Unburied Books: Recent Episodes
Dylan Cuellar, Kassia Oset
A podcast reading its way through the NYRB Classics, a series that resurrects fiction and nonfiction works worth remembering.
Critic Steven Moore joins us to discuss his two-volume alternative history of the novel. He refutes popular claims that the novel is a European invention and tells us why constant innovation is the form's true tradition.
Hear the full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Link to pre-order The Adventures of Lady Egeria: https://sublunaryeditions.com/products/the-adventures-of-lady-egeria
Writer and Portuguese translator Padma Viswanathan joins us to discuss her translation of São Bernardo by Graciliano Ramos. The book follows the story of Paulo Honório, an enterprising field hand who goes on to own the land where he once toiled. We talk about finding the narrator's voice, the many layers of irony, and Graciliano's political perspective.
Read more about our guest's work here: https://padmaviswanathan.com/
Read one of the author's municipal reports: https://lithub.com/how-to-break-in-to-publishing-if-youre-a-smalltown-brazilian-mayor-in-the-1930s/
And, if you're up to it, peruse our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Chinese translator Canaan Morse returns to explain how Eliot Weinberger's critical (and often cutting) analysis can help us see classical writing in new ways.
Listen to the full episode on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Dylan and Kassia return to discuss Castle Gripsholm written by Kurt Tucholsky and translated from German by Michael Hofmann. The novel tells the story of "the Princess" and her lover on holiday in Sweden. It's a simple summertime fairy tale ... or is it? We talk about metafiction, love and friendship, and the book's sly critique of 1930s Germany.
The Last Sane Woman review: https://therumpus.net/2024/07/16/the-archive-as-potters-field-hannah-regels-the-last-sane-woman/
NYRB Classics film adaptations list: https://letterboxd.com/greenchile42/list/nyrb-classics/
And finally, our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Dylan and Kassia read Strange Pilgrims, a short story collection suggested by a listener.
To hear the full episode, join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Dylan and Kassia discuss Howard Sturgis' 1904 novel Belchamber. It follows the coming of age of Sainty, a not-so-average English boy who prefers needlepoint to riding and Tennyson to girls. We talk about the novel's interweaving of comedy and tragedy, the nature of being a sissy, and, of course, Henry James' famous critiques.
If you want to hear extra episodes, explore our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Screenwriter Howard A. Rodman joins us to discuss Jean-Patrick Manchette's Skeletons in the Closet, translated from French by Alyson Waters. This is a private eye novel set in Paris after the failed revolution of May 68. We talk about Manchette's playfulness with genre, the brutal yet slapstick violence in his books, and his collapse of high-versus-low distinctions.
Check out our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Tolkien enthusiast Alex Cuellar joins us to discuss The Silmarillion. One of us has to test the limits of our edurance for the fantasy genre.
To hear the full episode, sign up to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Leaf by Leaf host Chris Via joins us to discuss John Ehle's 1964 novel The Land Breakers. It is a story of love, sacrifice, and survival in an unspoilt Appalachian landscape. We talk about the book's nuanced character development, the violent birthing pangs of early America, plus the similiarities and differences between Ehle's bear hunt and Melville's whale watch.
Explore our bonus material here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
In this clip, we hear about how McNally Editions editor Lucy Scholes came to rediscover English author Kay Dick and her dystopian novel They.
To listen to the full conversation, check out our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Author Linda Rosenkrantz joins us to discuss her 1968 "reality novel" Talk. In the summer of 65, Rosenkrantz took a tape recorder to the beach and documented her friends' conversations. She later shaped the transcripts from that trip into a sharp, funny, and unusually revealing book. We speak with her about her contrasting experiences with publishing then and now, her artistic inspirations, other tape recording projects, and more.
Explore our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Novelist Amit Chaudhuri joins us for a wide-ranging conversation as his first three books (A Strange and Sublime Address, Afternoon Raag, and Freedom Song) are republished as NYRB Classics. We talk about his uneasy relationship with the realist novel, the literary market's distortions of value, and the role place plays in his creative project.
To hear the full episode, join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
In this brief clip, publisher Kate Macdonald shares the story of writer T. H. White's most beloved dog, Brownie. In the full episode, we talk about Sylvia Townsend Warner's approach to biography, White's Arthurian cycle, and the unglamorous side of being an author.
