71 episodes

That Book is about those books you've always heard of but have no idea what their deal is. Hosted by Hannah Weaver and Michael Goldsmith, readers with high expectations and low standards.

That Book Hannah Weaver and Michael Goldsmith

    • Arts
    • 4.9 • 72 Ratings

That Book is about those books you've always heard of but have no idea what their deal is. Hosted by Hannah Weaver and Michael Goldsmith, readers with high expectations and low standards.

    TBC: What We Actually Read, 2021!

    TBC: What We Actually Read, 2021!

    Our year-end survey. What the hell did we read in 2021??? 
    Books mentioned: 
    Run, Don’t Walk: The Listening House, Mabel Seeley; Hidden Valley Road, Robert Kolker; Piranesi, Susanna Clarke; Intimacies, Katie Kitamura; Visitation, Jenny Erpenbeck; Native Speaker, Chang-rae Lee; 
    Thumbs Up: The Plot, Jean Hanff Korelitz; The Copenhagen Trilogy, Tove Ditlevsen; To Sleep in a Sea of Stars, Christopher Paolini; The Stepford Wives, Ira Levin; Secondhand Time, Svetlana Alexievich; Clockwork Boys, The Wonder Engine, A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking, T. Kingfisher; My Year Abroad, Chang-rae Lee; No One is Talking About This, Patricia Lockwood; Matrix, Lauren Groff;  Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Grann; Under the Whispering Door, The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune; A Separation, Katie Kitamura; The 10,000 Doors of January, Alix E. Harrow; Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind; Crossroads, Jonathan Franzen; Billion Dollar Loser, Reeves Wiedeman.
    Thumbs Down: A Man of Parts, David Lodge; The Midnight Library, Matt Haig; The Decagon House Murders, Yukito Ayatsuji; Little, Big, John Crowley;
    Pumped to Read: Klara and The Sun, Kazuo Ishiguro; To Paradise, Hanya Yanagihara; Leviathan Falls, James S.A. Corey; The Enchanted April, Elizabeth von Arnim; The Hare, Melanie Finn; Small Pleasures, Clare Chambers; Maggie Hope Series, Susan Elia MacNeal.
    Articles and Links:
    Tweet Thread on Anne Rice Jenny Erpenbeck Profile (New Yorker) (Sigh) Bad Art Friend (NYT Magazine) Jeremy Strong Profile (New Yorker) Review of Yanigihara's To Paradise (Harpers) 100 Notable Books of 2021 (NYT) Joan Didion Archive at the New York Review of Books Sign up for Molly Young’s books newsletter here (NYT)

    • 52 min
    RIP Eve Babitz (Rebroadcast: Bicoastal Season, Episode 3)

    RIP Eve Babitz (Rebroadcast: Bicoastal Season, Episode 3)

    RIP Eve Babitz. Here's our episode on her from September 2020. 
    Books mentioned: Eve’s Hollywood, Slow Days Fast Company, Sex & Rage, L.A. Woman, I Used to Be Charming, Eve Babitz; Hollywood's Eve: Eve Babitz and the Secret History of L.A, Lili Anolik; Catch-22, Joseph Heller; The Day of the Locust, Nathanael West; Play It as It Lays, Joan Didion; Essays, Michel de Montaigne; Paradise Lost, John Milton;Priestdaddy, Patricia Lockwood; Conversations With Friends, Sally Rooney; How Should a Person Be?, Sheila Heti; Trick Mirror, Jia Tolentino.
    Resources: 
    All About Eve--And Then Some (Lili Anolik, Vanity Fair) Eve Babitz is Better Than Ever (OLIVIA AYLMER, Vanity Fair) Jia Tolentino on Eve (New Yorker) The Eve Babtiz Revival (Penelope Green, NYT) My Favorite Year: In Los Angeles with Eve Babitz in 1971 (Dan Wakefield, LA Review of Books) Eve Babitz’s Vision of Total Freedom (Marie Solis, The Nation) L.A. Confidential (Holly Brubach, NYT Style Magazine) Germans in L.A. (Alex Ross, New Yorker)

    • 52 min
    RIP Anne Rice (Rebroadcast: Season 2, Episode 1)

    RIP Anne Rice (Rebroadcast: Season 2, Episode 1)

    Re-releasing this episode in tribute to our vampire queen! RIP, Anne.
    Books mentioned: The Witching Hour and Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice; Dracula by Bram Stoker.
    Of interest: Amazon reviews, Guardian Q & A, Anne’s Youtube Channel, Anne’s opinion on editors.
    Email us at thatbookpod@gmail.com. Don’t forget to friend us on Goodreads and follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.

    • 50 min
    Ayn Rand Pt. 2 (Pseudonym Season, Episode 6)

    Ayn Rand Pt. 2 (Pseudonym Season, Episode 6)

    In Part 2 of our Rand investigation (our season finale!), we visit Galt’s Gulch and figure out what the deal is with Rand’s magnum opus, Atlas Shrugged. What's Ayn Rand’s favorite color??? Go on, guess.
    Resources:
    Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009)  Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009) The Whitaker Chambers on Atlas Shrugged in the National Review

    • 55 min
    Ayn Rand Pt. 1 (Pseudonym Season, Episode 5)

    Ayn Rand Pt. 1 (Pseudonym Season, Episode 5)

    In part one of our (first ever!) two-episode investigation, we tackle the surprisingly irrational life of Ayn Rand, the polarizing capitalist whose legal name was Alice O’Connor, and who was born Alissa Zionvievna Rosenbaum in Saint Petersburg, Russia.
    What. A. Ride.
    Resources:
    Anne C. Heller, Ayn Rand and the World She Made (2009)  Jennifer Burns, Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right (2009) Thomas Mallon, “Possessed,” New Yorker

    • 1 hr 9 min
    Stephen King/Richard Bachman (Pseudonym Season, Episode 4)

    Stephen King/Richard Bachman (Pseudonym Season, Episode 4)

    The man who launched a thousand screams and his alter-ego who launched a thousand "wait, who?"s. It’s Stephen King/Richard Bachman day! Happy scary season, everyone!
    King books mentioned: On Writing, The Shining, Carrie, Needful Things, Salem’s Lot, Misery.
    Bachman books mentioned: The Long Walk, The Regulators.

    • 53 min

Customer Reviews

4.9 out of 5
72 Ratings

72 Ratings

Yogamama1120 ,

Love it!

This podcast is so fun and enjoyable. I started with the Meryl Streep episodes and am completely hooked. The two hosts have such a fun banter. It feels getting together with old friends.

foxgyrl ,

Just Books Please

Your insight and enthusiasm are both wonderful! I happened upon this searching Eve Babitz after reading an article in September, 2022 Vanity Fair. You lost me with your obvious distaste if not complete aversion to Babitz’s support of The Donald. Can’t stand him nor the mention of him. Babitz ship quit sailing many years ago. You wasted precious minutes on this late in life, pretty inconsequential to her body of work and fame sharing your distaste of her support of Trump.

lizziejay02 ,

Gift every Tuesday

I love this podcast and look forward to it every week! I laugh out loud listening to Michael and Hannah, but they aren’t just funny, they are smart, too! As a book lover, I appreciate their takes on what they read.

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