Podcast appearances and mentions of helen dewitt

Gretchen Rubin is one of today's most influential observers of happiness and human nature. In addition to hosting the award-winning podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, where she shares practical strategies for building a happier, healthier, more creative life, Gretchen is also the bestselling author of The Happiness Project, The Four Tendencies, Better Than Before, Life in Five Senses, and now Secrets of Adulthood, a delightful collection of her signature aphorisms—concise, thought-provoking truths gathered from her own experiences and reflections on human nature. Today, Gretchen shares a wealth of bite-sized, digestible truths with Jen and Amy that acknowledge problems everyone faces.  “What we do every day matters more than what we do once in a while.” “Outer order contributes to inner calm.” “A strong voice repels as well as attracts.” “Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.” And our personal favorite, “Choose the bigger life.” Gretchen also delves into the Four Tendencies and helps Jen and Amy unpack their profiles to better understand whether they are an Upholder, Questioner, Obliger, or Rebel.  Anyone want to take bets? Thought-provoking Quotes: “Happier people are  more interested in the problems of the world. And they're more interested in the problems of the people around them. They're more likely to volunteer. They're more likely to vote. They're more likely to donate their time or their money. They're more likely to help out if someone needs a hand. When we're happier, we're able to turn outward and to think about the problems of the world.” – Gretchen Rubin “Action is the antidote to anxiety.” – Gretchen Rubin “There's really no more eloquent way to put this: one of the best ways to make friends is to make friends with the friends of your friends.” – Gretchen Rubin “When we're doing something hard, it feels like the times are hard." – Gretchen Rubin Resources Mentioned in This Episode: Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage - https://santiago-compostela.net/ Secrets of Adulthood: Simple Truths for Our Complex Lives by Gretchen Rubin - https://amzn.to/4kq8TzF The Happier App - https://thehappierapp.com/ David Sedaris The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun by Gretchen Rubin - https://amzn.to/3S9OXox The Four Tendencies Quiz - https://gretchenrubin.com/quiz/the-four-tendencies-quiz/  The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt - https://amzn.to/43iUOgg The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt - https://amzn.to/43tjDaF 5 Things Making Me Happy Newsletter - https://gretchenrubin.com/newsletter/5-things-making-me-happy-september-16-2022/ Sandwich: A Novel by Catherine Newman - https://amzn.to/4m9KGiy Guest's Links: Website - https://gretchenrubin.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/gretchenrubin/ Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/GretchenRubin Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/GretchenRubin TikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@gretchenrubin Connect with Jen!Jen's Website - https://jenhatmaker.com/ Jen's Instagram - https://instagram.com/jenhatmakerJen's Twitter - https://twitter.com/jenHatmaker/ Jen's Facebook - https://facebook.com/jenhatmakerJen's YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/user/JenHatmaker The For the Love Podcast is presented by Audacy.  To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Lion by Sonya Walger is an autobiographical novel detailing the life and loss of her complicated and charismatic father. Walger joins us to talk about writing themes of grief and love, crafting her own experience into fiction, nonlinear storytelling and more with cohost, Jenna Seery. This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.                     New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app. Featured Books (Episode): Lion by Sonya Walger On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy Her First American by Lore Segal Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf Decline and Fall by Evelyn Waugh Scoop by Evelyn Waugh The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt

Helen DeWitt's debut novel "The Last Samurai" almost didn't get published, but since then has become a cult classic, and it also made the now infamous NYT 100 Best Books of the 21st Century list.In today's episode we break down the book, which we read for our January book club, and Andy gives us his feelings on finally reading a book written by a woman.Become part of our growing book community!patreon.com/LifeonBooksJoin the Life on Books mailing list to stay up to date on all of our latest book giveaways, projects, and more!https://linktw.in/BRYAnVhBooks mentioned in this episode:The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitthttps://amzn.to/4hsDhI6https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811...Galapagos by Kurt Vonneguthttps://amzn.to/4hOqVdhhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780385...Mother Night by Kurt Vonneguthttps://amzn.to/40Lh5CmSlaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonneguthttps://amzn.to/3CEfE0phttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780440...Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonneguthttps://amzn.to/41109cihttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780385...The Tunnel by William H. Gass2666 by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/3CuyE1rhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780312...Between Parentheses by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/4k1ztjhhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811...The Romantic Dogs by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/4hJHfMyUnknown University by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/4jOlM76Something Happened by Joseph Hellerhttps://amzn.to/40Fnui8https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780684...Troll by Dave Fitzgeraldhttps://amzn.to/3CvVR3ahttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781952...Red Sorghum by Mo Yanhttps://amzn.to/42LI5nDhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780140...The Invisibility Cloak by Ge Feihttps://amzn.to/4hfJjw1The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/4aDElqdhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780312...Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchonhttps://amzn.to/4hNGMsChttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780143...Invisible Man by Ralph Ellisonhttps://amzn.to/415ibKDhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780679...Aputure Light Domehttps://amzn.to/3WptlGkRode Wireless Micshttps://amzn.to/3YpavBWShure SM7Bhttps://amzn.to/46vyQbk

Did you know that YOU can teach YOURSELF ANCIENT GREEK? In this week's episode of The Infinite Library, John and Ben are discussing "The Last Samurai" by Helen DeWitt. Topics of conversation include autodidacticism, sleazy British men, and the value of the humanities in troubling times.

Note: This episode was recorded at the end of December, hence all the chat about the new year & related resolutions. In the grand scheme of things, it still is the new year, so I don't wanna hear it. This was also recorded before we revised our publishing schedule to make actual sense, so ignore all the confusing discussion about when the books are being read vs. discussed. Look to our instagram as your guide. XOXO January's book: The Waves by Virginia WoolfEve's 2025 planner is from New Chapter Studio Special shout out to AppointedOther books: Anything by Helen DeWitt. She's literally a goddess. The Last Samurai, The English Understand Wool, Some Trick Jesus' Son by Denis Johnson The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron Our Instagram: somethingwereadpodOur email: somethingweread@gmail.comFebruary's book: White Nights by Fyodor Dostoevsky Closing poem: “At the New Year” by Kenneth Patchen Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Irish author Claire Keegan is generally considered to be one of the finest writers working today. ‘Every word is the right word in the right place, and the effect is resonant and deeply moving' said Hilary Mantel, of her work, while for Colm Toiíbín ‘Claire Keegan makes her moments real – and then she makes them matter.' Praise indeed, but what did our brand new podcast book club make of So Late in the Day, her most recently published short story? We'll be reporting back. And we're also rounding up a few stand-outs from our recent reading piles, from J. L. Carr's meditative classic A Month in the Country to V.E. Schwab's latest fantasy novel The Fragile Threads of Power. Book list So Late in the Day and Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt, The Road to the City by Natalia Ginsberg in the Storybook ND series Tom Lake, Bel Canto and The Dutch House by Ann Patchett The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy by Julia Quinn Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey A Month in the Country, by J. L. Carr Soldier, Sailor by Claire Kilroy The Fragile Threads of Power by V.E. Schwab Join us on Patreon Here's the link for all the details, find out what extras you'll receive. Connect with us Find us on Instagram or Facebook @bookclubreviewpodcast On X at @bookclubrvwpod or email us at thebookclubreview@gmail.com, we love to hear from you

