Book Spider: Recent Episodes
Xi Draconis Books
Book Spider (previously known as The God Setebos) is a book-of-the-week podcast primarily covering novels, with the occasional detour into nonfiction, literary criticism, poetry, and music. We pride ourselves in running a smart podcast for the discerning listener, and we strive for the highest level of intellectual rigor.
Our mascot, the book spider, sits in its cold corner, gathering its web of text, looking at the world with its calm, chilly eyes.
In which the Spiders tackle Omensetter's Luck, a set of prose poem loosely organized by the subjectivity of a mad preacher, which somehow briefly acquired a reputation as one of the most significant novels of the mid 20th century, and is now mostly lost to history.
We revisit one of the earlier podcast subjects and come away a little bit underwhelmed. That said, this is still a magical and strange piece to be nearly a hundred years old, and there are incredible parts.
In this episode, the Spider hosts discuss the shortcomings of Sayaka Murata's Earthlings.
The Spiders encounter Mary Shelley's The Last Man, in which grief is transfigured into a radically inventive and astonishingly bleak post-apocalyptic sci-fi novel whose impact and legacy are undone by a complete lack of editing.
In this episode, the Spiders discuss the heady and intriguing His Master's Voice, a first-contact novel that turns the trope upside down, to good effect.
In this episode, the hosts of Book Spider, along with special guest Eddie Kim, discuss the recently released horror novel Gusano, written by founding spider himself, Patrick Barney.
In which the Spiders consider Acceptance, the third book in Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach trilogy, and a step down from the focused mood and mystery of the first two installments -- though not without its virtues.
A discussion of Jeff Vandermeer's Authority, the second book in the Southern Reach Trilogy. The spiders find that it strikes an uncommonly good balance between that which is understood readily and that which can't be understood at all.
A discussion of Jeff Vandermeer's novel Annihilation, in which the Spiders can't help comparing it to Alex Garner's film adaptation, in particular the ways in which one character's arc turns her outward while the other's turns her inward.
In this episode, we navigate the challenging and beautiful middle sections of DeLillo's Underworld. Before that, though, we listen to an excerpt from cohost Patrick Barney's new novel, Gusano.
The first in a three-parter in which we tackle DeLillo's meganovel, Underworld. In this episode we discuss just about the first third of the novel. And: We crack ourselves up imagining a Werner Herzog baseball documentary.
In this episode, the Spiders try to analyze Elias Khoury's Gate of the Sun, a harrowing novel of the decades-long occupation of Palestine by Israel. However, the challenge is overwhelming, as it appears that violence may not be interpretable.
The spiders consider the novella Pafko at the Wall, the first fifty pages of Don DeLillo's Underworld. Does its careful examination of its period kitsch reveal a deeper thematic weight? I mean, probably.
In which we struggle to talk about a text that is famous for generating endless discussion about how to talk about it.
In this episode, the spiders discuss Julia, by Sandra Newman, which is a retelling of 1984, by George Orwell. Julia tells the classic dystopian tale from the perspective of the original's main female character, and in so doing, retcons the original in both positive and negative ways.
The Spiders pick over Otessa Moshfegh's novel Eileen, a novel whose protagonist's gaze might have its own spidery quality.
In which the Spider tries to unravel the tangled web of Miquel de Palol's The Garden of Seven Twilights, the Catalan language's addition to the canon of postmodern meganovelistic bricks like Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow.
In this episode we discuss Lexi Freiman's new book, The Book of Ayn. We talk about objectivism, the relationship between humor and ideology, the difficulties of interrogating meaning through the perspectives of unreliable narrators, and the perpetual rightness of Patrick Barney.
In this episode, the spiders are joined by a special guest, the author of several notable short story collections, David Nikki Crouse. We ask David craft questions about their most recent story collection, I'm Here: Alaska Stories. David gives insightful answers on a variety of topics, including class, identity, and the myth of Alaska.
In which the Spiders grudgingly admit to not connecting with Ben Okri's legendary The Famished Road, inspiration for the best early Radiohead song, and a novel which works much better in bits and fragments than it does as a unified whole.
Note: Some audio issues with our mics in this episode. Apologies for the diminished quality.In this episode, the boys discuss the future of literacy - in large part to avoid discussing Vinge's disappointing novel. We touch upon what the emergence of generative AI might mean for writing and reading, and we talk about the craft of writing about the future.
The Spiders are unsure how to approach Richard Powers's Galatea 2.2, a novel which they find eerily predictive of the methods used to build contemporary AI programs like ChatGPT. Does the contemporary relevance of its scientific principles cause us to overrate its thematic depth, or to look in the wrong places for meaning? And can Chris and Hans forgive Powers's unique brand of ornate prose?
