The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast: Recent Episodes

View Details

Happy Pride Month! In this episode Trevor and Paul share some of our favorite works of LGBTQIA+ literature (and films)—works that have moved us, challenged us, and expanded our sense of the world. We reflect on how queer literature has shaped our understanding over the years and discuss the importance of lifting up these voices—especially in a moment when so many are under threat.

Join us in a heartfelt conversation about storytelling, solidarity, and the power of books to open us up to the lives of others. As two people who don’t speak from within the queer community, we approached this conversation with deep admiration, gratitude, and care, hoping to honor the writers and stories that have meant so much to us.

What are some of your favorite LGBTQIA+ books?

We’ve got some fantastic author-focused episodes lined up for the foreseeable future, and we want to give you plenty of time to dive in if you’d like to read along with us. These episodes come around every ten episodes, and with our bi-weekly release schedule, you'll have a few months to get ready for each. Here’s what we have in store:

• Episode 115: Kazuo Ishiguro

• Episode 125: Flannery O’Connor

• Episode 135: William Faulkner

• Episode 145: Elizabeth Taylor

• Episode 155: Naguib Mahfouz

There’s no rush—take your time, and grab a book (or two, or three) so you’re prepared for these as they come!

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

Want to share your thoughts on these upcoming authors or anything else we’re discussing? Join us over on Discord! It’s the perfect place to dive deeper into the conversation—whether you’re reading along with our author-focused episodes or just want to chat about the books that are on your mind.

We’re also gearing up for our second novella book club, where we'll be reading Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin at the start of July. It’s a fantastic book, and we’d love to have you join the discussion. It’s a great space to engage with fellow listeners, share your insights, and discover new perspectives on the books you’re reading.

Shownotes

Books

• The Book of Mutter, by Kate Zambreno

• The Light Room, by Kate Zambreno

• Drifts, by Kate Zambreno

• A House and Its Head, by Ivy Compton-Burnett

• Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

• The Guermantes Way, by Marcel Proust

• Manservant and Maidservant, by Ivy Compton-Burnett

• Angels in America, by Tony Kushner

• The Hours, by Michael Cunningham

• Brokeback Mountain, by Annie Proulx

• The Song of Achilles, by Madeleine Miller

• Circe, by Madeleine Miller

• Desert of the Heart, by Jane Rule

• The works of David Seders

• Bluets, by Maggie Nelson

• The Argonauts, by Maggie Nelson

• You Better Be Lightning, by Andrea Gibson

• A Single Man, by Christopher Isherwood

• Hearstopper, by Alice Oseman

• The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith

• Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• The Line of Beauty, by Alan Holinghurst

• Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel

• Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, by Jeannette Winterson

• The Great Believers, by Rebecca Makai

• I Have Some Questions for You, by Rebecca Makai

• All Down Darkness Wide, by Seán Hewitt

• The Night Watch, by Sarah Waters

• The Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters

• Dancer from the Dance, by Andrew Holleran

Films

• The Hours, d. Stephen Daldry

• Brokeback Mountain, d. Ang Lee

• Desert Hearts, d. Donna Deitch

• A Single Man, d. Tom Ford

• Carole, d. Todd Haynes

• Paris Is Burning, d. Jennie Livingston

• All About My Mother, d. Pedro Almodóvar

• Happy Together, d. Wong Kar Wai

• Portrait of a Lady on Fire, d. Céline Sciamma

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

In this episode, Paul and Trevor check in on our 2025 reading goals—where we’ve succeeded, where we’ve faltered, and most importantly how our goals are impacting our reading experience. Are we setting ourselves up for success, or are we creating unnecessary pressure? We dive into the positives and potentials pitfalls of reading ambitions, exploring what’s working for us. Tune in for a reflective conversation on how to make reading goals meaningful.

Plus, we announce the winner of our May giveaway and reveal our June giveaway challenge with another silly performance!

We’ve got some fantastic author-focused episodes lined up for the foreseeable future, and we want to give you plenty of time to dive in if you’d like to read along with us. These episodes come around every ten episodes, and with our bi-weekly release schedule, you'll have a few months to get ready for each. Here’s what we have in store:

• Episode 115: Kazuo Ishiguro

• Episode 125: Flannery O’Connor

• Episode 135: William Faulkner

• Episode 145: Elizabeth Taylor

• Episode 155: Naguib Mahfouz

There’s no rush—take your time, and grab a book (or two, or three) so you’re prepared for these as they come!

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

Want to share your thoughts on these upcoming authors or anything else we’re discussing? Join us over on Discord! It’s the perfect place to dive deeper into the conversation—whether you’re reading along with our author-focused episodes or just want to chat about the books that are on your mind.

We’re also gearing up for our second novella book club, where we'll be reading Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin at the start of July. It’s a fantastic book, and we’d love to have you join the discussion. It’s a great space to engage with fellow listeners, share your insights, and discover new perspectives on the books you’re reading.

Shownotes

Books

• Is a River Alive?, by Robert Macfarlane

• The White Bear, by Henrik Pontoppidan, translated by Paul Larkin

• A Fortunate Man, by Henrik Pontoppidan, translated by Paul Larkin

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• Deathbed Confessions, by Mark Haber

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• In Search of Lost Time, by Marcel Proust

• The Sunlit Man, by Brandon Sanderson

• Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

• Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy

• The Prime Minister, by Anthony Trollope

• The Duke’s Children, by Anthony Trollope

• The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope

• Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

• Schattenfroh, by Michael Lentz, translated by Max Lawton

• Blinding, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• Omensetter’s Luck, by William H. Gass

• Herscht 07769, by Lászlo Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet

• Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

• Mr. Fox, by Barbara Comyns

• A Touch of Mistletoe, by Barbara Comyns

• Melvill, by Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Will Vanderhyden

• On the Calculation of Volume, I, by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara J. Haveland

• The Ice-Shirt, by William T. Vollmann

• The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, translated by John E. Woods

• Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

• To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

• The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

• The Adventures of China Iron, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

• Rhine Journey, by Ann Schlee

• Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend, by Rebecca Romney

• Evelina, by Frances Burney

• The Remains of the Day, by Kazuo Ishiguro

• Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Unconsoled, by Kazuo Ishiguro

• The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro

• A Pale View of Hills, by Kazuo Ishiguro

• Your Absence Is Darkness, by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton

• The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

In this episode we’re shaking things up with Bookshelf Roulette! No pre-planned selections—just pure randomness. Using a random number generator, we each pick a few books from our shelves and dive into spontaneous discussions. Did we read them? Do we love them? Do we remember them? From forgotten gems to books we’ve been meaning to get to, we explore what’s lurking in the corners of our collections. Tune in for some unexpected literary discoveries, personal stories, and maybe even a few surprises as we take a fresh, unplanned look at what’s on our shelves.

What surprises are hiding on your bookshelf? Join in the fun—pull out a random book, whether you follow our rules or come up with your own way to pick, and share what you find with us! From forgotten classics to books you’ve been meaning to read, we’d love to hear about the unexpected gems in your collection.

We’ve got some fantastic author-focused episodes lined up for the foreseeable future, and we want to give you plenty of time to dive in if you’d like to read along with us. These episodes come around every ten episodes, and with our bi-weekly release schedule, you'll have a few months to get ready for each. Here’s what we have in store:

• Episode 115: Kazuo Ishiguro

• Episode 125: Flannery O’Connor

• Episode 135: William Faulkner

• Episode 145: Elizabeth Taylor

• Episode 155: Naguib Mahfouz

There’s no rush—take your time, and grab a book (or two, or three) so you’re prepared for these as they come!

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

Want to share your thoughts on these upcoming authors or anything else we’re discussing? Join us over on Discord! It’s the perfect place to dive deeper into the conversation—whether you’re reading along with our author-focused episodes or just want to chat about the books that are on your mind.

We’re also gearing up for our second novella book club, where we'll be reading Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin at the start of July. It’s a fantastic book, and we’d love to have you join the discussion. It’s a great space to engage with fellow listeners, share your insights, and discover new perspectives on the books you’re reading.

Shownotes

Books

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Your Absence Is Darkness, by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton

• Three Summers, by Margarita Liberaki, translated by Karen Van Dyck

• Great Granny Webster, by Caroline Blackwood

• The Short Stories of Elizabeth Hardwick

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• Gould’s Book of Fish, by Richard Flanagan

• Question 7, by Richard Flanagan

• Quartet in Autumn, by Barbara Pym

• Hopscotch, by Julio Cortázar, translated by Gregory Rabassa

• The Nose and Other Stories, by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Susanne Fuso

• Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol

• A Swim in the Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Masterclass on Writing, Reading, and Life, by George Saunders

• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri

• The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov

• First Love, by Ivan Turgenev

• The Forgery, by Ave Barrera, translated by Ellen Jones and Robin Myers

• Cautery, by Lucía Lijtmaer, translated by Maureen Shaughnessy

• On Earth as It Is Beneath, by Ana Paula Maia, translated by Padma Viswanathan

• Chilco, by Daniela Catrileo, translated by Jacob Edelstein

• The World We Saw Burning, by Renato Cisneros, translated by Fionn Petch

• The Oppermanns, by Lion Feuchtwanger, translated by James Cleugh

• The Aesthetics of Resistance, by Peter Weiss, translated by Joachim Neugroschel

• Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner

• A Start in Life, by Anita Brookner

• Providence, by Anita Brookner

• Look at Me, by Anita Brookner

• Proustian Uncertainty: On Reading and Rereading In Search of Lost Time, by Saul Friedländer

• Paintings in Proust: A Visual Companion to In Search of Lost Time, by Eric Karpeles

• Monsieur Proust, by Céleste Albaret, translated by Barbara Bray

• Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Soviet Prison Camp, by Józef Czapski, translated by Eric Karpeles

• Strike Your Heart, by Amélie Nothomb, translated by Alison Anderson

• Pétronille, by Amélie Nothomb, translated by Alison Anderson

• Life Form, by Amélie Nothomb, translated by Alison Anderson

• The Neapolitan Quartet, by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein

• H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald

• Vesper Flights, by Helen Macdonald

• Is a River Alive?, by Robert Macfarlane

Other

• The Eclipse Viewer Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

In this episode, Trevor and Paul are joined by Chris Via of Leaf by Leaf to celebrate the experience of reading big books. From the books that once intimidated us to the ones we now can't imagine our overburdened shelves without, we dive into what makes a book feel "big." Along the way, we share personal stories, favorite strategies for tackling doorstoppers, the books that stretched us as readers, and reflect on why some big books stay with us for life. Whether you're a lifelong lover of big books or someone who's still building up your wrist strength, this is an episode for you.

We’d love to hear from you, too—what are your favorite big books? Which ones are still looming on your to-be-read pile, daring you to pick them up? Let us know!

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

An easy place to respond to our question above is over on Discord!

We’re creating a welcoming space for thoughtful, engaging discussions about great novellas—and other books things. Whether you want to share insights, ask questions, or simply follow along, we’d love to have you.

Shownotes

Books

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• The Guermantes Way, by Marcel Proust

• FEM, by Magda Carneci, translated by Sean Cotter

• Blinding, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• Solenoid, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• Novel Explosives, by Jim Gauer

• Bookwork: Conversations with Michael Silverblatt

• The Recognitions, by William Gaddis

• The Dying Grass: A Novel of the New Perce War, by William T. Vollmann

• Faust, Part One: A New Translation with Illustrations, by Johann Wolfgang van Goethe, translated by Zsuzsanna Ozsváth and Frederick Turner

• Invidicum, by Michael Brodsky

• The Ice-Shirt, by William T. Vollmann

• The Aesthetics of Resistance, by Peter Weiss, translated by Joachim Neugroschel

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Great Granny Webster, by Caroline Blackwood

• Pilgrimage, by Dorothy Richardson

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• Moby Dick, by Herman Melville

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz

• Nausea, by Jean-Paul Sartre, translated by Richard Howard

• Schattenfroh, by Micheal Lentz, translated by Max Lawton

• The Sword of Shannara, by Terry Brooks

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Andrew R. MacAndrew

• It, by Stephen King

• The Stand, by Stephen King

• Shogun, by James Clavell

• Tom’s Crossing, by Mark Z. Danielewski

• Women and Men, by Joseph McElroy

• Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• The Blue Room, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Deborah Dawkin

• Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon

• Ulysses, by James Joyce

• 4 3 2 1, by Paul Auster

• Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

• Shadow Ticket, by Thomas Pynchon

• The Tunnel, by William H. Gass

• A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth

• The Golden Gate, by Vikram Seth

• The Story of a Life, by Konstantin Paustovsky, translated by Doug Smith

• The Tale of Genji, by Murasaki Shikibu, translated by Royall Tylor

• A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara

• The People in the Trees, by Hanya Yanagihara

• Stone Upon Stone, by Wiesław Myśliwski, translated by Bill Johnston

• Needle’s Eye, by Wiesław Myśliwski, translated by Bill Johnston

Other

• Leaf by Leaf

• Episode 1: Bucket List Books

• Episode 99: Books We Think About All the Time, with Elisa Gabbert

• The Untranslated: Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

What happens when a writer turns silence, fear, grief—and love?—into novels that are barely a couple hundred pages but echo for days? Whether it’s love withheld, misplaced, or mourned, Ørstavik’s novels speak to each other through unspoken longing and the disorienting nature of grief—with a quiet, cumulative power that’s hard to shake. In this episode, we explore the devastating brilliance of Hanne Ørstavik, the Norwegian author whose emotionally precise novels—Love, The Pastor, Ti Amo, and Stay with Me (neither of us has read The Blue Room, but we have it on order)—have deeply moved and unsettled us.

We dig into what makes Ørstavik’s emotional landscapes so haunting, and why these books, though spare on the surface, feel endlessly deep. From unspoken longing to the disorienting nature of grief, these novels speak to each other in unexpected and beautiful ways.

We’d love to hear your thoughts: Have you read any of Ørstavik’s work? Which novel struck you most—or which are you most curious to read?

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

An easy place to respond to our question above is over on Discord!

We’re creating a welcoming space for thoughtful, engaging discussions about great novellas—and other books things. Whether you want to share insights, ask questions, or simply follow along, we’d love to have you.

Shownotes

Books

• Love, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• The Pastor, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• Ti Amo, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• Stay with Me, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• The Ice-Shirt, by William T. Vollmann

• The Bear, by Andrew Krivak

• The Sojourn, by Andrew Krivak

• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

• The Blue Room, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Deborah Dawkin

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• First Love, by Ivan Turgenev

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark

• Within a Budding Grove, by Marcel Proust

Other

• Reading in Translation: Narrating and Translating Love and Grief in “TI AMO”: Norwegian Author Hanne Ørstavik and English Translator Martin Aitken in Conversation with Nataliya Deleva

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

It’s time for another publisher-centric episode, and it’s another stunner—we’re heading to Latin America (via Scotland!) to talk about the brilliant Charco Press! We dive into what makes Charco Press such a standout: their dedication to bringing contemporary Latin American literature to English-language readers, their thoughtful support of authors and translators, and, yes, their absolutely gorgeous books.

We each share three Charco titles we love and three more we can’t wait to get our hands on. There’s something for everyone—from the surreal to the political, the tender to the explosive. Plus, we announce the winner of our March giveaway and introduce an amazing new prize for April: a 2025 bundle of Charco Press books! You do not want to miss this one.