Chris and Jenny chat upcoming book to movie/tv adaptations in today's episode as well as the usual current and recent reads. Join our Patreon for an extended version of the episode (all Oppenheimer chat).Get in touchInstagram | TikTok | Voice message | Substack | Patreon | Ko-fiBooks mentionedWestern Lane by Chetna MarooStudy for Obedience  by Sarah BernsteinWe Have Always Lived in the Castle  by Shirley JacksonThe Ministry of Utmost Happiness by Arundhati RoyThe Last Samurai by Helen DeWittFairy Tale by Stephen KingParis: The Memoir by Paris HiltonAmerican Prometheus by Kai Bird and ‎Martin J. SherwinAre You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy BlumeThe Wheel of Time series by Robert JordanWicked! by Gregory MaguireLessons in Chemistry by Bonnie GarmusThe Doll Factory by Elizabeth MacnealDune  by Frank HerbertKillers of the Flower Moon by David GrannThree Women by Lisa TaddeoThe Night Circus by Erin MorgensternTomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabriella ZevinBuriel Rites by Hannah KentThe Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins ReidCirce by Madeleine MillerOther stuff mentionedVulture article - Helen DeWitt's The Last Samurai Is the Best Book of the Century (for Now)Literary Disco PodcastJury Duty (tv series)Mississippi Burning (film)Support The Bookcast ClubYou can support the podcast on Patreon. Our tiers start at £2 a month. Rewards include early access to the podcast, 'close friends' feed on Instagram, monthly bonus episodes, tailored book recommendations and books in the post.  You can now try our bonus tier FREE for 7 days. If you would like to make a one-off donation you can do so on Ko-fi.  A free way to show your support is to mention us on social media, rate us on Spotify or review us on Apple Podcasts.NewsletterSign up to our monthly newsletter on Substack for more book recommendations, reviews, new releases, podcast recommendations and the latest podcast news.  Come and chat to us in the comments.Support the show

Author and cultural critic Olivia Laing, whose books include The Lonely City, Funny Weather and Everybody, is joined by fashion writer and curator Charlie Porter, of What Artists Wear and Bring No Clothes: Bloomsbury and the Philosophy of Fashion, and presenter Harriett Gilbert, to talk about the books they love. Olivia recommends Bad Blood by literary critic Lorna Sage - a memoir of her eccentric childhood and adolescence in 1940s rural Wales. Charlie loves Honey From A Weed by Patience Gray, a cookbook which exalts local knowledge and seasonal cooking, taking readers to a time and place far removed from modern life. And Harriett brings The English Understand Wool, a 2022 novella by American author Helen DeWitt, which takes unexpected twists and turns and which Harriett argues, merits reading more than once. Comment on instagram: @agoodreadbbc Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio

What have Julie and Eve been reading lately? Find out in this new bonus episode, in which Eve talks about the legacy of her dad, a constant reader, the brilliance of Helen Dewitt (again), the searing poetry of Louise Glück, and a light and highly readable beach read. Meanwhile, Julie's been pursuing a reading vision, discovering the propulsive, mind-expanding books—and book recommendations—of S. A. Cosby. Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com. We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more. Book Dreams is a part of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to Book Dreams, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For Lit Up's final episode of 2022, Angie and Ruby (a brilliant colleague who works on the Sugar23 Books imprint, and spent a past life as a bookseller at New York City's iconic Three Lives & Company), catch up about their year in great books, titles they've loved, what's topping their list for winter break marathon reading sessions, and recommended book gifts for all the avid readers in your lives this holiday season. Books we talk about on this ep include: The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-english-understand-wool-helen-dewitt/17643357?ean=9780811230070 The Midcoast by Adam White Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Acne: A Memoir by Laura Chinn The Marriage Portrait by Maggie O'Farrell Romantic Comedy by Curtis Sittenfeld Heating & Cooling: 52 Micro-Memoirs by Beth Ann Fennelly Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee Fly Girl: A Memoir by Ann Hood Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain The World of Natural Wine: What It Is, Who Makes It, and Why It Matters by Aaron Ayscough Catch up on any episodes you missed this year at https://www.lituppodcast.com/ (or wherever you like to listen!). More to come in the shiny new year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welche Geschichten erzählt die Gegenwartsliteratur? In der letzten Podcast-Folge des Jahres ziehen wir Bilanz und diskutieren mit Marie Schmidt und Carlos Spoerhase narrative Trends und Konjunkturen, die sich in jüngerer Zeit abgezeichnet haben: Welche Kritik gibt es am Trauma-Plot? Kennt die neuere Literatur noch klassische Liebesgeschichten? Wollen Leser:innen von Belletristik nur gefälliges Entertainment in Form altbekannter Stile und Motive? Und ist der Bedarf an autofiktionaler Literatur irgendwann gedeckt?Marie Schmidt ist Literaturkritikerin bei der Süddeutschen ZeitungCarlos Spoerhase ist Literaturwissenschaftler in München.In der Januar-Folge sprechen wir mit Aaron Lahl über Ethnopsychoanalyse.Literatur: Annie Ernaux, Der junge Mann. Aus dem Französischen von Sonja Finck, Suhrkamp, im Erscheinen.Benoîte Groult, Salz auf unserer Haut, Knaur 2017.Christian Kracht, Eurotrash, Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2021.Hanya Yanagihara, Ein wenig Leben, Hanser Berlin 2015.Helen DeWitt, The English Understand Wool, New Directions 2022.Hervé Le Tellier, Die Anomalie, Rowohlt 2021.Honoré de Balzac, Glanz und Elend der Kurtisanen, aus dem Französischen von Rudolf von Bitter, Hanser 2022.Laureate J. M. Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello, Viking Press 2003.Lea Ypi, Frei. Erwachsenwerden am Ende der Geschichte, aus dem Englischen von Eva Bonné, Suhrkamp 2022.Leif Randt, Allegro Pastell, Kiepenheuer & Witsch 2020.Martin Kordić, Jahre mit Martha, S.Fischer 2022.Moritz Baßler, Populärer Realismus, Vom International Style gegenwärtigen Erzählens, C.H. Beck 2022.Natasha Brown, Assembly, Penguin Books 2021.Parul Sehgal, The Case Against the Trauma Plot, in: The New Yorker (2022); 10, online unter https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/03/the-case-against-the-trauma-plot (18.12.2022).Sebastian Fitzek, Mimik, Droemer 2022.Thea Sternheim, Tagebücher 1903–1971, herausgegeben und ausgewählt von Thomas Ehrsam und Regula Wyss, Wallstein Verlag 2011.Virgina Woolf, On Being Ill, in: The Criterion (1926), January.Kontakt: podcast@his-online.de Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join our hosts Frances, Dorian, and Rebecca as they discuss TO WRITE AS IF ALREADY DEAD by Kate Zambreno, and chat about their recent reading. For our next episode, we will discuss DUCKS by Kate Beaton.  Books mentioned:  To Write As If Already Dead by Kate Zambreno To the Friend Who Did Not Save My Life by Herve Guibert Drifts by Kate Zambreno Illness As Metaphor and AIDS and Its Metaphors by Susan Sontag The Art of Losing by Alice Zeniter, translated from the French by Frank Wynne A Barthes Reader edited by Susan Sontag The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, illustrated by Jules Feiffer All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett, David Boyd Breasts and Eggs by Mieko Kawakami, translated from the Japanese by Sam Bett, David Boyd Written Lives by Javier Marías, translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt A Horse at Night: On Writing by Amina Cain Indelicacy by Amina Cain The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt Lightning Rods by Helen DeWitt 3 Streets by Yoko Tawada, translated from the Japanese by Margaret Mitsutani Streets of Laredo by Larry McMurtry Cold Enough for Snow by Jessica Au Stranger Faces by Namwali Serpell One Hundred Saturdays: Stella Levi and the Search for a Lost World by Michael Frank The Air We Breathe by Andrea Barrett Ducks by Kate Beaton Check out other relevant links in our blogpost. Visit us online at onebrightbook.com. Browse our bookshelves at Bookshop.org. Comments? Write us at onebrightmail at gmail Find us on Twitter at @pod_bright Frances: @nonsuchbook Dorian: @ds228 Rebecca: @ofbooksandbikes Dorian's blog: https://eigermonchjungfrau.blog/ Rebecca's newsletter: https://readingindie.substack.com/ Our theme music was composed and performed by Owen Maitzen. You can find more of his music here: https://soundcloud.com/omaitzen.

