or ‘the fantastic’) the selections suggest.

    1. Roger · March 27, 2018 at 21:21:16 · →

       That’s a good idea! We’re probably taking a break from fantasy-ish topics for a little while after our next few, but I’ll try to keep it in mind for later.

17. Tom · June 3, 2018 at 12:53:39 · →

    I’ve only recently discovered the podcast, so firstly thank you for the excellent discussions. I still have many to enjoy!

    I see the next episode will be on Dunsany, so perhaps these suggestions are untimely but I’d love for you to cover some M. R. James, or Robert Aickman. Both fit into your troublesome, reactionary, weird fiction author lineage (Aickman a lot more interestingly than James in my opinion). Aickman, I think, is something different, however, in that he’s actually a good prose stylist!

    Aside from that I’d be delighted to hear you discuss Sebald (particularly The Rings of Saturn) and Thomas Browne from the list above!

    1. Roger · June 5, 2018 at 10:23:21 · →

       Thanks for listening — and for the good suggestions!

18. David B. · October 19, 2018 at 13:09:19 · →

    I’d like you to select your favourite Iain M. Banks novel and discuss it.

    1. Roger · October 26, 2018 at 13:31:14 · →

       You may regret asking us to do this, but we’ll think about it!