The Turtle Book Club Podcast

Once upon a time, we were both major fantasy geeks. We decided to spend an episode walking down fantasy lane, stopping off at Raymond E Feist, Janny Wurts, Robert Jordan, Ursula le Guin and Neil Gaiman. We also get unexpectedly deep into how fantasy books helped form our identities. Listen to this one! 

From Ryu Murakami and Chuck Palahniuk to Maxine Hong Kingston, we delve into dark, dark places and circle back round to our mothers. Shit got weird. 

We're back! After an unaccetably long break, we meander from Toni Morrison to Twin Peaks and back round to James Baldwin. Merry belated Christmas folks. 

We go from Cocaine to Harry Potter very quickly. Along the way we stop at Russian fiction, likeable villains and reasons why Dutch fiction sucks (in our opinion.) 

In Episode 3, we hate on Dickens, fall in love (again) with Shakespeare and get angry about blies. If you don't know what a blie is, you're not alone. Listen and find out.    Reading Alicia Erian Towelhead Charlotte BrontëJane Eyre NPR Morning Edition “If Literature’s Great Characters Could Text, They’d Charm Your Pantalets Off” Thomas HardyTess of the D’Urbervilles Charles DickensPenguin Author Page Great ExpectationsOliver Twist cartoon from 1972 George EliotMiddlemarchJane Austen Official (?) Website Ellen Fein and Sherrie SchneiderThe Rules William ShakespeareRomeo and Juliet  

We talk about Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker Dorothy Parker. We also touch on Geoff Dyer, Robert Burton, Ring Lardner and Robert Benchley. Also Harry Potter.    Further Readings DOROTHY PARKER! Biography The Collected Dorothy Parker Paris Review interview   Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy In Our Time podcast on The Anatomy of Melancholy   Geoff Dyer Books we talk about:  Zona Out of Sheer Rage But Beautiful Otherwise Known As The Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews   Ring Lardner Short Bio Lardnermania   Robert Benchley Bio and Further Info   Edmund Wilson NY Times  Wilson’s review of Ulysses   Sinclair Lewis Babbitt  

Some incredible books for a credible first show. In our first ever episode, we talk about The Ticking is the Bomb by Nick Flynn, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Marilynne Robinson’s novels Home and Gilead. We also detour into James Joyce and Stalin. You don’t have to have read (or have heard of) any of these books to have a good time with us. And by good we mean interesting and delightful, at the very least.  Further ReadingFor the keen beans, here are some further readings and links to buy the novels we mention in the episode. We have linked to Foyles because we think they might pay their taxes, but we encourage you to seek books out at your local indie bookshop. Feel free to tweet us with your favourite local bookshops! Chinua Achebe Interview with Achebe in The Paris Review Achebe and the Great African Novel in The New Yorker Marilynne Robinson Interview with Robinson in The Paris Review Nick Flynn Interview with Nick Flynn on Fresh Air Another Bullshit Night in Suck City Donna Tartt Article in Vanity Fair The Goldfinch The Secret History Charles Bukowski http://bukowski.net Lionel Shriver  We Need to Talk About Kevin James Joyce  Ulysses Henry James Portrait of a Lady Arundhati Roy The God of Small Things