In this episode, we get excited about two new book releases: 'The Most Likely Club' by Elyssa Friedland and 'The English Understand Wool' by Helen DeWitt. Then Mel tells the twisty story of 'Rebecca The Musical' on Broadway.  BOOKS The Most Likely Club by Elyssa Friedland https://bit.ly/3dSlbnG The English Understand Wool by Helen DeWitt https://bit.ly/3y4cr4J ** DISTRACTION OF THE WEEK ** Reddit explainer https://bit.ly/3RnFZkP The Guardian on the fraud https://bit.ly/3RnEiU8 Documentary https://youtu.be/roIueOG7_N4 Promo video for Broadway https://youtu.be/B-SZOwrhTds Promo video for Vienna https://youtu.be/W_zJ0vOWQRg Transcript of this episode https://bit.ly/3SpYkPe The Library of Lost Time is a Strong Sense of Place Production! https://strongsenseofplace.com Do you enjoy our show? Want access to fun bonus content? Please support our work on Patreon. Every little bit helps us keep the show going and makes us feel warm and fuzzy inside - https://www.patreon.com/strongsenseofplace

The second novel by by literary wunderkind, Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods is probably the most challenging book we've yet featured on Backlisted. Usually described as a satire on American capitalism, it is the diasarmingly upbeat and funny tale of Joe, a struggling salesman, who develops a new office product that he believes serves an urgent need in modern corporate life. Quite what that product is and how it works requires a delicacy in description and a warning for listeners: this is not one for family listening. We are joined by returning guests, novelist and playwright Marie Philips and writer and performer, Ben Moor. The episode also features Andy rediscovering a lost folk horror classic from the 1970s - The Autumn People (also known as The Autumn Ghosts) by Ruth M. Arthur while John is blown away by the force of Sarah Churchwell's incandescent and incisive account of an American classic: The Wrath to Come: Gone With the Wind and the Lies America Tells

Seth on Twitter @wastemailing Instagram @wastemailinglist wastemailinglist@gmail.com https://wastemailinglist.substack.com Gateway Books: House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer 2.Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan 3.Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace Currently Reading: 1. Anniversaries: A Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl by Uwe Johnson, translated by Damion Searls 2. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky Anticipated Reads: 1. William T Vollmann 2. Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter 3. Blinding: The Left Wing by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter 4. A Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine translated by Ralph Manheim 5. Herscht 07769 by László Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet 6. Devil House by John Darnielle 7. The Last Samurai by Helen DeWitt 8. Malina by Ingborg Bachman translated by Philip Boehm 9. The Complete Works of Primo Levi compiled by Ann Goldstein Top 10: 10. I'm Thinking of Endings Things by Iain Reid 9. Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley 8. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt 7. Satantango by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes 6. The Burrow by Franz Kafka, translated by Michael Hofmann 5. In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan 4. Hard Rain Falling by Don Carpenter 3. Story of the Eye by George Bataille, translated by Joachim Neugrochal (Correction (1:11:30) - Seth refers to the narrator's love interest as Marcelle where he meant to say Simone. Marcelle is a secondary character in the story.) 2. The Recognitions by William Gaddis 1. Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon

This week the Spine Crackers, along with OMEGA SPECIAL GUEST Daniel from the Viva La Dude podcast, tackle Helen DeWitt's genre and form-bending chonky boi novel about family and the nature of genius The Last Samurai (no not that one you rubes).

What we read in this terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year.  Books: The Vanishing Half, Brit Bennett; Field Work, Mischa Berlinski; I Remember You, Yrsa Sigurdardóttir; Kindred, Octavia Butler; The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, Stuart Turton; This is How You Lose the Time War, Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone; Cleanness, Garth Greenwell; The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes, Suzanne Collins; Red Rising trilogy, Pierce Brown; The House in the Cerulean Sea, T.J. Klune; An Extraordinary Union, Alyssa Cole; Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, Svetlana Alexievich; Hamnet, Maggie O'Farrell; Love, Nina: Despatches from Family Life, Nina Stibbe; The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt; Peggy Guggenheim: The Shock of the Modern, Francine Prose; The Sally Lockhart series, Phillip Pullman; Americanah, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; The Gifted School, Bruce Holsinger; The Sunken Land Begins to Rise Again, M. John Harrison; Uncanny Valley: A Memoir, Anna Wiener; Mexican Gothic, Silvia Moreno-Garcia; The Great Fire, Shirley Hazzard; The City We Became, N.K. Jemisin.  Articles: John le Carré obit (NYT) Barbara Cartland (Jezebel)

