[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] "Grifters Gonna Grift" merchandise coming soon! This episode exposes just how useful footnotes can be as we transition from dusk to darkness, with the confidence-men being replaced by the Cosmopolitan. Under Discussion: The WWE, how nothing ever changes, the New Adam, land ownership, stripping people of their "humanity," cognative fallacies, peace pipes, and...

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] Chad and Kaija go it alone this week, talking about some of the more uncomfortable parts of the book to read in 2024, the Goneril story and the "evil touch," how almost every beat in this novel has a counterpart, the wonderful authorial intrusion discussing the "consistency" of characters, and, with glee in their hearts, the Herb-Doctor.  This week's music is "Is...

Hello! I meant to write a proper post welcoming you to the Three Percent substack earlier this week, but have been too anxious and distressed to do it right . . . Still am, if I’m being honest, but we all need a distraction, and talking about books are mine. This Substack will be, for the time being, a duplication of the Three Percent blog, which has been active since 2007, but, honestly, feels like it belongs in 2017. The way in which publications of this sort are shared, read, discovered,...

Not the happiest day in which to record a podcast, but Chad, Brian, and Kaija speak their fears and then dive into Melville's Confidence-Man, talking about grifters, the value of footnotes, and just how modern and amazing Melville's prose is. They guess at who the "confidence man" might be, the burnt over district of western New York, Mormons, and a lot more.  This week's music is "All Bets Are Off" by Japandroids. Next episode will cover Chapters 10-19 of The Confidence-Man. You can find...

After referencing Joytime Killbox on hundreds of TMR episodes, we finally break it down with the author himself! Conversation includes ideas about short stories and how they function, the nature of endings, and how Brian has grown as a writer since this collection first came out, while also examining the intent behind a number of the stories, and how they work.  This week's music is "All My Friends" by Broken Social Scene. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and...

On the first ever one-off episode of the Two Month Review, Chad breaks down Virginie Despentes's Dear D******d for Kaija and Brian, a novel about . . . well, just listen. (It'll be more fun if you don't know what's coming.) This new format really digs into the book in a way that you can't in (to quote Zoé Katana) "lamestream media," and, simply put, rocks.  This week's music is "Cannonball" by Grouplove. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us...

It all gets wrapped up with a "Catastrophe,." "Explanation," an "End," and a "Tailpiece." Chad, Brian, and Kaija discuss global capitalism, the fight for love and the be human, AI, the Bardo, and much more on this final episode of Season 23. Listen to the end for an announcement about changes to the podcast and what to look for going forward! This week's music is "When I Was Dying" by Dan Deacon. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at...

From the Olympics to the most meta moment of the whole of Lanark, this week's podcast has you covered! Brian, Chad, and Kaija banter about divorce, plagiarisms versus influences, and how to read this book as a whole. There are a ton of amazing lines throughout this section of the novel, making this one of the most fun episodes of the season. This week's music is "Entropy" by El Ten Eleven. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and...

The reviews were right: Once you hit page 410, the Unthank sections of Lanark snap into place. Chad, Brian, and Kaija discuss that, capitalism, how terrible advertisements are, jobs, J.D. Vance and his proclivities, politics, unintended consequences, and how Deadpool & Wolverine is the Kamala Harris of film.  This week's music is "Hollywood" by Car Seat Headrest. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content...

If you want to send Chad through the roof, simple crap on his conceptual publishing project five years in the making . . . To that end, everyone reading this should preorder Attila by Javier Serena and Attila by Aliocha Coll and prove our distributor wrong. And then, after you do that, listen to this discussion about art and audience, the frontispiece for Book 4 of Lanark, parallax views expressed in the novel, the pull (or non-pull) of the Unthank sections, and much more.  This week's...

Duncan Thaw feels like he's on the brink in this week's episode which includes conversations about incels, kind fathers, painting and art, perfection and Aliocha Coll, and much more.  This week's music is "Here's Your Future" by The Thermals. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with other rewards, the opportunity to easily communicate with the hosts, etc. And please subcribe and...

Chad and Brian break down the loss of Duncan Thaw's mother, his entrance into art school, his reasons for creating art, religious imagery throughout the book, fathers who are better than Bandit, mispronounciations, the "engine" that drive the two distinct parts of this novel, and much more. This week's music is "It's All Gonna Break" by Broken Social Scene. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone...

Come for the book discussion, stay for Thaw's unproven remedies for asthma! One of the most fun, and conventional, sections of the book so far, Chad, Kaija, and Brian follow Duncan Thaw through his childhood, discussing his reasonable dad, why math sucks, school journals, and a tinge of sinister violence that might presage things to come. This week's music is "Isimo" by Bleachers. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus...

