We’re joined today by Josh Cook. Josh is a bookseller and co-owner at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he has worked since 2004. He is the author of the critically acclaimed postmodern detective novel An Exaggerated Murder and most recently of The Art of Libromancy: Selling Books and Reading Books in the Twenty-First Century, …

We’re joined today by Lara Ehrlich, a writer, editor, and longtime friend (she and Tom go back 20 years, which seems impossible). Her first story collection, Animal Wife, was published by Red Hen Press back in 2020, and her first novel, Bind Me Tighter Still, will publish in 2025, also from Red Hen. She also hosts a conversation series, Writer Moth…

We’re joined today by Mark Haber of Coffee House Press (formerly of Brazos Bookstore in Houston). Mark is the author of two novels, Reinhardt’s Garden and Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, and the forthcoming novel Lesser Ruins, as well as a forthcoming novella, Ada. We chat about his work as well as Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald, translated by Anthea Bell. A q…

Today Spencer Ruchti of Third Place Books joins to chat about The Tanners by Robert Walser, translated by Susan Bernofsky. We actually recorded this back in November and are glad to get it out into the world. Early on Spencer dips out momentarily due to an alarm in the store, but all ended up being right with the world. At least in that instant. Th…

Kicking off 2024 we welcome Tara Cheesman to the podcast with her recommendation, Being Here Is Everything: The Life and Times of Paula Modersohn-Becker by Marie Darriussecq, translated by Penny Hueston. Tara is a freelance critic, former judge of the Best Translated Book Award, and she brings us our first work of nonfiction. We have an absolutely …

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is upon us and it does not disappoint. Too much to say about this one and, as always, we could have gone an hour longer and still not covered it all. An absolutely fantastic novel and one that certainly lives up to the hype and praise that surrounds it. Titles/authors mentioned: The Secret History by Donna Tartt O Cale…

We stand on the precipice, one episode away from THE PRIME! Before that, though, we discuss The Bachelors, a fantastic novel chock full of some of the strangest characters Spark has written, which is really saying something. Mediums, epileptics, blackmail, criminality, and much, much more abound in this one. And one of the funniest scenes yet invol…

We’re edging closer to THE PRIME, but today we chat about The Ballad of Peckham Rye. Spark’s novels are incredibly fun, but this might be the wildest, featuring an incredible character name (Dougal Douglas), a lot of absenteeism, a textile factory, a Nun Tunnel, and dancing. Lots of dancing. Click here to subscribe to our Substack and find us on th…

This week we discuss Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants, an absolutely wonderful gem of a novel from French author Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell. In 150ish pages Énard recreates the Constantinople of the early 16th Century and the brief time Michelangelo resided there to build a grand bridge. If you’ve not read Énard before…

This week we discuss Memento Mori, Spark’s third novel and, as we’ve come to expect, it’s a really fun ride. This go-round she brings us into the lives of septuagenarians and octogenarians as they fume, backbite, explore their sexual proclivities, and all come to terms (or not) with their impending deaths. And, of course, it’s very, very funny. Cli…

Episode 5 of Season 2: we get to chat with Robin McLean about Ceremony by Leslie Marion Silko. And, yeah, this is probably our best episode so far, which isn’t shocking because we’re talking about talking with Robin McLean. So, all that aside, it’s a great conversation and one that could have gone on for hours and hours yet. We could have gone deep…

In Episode 4 of Season 2 we dig into Muriel Spark’s sophomore effort, Robinson. Gotta say: it’s incredible and we couldn’t be more excited to keep on keeping on with her work. This time around we trade London (mostly) for a lonely island in the Atlantic and a story that is funny, tense, clever, whimsical, and just an all-around masterclass in write…

Having sorted some annoying technical issues, herewith Episode 3 of Season 2 (our way of apologizing for the delay in uploading this episode) in which we discuss The Conqueror by Jan Kjærstad, translated by Barbara Haveland and published by Open Letter Books. And to kick off our series of guest hosts, Chad Post of Open Letter Books (and Dalkey Arch…

We kick off our season-long read of Muriel Spark's novels this week and what a start! The Comforters is Spark's debut, published in 1956, and is, quite simply, magnificent. Lori and Tom wax heavily on how impressive this novel is and how incredibly fun it is, too! It's going to be quite a great season judging by this title alone. Click here to subs…

And we’re back! Welcome to Season Two of Lost in Redonda. We kick things off with a backlist conversation on Chronicle of the Murdered House by Lucio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson, published by Open Letter Books. It’s probably one of the fastest moving 600 page sagas of a Brazilian family you’re likely to encounter.…

Here it is, folks, our final episode on Your Face Tomorrow and the last part of our Marías project. It's a longer one, but very worth it if we do say so ourselves. Our next season and new project will kick off in a couple weeks' time, but before that a thank you for listening along. It's a fun project and one we hope folks are getting as much out o…