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

We’re creating a welcoming space for thoughtful, engaging discussions about great novellas, starting with First Love by Ivan Turgenev in April. Whether you want to share insights, ask questions, or simply follow along, we’d love to have you. The discussion will unfold gradually, so you can read at your own pace and jump in whenever you're ready. It’s a great way to connect with fellow readers, explore new works together, and deepen your appreciation for the novella form.

For the first book, the schedule will be as follows:

• April 6: Start of the book through Section 9

• April 9: Section 10 through Section 16

• April 13: Section 17 through the end

Shownotes

Books

• On the Calculation of Volume I, by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland

• The Dresden Files, by Jim Butcher

• Fated, by Benedict Jacka

• Cursed, by Benedict Jacka

• First Love, by Ivan Turgenev

• The Wind That Lays Waste, by Selva Almada, translated by Chris Andrews

• Dead Girls, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Brickmakers, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Not a River, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Catching Fire: A Translation Diary, by Daniel Hahn

• Never Did the Fire, by Diamela Eltit, translated by Daniel Hahn

• Homesick, by Jennifer Croft

• The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez

• The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka

• An Orphan World, by Giuseppe Caputo, translated by Sophie Hughes and Juana Adcock

• Dislocations, by Sylvia Malloy, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Elena Knows, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• A Little Luck, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Fish Soup, by Margarita García Robayo, translated by Charlotte Coombe

• The Distance Between Us, by Renato Cisneros, translated by Fionn Petch

• Time of the Flies, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Two Sherpas, by Sebastián Martinez Daniell, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Trout, Belly Up, by Rodrigo Fuentes, translated by Ellen Jones

• Fresh Dirt from the Grave, by Giovanna Rivero, translated by Isabel Adey

• The Adventures of China Iron, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

• A Perfect Cemetery, by Federico Falco, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Cautery, by Lucía Litmaer, translated by Maureen Shaughnessy

• The Delivery, by Margarita García Robayo, translated by Megan McDowell

• The Forgery, by Ave Barrera, translated by Ellen Jones and Robin Myers

• Restoration, by Ave Barrera, translated by Ellen Jones and Robin Myers

• Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

• Feebleminded, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Annie McDermott and Carolina Orloff

• Tender, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Annie McDermott and Carolina Orloff

Other

• The Book Club Review Podcast

• Charco Press Website

• Episode 74: Canadian Literature, with Jerry Faust

• Episode 88: Women in Translation, with Robin Myers

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

In this episode of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast, we’re joined by Rohan Maitzen to explore the multifaceted world of historical fiction. Rohan guides us through the genre, unpacking its many layers and surprising complexities. From timeless classics to unexpected gems, we share some of our favorite examples from the genre and discuss how historical fiction challenges our perceptions of the past and sparks conversations about the present, all while whisking us away to another time. Whether you're drawn to sweeping epics or intimate character studies, tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that will enhance the way you think about historical fiction!

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

We’re creating a welcoming space for thoughtful, engaging discussions about great novellas, starting with First Love by Ivan Turgenev in April. Whether you want to share insights, ask questions, or simply follow along, we’d love to have you. The discussion will unfold gradually, so you can read at your own pace and jump in whenever you're ready. It’s a great way to connect with fellow readers, explore new works together, and deepen your appreciation for the novella form.

For the first book, the schedule will be as follows:

• April 6: Start of the book through Section 9

• April 9: Section 10 through Section 16

• April 13: Section 17 through the end

Shownotes

Books

• Widening the Skirts of Light: Essays on George Eliot, by Rohan Maitzen

• Middlemarch for Book Clubs, by Rohan Maitzen

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

• The Lymond Chronicles, by Dorothy Dunnett

• My Lady Jane, by Cynthia Hand

• Stone Yard Devotional, Charlotte Wood

• All Fours, by Miranda July

• Mrs. Death Misses Death, by Salena Godden

• Telephone, by Percival Everett

• Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Book Collector’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend, by Rebecca Romney

• Evelina, by Frances Burney

• Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

• The Mysteries of Udolpho, by Ann Radcliffe

• The Snow Child, by Eowyn Ivey

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• Waverley; or, ’Tis Sixty Years Since, by Walter Scott

• Adam Bede, by George Eliot

• Romola, by George Eliot

• The Cater Street Hangman, by Anne Perry

• The Whitechapel Conspiracy, by Anne Perry

• Kindred, by Octavia Butler

• An Unsuitable Job for a Woman, by P.D. James

• The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas

• Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent

• The Young Mary Queen of Scots, by Jean Plaidy

• Murder Most Royal, by Jean Plaidy

• Lives of the Queens of England, by Agnes and Elizabeth Strickland

• Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks

• Siege of Krishnapur, by J.G. Farrell

• Troubles, by J.G. Farrell

• The Singapore Grip, by J.G. Farrell

• Hamnet, by Maggie O’Farrell

• A Long Long Way, by Sebastian Barry

• Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson

• Birdsong, by Sebastian Faulks

• The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• My Lady Of Cleves, by Margaret Campbell Barnes

• Child of the Morning, by Pauline Gedge

• The Eagle and the Raven, by Pauline Gedge

Other

• Episode 64: Victorian Literature

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Introducing the Mookse and Gripes Novella Reading Group! Through this year, we’re reading three novellas about love, longing, and leadership gone slightly off the rails. In this episode, we kick things off with some bookish banter before unveiling our new novella reading group on Discord. We have a short intermission for a special new game with a giveaway and then share the three novellas we’ll be reading in 2025, diving into why we chose these books.

Join us as we celebrate the art of the novella. We hope you’ll read along!

Join the Mookse and the Gripes on Discord

We’re creating a welcoming space for thoughtful, engaging discussions about great novellas, starting with First Love by Ivan Turgenev in April. Whether you want to share insights, ask questions, or simply follow along, we’d love to have you. The discussion will unfold gradually, so you can read at your own pace and jump in whenever you're ready. It’s a great way to connect with fellow readers, explore new works together, and deepen your appreciation for the novella form.

For the first book, the schedule will be as follows:

• April 6: Start of the book through Section 9

• April 9: Section 10 through Section 16

• April 13: Section 17 through the end

Shownotes

Books

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Melvill, by Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Will Vanderhyden

• Like a Sky Inside, by Jakuta Alikavazovic, translated by Daniel Levin Becker

• The Case of Cem, by Vera Mutafchieva, translated by Angela Rodel

• Your Absence Is Darkness, by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton

• Small Rain, by Garth Greenwell

• Command Performance, by Jean Echenoz, translated

• Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

• To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

• The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

• The Voyage Out, by Virginia Woolf

• Mrs Dalloway: Biography of a Novel, by Mark Hussey

• Trafik, by Rikki Ducornet

• We’re Safe When We’re Alone, by Nghiem Tran

• Cecilia, by K-Ming Chang

• Small Things Like These, by Claire Keegan

• Chess Story, by Stefan Zweig, translated by Joel Rotenberg

• The Guest Cat, by Takashi Hiraide, translated by Eric Selland

• The Stepdaughter, by Caroline Blackwood

• Great Granny Webster, by Caroline Blackwood

• So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell

• Fever Dream, by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• The Body, by Stephen King

• The Long Walk, by Stephen King

• First Love, by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Isaiah Berlin

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, by Muriel Spark

• The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James

Other

• Episode 27: Short Books, Fiction

• “Ten haunting, atmospheric novellas I highly recommend”: JacquiWine’s Journal

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a bookish conversation hosted by Paul and Trevor. Every other week, we explore a bookish topic and celebrate our love of reading. We’re glad you’re here, and we hope you’ll continue to join us on this literary journey!

A huge thank you to those who help make this podcast possible! If you'd like to support us, you can do so via Substack or Patreon. Subscribers receive access to periodic bonus episodes and early access to all new episodes. Plus, each supporter gets their own dedicated feed, allowing them to download episodes a few days before they’re released to the public. We’d love for you to check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

In this special centenary episode of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast, we're shaking things up with an Ask Us Anything celebration! Join us as we answer listeners’ questions covering everything from our favorite books and authors to the behind-the-scenes moments of the podcasting process. We’re answering it all, sharing some fun stories, and offering a glimpse into what’s next for the show—more books!

Whether you’ve been with us since episode one or are a recent listener, this milestone episode is for you. Tune in for the answers to your burning questions and to celebrate 100 episodes of literary adventures with us!

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

We’re joined by the amazing poet and essayist Elisa Gabbert to discuss some of the books that we think about all the time. We each share three books that are always on our minds and discuss the many reasons some works become such and important part of who we are.

Which ones would you pick?

Shownotes

Books

• Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Word Pretty, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Hurting Kind, by Ada Limón

• 77 Dream Songs, by John Berryman

• The Price of Salt, by Patricia Highsmith

• A Passage to India, by E.M. Forster

• Patricia Highsmith: Her Diaries and Notebooks

• Strangers on a Train, by Patricia Highsmith

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout, by Cal Newport

• An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris, by George Perec, translated by Marc Lowenthal

• A Month in Sienna, by Hisham Matar

• How to Cook a Wolf, by M.F.K. Fisher

• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• Ducks, Newburyport, by Lucy Ellmann

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Notes from Underground, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Too Serious Ladies, by Jane Bowles

• Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso

• Emma, by Jane Austen

• The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück

• Survey Says, by Nathan Austin

• The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman

• So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell

• Atonement, by Ian McEwan

• The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Ruth L.C. Simms

Other

• Elisa Gabbert’s Poetry Column in The New York Times

• Every book I read in 2024, with commentary, by Elisa Gabbert

• Lost Highway, d. David Lynch

• Mulholland Dr., d. David Lynch

• Episode 36: Epic Books

• Backlisted Podcast on Notes from Underground

• Episode 25: Jane Austen

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

From glistening skyscrapers and bustling downtowns to dark alleys and creeping urban decay, cities are endlessly complicated and diverse. And so are the books that take place in urban settings. This week, we share some of our favorite city books and chat about what makes these environments so fascinating.

What are your favorites?

Shownotes

Books

• Pink Slime, by Fernanda Trías, translated by Heather Cleary

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

• Wind and Truth, by Brandon Sanderson

• The Suicides, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen

• Zama, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen

• The Silentiary, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen

• Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver

• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

• The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros

• A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

• The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

• The City and the City, by China Miéville

• Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity, by Katherine Boo

• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas, by Ursula K. Le Guin

• My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante, translated by Anne Goldstein

• Lush Life, by Richard Price

• Solenoid, by Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolfe

• Ask the Dust, by John Fante

• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Máquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa

• Anniversaries, by Uwe Johnson, translated by Damion Searls

• Cannery Row, by John Steinbeck

• Ulysses, by James Joyce

• New York Trilogy, by Paul Auster

• Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

• It, by Stephen King

• The Virgin Suicides, by Jeffrey Eugenides

• Open City, by Teju Cole

• Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

• The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larsen

• Midaq Alley, by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by Trevor Le Gassick

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, by Michael Chabon

• Berlin Alexanderplatz, by Alfred Döblin, translated by Michael Hoffman

• Down and Out in London, by George Orwell

• City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff Vandermeer

• Cairo Trilogy, by Naguib Mahfouz, translated by William Maynard Hutchins, Olive E. Kenny, Lorne M. Kenny, and Angele Botros Samaan

• The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell

• London, by Edward Rutherford

• Dublin, by Edward Rutherford

• New York, by Edward Rutherford

• Paris, by Edward Rutherford

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

To kick off the new year, we discuss some of he 2025 new releases we’re most excited about. We also share our personal 5 in ‘25—five books (new or old) that we can’t wait to read this year.

What are yours?

Shownotes

Books

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• On the Evolution of All Political Parties, by Simone Weil, translated by Simon Leys

• Wind and Truth, by Brandon Sanderson

• The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

• The Ocean at the End of the Lane, by Neil Gaiman

• Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust, translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff & Terence Kilmartin, revised by D.J. Enright

• Attila, by Aliocha Coll, translated by Katie Wittemore

• Attila, by Javier Serena, translated by Katie Wittemore

• Death Takes Me, by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Robin Myers and Sarah Booker

• Time of the Flies, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Liliana’s Invincible Summer: A Sister’s Search for Justice, by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by

• The Taiga Syndrome, by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana

• Is a River Alive, by Robert Macfarlane

• Underland: A Deep Time Journey, by Robert Macfarlane

• The Hour of the Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks, by Terry Tempest Williams

• A Life on Paper, by George-Olivier Châteaureynard, translated by Edward Gauvin

• The Messengers, by George-Olivier Châteaureynard, translated by Edward Gauvin

• stay with me, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• Love, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• The Unworthy, by Augustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses

• The White Bear, by Henrik Pontoppidan, translated by Paul Larkin

• A Fortunate Man, by Henrik Pontoppidan, translated by Paul Larkin

• Hellions, by Julia Elliott

• The Deserters, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Compass, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Zone, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Tell Them of Battles, Kings, and Elephants, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Street of Thieves, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild, by Mathias Énard, translated by Frank Wynne

• Universality, by Natasha Brown

• The Death of Virgil, by Hermann Broch, translated by Jean Starr Untermeyer

• The Sleepwalkers, by Hermann Broch, translated by Willa and Edwin Muir

• A Month in the Country, by J.C. Carr

• The Adventures of China Iron, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

• Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence

• The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence

• The Dying Grass, by William T. Vollmann

• The Ice-Shirt, by William T. Vollmann

• Inferno, by Dante, translated by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander

• Purgatorio, by Dante, translated by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander

• Paradiso, by Dante, translated by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander

• Purgatorio, by Dante, translated by D.M. Black

• Paradiso, by Dante, translated by D.M. Black

• The Divine Comedy, by Dante, translated by Allen Mandelbaum

• The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

• The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson

• Too Much of Life: The Complete Crônicas, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Michael Barnes and Torbjørn Støverud

• The Ice Palace, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan

• The Bridges, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan

• The Seed, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Kenneth G. Chapman

• The Hills Reply, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan

• The Story of the Stone, by Cao Xueqin, translated by David Hawkes

• The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, translated by John E. Woods

• The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford

• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

For our final episode of 2024, we finish our annual best of the year extravaganza! Here we are joined by more friends sharing their favorite reads of the year as we go through our top five.

Happy New Year! We will see you in 2025!