To listen, join our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
We are joined by author Helen Macdonald to discuss T. H. White's The Goshawk, originally published in 1951. In this conversation, we talk about the devotion required to train a hawk, what one learns during the process, and how White's book haunted our guest.
For more on White's biography, join us on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Writer Patrick Preziosi rejoins the show to talk about an Italian favorite: Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's The Leopard. In this clip, we talk about the Sicilian prince's strange path to publication and how his other short works illuminate this masterpiece. Listen to the full episode to hear our thoughts on Visconti's film adaptation, Lampedusa's prose, and what it's like to read the novel in Sicily.
Subscribe to our Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Writer Bijan Stephen joins us to discuss David R. Bunch's short story collection Moderan. In Moderan, people replace their "soft parts" with metal and devote their lives to making war. We talk about Bunch's satire of the international order, his wildly innovative use of language, and his commitment to depicting a utopian hellscape.
Read Bijan's article on Moderan here: https://dirt.fyi/article/2022/06/the-future-is-moderan
Check out Chris Lee's fantastic travelogue: https://chrisleefrancis.com/books/eastwards-and-far/
And, as always, we would love to have you over on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Poet and writer Alina Stefanescu joins us to discuss her own pantheon of "tortured poets" in the wake of a pop star's adoption of the phrase.
Check out Alina's writing here: https://www.alinastefanescuwriter.com/
To hear the full episode, become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
After mentioning the book in our Mary Olivier episode, writer and librarian Nancy Pearl returns to discuss Ruth Adam's I'm Not Complaining, one of her favorite Virago Modern Classics. In this clip, Nancy talks about the novel's unique angle on the Great Depression.
To hear the complete conversation, become a patron: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Writer and co-host of the Vollmannia podcast Ryan Alexander joins us to discuss Moravagine, first published in 1926. The novel was written by Blaise Cendrars (given name: Frédéric-Louis Sauser)and translated from French by Alan Brown. The plot involves a monstrous criminal who, once released from a mental hospital, goes on a worldwide killing spree before returning to Europe to fight in World War I. We talk about the book's unique representation of violence, its social commentary on misogyny and antisemitism, and the false promises of progress.
Check out Ryan's excellent show here: https://vollmannia.buzzsprout.com/
And, for two more book-related episodes a month, our Patreon is a steal: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Enjoy this clip from our bonus episode covering Celia Dale's sinister novel A Spring of Love with culture critic Andrew Male. The book is being reprinted by Daunt Books in September and is available for pre-order now.
To hear the full conversation, subscribe to our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
In this bonus episode, we speak with writer and editor Anthony Garrett about Atmospheric Quarterly, the new literary magazine he co-founded. Read it here: https://www.atmosphericquarterly.com/
Author Laila Lalami joins us to discuss Tayeb Salih's novel Season of Migration to the North translated from Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies. We talk about the book's postcolonial themes, its treatment of women's roles, and transformation of the Western canon.
Read more about our guest's work here: https://lailalalami.com/
Want to support the show? Explore our Patreon tiers here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Max Lawton joins us to discuss his new translation of Vladimir Sorokin's Blue Lard, a controversial Russian novel originally published in 1999. We talk about where this book fits into Sorokin's varied career, its irreverent treatment of political and literary icons, and the spirit of freedom that permeates every page.
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In this bonus teaser, we discuss a work of experimental poetry chosen by a patron.
Explore the hidden character of the vowels here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Writer and translator Frank Wynne joins us to discuss The Radiance of the King written by Camara Laye and translated from French by James Kirkup. We talk about the book's hilarious absurdity, reversal of Western tropes, and mysterious ending.
Read more about our guest's work here: https://www.terribleman.com/
Interested in extra bookish content? Check out our three Patreon tiers here: https://www.patreon.com/user?u=84429384
This Valentine's Day, we decided to revisit a romantic classic that one of us hates and the other loves. Will the cynic be persuaded to change their heart?
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Chris Clarke joins us to discuss his new translation of Raymond Queneau's The Skin of Dreams. This delightful novel follows the wild imaginings of a daydreamer as he ventures from his dull reality in the outskirts of Paris to the glamorous heart of Hollywood. We talk about the challenge of rendering the original's linguistic playfulness in English and how Queneau's love of cinema helped inspire the book's form.
Designer Katy Homans reveals the secrets behind those iconic NYRB Classics covers, and we find out what color Edwin Frank hates the most.