It's very strange to be this close to the end of our Marías focus, but that's rather how time moves, ever forward (unless you're Marías and can make time a rather fungible thing in your novels...). This is a fun episode, touching on East End gangsters, Spandau Ballet, the Spanish Civil War, swordplay, and more. And a couple of characters from the p…

And now we enter the homestretch. Over the next few episodes we'll tackle Marías' masterpiece, Your Face Tomorrow. Starting, of course, with the first volume, Fever and Spear. Once we wrap up the Marías project we're going to take a week or so off and then we'll be back with more backlist dives and a new author whose work we'll spend some time digg…

This week we dive into Christian Kracht's Imperium, and boy do we ever go deep (sorry/not sorry). It's an incredible piece of historical fiction (one of Tom's favorites and, now, one of Lori's) that follows one man's attempts to manifest his destiny to live in the tropics and subsist only on the noble coconut. And walk around nude. In the German So…

A fun discussion this week of two novels published almost 30 years apart in The Infatuations and The Man of Feeling. We walk down some interesting paths and may get ourselves into a moral quandary or two (wouldn't be a discussion of Marías without some moral murkiness, now would it?). These are the last two Marías novels we discuss before wrapping …

We're going weekly! As the episodes have grown longer we've decided to split them up so instead of discussing two titles per episode (and delivering a 2+ hour podcast) every other week we're switching to one title every week. A guide to the next few episodes will be up on the Substack shortly. This week we dig into Marie NDiaye's My Heart Hemmed In…

In our sixth episode we discuss Gob’s Grief by Chris Adrian for our backlist deep dive. In the Marías portion we dig into Thus Bad Begins (spoiler alert: it’s phenomenal). This is a doozy of an episode, so stay hydrated and do be a hero: listen to the whole 2+ hours in one go! Books mentioned in this episode: Names on the Land: A Historical Account…

Lori and Tom discuss Marías' final novel, Tomás Nevinson, just published in the US on May 23rd. A warning that spoilers do occur, especially after the 37 minute mark, so listener beware. Next episode we will return to discussing backlist in addition to our Marías deep-dives. Click here to subscribe to our Substack and do follow us on the socials, @…

To mark the publication of Marías final novel, Tomás Nevinson, we're spending this episode and our next episode diving into the twinned works of Berta Isla and Tomás Nevinson. On this episode we dive deep into Berta (warning: we do rather go into the plot in a more significant manner than we have with other titles discussed thus far). And in two we…

Welcome back! In our third episode we discuss House of Splendid Isolation by Edna O’Brien for the backlist deep dive. In the Marías portion we dig into Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me and A Heart So White. We really hit it out of the park in both sections, if we do say so ourselves. Books mentioned in this episode: The works of Edna O’Brien, spe…

Welcome back! In this second episode we discuss some literary news, specifically the passing of Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe and the US/Canada edition of the Republic of Consciousness Prize (chaired by our Lori Feathers) before moving onto a conversation on Tristan Egolf’s Kornwolf. In the Marías portion we chat some more about Redonda and dive into…

Welcome to Lost in Redonda from Lori Feathers and Tom Flynn. Over the course of this podcast we will explore backlist gems and discuss the career of the late Spanish novelist Javier Marías, King of Redonda. In this introductory episode we say hello, spend a good while chatting about Marlon James' debut novel, John Crow's Devil, and begin our discus…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you a reading from Sasha Fletcher's novella, When All Our Days Are Numbered Marching Bands Will Fill the Streets & We Will Not Hear Them Because We Will Be Upstairs in the Clouds, available from Mud Luscious Press. In antiquity, Apocalypses were a thriving genre. Their creation has revived in our ow…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you a reading from David Peak's unpublished novel, The River Through the Trees. Good fiction makes strange places seem familiar and familiar places seem strange; it forces us to empathize with enemies, and reexamine our friends; it allows us to consider the unthinkable, and understand the inscrutabl…

This episode Apostrophe Cast is pleased to give you a peak at D.W. Lichtenberg's germinating novel, Time Flies in Ways. In this excerpt, D.W. Lichtenberg is a kind of reluctant hypnotist -- reluctant because he is just trying to tell you the truth, and he can't help that it is so easy to hypnotize you. He just can't help it. His words just keep flo…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode Heather Cousins opens the cellar door and ushers us down into the potato room. With a deceptive clarity, Cousins' voice leads us deeper and deeper into the darkness with meticulous details, like "practical, good girl underwear." But soon, we are lost under the surface of this bright, normal world in places w…

This episode we bring you the melancholy music of Erika Moya. Painted in breaths measured out like brushstrokes, Moya's images build rich and lonely dwellings in a landscape where it often rains, beautiful lovers are drowning in the distance, and there is more moonlight than sunlight. The listener may want to console Ms. Moya, but we must be gratef…

This episode we bring you the magical mind of Adam Mansbach, reading from his new novel Rage is Back. Mansbach's sleight of hand is invisible whether he is conjuring forth the voice of Dondi, the drug-dealing scion of a high art graffiti writing dynasty, or bending time to put him, and us with him, into tomorrow before we can blink an eye. But unde…