Shownotes

Books

• The Overstory, by Richard Powers

• Septology, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• A Shining, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Boathouse, by Jon Fosse, translated by May-Brit Akerholt

• Scenes from a Childhood, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Trilogy, by Jon Fosse, translated by May-Brit Akerholt

• Aliss at the Fire, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Morning and Evening, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• We Need to Talk About Kevin, by Lionel Shriver

• Big Brother, by Lionel Shriver

• The Stripping of the Altars, by Eamon Duffy

• Scenes from Clerical Life, by George Eliot

• Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

• Possession, by A.S. Byatt

• Parade’s End, by Ford Madox Ford

• David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens

• Frog, by Stephen Dixon

• I., by Stephen Dixon

• The MANIAC, by Benjamín Labatut

• When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamín Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West

• A Game of Hide and Seek, by Elizabeth Taylor

• Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, by Elizabeth Taylor

• Angel, by Elizabeth Taylor

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken

• The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, by Beth Brower

• A Touch of Mistletoe, by Barbara Comyns

• Mr. Fox, by Barbara Comyns

• Cold Nights of Childhood, by Tezer Özlü, translated by Maureen Freely

• Your Little Matter: My Mother, a News Item, by Maria Grazia Calandrone, translated by Antonella Lettieri

• My Favorite, by Sarah Jollien-Fardel, translated by Holly James

• Götz and Meyer, by David Albahari, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac

• Escape from Berlin, by Catherine Klein

• February 1933: The Winter of Literature, by Use Wittstock, translated by Daniel Bowles

• Pilgrimage, by Dorothy Richardson

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstory

• The Tunnel, by William H. Gass

• A Cage Went in Search of a Bird: Ten Kafkaesque Stories

• All That Glitters, by Orlando Whitfield

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver

• If on a winter’s night a traveller . . . , by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver

• The Baron in the Trees, by Italo Calvino, translated by Ann Goldstein

• Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

• The Way We Live Now, by Anthony Trollope

• Grief Is the Thing With Feathers, by Max Porter

• The Call of the Wild, by Jack London

• “To Build a Fire,” by Jack London

• Opacities: On Writing and the Writing Life, by Sofia Samatar

• Rural Hours: The Country Lives of Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Townsend Warner & Rosamond Lehmann, by Harriet Baker

• Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror World, by Naomi Klein

• A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria, by Caroline Crampton

• A Month in the Country, by J.L. Baker

• The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

• Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

• Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

• Blood Meridian; or, The Evening Redness in the West, by Cormac McCarthy

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Trevor and Paul are back with the fourth annual best of the year extravaganza! In Part I, we count down the first half of our en favorite reads of 2024—and we are once again joined by a cast of friends and listeners who share some of their top books and best reading experiences of the year! Another great chance to grow your TBR pile for 2025!

Shownotes

Books

• The Postcard, by Anne Berest, translated by Tina Kover

• Gabriëlle, by Anne Berest and Claire Berest, translated by Tina Kover

• Two Hours, by Alba Arikha

• Crooked Seeds, by Karen Jennings

• Fathers and Fugitives, by S.J. Naudé, translated by Michiel Heyns

• Not Even the Dead, by Juan Gómez Bárcena, translated by Katie Whittemore

• Not a River, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• The Wind That Lays Waste, by Selva Almada, translated by Chris Andrews

• Dead Girls, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Brickmakers, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert

• Ex Libris, by Anne Fadiman

• Rhine Journey, by Anne Schlee

• About Looking, by John Berger

• The Inkal, by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius

• Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, translated by Douglas J. Weatherford

• The Man Who Liked Slow Tomatoes, by K.C. Constantine

• The Premier, by Georges Simenon

• Two Thousand Million Man-Power, by Gertrude Trevelyan

• Horror Movie, by Paul Tremblay

• A County Doctor, by Franz Kafka

• Kalpa Imperial: The Greatest Empire That Never Was, by Angélica Gorodischer, translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

• Sons, by Robert De Maria

• Brothers, by Robert De Maria

• Fletch, by Gregory McDonald

• Bedlam, by Charlene Elsby

• Quarry, by Max Allan Collins

• A Tiler’s Afternoon, by Lars Gustfsson, translated by Tom Geddes

• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Márquez, translated by

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• The Carrying, by Ada Limón

• Picnic, Lighting, by Billy Collins

• The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker

• Bright Dead Things, by Ada Limón

• The Hurting King, by Ada Limón

• You Are Here: Poetry in the Natural World, compiled by Ada Limón

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West

• Clear, by Carys Davies

• Malena, by Ingeborg Bachmann, translated by Philip Boehm

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken

• Last Words from Montmartre, by Qin Miaojin, translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich

• The Preparation of the Novel, by Roland Barthes, translated by Kate Briggs

• Earthly Signs: Moscow Diaries, 1917 - 1922, by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated by Jamey Gambrell

• The Power of Gentleness: Meditation on the Risk of Living, by Anne Dufourmantelle, translated by Katherine Payne and Vincent Sallé

• Matrescence: On Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Motherhood, by Lucy Jones

• Question 7, by Richard Flanagan

• The Narrow Road to the Deep North, by Richard Flanagan

• Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death, by Laura Cumming

• H Is for Hawk, by Helen Macdonald

• The Goshawk, by T.H. White

• The Vanishing Velázquez: A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece, by Laura Cumming

• The Ice Palace, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan

• The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Michael Barnes and Torbjørn Støverud

• James, by Percival Everett

• The Trees, by Percival Everett

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Since his death in 2022, we have been wanting to dedicate an episode to Spanish novelist Javier Marías, a master of the distrusting, long sentence. We had a lovely time reflecting on his books, which we could read again and again.

What is your favorite Javier Marías book?

Shownotes

Books

• Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

• Great Fear on the Mountain, by Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, translated by Bill Johnston

• David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens

• Three Days in June, by Anne Tyler

The Works of Javier Marías

• Los dominios del lobo (1971)

• Voyage Along the Horizon (1973), translated by Kristina Cordero

• El monarca del tiempo (1978)

• El siglo (1983)

• The Man of Feeling (1986), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• All Souls (1989), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• While the Women Are Sleeping (1990), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• A Heart So White (1992), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me (1994), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• When I Was Mortal (1996), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Bad Nature, or With Elvis in Mexico (1996), translated by Esther Allen

• Dark Back of Time (1998), translated by Esther Allen

• Your Face Tomorrow 1: Fever and Spear (2002), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Your Face Tomorrow 2: Dance and Dream (2004), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Your Face Tomorrow 3: Poison, Shadow and Farewell (2007), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• The Infatuations (2011), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Thus Bad Begins (2014), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Berta Isla (2017), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Tomás Nevinson (2021), translated by Margaret Jull Costa

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Subscribed

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

What books have you wanted to reread as soon as you finished them? Inspired by this fascinating prompt from our friend Nora, we decided to dive into this fun topic. We talk about the categories of books that inspire immediate rereads, share a few of our own examples, and discuss when (or if) we’ve ever actually done it. What books have inspired you to turn the last page and immediately go back to the beginning?

Shownotes

Books

• Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities, by Rebecca Solnit

• Absolution, by Jeff Vandermeer

• Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

• The Wood in Midwinter, by Susanna Clarke

• On the Calculation of Volume, by Solvej Balle, translated by Barbara Haveland

• Minor Detail, by Adania Shibli, translated by Elisabeth Jaquette

• Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

• The Invention of Morel, by Adolfo Bioy Casares, translated by Ruth L.C. Simms

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Moby-Dick: or, The Whale, by Herman Melville

• The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkein

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens

• Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

• Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen

• A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens

• The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens

• Life After Life, by Kate Atkinson

• A God in Ruins, by Kate Atkinson

• The Ghost Writer, by Philip Roth

• The Counterlife, by Philip Roth

• Zuckerman Unbound, by Philip Roth

• The Anatomy Lesson, by Philip Roth

• The Prague Orgy, by Philip Roth

• American Pastoral, by Philip Roth

• I Married a Communist, by Philip Roth

• The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

• The Taiga Syndrome, by Cristina Rivera Garza, translated by Suzanne Jill Levine and Aviva Kana

• The Walk, by Robert Walser, translated by Christopher Middleton and Susan Bernofsky

• Splitting and Order, by Ted Kooser

• Picnic, Lightning, by Billy Collins

• James, by Percival Everett

• So Long, See You Tomorrow, by William Maxwell

• Time Will Darken It, by William Maxwell

• The Chateau, by William Maxwell

• Felix Holt, by George Eliot

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

Other Links

• Nora’s Instagram Post

• One Bright Book

• Episode 49: Rereading

• Episode 76: Author Completionism

• Episode 77: Poetry

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

We love talking about essays so much, we decided to do it again! This week, we pick up where we left off a few episodes ago, chatting about more of our favorite essayists and collections. We also share a few from our essay TBR piles. What are some of your favorites?

Shownotes

Books

• Greenglass House, by Kate Milford

• Ghosts of Greenglass House, by Kate Milford

• The Westing Game, by Ellen Raskin

• The Unforgivable, by Cristina Campo

• You Like It Darker, by Stephen King

• Every Arc Bends Its Radian, by Sergio De La Pava

• A Naked Singularity, by Sergio De La Pava

• Ghosts, by Edith Wharton

• Europe in Sepia, Dubravka Ugresic, translated by David Williams

• Karaoke Culture, by Dubravka Ugresic, translated by David Williams

• Muzzle for Witches, by Dubravka Ugresic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać

• Thank You for Not Reading, by Dubravka Ugresic, translated from the Croatian by Celia Hawkesworth, with contribution from Damion Searls

• Fox, by Dubravka Ugresic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać and David Williams

• An Elemental Thing, by Eliot Weinberger

• A Chance Meeting: American Encounters, by Rachel Cohen

• Sightlines, by Kathleen Jamie

• The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif Batuman

• The Book of Delights, by Ross Gay

• The Book of (More) Delights, by Ross Gay

• Pulphead, by John Jeremiah Sullivan

• Consider the Lobster, by David Foster Wallace

• A Solemn Pleasure: To Imagine, Witness, and Write, by Melissa Pritchard

• The Common Reader, by Virginia Woolf

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

• Felix Holt: The Radical, by George Eliot

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• The God of Endings, by Jacqueline Holland

• Melvill, by Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Will Vanderhyden

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Angel in the Forest, by Marguerite Young

• The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker

Other Links

• Episode 39: Scary Books That Kept Us Up at Night

• Electric Lit: Our Favorite Essays and Stories About Horror Films

• Three Percent Podcast: Lori Feathers on Marguerite Young

• Obliteraturetees

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week, we’re joined by our good friend Mark Haber to discuss his wonderful books, including the brand new Lesser Ruins. Fittingly, this episode features numerous digressions into literary influences and loves, coffee, music, art, travel, and much more!

Shownotes

Books

• The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez

• The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence

• Fog at Noon, by Tomás González, translated by Andrea Rosenberg

• Difficult Light, by Tomás González, translated by Andrea Rosenberg

• Living Things, by Munir Hachemi, translated by Julia Sanches

• Vacated Landscape, by Jean Lahougue, translated by K.E. Gormley

• The God of Endings, by Jacqueline Holland

• Melvill, by Rodrigo Fresán, translated by Will Vanderhyden

• Attila, by Aliocha Coll, translated by Katie Whittemore

• Attila, by Serena, by Javier Serena, translated by Katie Whittemore

• Deathbed Conversions, by Mark Haber

• Reinhardt’s Garden, by Mark Haber

• Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, by Mark Haber

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter, by César Aira, translated by Chris Andrews

• The Netanyahus, by Joshua Cohen

• Ada, by Mark Haber (forthcoming 2026)

• 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Ten, by Juan Emar, translated by Megan McDowell

• Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling with D.H. Lawrence, by Geoff Dyer

• Compass, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

Other

• Episode 31: New Directions, with Mark Haber

• Wakefield Press

• LitHub: “Mark Haber on the Beauty of Digression”

• Southwest Review: “How to Read Kafka,” by Mark Haber

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week’s episode is all about essays! From nature writing, to reviews and criticism, to personal reflections and familiar essays, this form offers something for everyone. In this episode, we share our thoughts and experiences, including our go-to varieties and favorite examples. What are yours?

Shownotes

Books

• The Woman in Black, by Susan Hill

• Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

• We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman

• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

• Herscht 07769, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet

• The Emporium: A Health Resort Horror Story, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

• Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert

• Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader, by Anne Fadiman

• At Large and At Small: Familiar Essays, by Anne Fadiman

• Rereadings: Seventeen Writers Revisit Books They Love, edited by Anne Fadiman

• Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-Reader, by Viviane Gornick

• Slouching Towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion

• The Empathy Exams, by Leslie Jamison

• Make It Scream, Make It Burn, by Leslie Jamison

• The Hall of Uselessness, by Simon Leys

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• The Death of Napoleon, by Simon Leys

• The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks, by Terry Tempest Williams

• When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice, by Terry Tempest Williams

• Erosion, by Terry Tempest Williams

• Finding Beauty in a Broken World, by Terry Tempest Williams

• The Wild Places, by Robert Macfarlane

• Leap, by Terry Tempest Williams

• Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert, by Terry Tempest Williams

• The Collected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick

• The Uncollected Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick

• Seduction and Betrayal, by Elizabeth Hardwick

• The Fun Stuff, by James Wood

• Widening the Skirts of Light, by Rohan Maitzen

• Feel Free, by Zadi Smith

• On Beauty, by Zadie Smith

• On Beauty and Being Just, by Elaine Scarry

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

We all have those books that are waiting in the wings, begging for a chance to make their way off the shelf and into our hands. This week, we chat about why some books seem to get stuck on the sidelines, even though we always think they’ll be the next one up. We discuss some of the reasons this happens and each share five of our own benchwarmer books, doing our best to justify why we keep ignoring their pleas to “put me in coach!”

Shownotes

Books

• Horror Movie, by Paul Tremblay

• Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer

• The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

• Circe, by Madeline Miller

• To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolfe

• Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

• The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

• The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

• Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

• Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov

• Absalolm, Absalom!, by William Faulkner

• Baudolino, by Umberto Eco

• The Gormenghast Novels, by Mervyn Peake

• Strong Motion, by Jonathan Franzen

• The Twenty-Seventh City, by Jonathan Franzen

• Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Books) Saved My Life, by Andy Miller

• We, the Drowned, by Carsten Jensen

• The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

• Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence

• The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence

• Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

• Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence

• Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi

• Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes

• Hons and Rebels, by Jessica Mitford

• Romola, by George Eliot

• The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen

• At Play in the Fields of the Lord, by Peter Matthiessen

• The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker

• Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen

• Tigana, by Guy Gabriel Kay

• Up in the Old Hotel, by Joseph Mitchell

• The Last Colony, by John Scalzi

• Old Mans’ War, by John Scalzi

• The Ghost Brigade, by John Scalzi

• Zoe’s Tale, by John Scalzi

• The Adventures of China Iron, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

• Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• The Expendable Man, by Dorothy B. Hughes

• Felix Holt, the Radical, by George Eliot

• Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope

• Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

• Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

• Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

Other Links

• Jack’s Instagram Post

• Episode 31: New Directions, with Mark Haber

• Episode 6: Our Fantasy Past (and Future?)

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

To close out Women In Translatjon month, we’re thrilled to be joined by poet and translator Robin Myers. We chat about the art of translation and the importance of providing access to and for wide a range of voices. And we each share three translated books written by women that we think you should know about. What did you read this year during #WITMonth?