Episode 44! The year of 2019 in review - which books and podcast episodes did we enjoy reading / making the most? Marc and Trevor pick their Top 5...Trevor read "Brideshead Revisited" by Evelyn Waugh and Marc read "The Last Samurai" by Helen DeWitt

This week, Julia, Rider, and Tod discuss Helen Dewitt’s novel The Last Samurai, which, they are compelled to point out, has nothing to do with the horrible Tom Cruise movie of the same name. Recently named the Best Book of the 2000s by Vulture, the Literary Disco trio debates the novel’s current relevance, the pressure of child prodigies, and how we deal with the family we’re given. Will they recommend the book? Listen to find out. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

White Whale time! Specifically George Eliot’s Middlemarch. Yes, Michael actually read the damn thing and Hannah read it for like the 60th time. Get their feelings about the book, some background on George herself, and a dose of what H & M are *actually* reading. Thank you for a great season two!! Books mentioned: My Life in Middlemarch, Rebecca Mead; The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt; Lethal White, Robert Galbraith. Resources: Rebecca Mead in the New Yorker, Henry James negging Middlemarch. Email us at thatbookpod@gmail.com. Friend us on Goodreads and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

Lydia Kiesling tricked herself into writing a novel by starting with small vignettes about her feelings as a new parent and setting them in a northern California that's rarely explored in literature. The result of tying those scenes together is her excellent debut, THE GOLDEN STATE. She and James talk about her work as editor of THE MILLIONS, spreadsheets, local newspapers, present tense, and barfing toddlers. Plus, Shuchi Saraswat from Brookline Booksmith talks about the Transnational Literature Series and book sales.  - Lydia Kiesling: http://www.lydiakiesling.com/ Lydia and James Discuss:  CAL SUNDAY MAGAZINE  Sarah Smarsh  Hamilton College  OFF COURSE by Michelle Huneven  MODOC COUNTY RECORD  David Lodge  Sarah Blackwood  LUCKY JIM by Kingsley Amis  Tobias Wolff  Brandon Taylor  THE MILLIONS  Laura van den Berg  Emily Bell  Charles Dickens  THE GRADUATE dir by Mike Nichols  C. Max Magee  THE LAST SAMURAI by Helen DeWitt  - Shuchi Saraswat: https://www.shuchisaraswat.com/ Shuchi and James discuss:  Brookline Booksmith  The Transnational Literature Series  KINGDOM OF OLIVE AND ASH ed by Chabon & Waldman  THIS IS NOT A BORDER ed by Soueif & Hamilton  Ru Freeman  Khury Petersen-Smith BEACON PRESS  Tom Hallock  HILLBILLY ELEGY by J.D. Vance  VISITATION by Jenny Erpenbeck  GO WENT GONE by Jenny Erpenbeck  Laura van den Berg  DISORIENTAL by Negar Djavadi POSO WELLS by Gabriela Aleman Coolidge Corner Theatre  PERSEPOLIS dir by Marjane Satrapi  Words Without Borders  The Forum Network  Bob Woodward  EXIT WEST by Mohsin Hamid  HOME FIRE by Kamila Shamsie  PACHINCO by Min Jin Lee  THE INCENDIARIES by R.O. Kwon  THE MARS ROOM by Rachel Kushner  CIRCE by Madeline Miller  SONG OF ACHILLES by Madeline Miller  BookScan   - http://tkpod.com / tkwithjs@gmail.com / Twitter: @JamesScottTK Instagram: tkwithjs / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tkwithjs/