A discussion of Mary Beth Willard's "Why it's OK to enjoy the work of immoral artists," a philosophical text which advances the titular thesis, with a specific focus on Hans and Patrick's relationship to the classic early work of industrial-metal singer and alleged abusive partner Marilyn Manson.
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss three important questions in literature: Can literature contain or reveal truth? What is the relationship between literature and morality? And how seriously should we take an author's intentions when discussing her work? The hosts employ a range of background texts to address these questions, including Aristotle's Poetics.
In this episode, we discuss the tiny, ugly ways an otherwise beautifully written novel can age, as well as Patrick's inclination to invoke WWOD (What Would Orwell Do?).
The Spiders puzzle admiringly over Claire-Louise Bennett's Checkout 19, which uses interpolated stories and a fractured narrative to explore the barriers facing artistically inclined women in a sexist society. Special focus is given to the story of Tarquin Superbus, which so charmed us that we've perhaps had a difficult time exploring other aspects of the novel.
In this episode, we discuss the lasting phenomenon that is the Hitchhikers' media series. Just why is it so popular? It's not extraordinarily profound. It's certainly not upbeat, either. But: it caught the world at the right time and: it was written to be very easily digestible by a lot of different folks.
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts tackle The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy. Casterbridge is a complex novel about the rise and fall of Michael Henchard. After dramatically selling his wife and baby daughter to a stranger for five pounds, Henchard vows to abstain from alcohol for twenty years. Eighteen years after this event, the novel picks up with Henchard at the height of his powers, living as a prosperous corn merchant and the mayor of the small town of Casterbridge. However, after selling some bad grain to his constituents and being surpassed in business acumen by Farfrae, a newcomer, Henchard's fortunes fall into steep decline.
Does submission to fate bring weight or lightness? Can Milan Kundera find the clit? Special guest Sarah Ashcraft joins us to discuss The Unbearable Lightness of being, a novel whose deceptive readability hides its thematic obscurity.
In this episode, we discuss the close attention Woolf gives to her characters and how mercurial and impermanent we are under her atomic analysis. We also discuss why, it seems, To the Lighthouse is a 1 of 1, rarely emulated (at least successfully) despite the fact that Woolf is in the canon. In fact, brilliant as she is - or maybe because of her brilliance - we suggest young writers shouldn't try to emulate her. Better to read her, and enjoy her, and accept that To the Lighthouse has already been written, and need never be written again.
In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss Lost Memory of Skin, a novel that seeks to empathize with probably the most reviled subgroup in the entire world: pedophiles. The novel follows the exploits of a young sex criminal known only as the kid, whose life of hardship culminates in an attempt to meet a teenage girl for sex. In the aftermath, the kid finds himself homeless, living under a causeway in southern Florida, attempting to eke out an existence among other down-and-out sex criminals. When he meets the professor, a sociology researcher at a local university, his fortunes seem to turn for the better, until the professor's past catches up to both of them.
The spiders attempt to fit together the refracting, self-contradictory plot and reconcile the competing thematic strands of Namwali Serpell's enigmatic The Furrows, which might or might not be a compelling meditation on grief and loss.
In this episode we discuss McCarthy's newest two novels, published a couple months apart but obviously intended to be read together. And we talk about why, though they are excellent, these are such awful books for young writers to read and try to emulate. Don't even try it, kids. Leave this particular magic to McCarthy.
In this episode, we discuss a collection of poems by Charles Baudelaire, The Flowers of Evil. This collection revels in despair and decay, in erotic death. Come along with us into the depths of pain and sexual horror.
The spider tackles Painted Devils, a collection of strange stories (perhaps not horror but darkly surreal in a horror-adjacent way) by the author Robert Aickman. Dense and enigmatic, these stories use the uncanny to explore various themes, particularly the life of the artist. Recorded just in time for Halloween but then posted in the middle of January.
In which we discuss, among other things: * The proper level of shame one should feel for liking the television show Friends. * Whether we would antagonize the rich hosts of a dinner party thrown by tech bros - should we somehow find ourselves invited. * The big and messy and fascinating ideas - and bargain basement humor - of Drew Hayden Taylor's play about authenticity, and whether it is possible to decide what is or is not authentic.
In this episode, the hosts of Book Spider discuss Jean Toomer's Cane, a collection of poems and stories that evoke rural Georgia of the early 1900s. The critic Henry Louis Gates Jr. calls attention to Cane's use of black, white, and especially mixed-race characters to represent the American experience, an astounding literary innovation never used before or since.