This episode David Goodwillie takes us underground with domestic terrorists in Manhattan, reading an excerpt of his novel American Subversive, out now from Scribner. Infiltrating the Mall of Manhattan through the eyes of a young woman radicalized by her brother's death in Iraq, the glossy surfaces of the city fracture as army brats gone rogue plan …

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we are pleased to present the triumphant mutations excerpted from Lily Hoang's forthcoming novel Evolutionary Revolution, out this July from Les Figues Press. From brothers who can wear the same shirt at the same time to asexual mermen, from sideshow freak stage mothers to a girl with truly unforgettable thi…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you the brand-spanking new bible stories of Bryan Furuness, in which Lucifer is a precocious little boy and Jesus is his accident-prone buddy. The suburban children of this unholy scripture effortlessly humiliate their mortal parents, who lock them out on summer days, and paint moustaches on their p…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we invite you to explore the world of poet Danielle Sellers reading from her collection, Bone Key Elegies available from Main Street Rag. Inhabited by tribes of beautiful, semi-wild children destined to suffer and become wise, its beaches and cities shine by the light of her radiant details. And at the cente…

This episode we bring you Joseph Young reading from Adam Robinson's collection, Adam Robison and Other Poems available from Narrow House, and Adam Robinson reading from Joseph Young's collection of microfiction, Easter Rabbit, available from Publishing Genius. Are they two ventriloquists using each other as dummies or two dummies using each other a…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we are proud to bring you Carol Novack, Publisher and Editor of Mad Hatter's Review. Her multimedia, musical concoctions seem to spring directly from her mind, and their array of sensations and provocations will make an indelible impression on yours. Please enjoy Carol Novack.…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode Swedish Poet and Critic Aase Berg reads her surrealist poetry, and Johannes Goransson, editor of Action Books, translates. In this way we hear the ancient sing song lilting of a cousin language reminding us that poetry is sound first, and recieve the challenge of Berg's images, both visceral and abstract. Pl…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. In The Mothering Coven, Joanna Ruocco builds us a vacation cottage in a mad village inhabited by brilliant kooks such as Mrs. Borage, who mixes metaphysics with the chores, and ace reporter, Duncan Michaels, whose articles are never read. When it is time for you to leave this place, we think you will find the characters …

We are pleased to commence the New Year with a reading from Kristina Marie Darling. Ms. Darling effortlessly spins philosophy into poetry, weaving high concept with flights of lyricism that both delight and challenge. Please enjoy Kristina Marie Darling.By The Apostrophe Cast Editors

This episode we give you Scott McClanahan reading "This is a Story with a Phone Number in It" from his collection, Stories II. Shining a bright beam of wry intelligence into the darkest corners of the down economy, Mr. McClanahan gives the people you might hang up on a voice. You will never answer a call from a telemarketer the same way again. Plea…

This episode we bring you the voice of Caitlin Doyle. In Caitlin Doyle's world Siegfried and Roy never met, Hegel and Breugel discuss obscure bagel-like breakfast options, and Paris is more likely a Hilton than the capital of France. Caitlin Doyle’s poetry moves effortlessly from wit to profundity, a tonal range matched by a remarkable breadth of t…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you poetry from Weston Cutter. Listening to Weston Cutter read is like enjoying driving alone. The muse speaks to him from posters above the urinals and she awakens him from the roadside as a little boy with visible dreams. Mr. Cutter sometimes has a hard time taking himself seriously, but then, you…

This episode we bring you excerpts from J. A. Tyler's novella, A Man of Glass & All the Ways We Have Failed, forthcoming from fugue state press in 2011. In these passages Tyler moves from meditations on comforting a lover fretting over lost luggage into the cosmically signifcant love and longing of a He for a She until the lovers' striving blasts a…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we hear Davis Schneiderman recording in collaboration with Don Meyer, reading from his forthcoming novel, Drain. In Drain, we are taken down into the wasted basin once home to Lake Michigan, now the subject of a turf war between worm-worshiping outlaw nomads and the bovine inhabitants of corporate sprawl col…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode Claire Hero reads from her first full-length collection of poetry, Sing, Mongrel, available from Noemi Press. In Sing, Mongrel, as she walks us like little children through a dark forest, Hero draws the inner beast out from hiding to serve as her muse, conjuring forth songs gruesome, honest and darkly wondro…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we bring you an excerpt from a novella of prose poetry by Molly Gaudry, due out from Mud Luscious Press this December. In We Take Me Apart, Gaudry draws on Gertrude Stein's Tender Buttons and familiar fairy tales to create a jagged modernist narrative as beautiful and dangerous as broken stained glass. Pleas…

Welcome to Apostrophe Cast. This episode we are pleased to bring you two seasons from a shepherd's calendar by poet Nate Pritts. Pritts's third collection, The Wonderfull Yeare, will see print in 2010, but its timeless quality speaks to every date. Just as the summer dies, it is right that we bring you his 14 poem cycle, "Sonnets for the Fall," and…