Podcast Episodes

Station Eleven: Chapters 6-9 (to the end)

Welcome to the conclusion of our conversation of Emily St. John Mandel’s award-winning novel (other than the Q&A episode, which will drop next week). Topics of conversation in this one include:

* The …

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

Station Eleven: Parts 5-6

Welcome back to our discussion of Emily St. John Mandel’s award-winning, best-selling contemporary novel, Station Eleven. In this episode we discuss the characters’ longing for connection—both to the…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

Station Eleven: Parts 3-4

Welcome back to our discussion of Emily St. John Mandel’s award-winning, best-selling contemporary novel, Station Eleven.

Topics of conversation on this first episode include:

* the winding way in whi…

Published on 1 year, 1 month ago

Station Eleven: Parts 1 & 2

Welcome to a new series here on Close Reads, in which we’re digging into Emily St. John Mandel’s award-winning, best-selling contemporary novel, Station Eleven, a book which became eerily prescient d…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Vipers' Tangle: Q&A Episode

As is our custom here on Close Reads, we’re concluding this series on Francois Mauriac’s Vipers’ Tangle by answering some of your questions. We talk about Mauriac’s bibliography and biography, conver…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Vipers' Tangle: To the End

Now that we’ve read all of Mauriac’s Vipers’ Tangle, we can discuss the details. So in this episode, we dig into the degree to which we can trust the narrator as the novel goes on, the degree to whic…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Live Episode: Is Flannery O'Connor Funny?

Flannery O’Connor’s fiction has been described as “gothic,” “violent,” “unsentimental,” even “grotesque.” Yet it is also often described as funny. How can both be true? Well in this episode the whole…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Vipers' Tangle: Chapters 11-15

Welcome back to Close Reads. This week we’re discussing the way Vipers’ Tangle shift gears in this section and what it means for our understanding of the characters, the goals of the book, and our in…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Vipers' Tangle: Chapters 6-10

Welcome back to Close Reads! This week we discuss why Vipers’ Tangle isn’t better known, the degree to which the book wants to be sympathetic with the narrator, where we’re supposed to trust his perc…

Published on 1 year, 2 months ago

Viper's Tangle: Chapters 1-5

This week we kick off a new book with some conversation about Sean’s obsession with Graham Greene, why books about spiritual struggle are so compelling, whether this book has an unreliable narrator, …

Published on 1 year, 3 months ago