The podcast's second go-round with author Dana Spiotta sees us dig into her most recent novel Wayward, which makes a bold effort to argue for nuance and subtlety in the sociopolitical chaos following the 2016 election (for everyone except finance bros, who remain one-dimensional shitheads).
This week, we discuss Böll's compelling but messy multigenerational, German POV reflection on the World Wars, evil, and their impact on the lives of common people.
This episode, the Book Spider gang discusses an early suspense / psychological thriller novel, Rebecca, which deals with the melancholia a nameless narrator experiences when she marries a rich man and moves to his huge estate on a whim, only to find that the memories of her husband's first wife haunt the very ground upon which she walks.
This week we're dissecting a book which mixes fiction and nonfiction in ways which are enigmatic, compelling, and -- to some readers -- morally suspicious. Benjamin Labatut's When We Cease to Understand the World follows the fictionalized biographies of several scientists and mathematicians as they discover the principles which become quantum mechanics. This odd genre hybrid is admirable, gripping, and only partially satisfying, despite great critical acclaim.
This week, we discuss Ferris's famous "we" novel about late 2000s office space culture, and get briefly melancholic about what work friends felt like in the pre-pandemic world.
This episode, which discusses the modern-day sci-fi classic Eifelheim, features a rarity: all three podcasters agreeing on the quality of the text. Enjoy!
In this episode the three Spiders do their damnedest to wrap their heads around Lookout Cartridge, which is generally agreed to be the best novel by Joseph McElroy, an enigmatic postmodernist who is often considered an underrated peer of DeLillo, Pynchon, Gass, Gaddis, and the rest of the '60s and '70s greats.
This week, we discuss Calvino's willful commitment to celebrate the act of reading by refusing to give readers what they want - over and over and over again.
In this episode, we compare two novels with dog protagonists and discuss form, technique, and how a writer can represent nonhuman minds.
The Book Spider crew puzzles over Tanya Tagaq's Split Tooth, a novelish work whose mixture of bleak slice-of-life vignettes with a more fantastic, spiritual register seems like it might be magical realism (but definitely probably isn't). Are we ill-equipped to understand this work, or are we bringing the wrong tools for the job? Check out the episode for the answer, if such a thing exists. In the web department, intriguing parallels are found with Patricia Lockwood's No One is Talking About This.
In this episode, we discuss the dreamy, expansive, magical, and somehow also frustrating Martin Dressler, as well as some right and wrong ways to criticize capitalist systems.
In this episode, we discuss the intriguing, awesome memoir Road Song by Natalie Kusz. Check it out, if you want to be impressed.
No One is Talking About This is a hilarious, moving and disorienting novel about communication and the search for authentic experience in contemporary networked and mediated Western life, and how one woman's encounter with tragedy brings her back to a more human way of being. Or is that an oversimplification?
In this episode, Hans and Patrick patiently butcher and then discard the disappointing cuts of Chris's pick, Waterland - a novel he's sure he remembers liking, the first time he read it.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Orwell's hilarious Coming Up for Air, the best of his lesser known novels.
Take a trip up the apartment building of death with J.G. Ballard's classic tale of social disintegration, High Rise. Scrupulously faithful to the cold details of modern mechanized life while ignoring the very idea of psychological verisimilitude, High Rise is a brilliant scummy head trip, easy to follow but hard to truly understand, and we do our best to tease out its many secrets.
In this episode, the Book Spider crew discusses Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis, which is deals with haircuts, getting tazed, self immolation, the dehumanizing aspects of capitalism, and where limousines go at night when they're not in use during the day.
In this episode, the Book Spider crew discusses PKD's A Scanner Darkly, which deals with addiction, authority, and the nature of identity. Enjoy!
Can Xue's Love in the New Millennium is a dense, confusing novel which portrays a complex web of relationships with no clear center, and lacks a conventional protagonist. It is, perhaps, a fitting choice for our first episode under the new name Book Spider.
In this episode, we chat about Michael Chrichton's novel Sphere, which Hans claims is the only one of the popular novelist's books that has depth enough for an extended discussion.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Dana Spiotta's Eat the Document, a novel that tells the story of two activists through shifting experiences and time periods. Check it out.
In this episodes, Hans, Chris, and I discuss Keith Gessen's A Terrible Country, which is a novel that explores corruption in modern day Russia. Check it out.
In this episode, we discuss a novel that explores Nietzschean philosophy in the context of two Japanese schoolkids who are subjected to ruthless bullying.
In this episode, we discuss the classic novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Turns out, it's kind of problematic.
In this episode, we discuss William Shakespeare's Othello and refer to Paula Marantz Cohen's Of Human Kindness for critical context.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Pola Oloixarac's hilarious Mona, a satire of academia as well as a comment on the spiritual condition of woman.