Shownotes

Books

• The Brush, by Eliana Hernández-Pachón, translated by Robin Myers

• The Forgery, by Ave Barrera, translated by Robin Myers and Ellen Jones

• Restoration, by Ave Barrera, translated by Robin Myers and Ellen Jones

• Metamorphoses, by Emanuele Coccia, translated by Robin Mackay

• Texas: The Great Theft, by Carmen Boullosa, translated by Samantha Schnee

• Invisible Cities, by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver

• Minor Detail, by Adania Shibli, translated by Elizabeth Jaquette

• Lojman, by Ebru Owen, translated by Aron Aji and Selin Gökçesu

• Umami, by Laia Jufresa, translated by Sophie Hughes

• A Change of Time, by Ida Jensen, translated by Martin Aitken

• Ladivine, by Marie Ndiaye, translated by Jordan Stump

• Nostalgia Doesn’t Flow Away Like Riverwater, by Irma Pineda, translated by Wendy Call

• Paul Celan and the Trans-Tibetan Angel, by Yoko Tawada, translated by Susan Bernofsky

• Ti Amo, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• We Are Green and Trembling, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Robin Myers

• A Strange Adventure, by Eva Forest, translated by Robin Myers

• Sister Deborah, by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Mark Polizzotti

• Canoes, by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore

• Stay with Me, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

Other Links

• Poem Per Diem, Robin Myer’s Substack

• Women in Translation Webpage

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week, we are joined from Down Under by veteran book blogger Kim Forrester to discuss our 2024 summer read, William Trevor’s The Story Of Lucy Gault. We discuss this heartbreaking, beautiful book, chat about William Trevor’s other works and make some recommendations (and plans) about where to go next. We hope you enjoy the conversation as much as we did—and we’d love to hear your thoughts on the book, the author, and what you plan to read next!

Shownotes

Books

• Go Tell It on the Mountain, by James Baldwin

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor

• My Friends, by Hisham Matar

• Stone Yard Devotional, by Charlotte Wood

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

• Time of the Flies, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Elena Knows, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• A Little Luck, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• “The Piano Tuner’s Wives,” by William Trevor

• Love in Summer, by William Trevor

• Reinhardt’s Garden, by Mark Haber

• The Silence in the Garden, by William Trevor

• Fools of Fortune, by William Trevor

• Felicia’s Journey, by William Trevor

• Two Lives, by William Trevor

• Last Stories, by William Trevor

• “The Dressmaker’s Child,” by William Trevor

• The Book of Evidence, by John Banville

• The Sea, by John Banville

• A Death in Summer, by Benjamin Black

• Death in Summer, by William Trevor

Other Links

• Kim’s Blog: Reading Matters

• A Year with William Trevor

• 746 Books Blog

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week we have fun with all of the top books of the 21st century hype by sharing our own top 10 lists. We each killed a few darlings and made some very tough decisions. How did we do?

What books would make your list?

Summer Book Club

The book for the Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 is William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault. You can start reading it whenever you want to! We have lined up a guest to join us to discuss the book for the next episode!

Shownotes

Books

• The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor

• The Land Breakers, by John Ehle

• Testing the Current, by William McPherson

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Schattenfroh, by Michael Lenz, translated by Max Lawton

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Horror Movie, by Paul Tremblay

• Universal Harvester, by John Darnielle

• A Head Full of Ghosts, by Paul Tremblay

• Cabin at the End of the Woods, by Paul Tremblay

• The Indian Lake Trilogy, by Stephen Graham Jones

• The Empathy Exams, by Leslie Jamison

• In a Strange Room, by Damon Galgut

• The Promise, by Damon Galgut

• Open City, by Teju Cole

• When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West

• The MANIAC, by Benjamin Labatut

• The Employees, by Olga Ravn, translated by Martin Aitken

• Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones Croft

• The Books of Jacob, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

• LaRose, by Louise Erdrich

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Life of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson

• Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

• Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

• Underland: A Deep Time Journey, by Robert Macfarlane

• The Wild Places, by Robert Macfarlane

• Reinhardt’s Garden, by Mark Haber

• Ducks, Newbury Port, by Lucy Ellmann

• Your Face Tomorrow, by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• The Road, by Cormac McCarthy

• The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

• Runaway, by Alice Munro

• 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson

• Interpreter of Maladies, by Jhumpa Lahiri

• Austerlitz, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Anthea Belle

• The Immigrants, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

• The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

• Vertigo, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

• Blinding, by Mircea Cartarescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• The Garden of Seven Twilights, by Miquel de Palol, translated by Adrian Nathan West

• Antagony, by Luis Goytisolo, translated by Brendan Riley

• Monument Maker, by David Keenan

• Tomb of Sand, by Geetanjali Shree, translated by Daisy Rockwell

• Praiseworthy, by Alexis Wright

• Wizard of the Crow, by Ngugi wa Thiong’o

• The Known World, Edward P. Jones

• Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes

• The Twilight Zone, by Nona Fernandez, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Septology, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• The Years, by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison Strayer

• In the Distance, by Hernan Diaz

• Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel

• My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard, translated by Don Bartlett

Other Links

• The Untranslated

• New York Times: 100 Best Books of the 21st Century

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Subscribe

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week we’re joined by super reader Ron Restrepo for a discussion about Roberto Bolaño, whom Rodrigo Fresan described as “one of a kind, a writer who worked without a net, who went all out, with no brakes, and in doing so created a new way to be a great Latin American writer.”

Do we unlock the mysteries of Bolaño’s magic? Probably not. But we do have a great time digging into this fascinating author and his haunting books.

Summer Book Club

The book for the Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 is William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault. You can start reading it whenever you want to!

We had to make a little change to our schedule. Where were were releasing the discussion episode as Episode 86 on August 8, we are now going to be releasing it two weeks later, August 22, as Episode 87. Apologies for the change in plans, but they were necessary to make sure this worked the way we want it to!

Shownotes

Books

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Chronicle of the Murdered House, by Lúcio Cardoso, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson

• Taming of the Divine Heron, by Sergio Pitol, translated by George Henson

• The Love Parade, by Sergio Pitol, translated by George Henson

• Lanark, by Alasdair Gray

• Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, translated by Douglas J. Weatherford

• The Art of Flight, by Sergio Pitol, translated by George Henson

• The Land Breakers, by John Ehle

• The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor

• The Obscene Bird of Night, by José Donoso, translated by Megan McDowell and Leonard Mades

• Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon

• 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• By Night in Chile, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

• Nazi Literature in the Americas, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

• The Skating Rink, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

• Distant Star, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

• Last Evenings on Earth, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

• The Years, by Annie Ernaux, translated by Alison L. Strayer

• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

• Trieste, by Dasa Drndic, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac

• The Trees, by Percival Everett

• Dead Girls, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Not a River, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

• Feebleminded, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

• Tender, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

• Amulet, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Chris Andrews

• A Little Lumpen Novelita, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Atwerp, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Roberto Bolaño’s Fiction: An Expanding Universe, by Chris Andrews

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week we look ahead to the second half of 2024 and each share the five forthcoming books we’re most excited about . . . along with a few honorable mentions, of course.

Which upcoming books are you most looking forward to?

Summer Book Club

The book for the Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 is William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault. You can start reading it whenever you want to! We have lined up a guest to join us to discuss the book in Episode 86, coming out on August 8. That’s really soon!

Shownotes

Books

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Pedro Páramo, by Juan Rulfo, translated by Douglas J. Weatherford

• The Heart in Winter, by Kevin Barry

• Nightboat to Tangier, by Kevin Barry

• Beatlebone, by Kevin Barry

• The City of Bohane, by Kevin Barry

• James, by Percival Everett

• Clear, by Carys Davies

• Canoes, by Maylis de Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore

• There Are Rivers in the Sky, by Elif Shafak

• The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak

• Cloud Cuckoo Land, by Anthony Doerr

• The B***d of Istanbul, by Elif Shafak

• Marshland, by Otohiko Kaga, translated by Albert Novick

• The Mighty Red, by Louise Erdrich

• The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich

• The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

• The Sentence, by Louise Erdrich

• Plague of Doves, by Louise Erdrich

• LaRose, by Louise Erdrich

• Shadow Tag, by Louise Erdrich

• The Night Watchman, by Louise Erdrich

• The Painted Drum, by Louise Erdrich

• Herscht 07769, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet

• Satantago, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes

• The Melancholy of Resistance, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes

• War & War, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes

• Seiobo There Below, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet

• The World Goes On, by László Krasznahorkai, translated byGeorge Szirtes, Ottilie Mulzet and John Batki

• Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by Ottilie Mulzet

• Colored Television, by Danzy Senna

• New People, by Danzy Senna

• Symptomatic, by Danzy Senna

• Caucasia, by Danzy Senna

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Seeing Further, by Esther Kinsky, translated by Caroline Schmidt

• Rombo, by Esther Kinsky, translated by Caroline Schmidt

• Grove, by Esther Kinsky, translated by Caroline Schmidt

• River, by Esther Kinsky, translated by Iain Galbraith

• Sister Deborah, by Scholastique Mukasonga, translated by Mark Polizzotti

• The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

• The Magic Mountain, by Thomas Mann, translated by John E. Woods

• The Books of Jacob, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones

• Waiting for the Fear, by Oguz Atay, translated by Ralph Hubbell

• The Pornographer, by John McGahern

• Command Performance, by Jean Echenoz, translated by Mark Polizzotti

• The Stone Door, by Leonora Carrington

• The Uncollected Stories of Mavis Gallant

• Sun City, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal

• We Solve Murders, by Richard Osman

• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

• The Plains, by Federico Falco, translated by Jennifer Croft

• A Perfect Cemetery, by Federico Falco, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Children of the Ghetto: Star of the Sea, by Elias Khoury, translated by Humphrey Davies

• Fog at Noon, by Tomás González, translated by Andrea Rosenberg

• The Suicides, by Antonio Di Benedetto, translated by Esther Allen

• The Besieged City, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Johnny Lorenz

• The Voyage Home, by Pat Barker

• A Philosophy of Translation, by Damion Searls

• The City and Its Uncertain Walls, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel

• Tell Me Everything, by Elizabeth Strout

• Every Arc Bends Its Radius, by Sergio de la Pava

• A Naked Singularity, by Sergio de la Pava

• Question 7, by Richard Flanagan

• Is Mother Dead, by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund

• If Only, by Vigdis Hjorth, translated by Charlotte Barslund

• Slave Road, by John Edgar Wideman

• Anima: A Wild Pastoral, by Kapka Kassabova

• Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova

• Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time, by Kapka Kassabova

• Our Evenings, by Alan Hollinghurst

• Lazarus Man, by Richard Price

• Playground, by Richard Powers

• Clockers, by Richard Price

• Lush Life, by Richard Price

• The Overstory, by Richard Powers

• Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week’s episode is all about . . . books! To be specific, Trevor and Paul chat about their book shelves, diving into all kinds of fun topics. How many books do they own? Where do they keep them? How are they organized? Buying and culling habits? Even better, this episode features A LOT of great listener feedback as well. It’s the perfect chance to get nosey about your fellow bibliophiles!

Summer Book Club

The book for the Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 is William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault. You can start reading it whenever you want to! We have lined up a guest to join us to discuss the book in Episode 86, coming out on August 8.

Shownotes

Books

• CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, by George Saunders

• Any Person Is the Only Self, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert

• The House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros

• Pilgrimage, by Dorothy Richardson

• Treasure Island!!!, by Sara Levine

• Ride a Cockhorse, by Raymond Kennedy

• After Claude, by Iris Owens

• The Towers of Trebizond, by Rose Macaulay

• South Riding, by Winifred Holtby

• O Caledonia, by Elspeth Barker

• Lolly Willowes, by Sylvia Townsend Warner

• Silas Marner, by George Eliot

• Scenes of Clerical Life, by George Eliot

• Romola, by George Eliot

• Felix Holt, by George Eliot

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

• Mining the Skirts of Light: Essays on George Eliot, by Rohan Maitzen

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week we turn back the clock and revisit our very first podcast topic: Bucket List Books! We check in on our progress over the last few years, discuss our philosophies and motivations, look ahead to our next bucket lists books, and share plenty of listener feedback. What books are on your bucket list—and why?

Summer Book Club

The book for the Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 is William Trevor’s The Story of Lucy Gault. You can start reading it whenever you want to! We have lined up a guest to join us to discuss the book in Episode 86, coming out on August 8.

Shownotes

Books

• Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle

• Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, by Patrick Radden Keefe

• Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett

• Long Island, by Colm Tóibín

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• A Little Luck, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Not a River, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• Festival and Game of the Worlds, by César Aira, translated by Katherine Silver

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken

• War, by Céline, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• Death on the Installment Plan, by Céline, translated by Ralph Manheim

• London, by Céline

• Journey to the End of Night, by Céline, translated by Ralph Manheim

• The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor

• The Annual Banquet of the Gravediggers’ Guild, by Mathias Énard, translated by Frank Wynne

• Compass, by Mathias Énard, translated by Charlotte Mandell

• The Waves, by Virginia Woolf

• Carpenteria, by Alexis Wright

• Praiseworthy, by Alexis Wright

• Remembrance of Things Past, by Marcel Proust

• The Stones of Aran, by Tim Robinson

• The Black Prince, by Iris Murdoch

• Frost in May, by Antonia White

• The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford

• The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon

• David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• Finnegans Wake, by James Joyce

• Anatomy of Melancholy, by Robert Burton

• The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Don Quixote, by Cervantes, translated by

• Annals of the Former World, by John McPhee

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

• The Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor

• Satantango, by László Krasznahorkai, translated by George Szirtes

• Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

• Paradise Lost, by John Milton

• Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy

• The Voyage Home, by Pat Barker

• Parallel Stories, by Péter Nádas, translated by Imre Goldstein

• Pilcrow, by Adam Mars-Jones

• Cedilla, by Adam Mars-Jones

• Caret, by Adam Mars-Jones

• Portrait of a Lady, by Henry James

• Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov

• One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Gregory Rabassa

• My Struggle, by Karl Ove Knausgaard

• Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackery

• South Riding, by Winifred Holtby

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolf

• Mrs. Dalloway, by Virginia Woolf

• Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

• Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

• Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley

• The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot

• Silas Marner, by George Eliot

• Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot

• Felix Holt, by George Eliot

• Romola, by George Eliot

• Gravity’s Rainbow, by Thomas Pynchon

• Mason & Dixon, by Thomas Pynchon

• Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon

• The Complete Essays, by Michel de Montaigne, translated by M.A. Screech

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• A Summer with Montaigne, by Antoine Compagnon, translated by Tina Kover

• The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton

• The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton

• Pilgrimage, by Dorothy Richardson

• The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker

• Piranesi, by Susanna Clarke

• Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

Links

• Episode 1: Bucket List Books

• Involutions of the Seashell: Anthony and Lori discuss Miss MacIntosh, My Darling

• Shawn Breathes Books: The Original Mookse and the Gripes Bucket List Book Tag Video!

• The 100 Greatest British Novels List

• Beyond the Zero Podcast, with Andrei The Untranslated

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Looking to fit even more books into your life? We think audiobooks are a great solution. This week we chat about reading in different formats and settings and hen and how we both read audiobooks. We also share some of our favorite audio experiences, books, and authors!

Summer Book Club

The book for the Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 has been chosen! It was pretty darn close!

The episode discussing The Story of Lucy Gault will be Episode 86, coming out on August 8.