As mentioned from the top, we had severe technical difficulties, so the sound quality on this is janky. (Mostly Chad's voice is quiet, which, for many, is likely to be a relief.) Nevertheless Chad and Kaija power on, talking about "The Institute" as a metaphor, the allusions to Duncan Thaw, dragons, dragon scales as metaphor, the prologue and stories within stories, and then the opening "quest" of "Book One."  This week's music is "Holy Moly" by Young Fathers.  You can find all previous...

Mostly a set-up episode about Alasdair Gray and Lanark, in which Chad, Kaija, and Brian discuss the introduction (weird), the start of the novel (which opens with "Book 3"), the influence of Dante's Divine Comedy and Kafka, and much more. There are some good laughs, a bit of insight into where we are, all building toward next week's episode, which will finish Book Three, cover the Prologue, and start Book One.  This week's music is "Anna" by Will Butler, the video for which features Emma...

Praiseworthy ends with some praise, a bit of exhaustion, questions about satire and the ending, and a dirty phrase Chad can't quit competing. Then there's the TMR Class Draft in which Chad, Kaija, and Brian each selected five previous TMR titles to create imaginary classes: "Dismal Lady Stuff," "Let the Bodies Hit the Floor," and "Laying Brick." Now it's up to you to choose which class "wins." Fill out this survey and we'll analyze the results in June when we return for Season 23, Lanark by...

Like a first time marathon runner, Chad, Brian, and Kaija are losing steam this season, but persist in talking about the book and their mixed feelings. They do learn some things about donkeys and mules though! And they set up next week's game: each co-host will draft five books from the twenty-two seasons of the podcast which would constitute a reading list (and listening list) for a college class. Then, y'all get to vote on which class you'd be most excited to take. Tune in live next...

Little discussion of Priaseworthy in this episode. Instead there's a longer discussion about publishing, art, sales, how do these books get made?, favorite lines, future games, and much more. It's a 20,000 foot view of book culture with an emphasis on success, investment, and more. Enjoy! This week's music is "Pedestrian at Best" from Aussie musical savant Courtney Barnett. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus...

Talk of Australian cartoons—and not just Bluey—morphs into a look at several specific passages in Wright's Praiseworthy, discussion what makes the book "difficult" to read, the style of humor, what pushes us away from the text and then re-grabs out attention, and much more. This week's music is "Frontier Psychiatrist" from The Avalanches. You can find all previous seasons of TMR on our YouTube channel and you can support us at Patreon and get bonus content before anyone else, along with...

Chad and Kaija make up this week's panel as they play the "Slang Game," then discuss the elliptical meta-structure of the book and how this impacts their reading and the book's effectiveness. They also discuss Sam Rutter's New York Times review of the novel, addressing the difficulties of discussing the workings of the text itself given the burden of having to contextualize so much for a foreign audience. This week's music is "Under the Milky Way" from The Church, one of Australia's most...

"Who's Stronger?" is the game of the week in this episode about the Maximum Superhero Cop-God's arrival in Praiseworthy to quell the frantic search for Aboriginal Sovereignty. There are lots of moths, discussion about acknowledging the land which we occupy as a good first step, and more about the difficult reality of life in this part of the country even without government interventions. This week's music is "Punching in a Dream" from the New Zealand band The Naked and Famous. (I thought...

Emmett Stinson (Murnane) joins Chad W. Post and Kaija Straumanis this week to educate us about Australian culture and literature and things we should keep in mind while reading Praiseworthy. He also participates in a round of the world-famous trivia game: "Australian Baseball Player or Indigenous Australian Writer?" There is, of course, Bluey talk and cuck jokes, along with analysis of the end of "The Censer." This week's music is "Pinball Lez," the original intro music to Bluey, by Custard,...

This episode could be titled, "Dead Bodies in Water," as Chad and Brian talk about the unfortunate situation in Rochester and the juxtaposition of Absolute Sovereignity trying to drown himself while his brother, Tommyhawk!, watches, doing nothing to save him. There's also more talk about Bluey, but also the tone of the book, the nature of the life challenges Tommyhawk! and First Nations children face, his perceptions and the influence of media on that, and much more.   This week's music is...

From discussion of Ohio and disturbing news about everyone's favorite Australian export, this episode skirts talking too deeply about Alexis Wright's Praiseworthy  (New Directions, And Other Stories, Giramondo) to discuss challenges of getting into particular books, what the purpose of this podcast is in trying to assist in that and get whatever it is we get out of finishing something we might otherwise give up on. (We're not giving up on this book! Just a meta-commentary.)  Also: The...