how to win the lottery: a book club podcast "shreds" and joey lewandowski

our delaware module (suck shit, sufjan stevens #2) gets off to a questionable start, geographically speaking, with fight club by chuck palahniuk. joey kicks things off by sharing some delaware facts before he and shreds discuss their history with palahniuk and what his writing meant to people coming of age in the 90s and 00s. we talk about fincher’s adaptation (what it does better and what it does worse), the leap in logic necessary to fully get behind the plot, and the wrong “lessons” people “learned” from this story. we discuss how overt the twist is (once you know it’s coming), why it ruined that twist for all subsequent art, and why the timing of its reveal helps it work as well as it does. shreds brings up taylor swift but doesn’t want to hear joey’s explanation. joey talks about the time he met chuck palahniuk. shreds talks about the time he was in a fight. we open a mailbag that leaves shreds walking on air, and we once again discuss the horny module.

reading list for season six
fight club by chuck palahniuk
the book of unknown americans by cristina henríquez
sunburn by laura lippman

we’re once again embracing our lottery and gambling spirit with the sixth season of the pod. (if you don’t want to have the theme spoiled, just listen to the episode.) we’ve tied up sufjan stevens with this one. as a reminder, years ago, sufjan stevens vowed to write an album for every u.s. state. he made two then bailed. we plan to outdo him. we’re unveiling which state will be covered in the (shortened) sixth season of the pod with a return of everyone’s favorite bit of gambling and (once again) some great foley work.

reading list for season six
fight club by chuck palahniuk
the book of unknown americans by cristina henríquez
sunburn by laura lippman

our un/adaptable season draws to a close with infinite jest by david foster wallace. shreds is back, and he’s got a story to tell. we discuss the difficulty of the text (which is baked into the design), a mere fraction of the many things joey missed in his first read, and why you don’t really read infinite jest so much as you re-read it. we talk about the purpose and importance of the endnotes, wallace’s ability to describe tennis, and the prescience of technology in the text. we attempt to parse the most confusing part of the book (found in the first chapter), explore the purpose behind “the entertainment,” and wonder if punters have ever been this cool or admired. we hear from both egg and the honorable judge matt erdely, who drops by to judge a book by its four covers.

reading list for season five
the zone of interest by martin amis
underworld by don delillo
eileen by ottessa moshfegh
speedboat by renata adler
memory by donald westlake
blood and guts in high school by kathy acker
project hail mary by andy weir
the raw shark texts by steven hall
crying in h mart by michelle zauner
wittgenstein’s mistress by david markson
nightbitch by rachel yoder
infinite jest by david foster wallace

our final novel this module with an upcoming adaptation is nightbitch by rachel yoder, which breaks new ground for the podcast, as former host bobby had (briefly) covered this already in a patreon exclusive behind the elsive paywall. (a reminder: don’t subscribe to our patreon. it’s not worth it.) we talk about feeling less qualified to talk about this novel than others in a similar space, rachel yoder’s use of the werewolf metaphor, and the meaning/reason behind a particularly gruesome action in the text. we discuss the target audience for the novel, whether the transformation into nightbitch is metaphorical or literal (and if it matters one way or the other), and the satire on display. tulsa refuses to care about the film mean girls. we discuss the upcoming adaptation of nightbitch (directed by marielle heller and starring amy adams) and debate whether the film will be able to portray the internal machinations at work in the novel.

reading list for season five
the zone of interest by martin amis
underworld by don delillo
eileen by ottessa moshfegh
speedboat by renata adler
memory by donald westlake
blood and guts in high school by kathy acker
project hail mary by andy weir
the raw shark texts by steven hall
crying in h mart by michelle zauner
wittgenstein’s mistress by david markson
nightbitch by rachel yoder
infinite jest by david foster wallace

our next (un)adaptable title this module is wittgenstein’s mistress by albany’s greatest novelist david markson. tulsa has returned and he has stories about the honorable judge matt erdely to share. we discuss how wittgenstein’s mistress is hard to summarize as we talk about its distortion of time, profound sadness, and the meaning of language within the text. we talk about david foster wallace’s writing about the novel, markson’s frequent inclusion of menstruation in the text, and whether or not there’s any possible way to adapt this to film. tulsa embarks on an ambitious project. maybe.

reading list for season five
the zone of interest by martin amis
underworld by don delillo
eileen by ottessa moshfegh
speedboat by renata adler
memory by donald westlake
blood and guts in high school by kathy acker
project hail mary by andy weir
the raw shark texts by steven hall
crying in h mart by michelle zauner
wittgenstein’s mistress by david markson
nightbitch by rachel yoder
infinite jest by david foster wallace

our un/adaptable module continues with crying in h mart by michelle zauner, which also marks our first foray into nonfiction. joey is joined once again by a guy named gary, who shares a plea from shreds and expresses a hatred for a specific pronunciation of a particular word. we talk about whether or not you need to know a lot about korean food to appreciate this book, lament not having a food/cooking connection with people close to us (which seems very nice), and compare the food in america to the food around the world. joey recalls axe bodyspray. gary dunks on joey (in an unrelated incident). we lose the premise of the discussion, spend a lot of time talking about food, and break down how weird the module is turning out. egg compliments michelle zauner’s reading of the audiobook. we count down to our next state module. gary says goodbye to cormac mccarthy.

reading list for season five
the zone of interest by martin amis
underworld by don delillo
eileen by ottessa moshfegh
speedboat by renata adler
memory by donald westlake
blood and guts in high school by kathy acker
project hail mary by andy weir
the raw shark texts by steven hall
crying in h mart by michelle zauner
wittgenstein’s mistress by david markson
nightbitch by rachel yoder
infinite jest by david foster wallace