Shownotes

Books

• The Children of Dynmouth, by William Trevor

• Fools of Fortune, by William Trevor

• Felicia’s Journey, by William Trevor

• The Story of Lucy Gault, by William Trevor

• The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

• Not a River, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• The Wind that Lays Waste, by Selva Almada, translated by Chris Andrews

• Brickmasters, by Selva Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by Anne de Marcken

• Commonwealth, by Ann Patchett

• Bel Canto, by Ann Patchett

• Tom Lake, by Ann Patchett

• The Patron Saint of Liars, by Ann Patchett

• State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett

• A Handful of Dust, by Evelyn Waugh

• The Dutch House, by Ann Patchett

• Run, by Ann Patchett

• Taft, by Ann Patchett

• The Magician’s Assistant, by Ann Patchett

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, by J.K. Rowling

• The Trees, by Percival Everett

• A Visit from the Goon Squad, by Jennifer Egan

• The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

• Ulysses, by James Joyce

• Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle

• The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot

• Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

• The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon, by David Grann

• The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny and Murder, by David Grann

• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, by Erik Larson

• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania, by Erik Larson

• The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, by Elizabeth Kolbert

• The Dead Zone, by Stephen King

• Pet Sematary, by Stephen King

• The Shining, by Stephen King

• The Stand, by Stephen King

• Fairy Tale, by Stephen King

• You Like It Darker, by Stephen King

• Train Dreams, by Denis Johnson

• Jesus’ Son, by Denis Johnson

• Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson

• Lockwood & Co., by Jonathan Stroud

• The Thursday Murder Club, by Richard Osman

• The Round House, by Louise Erdrich

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Fourth of July Creek, by Smith Henderson

• The Wheel of Time, by Robert Jordan

• The Stormlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson

• Foster, by Claire Keegan

• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Half of a Yellow Sun, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

• Burial Rites, by Hannah Kent

• Day, by Michael Cunningham

• Project Hail Mary, by Andy Weir

• “My Purple-Scented Novel,” by Ian McEwan

• “Axis,” by Alice Munro

• George and Lizzie, by Nancy Pearl

Links

• The New Yorker Fiction Podcast

• The Writer’s Voice Podcast

• Episode 1: Bucket List Books

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

How do you fill the yawning chasm that arises after you finish a great book or a long group read? Is it a time of excitement and possibility, or a daunting and overwhelming trial? Fresh off of finishing several doorstops ourselves, we discuss how we approach what we want to read next.

Summer Book Club

The Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club 2024 is coming up fast! This year we are only choosing from William Trevor novels. After losing for the last two years, he will not lose again! But what will the book be? As in the past, we will be holding a vote over on Twitter / X! Watch my account on May 21!

The Books:

• The Children of Dynmouth (1976)

• Fools of Fortune (1983)

• Felicia’s Journey (1994)

• The Story of Lucy Gault (2002)

Dates:

• Voting starts May 21 and runs through the early hours of May 25 for us in the mountain time zone.

• We will announce the winner in the next episode!

• The episode discussing the winner will be Episode 86, coming out on August 8.

Shownotes

Books

• The Peregrine, by J.L. Carr

• Flights, by Olga Tokarczuk, translated by Jennifer Croft

• A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• Butcher’s Crossing, by John Williams

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Ulysses, by James Joyce

• The Ambassadors, by Henry James

• Tone, by Sofia Samatar and Kate Zambreno

• The Rings of Saturn, by W.G. Sebald, translated by Michael Hulse

• Austerlitz, by W.G. Sebald

• The Anatomy of Melancholy, by Robert Burton

• Urne Burial, by Robert Burton

• Reinhardt’s Garden, by Mark Haber

• The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot

• Silas Marner, by George Eliot

• The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope

• O Pioneers!, by Willa Cather

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, by Rebecca West

• Grand Hotel, by Vicki Baum, translated by Basil Creighton with revisions by Margot Bettauer Dembo

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

• It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over, by Anne De Marcken

• The Peasants, by Władysław Reymont, translated by Anna Zaranko

• Parade’s End, by Ford Madox Ford

• Collected Fictions, Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley

• The Hour of the Star, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Benjamin Moser

• The Complete Stories, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Katrina Dodson

• Too Much of Life, by Clarice Lispector, translated by Margaret Jull Costa and Robin Patterson

• The Murderer, by Roy Heath

• The Oppermans, by Lion Feuchtwanger, translated by James Cleugh with revisions by Joshua Cohen

• Green Equinox, by Elizabeth Mavor

• Twice Lost, by Phyllis Paul

• Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, by Manuel Puig, translated by Susan Jill Levine

• Elena Knows, by Claudio Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• A Little Luck, by Claudio Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• A Dance to the Music of Time, by Anthony Powell

• Anniversaries, by Uwe Johnson, translated by Damion Searls

• The Extinction of Irene Rey, by Jennifer Croft

• The House on the Strand, by Daphne Du Maurier

Links

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling Substack

• Jonathan Golding and Mark Haber on Instagram Live

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

So many great books have been published only to go out of print, for whatever reason. But they still have things to say to contemporary readers. Thankfully, there are several publishers whose work focuses on bringing these books back to us grateful readers. In this episode, we are are joined by Jacqui, who blogs at JacquiWine’s Journal, to discuss some of our favorite publishers who help us all rediscover gems. What are some of your favorite publishers and the gems they helped you rediscover?

Shownotes

Books

• And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie

• In the Distance, by Hernan Diaz

• Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson

• Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Maude Montgomery

• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

• Things We Lost in the Fire, by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell

• Our Share of Night, by Mariana Enriquez, translated by Megan McDowell

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, by Rebecca West

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• A Strange and Sublime Address, by Amit Chaudhuri

• Friend of My Youth, by Amit Chaudhuri

• Sojourn, by Amit Chaudhuri

• Calcutta, by Amit Chaudhuri

• The Immortals, by Amit Chaudhuri

• A New World, by Amit Chaudhuri

• Odysseus Abroad, by Amit Chaudhuri

• Stoner, by John Williams

• The Bloater, by Rosemary Tonks

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Mrs. Caliban, by Rachel Ingalls

• The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford

• Hackenfeller’s Ape, by Brigid Brophy

• Summer in Baden-Baden, by Leonid Tsypkin, translated by Roger Keys and Angela Keys

• Neighbors and Other Stories, by Diane Oliver

• January, by Sara Gallardo, translated by Frances Riddle and Maureen Shaughnessy

• The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy

• Troy Chimneys, by Margaret Kennedy

• Rhine Journey, by Ann Schlee

• The Stepdaughter, by Caroline Blackwood

• I Am Alien to Live: Selected Stories, by Djuna Barnes

• Constant Reader, by Dorothy Parker

• The Glass Pearls, by Emeric Pressburger

• Eline Vere, by Louis Couperus, translated by Ina Rilke

• The Girls, by John Bowen

Links

• JacquiWine’s Journal

• Episode 37: Hotel Novels

• 1001 Novels: A Library of America

• Episode 74: Canadian Literature

• Bonus Episode: April 2024

• Episode 73: Hidden Gems

• Faber Editions

• Archipelago Books

• McNally Editions

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

The idea of the Great American Novel is controversial, passé, hubristic, and . . . always fascinating to talk about. This week, inspired by a recent list of potential candidates for the Great American Novel published in The Atlantic, we dive in and talk about the concept, the history, the list, and our votes for other contenders. What book(s) would get your vote?

Shownotes

Books

• The MANIAC, by Benjamin Labatut

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova

• Elixir: In the Valley at the End of Time, by Kapka Kassabova

• To the River: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace, by Kapka Kassabova

• Anima: A Wild Pastoral, by Kapka Kassabova

• Dante: The Inferno, translated by Robert Hollander and Jean Hollander

• Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope

• The Eustace Diamonds, by Anthony Trollope

• Phineas Reduce, by Anthony Trollope

• Mortal Leap, by MacDonald Harris

• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

• Uncle Tom’s Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe

• James, by Percival Everett

• The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain

• Augustus, by John Williams

• Butcher’s Crossing, by John Williams

• Absalom, Absalom!, by William Faulkner

• Passing, by Nella Larsen

• The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

• So We Read On: How The Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why It Endures, by Maureen Corrigan

• The Making of Americans, by Gertrude Stein

• An American Tragedy, by Theodore Dreiser

• Light in August, by William Faulkner

• The Sound and the Fury, by William Faulkner

• Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes

• I Am Alien to Life: Selected Stories, by Djuna Barnes

• Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston

• The Big Sleep, by Raymond Chandler

• Ask the Dust, by John Fante

• Wait Until Spring, Bandini, by John Fante

• U.S.A., by John Dos Passos

• The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck

• In a Lonely Place, by Dorothy B. Hughes

• All the King’s Men, by Robert Penn Warren

• The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, by Carson McCullers

• The Street, by Ann Petry

• The Mountain Lion, by Jean Stafford

• A Time to Be Born, by Dawn Powell

• The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

• Fahrenheit 451, by Raymond Bradbury

• Invisible Man, by Ralph Ellison

• Charlotte’s Web, by E.B. White

• The Adventures of Augie March, by Saul Bellow

• Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

• The Bookshop, by Penelope Fitzgerald

• Giovanni’s Room, by James Baldwin

• The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson

• No-No Boy, by John Okada

• Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious

• Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov

• Another Country, by James Baldwin

• Catch-22, by Joseph Heller

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey

• A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L’Engle

• The Zebra-Striped Hearse, by Ross MacDonald

• The Group, by Mary McCarthy

• The Bell Jar, by Sylvia Plath

• The Crying of Lot 49, by Thomas Pynchon

• A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter

• Couples, by John Updike

• Portnoy’s Complaint, by Philip Roth

• Sabbath’s Theater, by Philip Roth

• American Pastoral, by Philip Roth

• The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

• The Great American Novel, by Philip Roth

• Divorcing, by Susan Taubes

• Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

• Play It As It Lays, by Joan Didion

• Sula, by Toni Morrison

• Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

• Beloved, by Toni Morrison

• Are You There God, It’s Me, Margaret, by Judy Blume

• Desperate Characters, by Paula Fox

• Log of the S.S. Mrs Unguentine, by Stanley Crawford

• The Revolt of the Cockroach People, by Oscar Zeta Acosta

• Oreo, by Fran Ross

• The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. Le Guin

• Winter in the Blood, by James Welch

• Corregidora, by Gayl Jones

• Speedboat, by Renata Adler

• Dancer from the Dance, by Andrew Hollerman

• The Stand, by Stephen King

• Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko

• Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson

• Machine Dreams, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• Lark & Termite, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• Shelter, by Jayne Anne Phillips

• Little, Big: Or, the Fairies’ Parliament, by John Crowley

• Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

• Dawn, by Octavia Butler

• Geek Love, by Kathryn Dunn

• Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

• American Psycho, by Brett Easton Ellis

• House of Leaves, by Mark C. Danielewski

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

• The Last Samurai, by Helen DeWitt

• The Quick and the Dead, by Joy Williams

• Erasure, by Percival Everett

• The Corrections, by Jonathan Franzen

• The Russian Debutante’s Handbook, by Gary Shteyngart

• The Namesake, by Jhumpa Lahiri

• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Díaz

• Nevada, by Imogen Binnie

• Open City, by Teju Cole

• The Fifth Season, by N.K. Jemisin

• Lincoln in the Bardo, by George Saunders

• Sabrina, by Nick Drnaso

• Lost Children Archive, by Valeria Luiselli

• Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson

• The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell

• No One Is Talking About This, by Patricia Lockwood

• The Love Song of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

• Biography of X, by Catherine Lacey

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• The Age of Innocence, by Edith Wharton

• The House of Mirth, by Edith Wharton

• Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozie Adiche

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

Links

• The Great American Novel from The Atlantic

• John William DeForest’s original article about The Great American Novel

• A.O. Scott “Tracking the ever-elusive Great American Novel

• Episode 37: Hotel Novels

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

How do we love poetry? Let us count the ways. This week, we’re joined by Anthony Garrett to kick off National Poetry Month with a wonderful conversation about our favorite poems and poets, how and when we read poetry, and a discussion about how to approach this sometimes intimidating part of the literary landscape. Does poetry play a part in your reading life?

We also announce the winners of our latest giveaway, so please join us!

Shownotes

Books

• Averno, by Louise Glück

• The Obscene Bird of Night, by José Donoso, translated by Megan McDowell, Hardie St. Martin, and Leonard Mades

• A Naked Singularity, by Sergio De La Pava

• Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe, by Kapka Kassabova

• To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace, by Kapka Kassabova

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• The Fisherman, by John Langan

• Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville

• Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Rock Crystal, by Adalbert Stifter, translated by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore

• The End, by Attila Bartis, translated by Judith Sollosy

• Divorcing, by Susan Taubes

• Notes of a Crocodile, by Qin Miaogin, translated by Bonnie Huie

• “The Waste Land,” by T.S. Eliot

• “Today,” by Billy Collins

• Poems 1962 - 2012, by Louise Glück

• Different Hours, by Stephen Dunn

• Picnic, Lightning, by Billy Collins

• Half-light: Collected Poems 1965 - 2016, by Frank Bidart

• Gabriel: A Poem, by Edward Hirsch

• The Living Fire: New and Selected Poems, by Edward Hirsch

• “When Death Comes,” by Mary Oliver

• “As One Listens to the Rain,” by Octavio Paz

• “The Raven,” by Edgar Allan Poe

• “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” by T.S. Eliot

• Duino Elegies, by Rainer Maria Rilke

• Winter Morning Walks: 100 Postcards to Jim Harrison, by Ted Kooser

• Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry, by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison

• “Bullet Points,” by Jericho Brown

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• “Tulips,” by Sylvia Plath

• Postcolonial Love Poem, by Natalie Diaz

• When My Brother Was an Aztec, by Natalie Diaz

• The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück

• Winter Recipes from the Collective, by Louise Glück

Links

• Anthony’s Socials

• X

• Instagram

• Atmospheric Quarterly

• Episode 1: Bucket List Books, in which Trevor kicks War and Peace off his bucket list

• Leaf by Leaf: Chris Via on War and Peace

• Episode 15: Emily Dickinson

• One Bright Book: Episode 23: The Wild Iris, by Louise Glück

• Backlisted: Episode 208: All My Pretty Ones, by Anne Sexton

• The New Yorker Poetry Podcast

• Poetry Unbound Podcast

• The Slow Down Podcast

• The Great American Novel from The Atlantic

• Lonesome Reader on The Great American Novel

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week we discuss the idea of being a completist in our reading. We discuss the authors whose works we’ve finished completely, as well as those we’re working on (or hoping to…). Do you savor your favorite authors’ works slowly or gobble them all down? Have you read the entire catalog of any authors?

We also have a special giveaway, so please join us!

Giveaway!

This week we have four books to give away! And we want to choose four winners! Do any of these books call to you? Please enter to win one of them!

• Rock Crystal, by Adalbert Stifter, translated by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore

• Divorcing, by Susan Taubes

• Notes of a Crocodile, by Qiu Miaojin, translated by Bonnie Huie

• The End, by Attila Bartis, translated by Judith Sollosy

To enter, send us an entry by email or DM or however you wish, but please include two things!

First, list the books you are interested in winning in preferential order because we don’t want someone to win a book they already have.

Second, tell us if you’re a completionist or aspiring completionist with any authors.

We will be drawing when we record the morning of March 30, so have entries to us by then!

Shownotes

Books mentioned prior to the Completion Discussion

• Rock Crystal, by About the Podcast

• Divorcing, by Susan Taubes

• Notes of a Crocodile, by Qiu Miaojin, translated by Bonnie Huie

• Last Words from Montmartre, by Qiu Miaojin, translated by Ari Larissa Heinrich

• The End, by Attila Bartis, translated by Judith Sollosy

• 40, by Alan Hancock

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon: A Journey Through Yugoslavia, by Rebecca West

• Adam Bede, by George Eliot

• Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• Reinhardt’s Garden, by Mark Haber

• Saint Sebastian’s Abyss, by Mark Haber

• 2666, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Although the books of Barbara Comyns have experienced a bit of a renaissance in recent years, she remains woefully under appreciated and read by far too few. This week, we’re joined by Comyns aficionado Nora to discuss this beguiling and fascinating author and to do our best to spread the word about her strange and wonderful books.