To hear to the full episode, consider becoming a patron: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
In this episode, Kassia and Dylan discuss the Japanese novel Tun-huang written by Yasushi Inoue and translated by Jean Oda Moy. This work of historical fiction imagines how a trove of early Buddhist sutras came to be hidden in caves along the Silk Road for centuries. We talk about the book’s criticism of education, bureaucracy, and materialism, as well as the significance of freedom, preservation, and translation.
Interested in supporting the show? Check out our Patreon page here: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Chapo Trap House co-host Will Menaker joins us to talk about Moby-Dick by Herman Melville. Recorded amid a marathon reading of Melville's masterwork, we discuss the book's prophetic vision of America and the popular culture that it spawned. Will reads from his favorite section of the novel and gives a pitch for why it should be read today.
To listen to the full episode, head over to our Patreon page and subscribe: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
This episode was recorded before a live audience at the New Bedford Whaling Museum during their annual Moby-Dick Marathon. We spoke with Tim Marr and Wyn Kelley of the Melville Society Cultural Project about Melville: A Novel written by Jean Giono and translated from French by Paul Eprile. Giono's "novel" was originally conceived as a preface to his French translation of Moby-Dick. Our conversation covers Giono's imagined vision of the great American author, the struggle to create art, and the role of an ideal reader.
We have more special Moby-Dick content coming soon on our Patreon! Check out our page here: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Book blogger, podcaster, and Ivy Compton-Burnett admirer Simon Thomas returns to discuss his work with the British Library Women Writers series and his favorite book in it: O, the Brave Music by Dorothy Evelyn Smith. We talk about the ethics of censorship in republishing and what makes this coming-of-age story so strangely uplifting despite its tragic elements. Toward the end, we debrief last summer's NYRB Classics bracket championship.
To listen to the full episode, head over to our Patreon page and subscribe: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Writer and filmmaker Tariq Ali joins us to discuss Muhammad written by Maxime Rodinson and translated from French by Anne Carter. We talk about Rodinson's Marxist perspective, how the biography works as an "antidote" to far-right sentiment, and what it means to read it during a war in Gaza.
Check out our Patreon here: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
In this enlightening conversation, we talk to scholar Dan Sinykin about his book Big Fiction, which details the rise of conglomeration in American publishing and its impact on the kind of fiction that gets written, released, and acclaimed. We were delighted to hear his insights into the founding of the New York Review of Books, Renata Adler and Elizabeth Hardwick's use of autofiction, and the current spate of literature in translation.
To listen to the full episode, head over to our Patreon page and subscribe: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Poet Diane Mehta joins us to discuss Dante's Inferno translated by Ciaran Carson. We talk about our guest's ongoing Dante project, the multiple levels the text works on, and how, in the Florentine's view, the greatest sins stem from a lack of love.
We recently launched a Patreon featuring two exclusive bonus episodes a month! Check out our three patron tiers (Minor Work, Instant Classic, and Magnus Opus) here. And be sure to grab Tiny Extravaganzas (we especially love "Shredder") and read more about our guest's work here.
Returning guest Michael Barron joins us to discuss Roberto Bolaño's "curio" published near the end of his life. We talk about Bolaño's universe, his unromantic youth, and why this is the only book that doesn't embarrass him. To hear the full episode, head over to our Patreon page and subscribe: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
In this taster for the Patreon, Dylan and Kassia compete to draft their four favorite books covered on the show thus far. If you're interested in more lighthearted episodes like this, please consider trying out a subscription here: patreon.com/user?u=84429384
Writer Esther Allen joins us to discuss her translation of Antonio di Benedetto's Zama, an Argentine existential novel originally published 1956. We discuss the intricacies of translation, the author's repudiation of the idea of a historical novel, and Lucrecia Martel's 2017 film adaptation of the story. Listeners unfamiliar with the plot may want to read the book (and watch the movie) before tuning in.
References:
Burton Pike
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil
Jorge Luis Borges
Julio Cortázar
The Silentiary
The Suicides
César Aira
Roberto Bolaño
The Sound of Music
Werner Herzog
Aguirre, the Wrath of God
"Sensini" by Bolaño
Guido Boggiani
Canaan Morse
Peach Blossom Paradise
Waiting for Godot
Samuel Beckett
Daisy Rockwell
Benjamin Kunkel
In a Lonely Place
"Benito Cereno" by Herman Melville
Juan José Saer
Federico Fellini
Roberto Bolaño's Fiction: An Expanding Universe by Chris Andrews
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Writer and editor Michael Barron joins us to share this short story collection from Julio Ramón Ribeyro. We discuss issues of class, the stereotyping of Latin American literature, and what it means to be "speechless." This book is one to be shared. Pass it on.
