100 episodes
Two Month Review Three Percent
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- Arts
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4.8 • 35 Ratings
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Each “season” of Two Month Review highlights a new and amazing work of world literature, reading it slowly over the course of eight to nine episodes. Featuring a rotating set of literary guests—from authors to booksellers, critics, and translators—each episode recaps a short section of the book and uses that as a springboard for a fun (and often irreverent) discussion about literature in a general sense, pop culture, reading approaches, and much more. Talking about great books doesn't need to be deadly serious, and 2MR makes it fun to everyone (even if you’re not reading along).
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TMR 22.6: "Nuisance Bugger Donkeys" [Praiseworthy]
Chad and Kaija make up this week's panel as they play the "Slang Game," then discuss the elliptical meta-structure of the book and how this impacts their reading and the book's effectiveness. They also discuss Sam Rutter's New York Times review of the novel, addressing the difficulties of discussing the workings of the text itself given the burden of having to contextualize so much for a foreign audience.
This week's music is "Under the Milky Way" from The Church, one of Australia's most widely known bands.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tune in next week for more banter and analysis live on YouTube where we will be covering pages 400-463. (Up to chapter 12 in "Sitting in the Bones.")
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, Kaija Straumanis, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests.
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TMR 22.5: "Maximum Superhero Cop-God" [Praiseworthy]
"Who's Stronger?" is the game of the week in this episode about the Maximum Superhero Cop-God's arrival in Praiseworthy to quell the frantic search for Aboriginal Sovereignty. There are lots of moths, discussion about acknowledging the land which we occupy as a good first step, and more about the difficult reality of life in this part of the country even without government interventions.
This week's music is "Punching in a Dream" from the New Zealand band The Naked and Famous. (I thought they were Australian!)
And if you want to see the Norm Macdonald bit, you can find it here.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tune in next week for more banter and analysis live on YouTube where we will be covering pages 265-336.
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. -
TMR 22.4: "Devotion to Off-Grid Religions" [Praiseworthy]
Emmett Stinson (Murnane) joins Chad W. Post and Kaija Straumanis this week to educate us about Australian culture and literature and things we should keep in mind while reading Praiseworthy. He also participates in a round of the world-famous trivia game: "Australian Baseball Player or Indigenous Australian Writer?" There is, of course, Bluey talk and cuck jokes, along with analysis of the end of "The Censer."
This week's music is "Pinball Lez," the original intro music to Bluey, by Custard, fronted by David McCormack who you might know as the voice of Bandit.
For more of Emmett, check out this episode of Beyond the Zero.
If you want to see a truly horrible "Australian influenced" recipe from someone whose Instagram might be a cry for help, click here.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tune in next week for more banter and analysis live on YouTube where we will be covering pages 265-336.
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests.
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TMR 22.3: "Tommyhawk!" [Praiseworthy]
This episode could be titled, "Dead Bodies in Water," as Chad and Brian talk about the unfortunate situation in Rochester and the juxtaposition of Absolute Sovereignity trying to drown himself while his brother, Tommyhawk!, watches, doing nothing to save him. There's also more talk about Bluey, but also the tone of the book, the nature of the life challenges Tommyhawk! and First Nations children face, his perceptions and the influence of media on that, and much more.
This week's music is "Stacking Chairs" by Australian band, Middle Kids.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tune in next week for more banter and analysis live on YouTube where we will be covering pages 198-264.
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. -
TMR 22.2: "God Donkey" [Praiseworthy]
From discussion of Ohio and disturbing news about everyone's favorite Australian export, this episode skirts talking too deeply about Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy (New Directions, And Other Stories, Giramondo) to discuss challenges of getting into particular books, what the purpose of this podcast is in trying to assist in that and get whatever it is we get out of finishing something we might otherwise give up on. (We're not giving up on this book! Just a meta-commentary.)
Also: The University of Rochester's wifi was all screwed up during the recording. Most of the big gaps have been erased, but it is a bit choppy at the start, for which we apologize.
This week's music is "If Not Now, Then When?" by Australia's own King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tune in next week for more banter and analysis live on YouTube where we will be covering pages 133-198.
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests. -
TMR 22.1: "Kick the Haze in its Guts" [Praiseworthy]
The first episode of the new season of the Two Month Review—covering Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy (New Directions, And Other Stories, Giramondo)—start off with Chad crapping on golf, then rolls on into book design and books as objects, the pacing and rhythms of Wright's work, its humor, its orality, what ancillary information is beneficial, and how the introduction of the two children really snap the first section into place as a reading experience.
This week's music is "Sham System (The Limiñanas Rework)" by Al-Qasar.
You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Tune in next week for more banter and analysis live on YouTube where we will be covering pages 68-133.
Follow Open Letter, Two Month Review, Chad Post, and Brian Wood for random thoughts and information about upcoming guests.
The large image of the Carpentaria Gulf Coast associated with this post is copyrighted by Sentinel Hub.
Customer Reviews
Best Literary Podcast
The only book podcast you'll ever want. They actually offer in-depth analysis of the books they're reviewing. It's basically like all the conversations you wish you had with friends about the books you read. The people who host the show & the guests they have on are funny, entertaining, and knowledgable. The podcast overall allows for a more interesting reading experience if you keep with each episode. Highly recommend giving it a go.
This Should Be So Much Better
The hosts deserve credit for promoting challenging/unusual fiction, especially in translation, but the delivery is hard to listen to. Analysis is minimal and rarely goes beyond “best bits” and inarticulate, chortling college-boy-level enthusiasm. The co-host, Brian, has little to say; Chad can occasionally be roused to make interesting connections about the text at hand; but both can just as easily spend half an hour on what Pink Floyd meant to them in high school and other topics only distantly related, if at all, to the text being discussed. And, despite constant appeals for thoughts and questions from listeners, they appear to ignore them—YMMV. Guests on the podcast are usually scrambling to keep up with the inane chatter — Rachel Cordasco (2017) was an exception in this regard, as she was successful at making interesting observations about the book being discussed and didn’t get diverted by the boys’-club hi-jinks — no doubt the show could use more female guests. I realize the show generally promotes books Open Letter or Dalkey are publishing, so one can’t expect much in the way of discussion of the books’ weaknesses, but listening, you’d think all of the books covered were equally good and without flaw. The books —and their authors — deserve better.
Best literary podcast
Truly one of the best book podcasts out there! In depth, meaningful discussions of awesome books in translation paired with a lot of fun banter between the hosts and invite guests.