Book Spider
Xi Draconis Books
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About This Podcast
Our mascot, the book spider, sits in its cold corner, gathering its web of text, looking at the world with its calm, chilly eyes.
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Recent Episodes
S4E91 S4 Ep91: Pure and Bureaucratic Horror - Part 3 of Bolanyo's "2666"
In which we close our discussion of one of Bolanyo's masterpiece.
S4E90 S4 Ep90: Ritual Narrative Intermedio this side of the Heart of Darkness; Part 2 of "2666"
In which we discuss the lesser discussed parts of this giant, shaggy novel, and stop just before the door to Hell.
S4E89 S4 Ep89: The Mundanity of True Human Horror: Section 1 of Roberto Bolaño's Opus, "2666"
In which we discuss The Part About the Critics, section 1 of Roberto Bolaño's posthumous masterpiece, "2666."
S4E88 S4 Ep88: A Journal of the Plague Year: An Interesting Historical Artifact
In this episode, the Spiders discuss A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. While interesting as an historical artifact, the novel leaves at least one of the Spiders bored.
S4E87 S4 Ep87: The hollowness of surface satisfactions in Latronico's perfectly adequate Perfection
In which the Spiders take on Vincenzo Latronico's Perfection, a perfectly satisfactory novel which perhaps doesn't give them the sense of mystery and intrigue that some readers have experienced.
S4E86 S4 Ep86: The Catharsis of Chaotic, Perpetual Suffering in Phil Tippet's "Mad God"
In which we discuss the brutal, hilarious, and deeply moving stop motion film, "Mad God," in development for 30 years and finally released in 2024.
S4E85 S4 Ep85: What Even Is Genre Anyway?: Discussing U. K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts ask what genre and literary fiction are, and they wonder about the quality of a sci-fi book like The Left Hand of Darkness.
S4E84 S4 Ep84: Bleak House, Coming up for Air, and the demise of the English literary tradition
In which the Spiders discuss Charles Dickens's unwieldy, uneven Bleak House, how it may or may not be emblematic of the larger decline of literate culture, and whether we're sure we'd miss it.
S4E83 S4 Ep83: kew. rhone. and the uses of obscure art
In which Hans gets a little upset about Chris and Patrick's responses to the album kew. rhone. by John Greaves, Peter Blegvad and Lisa Hermans.
S4E82 S4 Ep82: Pynchon's "Inherent Vice" and Paul Thomas Anderson's film adaptation: A most delightful multimodal pair
In which the boys discuss Pynchon's delightful drug-haze California novel, Inherent Vice, and Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation to film. Both are good hangs. And honestly, perhaps uniquely, are…
S4E81 S4 Ep81: Two Say Nay, One Says Yea to Ian McEwan's Atonement
In this episode, the Spiders discuss the devastating Atonement, by Ian McEwan.
S4E80 S4 Ep80: The perils of satire in the newsletters of Sam Kriss and Naomi Kanakia
In which the Spiders discuss two email newsletters hybridizing fiction and nonfiction, Sam Kriss's "The law that can be named is not the true law" and Naomi Kanakia's "Lonely Island Adventures," two…
S4E79 S4 Ep79: Disappointment with Patricia Lockwood's "Will there ever be another you?"
In which we discuss the hangout novel/non-novel (should be a memoir? a collection of lyric essays?), and the intense fall-off from her masterpiece, "No one is talking about this."
S4E78 S4 Ep78: Orwell's Acerbic Ambivalence: A Discussion of Homage to Catalonia
In this episode, the Spiders chat about Homage to Catalonia, Orwell's journalistic account of the Spanish Civil War. This memoir may in fact be his best work.
S4E77 S4 Ep77: Are Naked Lunch and The Shrouds the secret twins of the Cronenberg filmography? (Plus Violet Lucca's Clinical Trials)
The Spiders briefly discuss Clinical Trials, Violet Lucca's scholarly analysis of David Cronenberg's filmography, focusing primarily on the downsides of theory-oriented analysis, then go into more…
S4E76 S4 Ep76: On Shakespeare's "Macbeth," and the Polanski and Cohen Film Treatments
In which we debate whether Polanski's grounded interpretation is better than Joel Cohen's hallucinatory interpretation, but ultimately circle back to the original play and the undying ritual of…
S4E75 S4 Ep75: Post Office, Charles Bukowski's Terrible Debut Novel
In this episode, the Spiders discuss Post Office, the first novel of infamous womanizing, drunkard poet Charles Bukowski. While it shows some promise in a few areas, it is, overall, pretty bad.
S4E74 S4 Ep74: Unworld and the problem of literary science-fiction
In which the Spiders consider Jayson Greene's Unworld, a lesson in the perils of blending the techniques and approaches of literary fiction and sci-fi, with reference to an earlier pick, the…
S4E73 S4 Ep73: Comedic Tones and Tragic Times in Otessa Moshfegh's "Lapvona"
In which we discuss whether Moshfegh pulls off the Ocean's 11 of torture porn.
S4E72 S4 Ep72: Pär Lagerkvist's The Dwarf: A Perfect Novel
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss The Dwarf, an eighty-year-old Swedish novel that may be perfect.
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Book Spider has published 144 episodes since October 2018, covering topics in Arts, Books.
Book Spider is currently highly active with new episodes every 2 weeks. Average episode length is 1h 3m.
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