Shownotes

Books

• My Death, by Lisa Tuttle

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Splinters: Another Kind of Love Stores, by Leslie Jamison

• Not Even the Dead, by Juan Goméz Bárcena, translated by Katie Whittemore

• Paradise Reclaimed, by Halldór Laxness, translated by Magnus Magnusson

• The House of Dolls, by Barbara Comyns

• Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, by Elizabeth Taylor

• Sisters by a River, by Barbara Comyns

• O Caledonia, by Elspeth Barker

• I Capture the Castle, by Dodie Smith

• The Vet’s Daughter, by Barbara Comyns

• Our Spoons Came from Woolworths, by Barbara Comyns

• Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence, by Avril Horner

• Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead, by Barbara Comyns

• Out of the Red, Into the Blue, by Barbara Comyns

• The Skin Chairs, by Barbara Comyns

• Birds in Tiny Cages, by Barbara Comyns

• A Touch of Mistletoe, by Barbara Comyns

• The Juniper Tree, by Barbara Comyns

• Mr. Fox, by Barbara Comyns

Other

• Nora’s Instagram

• Nora’s Barbara Comyn’s Instagram Post

• Terry Tempest Williams: “Read Your Way Through Utah” in The New York Times

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week, we're joined by Jerry Faust for a fun conversation about Canadian literature. Incredibly diverse and far too often overlooked, Canada’s literary output is a goldmine of wonderful books and authors. What are your favorites?

Republic of Consciousness Prize, United States and Canada

As you’ve heard on the podcast, Paul is a judge of this year’s prize. The longlist has been announced, and the shortlist is on the way!

Would you like to join Paul at a Zoom party celebrating the longlist, with publishers, authors and translators? You can! It happens on Tuesday, February 27, at 6 p.m. CT. Click here to find the information to sign up!

Shownotes

• Small Joys, by Elvin James Mensah

• The Boys in the Trees, by Mary Swan

• The Birds, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Michael Barnes and Torbjøn Støverud

• The Ice Palace, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan

• The Hills Reply, by Tarjei Vesaas, translated by Elizabeth Rokkan

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death, by Laura Cumming

• The Vanishing Velàzquez: A 19th Century Bookseller’s Obsession with a Lost Masterpiece, by Laura Cumming

• Magpie Murders, by Anthony Horowitz

• Moonflower Murders, by Anthony Horowitz

• The Word Is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz

• Possession, by A.S. Byatt

• The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood

• Bear, by Marian Engel

• The Englishman’s Boy, by Guy Vanderhaeghe

• Man Descending, by Guy Vanderhaeghe

• Daddy Lenin and Other Stories, by Guy Vanderhaeghe

• The Golden Mean, by Annabel Lyon

• The Sweet Girl, by Annabel Lyon

• Consent, by Annabel Lyon

• A Fine Balance, by Rohinton Mistry

• The English Patient, by Michael Ondaatje

• Pastoral, by André Alexis

• Fifteen Dogs, by André Alexis

• Ring, by André Alexis

• As for Me and My House, by Sinclair Ross

• The Winter Vault, by Anne Michaels

• Fugitive Pieces, by Anne Michaels

• Held, by Anne Michaels

• Basic Black with Pearls, by Helen Weinzweig

• South of the Border, West of the Sun, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel

• The Stone Angel, by Margaret Laurence

• Island, by Alistair MacLeod

• No Great Mischief, by Alistair MacLeod

• The Way the Crow Flies, by Anne Marie MacDonald

• The Geography of Pluto, by Christopher DiRaddo

• The Family Way, by Christopher DiRaddo

• Autumn Rounds, by Jacques Poulin, translated by Sheila Fischman

• Natasha and Other Stories, by David Bezmozgis

• The Free World, by David Bezmozgis

• Immigrant City, by David Bezmozgis

• Transit, by Anna Seghers, translated by Margot Bettauer Dembo

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week, we're joined by Shawn the Book Maniac for a fun discovery about one of his specialties: finding books that are hidden gems. We share some tips for finding great books that are off the beaten path, discuss why it's important and fun, and share three books each that you may never have heard of before—quite a challenge! Hopefully we will add at least one to your bookstore scavenger hunt list!

What are your favorite books that fly under the radar?

Shownotes

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Mean Spirit, by Linda Hogan

• Killers of the Flower Moon, by David Grann

• Blanket Toss Under Midnight Sun: Portraits of Everyday Life in Eight Indigenous Communities, by PaulSeesequasis

• Day, by Michael Cunningham

• The Hours, by Michael Cunningham

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• The Book of Forgotten Authors, by Christopher Fowler

• The Sea Change of Angela Lewes, by Cynthia Propper Seton

• The Last Light Breaking: Living Among Alaska's Inupiat Eskimos, by Nick Jans

• A Life on Paper, by Georges-Olivier Chateaureynard, translated by Edward Gauvin

• The Conductor and Other Tales, by Jean Ferry, translated by Edward Gauvin

• The One Who Did Not Ask, by Altar Fatima, translated by Rukhsana Ahmad

• Severina, by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated by Chris Andrews

• The African Shore, by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated by Jeffrey Gray

• Swimmer in the Secret Sea, by William Kotzwinkle

• With or Without Angels, by Douglas Bruton

• The Sight of Death, by T.J. Clark

• Volt, by Alan Heathcock

• 40, by Alan Heathcock

• The New Perspective, by K. Arnold Price

Other

• Shawn the Book Maniac YouTube

• Shawn’s Mookse Bucket List Video

• The Savage Detectives Preliminary Thread

• “How did we miss these?” from The Guardian

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Books and holidays go together perfectly, and not just for those of us doing the reading. This week, we talk about our favorite stories where the characters are on vacation—a perfect recipe for exploring exotic settings, quenching vicarious wanderlust, romance, adventure, and plenty more!

We also announce the winner our latest giveaway!

Shownotes

• Germinal, by Émile Zola, translated by Peter Collier

• The Sin of Abbé Mouret, by Émile Zola, translated by Valerie Minogue

• A Love Story, by Émile Zola, translated by Helen Constantine

• January, by Sara Gallardo, translated by Frances Riddle and Maureen Shaughnessy

• The End, by Attila Bartis, translated by Judith Sollosy

• Until August, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, translated by Anne McLean

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West

• Two Sherpas, by Sebastián Martínez Daniell, translated by Jennifer Croft

• Not a River, by Sevla Almada, translated by Annie McDermott

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• Other Worlds: Peasants, Pilgrims, Spirits, Saints, by Teffi, edited by Robert Chandler

• The Fortune of the Rougons, by Émile Zola, translated by Brian Nelson

• Can Your Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope

• Adam Bede, by George Eliot

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• Travels with Charley, by John Steinbeck

• A Room with a View, by E.M. Forster

• Daisy Miller, by Henry James

• My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein

• The Story of a New Name, by Elena Ferrante, translated by Ann Goldstein

• “Goodbye, My Brother,” by John Cheever

• The Fortnight in September, by R.C. Sherriff

• Swimming Home, by Deborah Levy

• Do Not Become Alarmed, by Maile Meloy

• We Were Liars, by E. Lockhart

• Heartstopper, Vol. 3, by Alice Oseman

• “The Boundary,” by Jhumpa Lahiri

• The Enchanted April, by Elizabeth von Arnim

• On Chesil Beach, by Ian McEwan

• The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy

• Hotel du Lac, by Anita Brookner

• A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, by Bill Bryson

• Notes from a Small Island, by Bill Bryson

• The Interestings, by Meg Wolitzer

• The Talented Mr. Ripley, by Patricia Highsmith

• A Sport and a Pastime, by James Salter

Other

• Émile Zola’s Les Rougon-Macquart book list

• Radhika’s Reading Retreat: Characters on Holiday

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. These subscribers get periodic bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week we set our sites on 2024! We share our reading plans, hopes, and dreams for the New Year and highlight some of the new releases we can’t wait to add to our shelves. What books are you most excited to read and buy this year?

Giveaway!

We wanted to kick off the New Year with a giveaway! Both of us have read this on and highly recommend it: January, by Sara Gallardo, translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle and Maureen Shaugnessy! Archipelago Books recently released a lovely edition of this.

Enter for a chance to win by sending us an email a DM or in some way letting us know you want to enter! We will put all names in a hat and draw the winner during our morning recording on Saturday, January 20. Good luck!

Shownotes

• January, by Sara Gallardo, translated from the Spanish by Frances Riddle and Maureen Shaugnessy

• A Horse at Night: On Writing, by Amina Cain

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstroy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope

• Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, by Rebecca West

• The Fortune of the Rougons, by Émile Zola, translated by Brian Nelson

• Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

• Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

• The Orchard Keeper, by Cormac McCarthy

• The Outer Dark, by Cormac McCarthy

• Child of God, by Cormac McCarthy

• Lonesome Dove, by Larry McMurtry

• Metamorphosis, by Ovid

• Miss Mackintosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolaño, translated by Natasha Wimmer

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• Barbara Comyns: A Savage Innocence, by Avril Horner

• The Last Fire Season: A Personal and Pyronatural History, by Manjula Martin

• The Book of Love, by Kelly Link

• Your Utopia, by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur

• James, by Percival Everett

• Splinters: Another Kind of Love Story, by Leslie Jamison

• Clear, by Carys Davies

• The Children of the Dead, by Elfriede Jelinek, translated by Gitta Honegger

• The Piano Teacher, by Elfriede Jelinek, translated by Joachim Neugroschel

• Traces of Enayat, by Iman Mersal, translated by Robin Moger

• Blue Lard, by Vladimir Sorokin, translated by Max Lawton

• Red Pyramid and Other Stories, by Vladimir Sorokin, translated by Max Lawton

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• The Unforgivable: And Other Writings, by Cristina Campo, translated by Alex Andriesse

• Carson McCullers: A Life, by Mary V. Dearborn

• Love Novel, by Ivan Sajko, translated by Mima Simić

• The Brush, by Eliana Hernández-Pachón, translated by Robin Meyers

• American Abductions, by Mauro Javier Cárdenas

• Knife, by Salman Rushdie

• Parade, by Rachel Cusk

• Gliff, by Ali Smith

• Rhine Journey, by Anne Schlee

• Wind and Truth, by Brandon Sanderson

• The Unselected Journals of Emma M. Lion, by Beth Brower

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get regular bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

For this final episode of 2023, we finish our annual two episode best of the year extravaganza! Here we count down our top five favorite reads of 2023—and again we are joined by a cast of listeners who share some of their top books and best reading experiences of the year! Happy New Year! We will see you in 2024!

Shownotes

• Roman Stories, by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Jhumpa Lahiri and Todd Portnowitz

• Disruptions, by Steven Milhauser

• The Last Devil to Die, by Richard Osman

• Solenoid, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• Blinding, by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter

• After the Funeral, by Tessa Hadley

• The Dry Heart, by Natalia Ginzburg, translated by Frances Frenaye

• Short stories of Djuna Barnes

• Nightwood, by Djuna Barnes

• Collected Works, by Lydia Sandgren, translated by Agnes Broomé

• Forbidden Notebooks, by Alba de Céspedes, translated by Ann Goldstein

• The House on the Hill, by Cesare Pavese, translated by Tim Parks

• Conversations in Sicily, by Elio Vittorini, translated by Alane Salierno Mason

• Nonfiction, by Julie Myerson

• Wound, by Oksana Vasyakina, translated by Elina Alter

• The Most Secret Memory of Men, by Mohamed Mbougar Sarr, translated by Laura Vergnaud

• Bound to Violence, by Yamboi Oulologuem

• My Rivers, by Faruk Šehić, translated by S.D. Curtis

• The Woman Who Borrowed Memories, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal and Silvester Mazzarella

• The Story of a Life, by Konstantin Paustovsky, translated by Doug Smith

• The Light Room, by Kate Zambreno

• Drifts, by Kate Zambreno

• A Ghost in the Throat, by Doireann Ní Ghríofa

• Elena Knows, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Die, My Love, by Ariana Harwicz, translated by Sarah Moses and Carolina Orloff

• The Long Form, by Kate Briggs

• Territory of Light, by Yuki Tsushima, translate by Geraldine Harcourt

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• Indeterminate Inflorescence, by Lee Seong-bok, translated by Anton Hur

• If I Had Not Seen Their Sleeping Faces: fragments on death After Anna de Noailles, by Christina Tudor-Sideri

• In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes

• The Day The Call Came, by Thomas Hinde

• The Peasants, by Władysław Reymont, translated by Anna Zaranko

• Basic Black with Pearls, by Helen Weinzweig

• The Young Bride, by Alessandro Baricco, translated by Ann Goldstein

• Whale, by Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translated by Chi-Young Kim

• Not Even the Dead, by Juan Gomez Barecna, translated by Katie Whittemore

• Losing Music, by John Cotter

• Denmark: Variations, by James Tadd Adcox

• Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike

• Blind Rider, by Juan Goytisolo, translated by Peter Bush

• Exiled from Almost Everywhere, by Juan Goytisolo, translated by Peter Bush

• The Garden of Secrets, by Juan Goytisolo, translated by Peter Bush

• The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

• Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

• When We Cease to Understand the World, by Benjamin Labatut, translated by Adrian Nathan West

• The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope

• Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get regular bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week kicks off our annual two episode best of the year extravaganza! Trevor and Paul count down the first part of their ten favorite reads of 2023—and they’re joined by a cast of listeners who share some of their top books and best reading experiences of the year! We dare you to not add a book (or more!) to your 2024 TBR!

Giveaway Details

We are excited to give away three Dalkey Archive books to a lucky listener with a U.S. address*.

Please send us an email (or dm on Instagram or Twitter) telling us your interest in The Dalkey Archive! That’s it! We recommend getting these to us by the end of day Friday, December 15 because we will be drawing the winner early the next day!

*Unfortunately, due to high shipping costs, this giveaway is limited to U.S. addresses. We are sorry! We do love our international listeners!