Americans love a child prodigy: Shirley Temple, Bobby Fischer, Henry Cowell … the list goes on. There’s just something about kid geniuses that enchants us—fascination at how differently they must see the world, and envy at how they've got it made. But in her new book, Off the Charts, Ann Hulbert looks at a range of children who've made a splash over the past century, and whose lives have informed our approach to child-rearing and education. Nature versus nurture is just the start of the debate—and it turns out there’s no model for raising any kind of child, genius or not, and no guarantee of success, whatever that means.Go beyond the episode:Ann Hulbert’s Off the Charts: The Hidden lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies (and read an excerpt here)Ann Hulbert lists her top five books on precocious childrenOur top book for a glimpse into the life of a precocious child? Helen DeWitt’s cult novel, The Last Samurai“Promethea Unbound,” by Mike Mariana, about a child genius raised in poverty whose life was nearly destroyed by violenceAt the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik puts Off the Charts in conversation with a slate of other books on childrearing in “How to Raise a Prodigy”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Americans love a child prodigy: Shirley Temple, Bobby Fischer, Henry Cowell … the list goes on. There’s just something about kid geniuses that enchants us—fascination at how differently they must see the world, and envy at how they've got it made. But in her new book, Off the Charts, Ann Hulbert looks at a range of children who've made a splash over the past century, and whose lives have informed our approach to child-rearing and education. Nature versus nurture is just the start of the debate—and it turns out there’s no model for raising any kind of child, genius or not, and no guarantee of success, whatever that means.Go beyond the episode:Ann Hulbert’s Off the Charts: The Hidden lives and Lessons of American Child Prodigies (and read an excerpt here)Ann Hulbert lists her top five books on precocious childrenOur top book for a glimpse into the life of a precocious child? Helen DeWitt’s cult novel, The Last Samurai“Promethea Unbound,” by Mike Mariana, about a child genius raised in poverty whose life was nearly destroyed by violenceAt the New Yorker, Adam Gopnik puts Off the Charts in conversation with a slate of other books on childrearing in “How to Raise a Prodigy”Tune in every week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek.Subscribe: iTunes • Feedburner • Stitcher • Google Play • AcastHave suggestions for projects you’d like us to catch up on, or writers you want to hear from? Send us a note: podcast [at] theamericanscholar [dot] org. And rate us on iTunes! Our theme music was composed by Nathan Prillaman.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The co-creator and co-writer of the #1 international hit podcast Welcome to Night Vale and New York Times bestselling co-author of the novel of same name, Jeffrey Cranor, dropped by the show to talk about the importance of collaboration, deadlines, and bad writing. In addition to producing and touring with the theater ensemble The New York Neo-Futurists, the playwright and author tours with live shows for the Night Vale Presents production banner, co-created with Joseph Fink. Night Vale Presents now produces four podcasts that regularly sit at the top of the charts — including Within the Wires, also created by the author — and recently published two volumes of episode transcripts that include extras for fans of their original show. Welcome to Night Vale has been described as “NPR meets The Twilight Zone,” a sci-fi broadcast about a small desert community where strange mythologies abound, and all conspiracy theory is potentially real. If you’re a fan of The Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews. If you missed the first half you can find it right here. In Part Two of this file Jeffrey Cranor and I discuss: The power of productive procrastination How ‘making the familiar strange’ produces great writing Why it’s really hard to be good all the time How the battle against expectation can surprise readers The art of great audiobooks as performance Listen to The Writer Files: Writing, Productivity, Creativity, and Neuroscience below ... Download MP3 Subscribe by RSS Subscribe in iTunes The Show Notes Audible is Offering a Free Audiobook Download with a 30-day Trial: Grab Your Free Audiobook Here – audibletrial.com/rainmaker Welcome To Night Vale Welcome To Night Vale on Facebook Night Vale Presents Jeffrey Cranor on Amazon Jeffrey Cranor’s website NY Neo-Futurists Theater Company Jeffrey Cranor on Twitter Kelton Reid on Twitter The Transcript How #1 Hit Podcast Welcome to Night Vale Co-Creator Jeffrey Cranor Writes: Part Two Voiceover: Rainmaker FM Kelton Reid: And welcome back to the Writer Files. I’m still your host, Kelton Reid, here to take you on yet another tour of the habits, habitats, and brains of renowned scribes. In part two of this file, the co-creator and co-writer of the number one international hit podcast, Welcome to Night Vale, and New York Times best selling co-author of the novel of the same name, Jeffrey Cranor, returned to talk to me about the importance of collaboration, deadlines, and bad writing. In addition to producing and touring with the theater ensemble, The New York Neo-Futurists, the playwright and author tours with live shows for the Night Vale Presents production banner, co-created with Joseph Fink. Night Vale Presents now produces four podcasts that sit atop the charts, including Within the Wires, also created by the author. They’ve recently published two volumes of episode transcripts that include extras for fans of their original show. Welcome to Night Vale has been described as NPR meets The Twilight Zone, a sci-fi broadcast about a small desert community where strange mythologies abound and all conspiracy theory is potentially real. In part two of this file, Jeffrey and I discuss the power of productive procrastination, how making the familiar strange produces great writing, why it’s really hard to be good all the time, how the battle against expectation can surprise readers, and the art of great audio books as performance. If you’re a fan of the Writer Files, please click subscribe to automatically see new interviews as soon as they’re published. If you missed the first half of this show, you can find it in the archives on iTunes, on WriterFiles.FM, and in the show notes . This episode of The Writer Files is brought to you by Audible. I’ll have more on their special offer later in the show, but if you love audiobooks or you’ve always wanted to give them a try, you can check out over 180,000 titles right now at Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. The Power of Productive Procrastination Kelton Reid: That’s cool, I like that. Do you lean into procrastination or do you kind of have some tricks for beating it? Jeffrey Cranor: Oh, I definitely lean into procrastination. I’m really bad at procrastination. I think the number one thing that helps me with procrastination is allowing myself to put something off, as long as I am doing something else productive in its stead. I think that if I find myself, I don’t know, spending too long, just like, “Oh, you know what? I’m just going to hang out and play a game while listening to a podcast,” or something, like really unproductive things. Not that those are bad for you, but over too much time, they do become unproductive because they’re taking away from writing time or actual work. But I think there’s always some business to be done as a writer. For Joseph and me doing Night Vale Presents, there’s a lot. It’s a business, right? So we do have to respond to emails, and do make decisions, and go back and forth. A lot of times I’ll take some time away from writing to just get myself in front of a computer, do those little things. Return some emails, check everything, play the game of, Can I get to inbox zero? Stuff like that. Those are good procrastination things, because they’re in front of the computer, which is where you should be writing. They’re still kind of writing, even if they’re not finishing the novel or the new episode, but just kind of get your body into the framework of what you should be doing. Those are the main things. Because sometimes, I don’t know. Sometimes you just look at your computer from 20 feet away and you’re like, “I don’t want to go near that thing. I just am not feeling it. I don’t want to do that.” Kelton Reid: Yeah, and your brain likes those little victories, doesn’t it? I think Austin Kleon, and I’m sure lots of other people, call it productive procrastination, where you’re just switching modes so your brain can focus on something else in the background, do that incubation stuff that it likes so much. Cool, man. I’d love to pick your brain a little bit about creativity if you’ve got some more time. Jeffrey Cranor: Sure. How Making the Familiar Strange Produces Great Writing Kelton Reid: How do you define creativity in your own words? Jeffrey Cranor: I think it’s just, for me, it’s about original expression. Creativity is, I guess, a combination of finding your own voice within the confines of everything else that helped to shape it. So I think, for me, creativity is walking that balance of creating an original thing, something that is all yours, but using all of the tools and all of the components and tropes and devices that have come before. It is kind of like recycling, in some ways. You’re taking old soda bottles and melting them down and repacking them as something else. I think you can’t be truly creative without having consumed a lot of other art in the past. You have to have a lot of that experience and know how to make a certain thing. But there’s always a part of you that is truly unique and original. Everybody grows up differently. We may have a lot of similar experiences, but everybody has their own unique take on the world. Creativity, to me, is taking your standard mystery novel or your standard sitcom, or whatever your real, like set structure, and then adding your own unique viewpoint inside of that whenever you write that yourself. I think, to me, it’s building out structures that are familiar, and then finding a new way to present them that the people haven’t done before. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. You definitely do that with Welcome to Night Vale, and I’ve heard it described as NPR meets The Twilight Zone. It definitely has that. Has anyone ever used the adjective phantasmagoric? Jeffrey Cranor: I don’t know. Kelton Reid: Okay, good. Jeffrey Cranor: Yeah, that’s good. Kelton Reid: I want to be the first. Jeffrey Cranor: Do it. Kelton Reid: I don’t know why it came to mind, but it’s got those elements of the Theater of the Absurd meets kind of like X-Files, and then procedural, and then beautiful, small-town NPR stuff, which is all just an amazing remix of stuff we know, but it’s so different. It’s truly brilliant. Sorry to digress there back to that. When do you think you feel the most creative? Jeffrey Cranor: That’s a really good question. I feel the most creative … The cheeky way of saying that, I think, is after I’ve created something really good, then I look back and say, “Oh, I was in a really creative mood! I was really, really feeling it then.” It’s a little bit true that a lot of times I don’t know how creative I feel until later, after I’ve made a thing. Then I can look back on it and sort of feel that. Because some days, I don’t know. Some days I feel like I just created lackluster garbage. That’s harsh, that’s not what I meant to say. Some days I feel like I created something that just isn’t as special as other days. Then, when I go back and look at it later, I’m like, “Oh, this is fine. This is good. This is completely usable. I like this.” And feel like, “Oh, I was feeling very creative.” Some days you feel like, “Man, I’m really killing this!” And you go look at it later and you’re like, “Wow, this is completely overwrought. Super overwritten.” It is a little tough. I think usually the feeling itself of feeling creative usually happens about half an hour to an hour into working on something. It usually, if I feel myself on a roll … A couple days ago I really cranked through like 6,000 words, and I did it over a course of a long stretch of an afternoon. I just felt, “Man, I’m really, really working through this. This is flowing really, really well. Man, I just had a really good joke to insert into this paragraph,” and, “Oh, this really feels good.” A lot of it is just getting into a rhythm, and if I can get myself into the rhythm, I’m feeling very creative. Now, whether or not that stuff is any good I’ll know a few days later when I go look at it again. Kelton Reid: I think sci-fi author Andy Weir had a very similar thought on it, and it was just that he looks back on these … He just makes sure that he writes it. He doesn’t always feel awesome when he’s writing it, but looking back, it didn’t matter. That those things were equally as important to the process. That’s cool. Do you have a creative muse at the moment? Jeffrey Cranor: I don’t. Oh, no. I really don’t. I try to put myself in an environment that feels ergonomic and positive, like a good energy. I just finished setting up an office space. We have a guest bedroom that’s pretty large and it faces out towards the trees and the hills out here in Hudson Valley, New York, so I have a really nice view of the mountains from where I sit, which is really great. It provides a nice thing of every now and then you just look up and you’re like, “Oh, look, there’s a blue jay! That’s really great. I think for me, my muse is mostly just having a positive environment. It’s very hard for me to write when I am traveling. We tour a lot for Welcome to Night Vale. In tour times, Joseph and I have gotten to the point now where, we have written things on tour, but on tour we’ve learned to not pretend like we’re going to get anything done when we’re traveling. Because when you’re on an airplane, airplanes are inherently uncomfortable and stressful. It’s hard to sit and write in that little tiny cramped seat where somebody leans back into your lap. Hotel rooms, equally so. Especially when what you’re doing is touring, so you arrive at a hotel at three in the afternoon. You have an hour and a half before you then have to go the theater and do soundcheck. Then you’re backstage at a theater, and while you’re not on stage the whole time, you’re just around a bunch of people and eventually you’re going to have to pack everything up, Maybe go out and meet fans. By eleven o’clock that night you’re like, “Well, I got to go to sleep and get up at nine in the morning and do this all over again.” It’s really hard to find that time to be like, “I have this really relaxing positive environment to really focus.” Yeah, so my muse is quiet and peace. Why It s Really Hard to Be Good All the Time Kelton Reid: Nice, nice. What do you think, in your estimation, makes a writer great? Jeffrey Cranor: Doing it a lot. I think more than anything else, that’s it. I remember reading … Oh, God, I’m going to forget the name of it … Steve Martin’s last book, basically his memoir about his stand-up career. He has some moment in it where he talked about doing stand-up comedy, and he didn’t do it for very long and he was great at it. But he did talk about the idea of greatness. He says if you’re naturally inclined to comedy and you’re really good at it, you will find that it becomes easy to be great. What’s really hard is being good all the time, because in doing your stand-up act, you can’t just be great and have a great show and then the next night be okay. Everybody there needs to laugh. That’s the whole point of your job. So you need to find a way to be good all the time. I think that comes from constant experience. In fact, when I’ve gone to see stand-up comedy … I remember going one night to the Comedy Cellar in New York City, and I remember the night that I was there there was some really great comedians. Aziz Ansari performed, and Amy Schumer performed that night. This was a couple years ago. They were great. I really love them. They’re super funny. But I remember at the end of the night, the last comedian was a guy named Allan Havey, who I’ve never seen in person before but I knew who he was. He’s in his 50’s, if not 60. He’s been at it since I was a kid. I remember him on Short Attention Span Theater and Comedy Central when I was in High School. He was amazing! I think what made him amazing wasn’t the jokes, because if you’re going to ask comedians of that night to write down their jokes, I’m probably gravitating towards Aziz Ansari and Amy Schumer, and just the quality of the craftsmanship of the joke. But what made Allan Havey great is that he could tell you any joke and it would have been brilliant, because he knew how to work the crowd. He was doing a full-on performance. I think that’s the sign of a really, really great comedian that can do that night after night, no matter the crowd that he’s in. He knows what people are saying and what people are doing, and how to use their energy back at them. I think with a writer, while it’s not performative, I think being able to write all the time and publish as much as you can, even if it’s just a blog, even if it’s just jokes on Twitter, just getting something out there and constantly making a thing is really, really vital. I think when you do that a lot, you get really, really good at it. Even if you’re not making best selling hits, right? Even if you’re not creating the next Gone Girl, or Between the World and Me, or something. You are still creating great things that people will truly enjoy reading. Kelton Reid: Those authors wrote some bad stuff at the beginning. All writers do. Jeffrey Cranor: Sure. Kelton Reid: To start out, it’s that iterative process. You got to ship to know what you’re dealing with and forge that. Jeffrey Cranor: It’s a very hard career to come at late. I mean, most careers are hard to come at late, but it’s not one you can easily fake. It’s like weight lifting. You can’t just suddenly be an offensive linemen. You really have to work for years and years to do that. Kelton Reid: That’s crushing my dream, but yeah, no, it’s true. The overnight successes we hear about in any of the major writing fields, so often have cut their teeth, even if they’re just the best selling debut novelist in their 40s or 50s, they cut their teeth in writing, but maybe not in a way that you might imagine it. They weren’t writing novel after novel. They might have been copywriters, or journalists, or playwrights, or whatever. But you see that so often, that kind of, “Oh, overnight success! Debut novelist! Jeffrey Cranor: Nope! And sometimes, even if it’s a very first novel they’ve ever written, which there’s a lot of people who, in their first novel, have a huge success with it, but I would also counter that, yeah, just like you said, they’ve probably done a lot of other things prior to that. In addition to that, I bet that novel took a lot of iterations to get right. Kelton Reid: Absolutely. Jeffrey Cranor: There’s just a lot that goes into it. Kelton Reid: So many novels start with a short story, or just an idea, and obviously become take on a life of their own. We will be right back after a very short break. Thanks so much for listening to The Writer Files. This episode of The Writer Files is brought to you by Audible, offering over 180,000 audiobook titles to choose from. Audible seamlessly delivers the world’s both fiction and nonfiction to your iPhone, Android, Kindle or computer. For Rainmaker FM listeners, Audible is offering a free audiobook download with a 30 day trial to give you the opportunity to check them out. Grab your free audiobook right now by visiting Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. I just hopped over there to grab Stephen King’s epic novel 11/22/63, about an English teacher who goes back in time to prevent the assassination of JFK. You can download your pick or any other audiobook free by heading over to Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. To download your free audiobook today, go to Audibletrial.com/Rainmaker. How the Battle Against Expectation Can Surprise Readers Kelton Reid: Do you have a couple favorite authors sitting on your nightstand, or playing in your headphones? Jeffrey Cranor: Let me try to answer that. I’m going to turn to my left and look at my shelf. I do. One of my favorite authors is a playwright named Will Eno. I love Will Eno’s work, and I feel like, when we write and when we first start really getting into writing, or a style of writing, we like to emulate other writers, and Will Eno’s a person I think I’ve always wanted to emulate. He writes plays, he writes dialog plays, but he also has a whole bunch of monologue pieces. The first of those that I read was a play called Thom Pain (based on nothing), and it is a solo performance. It was originally performed in New York by the actor James Urbaniak, who’s been on Welcome to Night Vale since, which is really exciting for me. Will Eno’s work has this ability to be, when you look at it on a page, it’s very simple. The writing structure is simple, but it’s deeply poetic, and very introverted, and it uses the audience really, really well. He’s very confrontational without saying controversial things. There’s some of that in there, but mostly he just always, always makes the audience battle against expectations. He does some really fascinating things with his writing in Thom Pain. There’s a moment when he asks a member of the audience to come up on stage, “I need you for something. Just stand right there.” Then proceeds to continue out the rest of the show without ever using them. So just leaves the person on stage throughout the rest of the show without anything to do, always expecting something about to happen. It’s kind of, you’re used to the improv comedian or the magician needing a volunteer to come up and do a thing, and then you find yourself never used again, and it becomes this really amazing thing for the rest of the audience to watch that happen. Another writer I really, really love is Helen DeWitt. She wrote one of my favorite books of all time, called The Last Samurai. Do you know this book? Kelton Reid: I