Note to listeners: I mistakenly refer to Oloixarac as Peruvian in this episode, when she is in fact Argentine.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I trash a terrible book that has few redeeming qualities.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss the classic novel Invisible Man, which examines black identity, the sense of invisibility, and individuality in the fifties in the United States.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss a trilogy of novellas that deals with questions of identity and loss of self.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss Cold Millions, a novel about the Wobblie movement in the early twentieth century in Spokane, Washington.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss the classic of British Literature, Jane Eyre.
Hans, Chris, and I take a look at a strange work of fiction called a "diptych" by it's author. The book is split into two parts that don't have any plot connections, except that maybe they feature the same main character. Instead of plot unity, the book features thematic unity, as well as some very clever and humorous writing.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss a super interesting novel that examines ordinary people's pettiness in the face of suffering.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss Flannery O'Connor's short novel Wiseblood, in which WWII veteran Hazel Motes comes home to preach the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ Without Christ.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss John Steinbeck's East of Eden, a generational novel that uses the Cain and Abel story as an allegory to discuss familial love and duty.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss a strange, puzzling novel called The Golem. It's about a guy who mistakenly puts on another man's hat and then dreams the other man's life. There's also maybe a golem stalking the Jewish ghetto.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss two sci-fi short stories collections, both by Ted Chiang. We touch on a number of topics, including determinism, stories as thought experiments, and the craft of using first-person narration to drive character.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss the quite massive Pynchon novel Against the Day. At times hilarious, at times confusing, this novel is definitely an experience.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss a really fantastic novel about trans experience, Small Beauty. With a very quiet tone, the novel explores the life of Mei, a Chinese-Canadian trans woman, in the aftermath of a family death.
In this interview, Hans and I chat with Adi Callai, author of XDB's newest publication, The Sodomites.
In this episode, Hans and Chris discuss the extremely disturbing first novel of Iain Banks, The Wasp Factory. I listen in the background for a while before chiming in with thoughts that break the whole thing open.
In this episode, Chris and I geek out a little over The Odyssey, a fantastic epic poem from the ancient world. Hans feels lost.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I tackle a classic: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. It's a fantastic novel of ideas that asks questions about moral responsibility and evil.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss the hilarious novel Myra Breckinridge, by Gore Vidal, and its lackluster sequel, Myron.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss John Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost, which gives an account of the apocrypha surrounding the Christian creation story.
In this special episode, Hans, Chris, and I chat with Daryl Farmer on the topic of his short story collection Where We Land, which examines relationships and death in the context of the American West.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss the strange and disturbing 1Q84, a huge novel by renowned magical realist Haruki Murakami.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss The French Lieutenant's Woman, a metafictional novel that explores sexuality and class in Victorian England.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, and Hans shakes my faith in her ability to critique her cultural.
In this special episode, the XDB editorial team discusses an album by the experimental rock band Sun City Girls, called Dante's Disneyland Inferno. Most of the focus is on the lyrics, but some musical analysis is offered as well.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss Camus' most intriguing, but also most baffling, novel, The Fall.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I discuss Ottessa Moshfegh's novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation and David Foster Wallace's short novella The Suffering Channel. Check it out.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss Gilead, the famous epistolary novel by Marilynne Robinson.
In this episode, Hans and Chris interview me on the topic of Xi Draconis Books' most recent publication, my novella Misfit the Wanderer. The novella follows all-around loser Misfit as he tries to escape a city-wide fire.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss The Goldfinch, an intriguing take on the crime novel.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss A Brief History of Seven Killings, a novel by Jamaican author Marlon James. The novel is disturbing, harrowing, and inventive.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss a nonfiction work that explores how Wittgenstein's philosophy of language can be useful for literary critics.
In this episode, Hans and I discuss the quite devilish and engaging Caliban Upon Setebos, a poem that has had personal significance to us for at least a decade.
In this episode, Hans, Chris, and I discuss a raunchy, satirical novel that explores sex, death, and Freud. Enjoy.
In this episode, Chris, Hans, and I explore Fran Ross's devilishly cunning novel Oreo. The novel tells the story of sixteen-year-old youth Christine as she leaves her grandmother, who is black, in search of her father, who is Jewish. With links to the myth of Theseus, the novel explores race and identity.
In this episode, I interview Jennifer Lagier, author of Xi Draconis Books' most recent publication, a poetry collection entitled Trumped Up Election. It humorously describes a nightmare world in which a fat, disgusting billionaire molester runs for the presidency and wins.