Shownotes

• Eastbound, by Maylis De Kerangal, translated by Jessica Moore

• The Sorrow of Others, by Ada Zhang

• A Horse at Night: On Writing, by Amina Cain

• Rattlebone, by Maxine Clair

• Midnight in theGarden of Good and Evil, by John Berendt

• Trust, by Hernan Diaz

• Fire Rush, Jacqueline Crooks

• Makeshift, by Sarah Campion

• Joseph and His Brothers, by Thomas Mann, translated by John E. Woods

• Love, by Hanne Ørstavik, translated by Martin Aitken

• Foster, by Claire Keegan

• Women Talking, by Miriam Toews

• Five Little Indians, by Michelle Good

• Trieste, by Daša Drndić, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursać

• The Springs of Affection, by Maeve Brennan

• The Unreality of Memory, by Elisa Gabbert

• The Infatuations, by Javier Marías, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

• Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life, by Adam Phillips

• Song of Solomon, by Toni Morrison

• American Fantastica, by Tim O’Brien

• The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien

• Kindred, by Rebecca Wragg Sykes

• The Birthday Party, by Laurent Mauvignier, translated by Daniel Levin Becker

• The Sunlit Man, by Brandon Sanderson

• Tress of the Emerald Sea, by Brandon Sanderson

• Warbreaker, by Brandon Sanderson

• Open City, by Teju Cole

• School for Love, by Olivia Manning

• The Balkan Trilogy, by Olivia Manning

• The Levant Trilogy, by Olivia Manning

• Ex-Wife, by Ursula Parrott

• The Feast, by Margaret Kennedy

• The Blind Assassin, by Margaret Atwood

• Time Shelter, by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel

• The Physics of Sorrow, by Georgi Gospodinov, translated by Angela Rodel

• Lesser Ruins, by Mark Haber

• The Guest Lecture, by Martin Riker

• The Box, by Mandy-Suzanne Wong

• The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence

• Abigail, by Magda Szabo, translated by Len Rix

• Zaddik, by David Rosenbaum

• Five Decembers, by James Kestrel

• The Lost Man, by Jane Harper

• Lone Women, by Victor Lavalle

• The Strange, by Nathan Ballingrud

• March’s End, by Daniel Polanski

• Brother of the More Famous Jack, by Barbara Trapido

• Alfred Ollivant’s Bob, Son of Battle, a new version by Lydia Davis

• Gentleman Overboard, by Herbert Clyde Lewis

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get regular bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week’s publisher episode focuses on one of our very favorites: Dalkey Archive. Founded nearly 40 years ago, Dalkey specializes in “lesser-known and often avant-garde works.” Trevor and Paul each share a few of their favorite titles and announce an exciting Dalkey giveaway. Be sure to share your favorite for a chance to win!

Giveaway Details

We are excited to give away three Dalkey Archive books to a lucky listener with a U.S. address*.

Please send us an email (or dm on Instagram or Twitter) telling us your interest in The Dalkey Archive! That’s it! We recommend getting these to us by the end of day Friday, December 15 because we will be drawing the winner early the next day!

*Unfortunately, due to high shipping costs, this giveaway is limited to U.S. addresses. We are sorry! We do love our international listeners!

Shownotes

• Basic Black with Pearls, by Helen Weinzweig

• The Woman Who Borrowed Memories, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal and Sylvester Mazzarella

• The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal

• Fair Play, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal

• The True Deceiver, by Tove Jansson, translated by Thomas Teal

• Joseph and His Brothers, by Thomas Mann, translated by John E. Woods

• Afterword, by Nina Schuyler

• Christmas at Thompson Hall: And Other Christmas Stories, by Anthony Trollope

• A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

• The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus, by L. Frank Baum

• A Merry Christmas: And Other Christmas Stories, by Louisa May Alcott

• The Night Before Christmas, by Nikolai Gogol, translated by Konstantin Makovsky

• The Nutcracker, by E.T.A. Hoffmann, translated by Joachim Neugroschel

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Can You Forgive Her?, by Anthony Trollope

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• Vlad, by Carlos Fuentes, translated by E. Shaskan Bumas and Alejandro Branger

• Miss MacIntosh, My Darling, by Marguerite Young

• Atagony, by Luis Goytisolo, translated by Brendan Riley

• Götz and Meyer, by David Albahari, translated by Ellen Elias-Bursac

• Bottom’s Dream, by Arno Schmidt, translated by John E. Woods

• At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O’Brien

• The Dalkey Archive, by Flann O’Brien

• Reticence, by Jean-Philippe Toussaint, translated by John Lambert

• Europeana: A Brief History of the 20th Century, by Patrik Ouredník, translated by Gerald Turner

• Suicide, by Edouard Levé, translated by Jan Steyn

• Through the Night, by Sting Sæterbakken, translated by Seán Kinsella

• Autoportrait, by Edouard Levé, translated by Lorin Stein

• Trilogy, by Jon Fosse, translated by May-Brit Akerholt

• Demolishing Nisard, by Eric Chevillard, translated by Jordan Stump

• Eros the Bittersweet, by Anne Carson

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get regular bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

For many of us, reading is like taking a holiday. But this week, we dive into true literary holidays as we discuss some of our favorite bookish destinations, as well as a few that are on our bucket lists. Where are your top literary destinations?

Shownotes

Books

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• The Bridge of Beyond, by Simone Schwarz-Bart, translated by Barbara Bray

• Shady Hollow, by Juneau Black

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• Divorcing, by Susan Taubes

• Transit, by Anna Seghers, translated by Margaret Bettauer Dembo

• Lies and Sorcery, by Elsa Morante, translated by Jenny McPhee

• The Expendable Man, by Dorothy B. Hughes

• Thus Were Their Faces, by Silvina Ocampo, translated Daniel Balderston

• Motley Stones, by Adalbert Stifter, translated by Isabel Fargo Cole

• Rock Crystal, by Adalbert Stifter, translated by Elizabeth Mayer and Marianne Moore

• Temptation, by János Székely, translated by Mark Baczoni

• Mary Olivier: A Life, by May Sinclair

• Hons and Rebels, by Jessica Mitford

• Virgin Soil, by Ivan Turgenev, translated by Constance Garnett

• The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese, translated by R.W. Flint

• The Moon and the Bonfire, by Cesare Pavese, translated by R.W. Flint

• Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

• The Shining, by Stephen King

• Carrie, by Stephen King

• ‘Salem’s Lot, by Stephen King

• Centennial, by James Michener

• Augustus, by John Williams

Other

• PEG the Book Prize Addict’s Youtube

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get regular bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Do you read in the morning or at night? Do you read while walking? With music? Do you read more than one book at a time?

In this episode Trevor and Paul look at their reading habits to see what things they’ve come up with to feed the reading hound.

We would love to know your reading habits as well! Please share with us!

Shownotes

Books

• Lojman, by Ebru Ojen, translated by Aron Aji and Selin Gökçesu

• Roman Stories, by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by the author and Todd Portnowitz

• The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, by James McBride

• The Good Lord Bird, by James McBride

• Deacon King Kong, by James McBride

• The Story of a Life, by Konstantin Paustovsky, translated by Doug Smith

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

• The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books Saved My Life, by Andy Miller

• Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath, by Heather Clark

• Stay True, by Hua Hsu

• Joseph and His Brothers, by Thomas Mann, translated by John E. Woods

• The Sunlit Man, by Brandon Sanderson

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, you can do so on Substack or on our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get regular bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

Jon Fosse is the newest winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, and for this week’s episode we are joined by Fosse’s translator Damion Searls to discuss Fosse’s work and the art of translation.

Substack Is Now Our Host

When we released Episode 64: Victorian Literature, we experimented by releasing it through Substack rather than the host we had used since starting the show. We had transferred all of the files over and changed all the doo-dads and bee-bops (we hoped) to make it so that no one would even notice. It seems to have worked as planned! Consequently, we are moving forward with Substack from now on. This shouldn’t affect you at all.

However, by switching to Substack, listeners who have become paid Substack subscribers can now start getting the same bonus episodes and early releases as Patreon supporters! So, if you’re looking for an opportunity to support the show financially, and Substack works for you, we are excited to have you aboard and to send you the same benefits our Patreon supporters get.

We will continue to use Patreon as well, so if you’re there or want to be there, you won’t be affected either.

Thanks everyone!

Shownotes

Books

• The Inkblots: Hermann Rorschach, His Iconic Test, and the Power of Seeing, by Damion Searls

• A Shining, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Anniversaries: From a Year in the Life of Gesine Cresspahl, by Uwe Johnson, translated by Damion Searls

• Sundays in August, by Patrick Modiano, translated by Damion Searls

• Dora Bruder, by Patrick Modiano, translated by Joanna Kilmartin

• Bambi, by Felix Salten, translated by Damion Searls

• Thomas Mann: New Selected Stories, translated by Damion Searls

• My Men, by Victoria Kielland, translated by Damion Searls

• Amsterdam Stories, by Nescio, translated by Damion Searls

• Trilogy, by Jon Fosse, translate by May-Brit Akerholt

• Breaking and Entering, by Don Gillmor

• Killing Commendatore, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen

• Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin

• Kafka on the Shore, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel

• Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Jay Rubin

• 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami, translated by Philip Gabriel and Ted Goossen

• Septology, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Melancholy I-II, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls and Grethe Kvernes

• Morning and Evening, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Scenes from a Childhood, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

• Aliss at the Fire, by Jon Fosse, translated by Damion Searls

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher. You can also listen to us on YouTube, if that’s your thing.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, please visit our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get a monthly bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week’s episode has a lot in common with Victorian literature: long, sometimes digressive and (we hope) filled with fun topics and interesting characters!

We’re joined by Victorian expert extraordinaire Rohan Maitzen for a fun discussion about this wonderful era, including some of our favorite titles and authors. And no, we weren’t paid by the word.

Patreon Bonus Episode

After a summer with no bonus episodes (an unplanned break!), Paul and I put together a rather lengthy bonus episode for Patreon. This was released last week, and it was so much fun to just sit down and chat about fall reading and relaxing! If you’re interested, Patreon supporters of all tier levels get these bonus episodes! Check it out!

Substack Options

I didn’t even know it was possible until it started to happen, but some of you have supported the podcast via Substack by becoming paid subscribers. It has taken me a while to research and understand a few things that I think will make the podcast better while not changing it for regular listeners.

First, I have switched to hosting the podcast on Substack. This episode is a bit of an experiment to see if it all worked the way it is supposed to. Hopefully, even if you’ve never opened the newsletter, you are seeing this episode in your podcast feed.

Second, by switching to Substack, paid listeners here can now start getting the same bonus episodes and early releases as Patreon supporters! I will keep dabbling with this to make sure it is working well. And I welcome your feedback!

Shownotes

Books

• Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen

• Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë

• North Woods, by Daniel Mason

• A Little Luck, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Elena Knows, by Claudia Piñeiro, translated by Frances Riddle

• Landscapes, by Christine Lai

• The Overstory, by Richard Powers

• Bewilderment, by Richard Powers

• War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

• The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Michael R. Katz

• The Voyage Out, by Virginia Woolf

• A Fairly Good Time, by Mavis Gallant

• The Sunlit Man, by Brandon Sanderson

• The Limit, by Rosalind Belben

• Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

• The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot

• Middlemarch, by George Eliot

• History of the French Revolution, by Thomas Carlyle

• David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens

• Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens

• Hard Times, by Charles Dickens

• A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens

• Aurora Leigh, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning

• Ulysses, by James Joyce

• In Memoriam A.H.H., by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

• Tess of the d’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

• Jude the Obscure, by Thomas Hardy

• The Chosen, by Elizabeth Lowry

• Mary Barton, by Elizabeth Gaskell

• North and South, by Elizabeth Gaskell

• Wive and Daughters, by Elizabeth Gaskell

• The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope

• The Warden, by Anthony Trollope

• Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

• The Woman in White, by Wilkie Collins

• Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickins

• The Moonstone, by Wilkie Collins

• Bleak House, by Charles Dickens

• Silas Marner, by George Eliot

• The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë

About the Podcast

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another.

Please join us! You can subscribe at Apple podcasts or go to the feed to import to your favorite podcatcher. You can also listen to us on YouTube, if that’s your thing.

Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, please visit our Patreon page. Patreon subscribers get a monthly bonus episode and early access to all episodes! Every supporter has their own feed that he or she can use in their podcast app of choice to download our episodes a few days early. Please go check it out!

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week, we’re talking about our favorite passages from literature. You know, those sentences, paragraphs or even pages that take your breath away and send you scrambling for the closest highlighter? We discuss the types of language that catches our eye and each share some of our all-time favorite passages. What are yours? For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mookse.substack.com/subscribe

View Details

This week, we celebrate Spinster September by discussing spinster lit with Nora (pear.jelly). We chat about spinster tropes and stereotypes, ways in which the term is evolving, and dig into why these women appeal to so many of us. And, of course, we each share some of our favorite examples from literature.   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week is all about the most intimidating books on our TBR piles. You know, the ones you really want to read someday and yet never quite seem to make it to the top of the pile? We each share five of the most terrifying tomes on our shelves, and share some some listener input as well. Oh, and we each gulp commit to read one book from our list! Want to join us by committing to read a formidable title from your own list?

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Have you ever forgotten one of your all-time favorite books? If you’re anything like the two of us, the answer is a resounding yes! This week, we talk about some of the best books we’ve forgotten about over the years . . . and how this is even possible.   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, we are joined by an all-star cast to discuss our 2023 summer read, Natalia Ginzburg’s The Dry Heart. Two of the most insightful readers we know, Merve Emre and Kim McNeil, share wonderful insights and thoughts and help us uncover aspects of Ginzburg’s brilliant work that we had never considered before. We hope your enjoy the conversation as much as we did!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Summer is a perfect time to take a break from real life and completely disappear into a good book. But what makes a book immersive? Plot? Writing? Characters? This week, we explore this topic and share some of our favorite immersive reads.

We also announce the winner of our latest giveaway: a copy of Natalia Ginzburg’s The Dry Heart, which we’ll be discussing  for our Summer Book Club during our next episode!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, we ignore our towering TBR piles and the many shelves bulging with backlist masterpieces and instead look ahead to the upcoming new releases we’re most excited about in the second half of 2023. From small indie presses and relatively unknown authors to well-known headliners, the next few months promise a treasure trove for bibliophiles. Hold on to your wallets, everyone!

We also announce another giveaway ahead of our upcoming summer readalong of Natalia Ginzburg’s The Dry Heart. Be sure to enter so you can read along with us!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

A minor author focused only on small-town vicars and spinsters, or the next Jane Austen? This week, we are joined by Bonnie Renzi to discuss the complicated and fascinating Barbara Pym. In this author episode, we hear from a variety of experts and fans and offer our own experiences from her works. Let's just say there's a lot more than meets the eye!

We also announce the winner of our latest bookish giveaway of the lovely Archipelago Books edition of Jean Giono's Occupation Journal.

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, Trevor and Paul call a quick audible and talk about summer books and reading horizons (an homage to The Readers!) They chat about their short-term reading plans, a few books that are calling out to them right now, and summer reading in general. And be sure to listen closely for another bookish giveaway!   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Would a book by any other name smell as sweet? This week, we have fun talking all about titles: How much do they matter? Are they truly art or more of a marketing tool? Do certain genres lend themselves to better titles? We also share (more than) a few of our favorites! What are your top titles?

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Inspired by Brian Dillon’s new book “Affinities,” Trevor and Paul have fun exploring the question: Why do we like what we like? The answers are not always black and white or even logical—but they are sure are fun to talk about!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Art and literature is filled with idylls -- picturesque and happy moments that can take the form of vacations, journeys or even a stolen afternoon. What is it about these brief moments that haunts us and can even change the course of lives? This week, Trevor and Paul delve into these question and share some of their favorite literary idylls.

They also unveil five surprise winners of a bonus giveaway from Open Letter Books!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, we talk about passing on a love of reading between generations. Whether reading aloud to each other or quietly side by side, going on bookstore and library visits, or attending author events, there are countless ways to enjoy books together. What are your favorite stories and memories?

