This week’s book is a brand new novel by Marcy Dermansky, about a woman who heads to San Francisco for the funeral of her former boss and, once there, begins to realize she might want to change her life. We talk about the book’s deadpan humor, its unique voice, and whether we’re cool or not cool with ghost cars in literature.

In the second half of the show, Mike gets sad about Twitter, the state of the world, and dummies.

As always, you can stream the podcast right here, by clicking on the player below, or download the mp3 file. You can also find us in the iTunes store, or wherever you normally get your podcasts. Subscribe, and you’ll never miss another installment.

We mentioned our new Patreon this week: if you’d like to donate to the show, you can do so at this link. For a mere $5 a month, you’ll receive a special monthly bonus episode we’re calling Book Fight: After Dark! It will be very exciting, and probably sexy.

Thanks for listening to the show! And if you have book-loving friends who like to put things into their ears, please send them our way.

Stream Episode 180:

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This week we welcome special guest andre carrington, professor at Drexel University and author of the book Speculative Blackness: The Future of Race in Science Fiction. Andre chose our reading, Long Division, a novel by Kiese Laymon that involves time travel, overlapping narratives and some rather complex metafiction.

We talk about the book’s complicated plot, and whether it’s a strength or a weakness of the novel. We also talk about genre lines, how we draw them, and whether it’s even worth drawing them. In the second half of the show, we talk to andre about his work, race in science fiction, fan fiction, and writing for academic versus non-academic audiences.

As always, you can stream the show right here on our site, by clicking on the player below. You can also download the mp3 file, and play it on your preferred device. Or check us out in the iTunes store, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Stream Episode 178:

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Thanks for listening!

Long Division

We welcome special guest Dave Housley, founding editor of Barrelhouse Magazine, and author of several books, most recently the short story collection Massive Cleansing Fire. Dave chose this week’s book, the best-selling post-apocalyptic Station Eleven.

In the second half of the show, Dave reads a bit of fanfiction, and the less said about that the better.

As always, you can stream the episode right here on our site, or you can download the mp3 file. Or check us out in the iTunes store, where you can subscribe (for free!) and never miss another installment.

We’ve also joined Patreon, if you’d like to support the show. We’ll be recording bonus episodes that will only be available to listeners who kick in $5 a month–a pretty great bargain, considering that all our regular episodes (4 a month!) are free.

Stream Episode 176:

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Thanks for listening!