do, yeah. It’s one I found when I was in creative writing school, and I think it had a limited release, right? Then it went out of print and then it came back. They republished it recently. Jeffrey Cranor: Oh, it might have. I have no idea. I bought it way back in 2003, I think. But yeah, I didn’t know if it went out of print or not. I found out after I read it back then that it was big, hot stuff in the literary world. As in like, here’s a first time novelist and here’s this brilliant novel. All these publishers really want it. And it took her a long, long time to write a second book. Last Samurai, I thought, was so beautiful and immersive. I think it does a similar thing to what Will Eno does, which is to create a fairly simple vocabulary, a fairly simple language. Describing things in not lavish detail, but in enough detail to allow you as the reader, or the viewer in the case of Will, to build out your own world. Some of the really heartfelt moments, or the really scary moments in both of those writers’ work is what they’re not telling you, and what they’re not revealing. Anyways, but yeah, I felt Last Samurai was absolutely beautiful and stunning. Kelton Reid: For sure. Jeffrey Cranor: I just read last year, for the first time, If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler by Italo Calvino. It was brilliant. I’ve never read Calvino’s work and I finally got around to reading it, so I can’t claim him as a favorite author, but that was one of the best things I ve ever read, and it’s tremendous. So welcome to me finally discovering Italo in 2015. Kelton Reid: Yeah, Calvino’s fantastic. And so is Helen DeWitt, and I look forward to checking out the other author you mentioned. Do you have a favorite quote? A lot of writers have a quote just kind of floating over their desk somewhere, or memorized. Do you have one you want to share with writers? Jeffrey Cranor: I do. I guess people still do this with email. I don’t know if you do this with your email or anything. I don’t really notice signatures on email anymore because Gmail usually truncates that stuff, but back in the day people kind of devised a personalized signature at the bottom of their emails and a lot of times it would be a quote. Especially all of my writer and theater friends would have a quote from somebody at the bottom. My friend Joey Rizzolo, who was a member of The New York Neo-Futurists theater company, had a quote at the bottom of his. So when you’d get an email from Joey Rizzolo you’d have the email, and he’d just put ‘Joey,’ and then at the bottom, it would have this quote. The quote said, “We’re writers. Why are we always quoting some other writer? We’re writers, after all. -Joey Rizzolo.” That’s my favorite quote. Kelton Reid: I hope Joey hears this and takes a bow. Jeffrey Cranor: It’s tremendous, and it was so good I wanted to steal it and knew that I couldn’t, and that made me sad. Kelton Reid: Love it. It’s too meta, so I’m going to have to steal it and put it over my desk now. The Art of Great Audiobooks as Performance Kelton Reid: I know we need to wrap here pretty quick. I got a couple fun ones for you. I have this question; do you prefer paper or eBook? I guess I should add, or audiobook? Do you have a preference? Jeffrey Cranor: I love audiobooks. I’ve always loved radio. I’ve always loved listening to things. I hope that’s not heretical to say, but I love audiobooks. There’s a real distinct art to them. I’m much more willing to give up on an audiobook then I am on a printed book, because a printed book, it’s all your fault if you can’t get it right. Whereas the audiobook, sometimes they just don’t translate well for me. Sometimes the performance is just not quite there, or the book doesn’t work as an audiobook. I think, guaranteed, getting a good quality is going to be much better in a book book than in an audiobook, because there’s just so many other moving parts to audiobooks. I just love them. It’s so great when you find great narrators, like Robertson Dean, or George Guidall. There are just so many really good narrators out there that do a fantastic job. Definitely prefer a printed book over an eBook, just because it’s more lasting. It feels more memorable to me. There’s the physical weight and the touch of the pages. I don’t even think I’m being romantic when I say that, I think that’s just physiology. I just think your body is more likely to hold on to information that’s tangible, that you’ve actually touched. That being said, I’m not opposed to eBooks. I travel a lot, so I definitely have to go eBook quite a bit. That’s fine. They’re great. They’re super excellent for travelling, because I don’t have to have five pounds of books in my bag. Kelton Reid: Yeah, yeah. Hybrid medium is the message. Jeffrey Cranor: Add Marshall McLuhan to my list of people I really love as writers. Kelton Reid: Oh, yeah. The Medium is the Massage. Jeffrey Cranor: Yes. I have that book, too. It’s great. Kelton Reid: My mom recently gave me a vintage copy of that, and I was like, “I think they spelled it wrong. Oh wait, that was intentional.” All right, if you could choose one author from any era for an all-expense paid dinner to your favorite spot in the world, who would you choose and where would you take them? Jeffrey Cranor: That’s a great question. I feel like I might I would one of two things. Partially, there’s a person like Will Eno that I just mentioned a little bit ago, who’s living, not that far from my own age, maybe we’re ten years apart. That’s somebody that I just think, professionally, I would just love to meet, because he’s had such a profound influence on my life. That being said, I don’t know how comfortable I am with meeting people I’m a big fan of. There’s a lot of people I enjoy meeting that I really appreciate their work, but sometimes when you reach the level of “I’m a fan of you,” you just can’t not have shake-voice when you do actually meet them. So I feel like maybe that would be counterproductive. I would be really interested in someone like Jane Austen, if only for the fact of, you have a person who managed to write quite a bit given the time-frame she wrote in, but did not write for a very long time. I think I’m always curious about the level of writing that she was at, which was, we’re talking the upper echelon of Western writers. She was absolutely brilliant. And of that era, there’s so little known. There’s a lot know, but there’s so much that’s been repressed about women’s histories in the history of humankind, and I think that we’re missing so much of her story because we didn’t canonize women the same way we did men. Like, any average man from then. Some just spare Earl or Viscount gets pages in an encyclopedia, and there’s so many women who did not. I think we’re missing a lot of her life, and I would be very interested to know more about her, and more about her writing process, and about who she was during that era. Kelton Reid: Interesting. And where would you go for dinner? Jeffrey Cranor: That’s a great question. Oh, man, there’s a really great restaurant and brewery in Athens, New York, called Crossroads that I really, really enjoy. They always have really excellent stuff, so maybe we’ll go there. My knowledge of restaurants in England is much more limited. Kelton Reid: I skipped over one earlier, but maybe before we get to your writing advice for fellow scribes, you could tell us how Jeffrey Cranor unwinds at the end of a long writing day.? Jeffrey Cranor: I’ll tell you what I did last night after the end of a long writing day, which was, my wife Jillian had gone to the store and got some food, and I finished up right around the time she got home and started making dinner, so I went upstairs and helped make dinner. Chopped up some peppers, and grated some cheese, and made some bread. We poured some wine and had a go at making a flourless chocolate cake, which we hadn’t tried before. I think we over baked it a little bit, but for the most part came out really tasty. It wasn’t super dense, which was really great, if only slightly dry on top. That was a problem. But yeah, cooking and having wine, or a bourbon, something like that. I can’t do that every night, make a flourless chocolate cake and throw back a bunch of wine, stuff like that. I think cooking, having an evening to just cook and have nice food, and things like that, is one of my favorite things to do to unwind. Kelton Reid: Well, to wrap it up here, do you have some advice for your fellow writers on how to keep the ink flowing and cursor moving? Jeffrey Cranor: I think you have to make opportunities for yourself. Self publish, self produce whenever you can. Always give yourself a reason to have to make a thing. Not just you want to make a thing, but make a path that you have to make a thing. If you have a blog, tell people that you put out a new post every 48 hours. At noon every other day, or at Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at three PM, you will have a brand new post about this subject. Make those paths for yourself. Make yourself have to make a thing. When you do that, you feel like you are indebted to more than just yourself. I think that’s the number one thing. Kelton Reid: Lock, stock, and barrel with Jeffrey Cranor, best-selling author, co-creator Welcome to Night Vale and Night Vale Presents worlds. Lots of stuff going on to find out there. Is the best way to connect with that world at welcometonightvale.com? Jeffrey Cranor: I think that’s the best way. Also, we put a lot of updates on our Facebook page and Twitter account, too. Look for all that there. Kelton Reid: I will link to all of those in the show notes. Congrats on the new show Within the Wires, which is fantastic. You can find those wherever fine podcasts are consumed. Does that sound awful? Jeffrey Cranor: That’s great. Wherever you get podcasts. iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever. Kelton Reid: Yeah, absolutely. There’s so much out there to find. What’s your next stop in the live show, the tour? What’s next for you? Jeffrey Cranor: We just started a Europe tour. We’re two shows in. I’m not on that tour yet, but they just did a show in Paris on Monday night and a show in Madrid last night. Tomorrow night they’ll be in Cologne and going on over to Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Berlin, Munich, Prague, Warsaw, and then I’m going to join up on October 20th in Dublin. We’re going to go to Dublin, Brighton, London, and Manchester to close out the month. Kelton Reid: Amazing. Amazing. Jeffrey Cranor: It’s really exciting. Kelton Reid: Seems like you have fans all over the world, and congratulations on all of your successes. I really appreciate you chatting with us about your process. Feel free to come back any time. Jeffrey Cranor: Thanks so much, Kelton. Kelton Reid: Thank you so much for joining me for this half of a tour through the writer’s process. If you enjoy The Writer Files podcast, please subscribe to the show and leave us a rating or a review on iTunes to help other writers find us. For more episodes, or to just leave a comment or a question, you can drop by WriterFiles.FM. You can always chat with me on Twitter @KeltonReid. Cheers. Talk to you next week.