Read more about our guest's work here.
References:
Alejandro Zambra
Gabriel García Márquez
Jorge Luis Borges
Franz Kafka
Julio Cortázar
Mario Vargas Llosa
The Leopard by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
Katherine Silver
Calvin and Hobbes
Tár
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Author James Kelman joins us to discuss James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, originally published in 1824. It tells the story of a staunch Calvininst who is lured into a killing spree by a mysterious, shapeshifting being. We discuss the novel's unusual structure, moral ambiguity, and mixture of genres. Kelman offers historical insight into the book's philospophy and places the work in a modern, international context.
References:
Andre Gide
Franz Kafka
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides by James Boswell and Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland by Samuel Johnson
The Collected Letters of James Hogg
The Brownie of Bodsbeck
John Brown
William Blake
Edgar Allan Poe
Robert Louis Stevenson
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Samuel Beckett
The Castle
The Trial
Peggotty in David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Immanuel Kant
David Hume
Adam Smith
Francis Hutchinson
James Clerk Maxwell
Hegel
Karl Marx
Soren Kierkegaard
Rene Decartes
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Blackwood's Magazine
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Francisco Goya
William Wordsworth
Strange Case of Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde
How Late It Was, How Late
Robert the Bruce
Goethe
Albert Camus
Fyodor Dostoevsky
Jack Kerouac
Knut Hamsun
Lucinda Williams
Tom Leonard
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Writer and scholar Sheridan Hay joins us to discuss The Other House by Henry James. An unusual work for the author in that it contains his only murder, we analyze the novel's theatrical inspiration, bizarre tone, and gruesome climax. Please be wary as we wound up spoiling this one earlier than we normally do.
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Writer and critic Patrick Preziosi joins us to discuss Cesare Pavese's The Moon and the Bonfires, translated from Italian by R. W. Flint. The story features a nameless narrator who returns to his native Italy from America in the wake of World War II. We talk about the ghosts of the past, the cyclical nature of violence, and the innate desire to find one's home.
Be sure to follow Patrick on Twitter here.
References:
Jean-Marie Straub and Daniele Huillet
Natalia Ginzburg
Family Lexicon
A Private Affair by Beppe Fenoglio
The Little Virtues
Jacques Tourneur
The Business of Living or The Burning Brand
The Selected Works of Cesare Pavese
The House on the Hill
Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett
Michaelangelo Antonioni
Jean-Patrick Manchette
Muriel Spark
Conversations in Siciliy by Elio Vittorini
Alina Stefanescu
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Musician and author John Darnielle joins us to discuss A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett, a wickedly funny novel first published in 1935. We talk about how Compton-Burnett's family background did or did not shape her style, explore the influence of Greek drama on her approach to narrative, and try to understand why we find her characters' conversations about horrific acts so hilarious.
Pre-order the new Mountain Goats album and check our their tour dates here.
References:
The Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett by Hilary Spurling
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Mikhail Bulgakov
Jack Kerouac
Francine Prose
Devil House
Immanuel Kant
Jacques Derrida
Joan Didion
Propagandhi
Robert E. Howard
Wolf in White Van
Universal Harvester
Minotaur by Benjamin Tammuz
Europa Editions
Robert Liddell
Elizabeth Taylor
Jane Austen
Charlotte Brontë
J. D. Salinger
Charles Dickens
Yasujiro Ozu
Seinfeld
Michael Fengler and Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Why Does Herr R. Run Amok?
On the Origin of the Species by Charles Darwin
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles
Medea by Euripides
Oedipus Rex by Sophocles
Seven Against Thebes by Aeschylus
Geoffrey Chaucer
A Compton-Burnett Compendium by Violet Powell
Anthony Powell
Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair
Thomas Hardy
"Notes on Camp" by Susan Sontag
John Waters' Polyester
Edward Albee
J. M. Synge
Mother and Son
Virago Modern Classics
More Women Than Men
Oscar Wilde
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Washington Post books editor John Williams joins us to discuss... John Williams' Butcher's Crossing, orginally published in 1960. The story, set in the 1870s, follows a Harvard dropout as he attempts to find a truer version of himself in the West. We talk about the book's challenge to Emersonian transcendentalism, American rapaciousness, and Western archetypes. (And worry not, we don't play the theme to Star Wars.)
