Books of Some Substance

In this episode of the Books of Some Substance podcast, Stanford English Professor Roanne Kantor stops by to chat with Nick about Mohammed Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes. While providing a fertile ground to discuss what exactly Global Anglophone literature is, the 2008 novel also packs many a nod to Latin America greats García Márquez and Vargas Llosa and pairs well with that other stellar work about General Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq and 1980s Pakistan, Salman Rushdie's Shame. A Case of Exploding Mangoes is also hilarious, thus asking the question: Is realism or satire the correct way to address topics as unsettling as the violence and oppression of a dictator's regime? Either way, rest assured: The general dies in this one.

If by chance—and what else really controls it all other than chance?—you are into examining the futility of it all, or, of course, the scorn of it all, then the latest B.O.S.S. podcast on László Krasznahorkai's The Last Wolf in which David, Stephanie, and Nick examine the tale of how a washed up German author tells the tale of traveling to the barren plains of Spain to encounter a warden telling a tale of how the area's final wolf perished—yes, perished—all told to the Hungarian barman who doesn't totally mind, even though this Stammgast isn't Hungarian or even a good looking chick, is for you (the podcast episode, that is, but also the book, naturally).

In a captivating discussion, literature professor Summer Star, known for her expertise in Victorian literature, delves into Emily Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights.' They tackle the murky depths of love and revenge, exploring Heathcliff's complex character and his critique of 19th-century class structures. The dialogue reveals Brontë's unconventional narrative style and her enigmatic life, while probing the gothic elements that enhance the story's allure. Themes of faith and immortality in Brontë's poetry also provide a rich backdrop for this haunting literary exploration.

That day they discoursed in a cool and oft solitudinous basement. Eric and Nick and Dean Rader of the University of San Francisco examined Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West and inquired what Cormac McCarthy had in mind. Sulphurous and detached and surgically endeavored as that mind may be. They passed through the beauty and bleakness of the prose and the ruinous afterimage of the bloodstained vacancies of emotions firestoked and withheld. They glanced upon the ragged edges of representations of history and race and staccato swells of animalistic fervor. The judge! His judgeness! Gunpowder manufactured in a swatch of Miltonlike fury. Bloodslaked heart strings pulled by feats of erudition and eloquence. Interpretations laggard and dusty slithered out of flattened enormity. Agecurled pictures of America at its genesis and at its present left naked and creaking to wrench a somnolent populace from dreams into harsh plumes of introspection and reckoning.

A man sits down at a cafe. Pauses. Thinks. Writes a sentence. Pauses. Thinks. Writes another sentence. Pauses. Thinks. Will that next sentence be about solving an age-old puzzle of a pirate's submerged treasure? Or perhaps it will be about cloning Carlos Fuentes? Or maybe it will just be about an attack of giant, shimmering silk worms. Only César Aira knows, but he ain't looking back and neither should you. On this episode of the podcast, join David, Nick, and Frida as they embrace the constant flight forward of Aira's The Literary Conference. If your wholly unique collection of life experiences and consumption of art have led to an overlap of experimental fiction, surrealism, and B-movies, this one's for you.

Is there anything beneath the iceberg of Ernest Hemingway's status than the Hemingway Lifestyle Brand™, with its hyper-masculinity, pared-down prose, and a shirtless, boozy, gun-toting Papa? On this episode of the podcast, join Nick, Eric, and Stephanie as they find the answer to that question by analyzing the second best piece of war-time art after Top Gun: Ernest Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms As always you can find us here: On Instagram & Twitter: @booksosubstance On the ole interwebs: www.booksofsomesubstance.com

You know the feeling. Or, perhaps, the lack thereof. It can happen to even the strongest human, the greatest writer, the toughest leopard capable of climbing the highest heights. But is it stagnation? Boredom? Regret? Or just your average case of gangrene? Only time (or one's continued sense of consciousness before the ultimate blackout) will tell. Bust out your hiking boots and climb to Ngaje Nga, you life-wasting fools! It's the conclusion of Hemingway Short Story Month! Join Nick and Stephanie as they dissect one of Harry Hemingway's most prophetic short stories: "The Snows of Kilimanjaro." BYOB. As always you can find us here: On Instagram & Twitter: @booksosubstance On the ole interwebs: www.booksofsomesubstance.com

On this episode, the third in our Hemingway Short Story Month, David and Nick are joined by Stephanie to discuss the oft-anthologized "Hills Like White Elephants," an anis-soaked, dialogue-heavy, purgatorial little number in which two characters talk around the possibility of an abortion and a doomed relationship. Find the story, and give us a listen. Follows us on Instagram & Twitter: @booksosubstance Check out our homepage: www.booksofsomesubstance.com

Hola Nada! On this episode, our second in the Hemingway Short Story Month, join David and Nick as they discuss the story "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place." Ernest Hemingway was born in nothing in Oak Park, nothing. As a young man he worked as a nothing for The Nothing City Star until nothing, when he volunteered as a nothing on the nothing front. He was severely wounded and decorated for nothing. In nothing, he joined the nothing nothing nothing in nothing. With the encouragement of such fellow nothings as Nothing Nothing, Nothing Nothing, and F. Scott Fitznothing, Hemingway published his first book, Three Nothings and Ten Nothings. With The Nothing Also Rises, published in nothing, Hemingway gave a voice to the "lost nothing" and was immediately recognized as the leading nothing of his nothing.

Howdy bright boys and girls! Roll over in bed, face the wall, and forget the wrong people you double-crossed in Chicago with a new episode of the Books of Some Substance podcast. This month we are reading four of Papa Hemingway's short stories. First up: The Killers, an elevated piece of noir with all the Hemingway trimmings. Follows us on Instagram & Twitter: @booksosubstance Check out our homepage: www.booksofsomesubstance.com