Helen DeWitt is the author of The Last Samurai, Lightning Rods, and, with Ilya Gridnef, Your Name Here. The Last Samurai, originally released by Miramax Books in 2000, is being released in a new edition by New Directions in May 2016. For many years, the book was passed along in secondhand copies among cognoscenti, and I'm glad to see it back in print. Sibylla, a single mother from a long line of frustrated talents, has unusual ideas about child rearing. Yo Yo Ma started piano at the age of two; her son starts at three. J.S.Mill learned Greek at three; Ludo starts at four, reading Homer as they travel round and round the Circle Line. A fatherless boy needs male role models; so she plays the film of Seven Samurai as a running backdrop to his childhood. While Sibylla types out back copies of Carpworld to pay the rent, Ludo, aged five, moves on to Hebrew, Arabic and Japanese, aerodynamics and edible insects of the world - they might come in handy, if he can just persuade his mother he's mature enough to know his father's name. He is bound for knowledge of a less manageable sort, not least about his mother's past. And at the heart of the book is the boy's changing relationship with Sibylla - contradictory, touching and tender. Today, we talk about how desperation breeds creativity, why we should all be able to choose our own parents, and the ecosystem of Berlin cafes. A small correction: in our discussion of coffee drinks at Neues Ufer, the drink served in a small ceramic bowl was incorrectly identified as Kremkaffee; the correct drink name is Milchkaffee. Show Notes Helen's website Her blog, paperpools Helen on twitter Her Wikipedia entry Her books: People mentioned:   Edward Tufte, data display guru. Emanuel Derman, Wall Street quant and professor. Previous guest of the show. John Stuart Mill, Victorian polymath. David Bowie, modern polymath.  

I hope y'all are ready for an awesome episode with author Helen DeWitt. While born in America, Helen's father was in the foreign service. She grew up all over Latin America and later attended the University of Oxford, which is where she earned her PhD. Helen has written two amazing books, The Last Samuri (which has nothing to do with that Tom Cruise film) and Lightning Rods, which was recently named to the Slate/Whiting Second Novel List. She is currently working on her third.This is the website for Beginnings, subscribe on iTunes, follow me on Twitter.

A book that's less a conventional novel than a working-through of a delightfully absurd premise, plus some satire of American offices and their human resources departments. We're even more full of digressions this week than usual, so, you know, forewarned is forearmed and all. Talking points include: Soup viscosity, proper workshop behavior, sexual politics, glory holes, the ideal material for toilet seats, and sticks. Lots and lots of sticks. For more, check out bookfightpod.com.