References:
Stoner
William Maxwell
Henry James
Jean-Patrick Manchette
Eve Babitz
Barbara Comyns
Tove Jansson
Natalia Ginzburg
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Albert Bierstadt
Anthony Mann
Budd Boetticher
The Coen brothers
Clint Eastwood
"Nature" by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fred Schneider
The Confidence-Man by Herman Melville
Kurtz from Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
John Ford's The Searchers
John Wayne
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
"Rip Van Winkle" by Washington Irving
Edward Abbey
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Writer and poet Vivek Narayanan joins us to discuss L. P. Hartley's The Go-Between. We talk about how Hartley, in this novel about a schoolboy's loss of innocence at the turn of the 20th century, explores childhood guilt and dramatizes the act of memory.
Follow Vivek on Twitter, and find out more about his work here.
References:
Ali Smith
Valmiki
Virginia Woolf
The Boat
Eustace and Hilda
Speak, Memory by Vladimir Nabokov
Fredoon Kabraji
Lagaan
The Ashes
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Kim McNeill joins us to dicuss Thus Were Their Faces, a collection of short stories written by Silvina Ocampo and translated from Spanish by Daniel Balderston. We explore Ocampo's various renditions of cruelty, trace themes and motifs across her career, and use the F-word (feminism).
Follow along with Kim's splendid #NYRBWomen23 project here.
References:
The Levant Trilogy by Olivia Manning
The Tale of Genji
Pilgrimage by Dorothy Richardson
A Chill in the Air by Iris Origo
More Was Lost by Eleanor Perenyi
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Robert Walser
The Corner That Held Them
Sur
Victoria Ocampo
Jorge Luis Borges
Adolfo Bioy Casares
City Lights Books
Forgotten Journey
The Promise
Norah Lange
Mariana Enriquez
Remedios Varo
Helen Oyeyemi
Virginia Woolf
"Borges and I"
The Invention of Morel
Lucrecia Martel
Read Cynthia Duncan's article here
Ezekiel
Mary Olivier: A Life by May Sinclair
James Joyce
Find us on Twitter or Instagram, and click here to view our most up-to-date episode schedule.
Writer Valerie Stivers joins us to discuss Elizabeth David's Summer Cooking. Originally published in 1955, this cookbook celebrates the fleeting freshness and enduring joy of the summer season. We seek the origins of David's refreshing approach to cooking, ponder the uses of food photography, and learn how Valerie's David-inspired menu came together.
Find all of our guest's Paris Review columns here, and read her reviews for Compact Magazine here.
References:
Nikolai Gogol
Richard Brautigan
Writing at the Kitchen Table by Artemis Cooper
Norman Douglas
Antony Beevor
Giovanna Garzoni
Victoria Granof
Rachel Roddy
Erica MacLean
Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking by Marcella Hazan
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child
Find us on Twitter or Instagram to join in on our #SummerofDavid. Here is our most updated episode schedule. To purchase books we've covered, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the show.
NYRB publicist Nick During joins us to discuss Akenfield: Portrait of an English Village by Ronald Blythe, who passed away earlier this year at the age of 100. We talk about the tricky business of categorization, the tension between work and vocation, and the nature of agricultural society.
Massive thank you to John Hoekstra, who composed our theme music.
References:
BookCourt
Edwin Frank
Word from Wormingford
The View in Winter
John Piper
Shell Guides
John Nash
Cedric Morris
Charfield
Studs Terkel
Matt Weiland
Antony Beevor
Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman
The Red Thread: Twenty Years of NYRB Classics
The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Fenwomen: A Portrait of Women in an English Village by Mary Chamberlain
Iris Murdoch
Writer Chris Lee joins us to discuss An African in Greenland written by Tété-Michel Kpomassie and translated from French by James Kirkup. The book follows a young man's dream to reach the Arctic. We investigate some tropes of travel literature, find surprising links between Togolese and Greenlandic culture, and thirst for some reindeer coffee.
References:
"A Year of Reading the World" by Ann Morgan
Lynn Davis
Tennessee Williams
BBC Interview
Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon
The NYRB Classics Book Club
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Guston in Time by Ross Feld
Conversations with Beethoven by Sanford Friedman
The Open Road by Jean Giono
A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson
To purchase books we've covered, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Librarian, author, and critic Nancy Pearl joins us to discuss May Sinclair's Mary Olivier: A Life, originally published in 1919. We talk controlling mothers, Victorian roles, and the mysterious passage of time. Listeners unfamiliar with the plot may want to read the book before tuning in.