We also announce a big giveaway: one year of Open Letter books!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week’s episode is all about one of our favorite publishers: Open Letter Books. Trevor and Paul are joined by translated lit super fan, Ron Restrepo, as they share a few favorite Open Letter titles, talk about the ones they can’t wait to pick up next, and discuss the importance and magic of this vital and exciting press.   We also announce the winner of our giveaway of Arabesques! Oh, and we have another giveaway . . .   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Would you only visit a favorite city once? Enjoy a  delicious meal and then never eat it again? Meet a fascinating new person and then go your separate ways - forever? Of course not. So why should it be any different with books? In this episode, we discuss the many benefits (and a few potential pitfalls) of rereading and share some of our favorite experiences. What books do you return to most often?   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Are you an underliner? Tab-user? A worshiper of the unblemished page? A gulp dogearer? This week, Trevor and Paul discuss marginalia and the various other ways readers engage with what they're reading. As always, the conversation takes some very unexpected detours!   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

How do we love books? Let us count the ways.

This week, Trevor and Paul have a little fun and answer a set of Valentine’s-influenced bookish questions. Find out all about their literary breakups, long-term relationships, flings, and more. Love is in the air!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, Trevor and Paul discuss the difficult but vital and beautiful work of Scholastique Mukasonga. Although her books cover incredibly tough subject matter, they serve as, among other things, a haunting elegy and love letter to her family and friends lost in the Rwandan genocide.

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, Trevor and Paul look ahead to another exciting year of reading. From goals and strategies to some books they plan to read from their shelves to the 2023 new releases they're most looking forward to, there's a whole lot to talk about!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Paul and Trevor end the year on a high note by each unveiling their top 5 reads of 2022. To add to the fun, they’re again joined by a few friends who also share their top picks. Happy reading!   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

It’s that time of year again! This week, Trevor and Paul unveil the first half of their lists of top reads of the year.  And to add to the holiday cheer, some friends and familiar faces (voices?) gather 'round to share their favorites, as well. Your TBR pile will never be the same--and that’s a good thing.   For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

What makes the perfect winter reading experience? A hot drink? A cozy fire? And what types of books draw you in during the cold, dark times of the year? Long tomes you can sink into? Seasonal favorites that remind you of days gone by?

This week, we discusss our ideal winter reading experiences, share some favorite memories and chat about a few wintery reads (and rereads).

As usual, our discussion had us pulling even more books from the shelves to keep us company as the year draws to a close.

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, Trevor and Paul sit down with author and librarian extraordinaire, Nancy Pearl, to discuss the magic and importance of libraries.

We share some favorite memories and stories, talk about what the future might hold and just gush about how much we love all things library. As always, we also have a nice chat about what we’re reading, so be sure you have a pen and paper handy!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Book prizes tend to create a lot of buzz and conversation in the literary world. And that surely can’t be a bad thing, right? Some of us are longlist completionists, some patiently wait for the winner and others just let it all pass them by.

This week, we’re joined by book critic and bookstore owner Lori Feathers to discuss literary prizes, including the newly launched Republic Of Consciousness prize in the U.S. and Canada, which she is spearheading. We also talk about backlisted titles and some of our favorite acclaimed books from the past.

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Some of us read for escape, others for the beauty of language. And then there are those on a never ending quest to be scared witless! In this episode, we discuss a variety of scary reads, from ghost stories, to tales of dread to downright horror. We each share three of our favorite spooky books, discuss three short stories, and ask for a little help in finding books that will truly keep us up at night. Come listen to us. Forever. And ever. And ever. Happy Halloween, everyone! For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Borges’ library. Middle Earth. Avonlea. Literature is filled with wonderful and intriguing places we wish were real. This week, we chat about the different things that make these worlds so appealing and fascinating. And, of course, we each pick a few of our very favorites to discuss!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

What is your preferred hotel experience? Do you go for a break from it all? A secret meeting? Do you like seedy crime scenes, or ghosts from the past? Are you there in a crowd of interesting and troubled individuals? Or do you prefer to go out of season? This week, we are pleased to have Jacqui from JacquiWine's Journal as a guest to discuss hotel novels (with one short story from Paul).

And happy fall, everyone! Thanks to everyone who entered our fall reading swag box giveaway! In this episode we announce the winner!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, our two heroes journey across the wine-dark sea in search of their favorite epic reads. But first, they have to try to figure out what the heck that even means! Trevor and Paul discuss some of the criteria that make up an epic and have fun debating where the definition begins and ends. They also each bring five of their favorites for discussion (along with some honorable mentions, of course). 

And don't miss the announcement of the winner of Rodrigo Fresan's The Rememebered Part or the unveiling of a fun new Autumn themed giveaway. 

All in all, a very epic episode!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Sliding doors? Nesting dolls? A bolt of lightning from on high? Talking about the works of Cesar Aira isn't always an easy task - but it sure is fun! This week, we take a discursive and meandering journey through the wonderful worlds of this magical author, including listeners’ favorite books, passages and memories.

We also announce the winner of our Salka Valka giveaway and share the details of our next one!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Chris Wolak from the Book Cougars joins us for a wide ranging discussion of Willa Cather's A Lost Lady. We discuss myths, disillusionment, the passing of the American West, victims of masculine heroics, the economic realities of women throughout history, and much more. And don't miss our latest giveaway: a copy of Salka Valka, by Halldór Laxness! For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Growing old is the subject of a lot of great literature. In this episode, Trevor and Paul discuss some of their favorite books (and one short story) about growing old.

They also annouce who won the signed copies of Mark Haber's novels!

For complete shownotes, please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

You know those authors and books that you can’t seem to connect with … but also aren’t quite ready to give up on? In this episode, Paul and Trevor try to figure out why some books and authors are easy to ditch while others keep calling to us. They each share a few examples from their own shelves and offer some ideas on why they can’t quit them.

They also unveil the three (!) winners of the New Directions giveaways.

And that's not the end of the giveaways. Listen to get a chance to win signed copies of Mark Haber's novels!

Please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, we’re joined by author and bookseller extraordinaire Mark Haber to chat about one of our favorite publishers: New Directions. Although Paul and Trevor can't compete with Mark’s ND tattoo, we can match his enthusiasm as we each share three of our favorite titles.

Plus, there are not one, not two, but three bookish giveaways, so makes sure you listen in for details!

Please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Please welcome Brian Berrett, Trevor's brother, back to The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast! Back, you ask? Yes! Brian started the original iteration of the podcast in 2012 with Trevor, and it's nice to have him back as a guest.

In this episode we chat generally about loving books and then Brian shares three books with us.

Please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

The official start of summer is just around the corner, but with kids finishing school and Memorial Day in the past, it feels like summer is already here. Warmer weather, longer evenings, outdoor eating . . . it can be such a lovely time of year.

In this episode, Paul and Trevor devote a good chunk to discussing summer reading in general and plans for our own hot months of 2022.

And part of those plans include a Mookse and Gripes Podcast bookclub! Help us choose which of these four books to read: Speedboat, by Renata Adler; Ficciones, by Jorge Luis Borges; The Children of Dynmouth, by William Trevor; or A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather.

We also come together in this episode and talk about our second batch of assigned reading, which includes Mauro Javier Cárdenas's Aphasia and Jean Giono's Ennemonde, translated by Bill Johnston.

Please sign up for The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Newsletter.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon. Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

If you're like us, sometimes you go buy a book you are so excited to read, only to then leave it unread on the shelf for . . . well, years maybe! In this episode Trevor and Paul look at some of their dustiest unread books.   Also, listen up for the winner of our short books episode giveaway!   If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, Paul and Trevor discuss short books (fiction): what makes them special? Which authors specialize in brevity? How have short books impacted our lives as readers?  We each share five or our favorites, as well as a ton of great listener recommendations. And be sure to stick around for a fun giveaway and a preview of an upcoming episode where we each assign the other a short novel. We hope you'll read along with us! 

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

If you're a bibliophile, what could be better than a book about books? This week, Trevor and Paul are joined by their good friend Simon Thomas to talk about their favorite novels set in the world of books, authors, libraries, and bookstores. We each choose three favorites, but we certainly don't limit our discussion to those nine choices. From Matilda and Bunnicula to Umberto Eco and Rose Macauley (and many, many more), this is another episode that is sure to bolster your TBR pile!

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week’s mega-episode is all about one of our very favorite authors. Trevor and Paul discuss Austen’s six major novels, chat about what makes her work so special and even take a crack at ranking their favorites! 

We also share listener feedback about favorite title and chat about various adaptions, both good and bad. 

And a special treat this week: an interview with Jane Austen scholar (and fan) Joan Klingel Ray, Ph.d, former president of the Jane Austen Society of North America and author of several books on Jane Austen.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Trevor and Paul discuss great literary years. What have been some of the most noteworthy bookish years so far? What made them so special? They also travel back 100 years to arguably the greatest literary year in history and explore the works that changed literature forever. 

And they share readers‘ entries for the Archipelago Books contest and announce the lucky winner!

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Trevor and Paul spend some time talking about one of their favorite publishers, Archipelago Books. They each share three of their favorite Archipelago titles and talk about a few they want to read soon.

This episode also includes an amazing giveaway that will supply one lucky winner with a year's worth of translated fiction!

For a list of all Archipelago books, click here.

For a list of Archipelago's upcoming publications, click here and scroll down.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

This week, Trevor and Paul have a little fun with assigned reading. Yes, you heard that right! First they chat a bit about their histories with assigned reading, both in school and in reading groups, before diving into a couple of short stories they assigned each other.

The second half of the episode is a deep dive into two stunning stories: "A Manual for Cleaning Women" by Lucia Berlin and "The Ice Wagon Going Down the Street" by Mavis Gallant. If you want to read along before listening, you can find links to the full text of both stories in the show notes. You won't regret it!

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Trevor and Paul chat about their criteria for a good comfort read: Nostalgia? Escapism? … Murder?

They each share a few of their go-to comfort books, along with plenty of wonderful listener suggestions (a few of which might just surprise you). So grab a cup of tea or glass of wine and get ready to bolster your cozy TBR pile!

Spoiler alert: You might want to have a pen and paper handy.

For shownotes, including a list of all of the books we talk about in this episode, please go to our shownotes.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit The Mookse and the Gripes blog. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Why do you read fiction? This question might pop up every now and then, making us feel a need to justify one of our most treasured activities. We are delighted to have Ben O'Connell join us to discuss.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

What books are being published in 2022 that raise the most questions? Paul and Trevor have been pondering and have come up with their top five questions for 2022. Also included at the start is a healthy dose of listener feedback!

 If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

With 2021 coming to a close, Paul and Trevor look ahead to 2022 and make some reading . . . goals? Well, maybe not goals, per se, but they have some reading intentions. It's a fun conversation about reading plans, whether they like to make any reading plans at all, and, if so, what they like about reading plans even if they don't keep them.

 If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Paul and Trevor continue to look back and talk about their favorite books they read in 2021. This is Part 2, going through their 5 - 1. Episode 16 went through 10 - 6. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

As 2021 comes to an end, Paul and Trevor look back and talk about their favorite books they read in 2021. These are not necessarily books published in 2021 but are, rather, the books they first read in 2021 that have left their mark.   This is Part 1, going through their 10 - 6. Next week's episode will go through 5 - 1. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

We're not experts, but we both love the poetry of Emily Dickinson. In this episode, we talk about some of her poetry and why it speaks to us.   Thanks to everyone who shared their favorite poems or memories of reading Emily Dickinson. We had a lot of great input, and we are excited to share. You made this episode a lot better than it would have been otherwise. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

As the holiday season arrives, Paul and Trevor sit down to make some reading plans. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

There's something so inviting about a bookstore in November (or any time of year, really), so Paul and Trevor chat about that magic. What do they like in a bookstore? What are some of their favorite destinations?   Also in this episode we announce the winner of the NYRB Classics giveaway! If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In our Fall Books episode (#7), Paul said he'd like to read Shirley Jackson's second novel, Hangsaman, this season. Trevor went along for the ride, and the result is this special Halloween edition of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast! We do touch on spoilers later in the episode after some warning, so beware! Also, we have a bit of a false ending. After we said goodbye, we kept on talking about the ending of the book, so we turned the recorder back on in order to capture those thoughts and round out the show. If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode Paul and Trevor discuss one of their favorite publishers: NYRB Classics. Because we could go on for days without taking a breath, we limit ourselves to discussing only a few of their riches. We'll return to this subject again and record a Part II, Part III, etc. In this episode we also have a fantastic, topical giveaway! For this, you might want to look at the list of forthcoming NYRB Classics! If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Trevor and Paul talk about some of our favorite books about books. These books never fail to inspire us to read and to enjoy it. While there are many great novels and stories about books, real or fictional, in this episode we focus on nonfiction books. We'll return to this subject and talk about favorite fictional books about books some day.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode, Trevor and Paul talk about books with great openings. We are not talking about best first lines, though many of these have those. We are talking about openings where we know we are in good hands and we can't wait for all that's to come.

Also, we announce the winner of our first giveaway!

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode Trevor and Paul welcome their first guest, their long-time online book friend, Frances Evangelista. We reminisce a little before Frances shares three favorite books. Thanks for joining us, Frances!

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Happy Fall, everyone! It's always so wonderful to snuggle up with a book as the days get colder. To celebrate the new season, Trevor and Paul talk about some of their favorite fall books and talk about a few they hope to read this year to really take advantage of the season!

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

Trevor and Paul both grew up reading fantasy in the 1980s and 1990s, and both stopped around the same time. But we still look back on that time fondly and talk about our memories, our complaints about tropes and fantasy bloat, and maybe some hope for the future. Spoiler: Trevor has been enjoying some great fantasy books again.

We touch on the days when you could go to the mall and spend an hour in a bookstore. We talk about Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time, which we both started but never finished. And we talk about Brandon Sanderson, who not only finished Robert Jordan's series after Jordan died but is also key to why Trevor is getting back to his roots.

Also, we talk about Susanna Clarke's wonderful Piranesi, which recently won the 2021 Women's Prize (though we recorded this some time before that happened).

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse and @bibliopaul. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode Trevor and Paul discuss the work of Cormac McCarthy.

Cormac McCarthy has published ten novels, starting with The Orchard Keeper in 1965. The last novel he published, 2006's The Road, won the Pulitzer Prize. While a new novel, The Passenger, has been announced, several years have passed with no new news. Each of us have read eight of his novels, but between the two of us, we have read all of his work. We don't pretend to be experts, but we are fans who had fun talking about one of our favorite authors. We hope you enjoy it.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode Trevor and Paul discuss nature writing and each list some of their favorite books where nature plays a big role.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this bonus episode, which is an old episode from an old iteration of the podcast, Trevor gets over his performance anxiety and reads one of his favorite short stories for you. Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky’s story “Quadraturin,” translated from the Russian by Joanne Turnbull, is presented here in its entirety with permission from NYRB Classics. You can find this and many more of his stories in their editions.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this episode Trevor and Paul discuss the short story and each list three favorites.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

View Details

In this debut episode Trevor and Paul get to know each other through the books they haven't read . . . but want to. Here they each list five "bucket list" books, or books they've been wanting to read for a long time and hope to get to sooner than later.

If you'd like to support the show, visit The Mookse and the Gripes Patreon.

Visit our blog at http://mookseandgripes.com/reviews. Follow us on Twitter @mookse. Email mookseandgripes@gmail.com.

Intro Track: Sunlight Cascading Through the Clouds — Artificial.Music [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/mtONh3v8-mw

Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/sunlight-cascading