Fan's Notes Fan's Notes

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 of the early-season trends will have staying power this year.
We are deeply grateful to Isaac for coming on the pod—buy his book, people!—to help us kick off this new era of the pod. We're not sure exactly when we'll return with episode 102, or what we'll be reading when we do, but stay tuned!

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 Pequod. It's a wild ride.
Then, at the 1:25 mark, we called upon our old friends Charles Chace and Lynwood Robinson one last time for an exhaustive and divagating preview of the various playoff series that will lead us, inexorably, to the 2021 NBA Finals. It should come as no surprise that, after only a single weekend of playoff basketball, our predictions have already begun to be proven dumb and wrong. Some things never change!
Lastly, we'd like to sincerely thank everyone who enjoyed (or at least listened to) the podcast over the past five years. We especially appreciate all those people who suggested books for us to discuss or who appeared on the pod to talk about them with us, or who supported our Patreon. We could not have done this without you, and we look forward to talking books and basketball with you all again someday down the line. As ever: See'ya!

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, and perhaps each in turn. 
As mentioned above, our next episode--number 100--will be our last. The podcast is going on hiatus. To send you off right, we'll be delivering a final mega-pod on that literary leviathan itself: MOBY-DICK. You won't want to miss it!

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

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. 

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!