References:
Virago Modern Classics
The Little Review
Ulysses by James Joyce
Told by an Idiot by Rose Macaulay
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Villette
The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer
I'm Not Complaining by Ruth Adams
Excellent Women by Barbara Pym
Mary Oliver
Up the Down Staircase by Bel Kaufman
Dolores by Ivy Compton-Burnett
A House and Its Head
Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner
A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov
Elizabeth Taylor
To purchase books we've covered, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Edwin Frank, editorial director of the NYRB Classics, joins us to discuss the evolution of the series. We learn how the books are selected, how the project has grown, and whether or not there was a secret plan all along.
Endless thanks to John Hoekstra, who composed our theme music.
References:
The Iliad and the Odyssey adapted by Jane Werner Watson and illustrated by Alice & Martin Provensen
The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
The Hobbit
The Reader's Catalog
J. R. Ackerley
Alberto Moravia
The Woman of Rome
The Winners by Julio Cortázar
The Blind Owl by Sadegh Hedayat
Nicolas Poussin
The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo
Ezra Pound
Anchor Books
Peasants and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov
Edmund Wilson
Eileen Chang
Vasily Grossman
The Oxford Guide to Literature in English Translation
A High Wind in Jamaica by Richard Hughes
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Andrey Platonov
Victor Serge
Tove Jansson
My Dog Tulip
The Stones of Venice by John Ruskin
His Only Son by Leopoldo Alas
Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós
The World of Odysseus by M. I. Finley
Mary Beard
Haute vulgarisation
Heaven's Breath: A Natural History of the Wind by Lyall Watson
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
"The Task of the Translator" by Walter Benjamin
The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu
Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
American University in Cairo Press
Sharjah International Book Fair
Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham
Doctor Faustus by Thomas Mann
Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Red Thread
The Hall of Uselessness by Simon Leys
Travels in China by Roland Barthes
The Peach Blossom Fan by Kong Shangren
Irretrievable by Theodor Fontane
Rider on a White Horse by Theodor Storm
Signet Classics
James Wright
Sunflower by Gyula Krúdy
The Adventures of Sindbad
Malina by Ingeborg Bachmann
To purchase books we've covered, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Historian Antony Beevor joins us to discuss Stalingrad written by Vasily Grossman and translated from Russian by Robert and Elizabeth Chandler. We talk about Grossman's observational powers, the boundaries between history and literature, and the context surrounding the book's narrative. Listeners unfamiliar with the plot may want to wait until they've read the book to tune in.
Read more about our guest's work here.
References:
A Writer at War
Luba Vinogradova
Christopher MacLehose
Andrew Nurnberg
Arthur Grimm
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Life and Fate
The great man theory
Guernica by Pablo Picasso
Michael Howard
Margaret MacMillan
Catherine Merridale
Operation Foxley
John Erickson
Operation Uranus
Konstantin Simonov
Ilya Ehrenburg
Vasily Zaitsev
Anatoly Chekhov
Enemy at the Gates
Treblinka
Pablo Neruda
Stefan Zweig
Chess Story
Gulag: A History by Anne Applebaum
To purchase books we've covered, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Film critic Farran Smith Nehme joins us to discuss In a Lonely Place written by Dorothy B. Hughes and adapted into a movie by Nicholas Ray. We talk about the book's unique approach to suspense, the film's relocation of the characters from the margins of Hollywood to the center, and some of our guest's favorite noirs. Listeners unfamiliar with the plot may want to wait until they've read the book (and watched the movie) to tune in.
Check out Farran's Sight and Sound list here. As promised, you can view Dylan's Ray ranking here and Kassia's top 100 here.
References:
The Lady Vanishes
Nicholas Ray
Ride the Pink Horse
Robert Montgomery
Sarah Weinman
Women Crime Writers: Four Suspense Novels of the 1940s
Gone Girl
Mary Higgins Clark
Ryan Murphy
Burnett Guffey
Humphrey Bogart
Louise Brooks
Lauren Bacall
Gloria Grahame
Noir Alley
Noir City Film Festival
The Maltese Falcon
Out of the Past
Laura
Otto Preminger
He Walked By Night
Lawrence Tierney
Imogen Smith
Detour
Decoy
The Missing Juror
Cure
Decision to Leave
To purchase books we've covered, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Scholar José Vergara joins the show to talk about A School for Fools written by Sasha Sokolov and translated from Russian by Alexander Boguslawski. Enroll in a fabulous world where the dead are alive, language changes forms, minds split, and love flowers.
