Hello, everyone! Trevor here.
The first iteration of The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast started back in 2012 when my brother, Brian, and I got together every month or so to record an episode about an NYRB Classics book. I loved those conversations with my brother! We did it for a few years before the space between episodes stretched and eventually became indefinite.
It turns out Paul was one of our listeners, and you may have heard him talk about listening to those episodes with a paper and pen, ready to write down the books. I was tickled to have both Paul and my brother in the same conversation!
The Latest: Episode 30: Three Books with Brian Berrett
And so I’m delighted that Paul and Brian get to meet in this episode! Like we did in Episode 7, where Frances Evangelista was our guest, we asked Brian to pick any three favorite books to talk about, and we didn’t give any other criteria.
You may listen to the new episode here!
The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast Summer Book Club
In this episode we also announce which book we’ll be reading for The Mookse and the Gripes Summer Book Club. Thanks to everyone who voted; this one was very close!
Well, close for three of the four contenders, anyway. The Children of Dynmouth, by my beloved William Trevor, was out of the race the entire time. The other three books, though, were each contenders, but sometime early Willa Cather’s A Lost Lady got a few votes’ lead and never gave it up.
We have not announced our reading schedule yet, but we will do so soon. In the meantime, if you’d like to join in, go find a copy! This one is actually free online in various places since A Lost Lady is out of copyright.
Upcoming Schedule
I don’t have any more to announce than in the last newsletter, but in case you’ve forgotten…
Our next episode we will be talking about the great publisher New Directions with Mark Haber. Mark is the operations manager at Brazos Bookstore in Houston, Texas, and the author of Reinhardt’s Garden and Saint Sebastian’s Abyss. He’s also a big fan of New Directions. You can read a great piece he wrote about his love for New Directions—”At New Directions University: Literary and Life Lessons from an Iconic Publisher”—here.
Episode 30 Shownotes
A Month in the Country, by J.L. Carr
It, by Stephen King
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, by Robert C. O’Brien
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, by C.S. Lewis
The Keep, by F. Paul Wilson
The Executioner’s Song, by Norman Mailer
Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle
The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Dragonlance Chronicles, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman
The Dark Elf Trilogy , by R.A. Salvatore
Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville
Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexandre Dumas
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Stoner, by John Williams
Butcher’s Crossing, by John Williams
Augustus, by John Williams
Solve for Happy: Engineer Your Path to Joy, by Mo Gawdat
Leonardo da Vinci, by Walter Isaacson
The Starlight Archive, by Brandon Sanderson
Alcatraz vs. the Evil Librarians, by Brandon Sanderson
About the Podcast
The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every few weeks we are talking 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 (though I’m still trying to figure that out, so be patient if there are some strange uploads and re-uploads).
Many thanks to those who helped make this possible! If you’d like to donate as well, please visit our Patreon page. We have been reworking the Patreon, and I’m excited that I figured out how to get Patreon subscribers early access to our 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. We are also working on bonus episodes for certain tiers, since we really want to show our thanks. Please go check it out!
Three Books With Brian Berrett
I think the autocorrect on my Mac changed The Stormlight Archive to Starlight Archive. Rather than republish, I'll just note that error here, with my apologies for not catching it!