Read our guest's article on A School for Fools here and more about his work here.
References:
All Future Plunges to the Past
James Joyce
J. D. Salinger
Between Dog and Wolf
Astrophobia
Martina Napolitano
Stalingrad by Vasily Grossman
Vasily Aksyonov
Andrei Bitov
Nikolai Gogol
Alexander Pushkin
Mikhail Shishkin
Raul Ruiz
Sergei Rachmaninoff
Edgar Allan Poe
Ulysses
The Twilight Zone
Chuck-will's-widow
Ivan the fool
To purchase books covered on the show, please visit our digital bookshop. Buying them here helps to support the podcast.
Writer Ana Gavrilovska joins us to talk about Turtle Diary written by Russell Hoban. We discuss middle age, loneliness, romance, Godlessness, and, of course, the symbolic resonance of turtles.
References:
Ninotchka
Pagliacci
Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
I Heart Huckabees
The Swimmer
King Kong
To purchase books covered on the show, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the podcast.
Critic and journalist Adam Morgan joins us to talk about In the Cafe of Lost Youth written by Patrick Modiano and translated by Chris Clarke. We discuss the title's double meaning, recall the joys and sorrows of our own nocturnal wanderings, and nominate this book for sexiest NYRB Classic of all time. Also, we owe a massive thank you to John Hoekstra for composing our new theme music.
Read more about Adam Morgan's work here: https://adam-stephen-morgan.com/
References:
When Harry Met Sally
Julie and Julia
The Beginning of Spring by Penelope Fitzgerald
Balcony in the Forest by Julien Gracq
Wong Kar-wai
Lacombe, Lucien directed by Louis Malle
Breathless
Love on the Left Bank by Ed Van Der Elsken
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
Non-Places: An Introduction to Supermodernity by Marc Auge
Lost Horizon by James Hilton
Jesse Ball
Pedigree: A Memoir
To purchase books covered on the show, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the podcast.
Dylan and Kassia unpack Stefan Zweig's Chess Story translated from German by Joel Rotenberg. They toy with some chess pieces, discuss the psychological effects of fascism, and heap praise on this thrilling novella.
References:
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
Milgram experiment
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything in It by Arthur Herman
Marquis de Wavrin
One Way Passage
History Is Made at Night
Let Them All Talk
Grand Hotel Abyss: The Lives of the Frankfurt School by Stuart Jeffries
The Stars Down to Earth by Theodor Adorno
To purchase books we've covered and browse some of Dylan & Kassia's favorites, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the show.
In this bonus episode, we explain how the podcast got started, detail our plan to tackle the collection, and describe our personal taste in books. Once Kassia started listing her favorite NYRB books it was impossible to get her to stop. Hopefully the run of this podcast will be equally protracted.
References:
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
Villette by Charlotte Bronte
The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
Dante
Homer
The Silmarillion by J. R. R. Tolkien
Ivy Compton-Burnett: A Memoir by Cicely Greig
A House and Its Head by Ivy Compton-Burnett
Manservant and Maidservant
On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
Anita Brookner
Elizabeth Taylor
Sylvia Townsend Warner
The Dream of the Red Chamber, or The Story of the Stone by Cao Xueqin
The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton
The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948-2013
Geek Love by Katherine Dunn
2666 by Roberto Bolano
Conversations with Beethoven by Sanford Friedman
The Tenants of Moonbloom by Edward Lewis Wallant
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa-Al-Aswany
A Month in the Country by J. L. Carr
Family Lexicon by Natalia Ginzburg
Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg
Eileen Chang
Henry Green
Olivia Manning
Leonora Carrington
Journey by Moonlight by Antal Szerb
Dorothy Baker
Jessica Mitford
Nancy Mitford
Barbara Comyns
Muhammad by Maxime Rodinson
Speedboat by Renata Adler
The Enchanted April by Elizabeth von Armin
Eve Babitz
The Fountain Overflows by Rebecca West
Reds
Thomas Browne
Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist by Alexander Berkman
The Life of Henry Brulard by Stendhal
Short Letter, Long Farewell by Peter Handke
To purchase books we've covered and browse some of Dylan & Kassia's favorites, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Writer and artist Joshua Jones joins us to discuss Peter Handke's Short Letter, Long Farewell. We disassemble the machinery of American mythmaking, drift through the empty avenues of modern alienation, and wonder why Europeans are so weird about the Land of the Free. If you're anti-spoiler, we recommend saving this episode until you've had a chance to read the book.
More about our guest:
Joshua Jones is a queer, autistic writer and artist from South Wales, now residing in Cardiff. He is the Director of Dyddiau Du, a DIY community library and art/literature space in Cardiff. He released a collaborative pamphlet of cut-up poetry and art with Caitlin Flood-Molyneux in 2022, and his debut short story collection, Local Fires, will be published by Parthian Books, September 2023.
References:
Dubliners by James Joyce
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas
The Last Days of Roger Federer by Geoff Dyer
Wim Wenders
Wings of Desire
The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Edward Hopper
Crash by J. G. Ballard
Alice in the Cities
John Ford
America and Simulacra and Simulation by Jean Baudrillard
Don DeLillo
Apocalypse Now
The Fundamentals of Caring
Paris, Texas
Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore
Fyodor Dostoevsky
A Dream Play by August Strindberg
Henrik Ibsen
Ingmar Bergman
Green Henry by Gottfried Keller
Mark Fisher
Young Mr. Lincoln
How Green Was My Valley
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Ulysses
The Odyssey by Homer
Anton Chekhov
The Wizard of Oz
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
Persuasion by Jane Austen
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Iron Horse
To purchase books we've covered and browse some of Dylan & Kassia's favorites, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Translator and poet Canaan Morse joins us to discuss his translation of Peach Blossom Paradise, a Chinese historical novel written by Ge Fei. In this conversation, we unpack the book's relationship to utopia, revolution, and Communist history. We also learn more about Canaan's background and the publication process at NYRB Classics. Listeners unfamiliar with the plot may want to wait until they've read the book to tune in.
Books and authors (and songs!) mentioned:
The Invisibility Cloak
Mo Yan
Kang Youwei
White Deer Plain by Chen Zhongshi
Water Margin by Shi Nai'an
To Live by Yu Hua
Li Shangyin
Matteo Ricci
Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin
Ulysses by James Joyce
Diary of a Madman by Lu Xun
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
"Stench" by Cao Kou (read Canaan's translation here: https://www.thewhitereview.org/fiction/stench/)
"Chang Hui Jia Kan Kan"
Yang Xiaobin
Seamus Heaney
Wang Wei
Hanshan
19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei by Eliot Weinberger
Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong
To purchase books we've covered and browse some of Dylan & Kassia's favorites, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Writer and translator Alina Stefanescu joins us to discuss An Ermine in Czernopol, a humorous and deadly serious novel written by Gregor von Rezzori and translated by Philip Boehm. In this multilayered discussion, we seek the ghosts of Chernivtsi, a city in present-day Ukraine, and probe the meaning of honor and belonging in light of creeping fascism and anti-Semitism. Listeners unfamiliar with the plot may want to wait until they've read the book to tune in.
Learn more about Alina's work at https://www.alinastefanescuwriter.com.
To purchase books we've covered and browse some of Dylan & Kassia's favorites, please visit our digital bookshop at https://bookshop.org/shop/unburiedbooks. Buying them here helps to support the show.
Writer and critic Vivian Gornick joins us to discuss My Father and Myself, a memoir written by J. R. Ackerley. We explore the mysteries of family life, the search for "the Ideal Friend" and the ethics of writing about relatives.
This week we discuss Sylvia Townsend Warner's Lolly Willowes. The illustrious Simon Thomas, our first-ever guest, helps us understand how the 1920s trend for the fantastic helped produce this weird, wonderful book about a spinster aunt who sells her soul to Satan. But is it satire? And is it really a feminist manifesto? We tackle these and other pertinent questions while having a laugh along the way. Butter your villager-shaped scones, sit back and enjoy the broomstick ride.
Attention, students! Today's lesson will cover Jakob von Gunten, a book that purports to be the diary of a pupil at a mysterious school for servants. It was written by Swiss flaneur Robert Walser, a man with an episodic life if there ever was one. Don your wool coat and prepare to discuss Nietszche! But whatever you do, don't mention Kafka.
Dylan and Kassia's 'innocent voyage' begins! We discuss our first of many NYRB Classics: Richard Hughes' A High Wind in Jamaica, a book about a group of children taken aboard a pirate ship.