Honestly? I was sucked in by the covers of these slim volumes. When I saw we were about to get very groundhog-day, I wasn't so sure. After taking a close look at the title, the opening, the microcosm of marriage, the incredible figurative language and the novella's FAITH IN THE POWER OF WRITING, I'm feeling ready to dive into book two!

This novella--an excerpt of THE PALE KING--was a revelation. Just as its publisher Sarah McNally says in the preface, Wallace's cult-status fame as a challenging writer can be daunting, and his oeuvre is so large, it's hard to know where to begin. This is where to begin! The lecture is probably best heard if you've read The Pale King (and/or this amazing section itself) but I like to think lovers of DFW will get lots out of this even if you haven't read him in years. It was SO GOOD to return to this work: his later, more grounded, warmer, incredibly moving work. In this case, about tax law and radical tedium. Doesn't get better than that.

I loved The Perfect Couple. I even loved the UNperfect parts. Part of the reason there's a second tv series is because Hilderbrand is so good at what she does. Listen in to fully appreciate this juicy, splashy series! (And if you're someone who turns up her nose at Hilderbrand, but you want a frothy beach read, listen in to hear why her work is much better than you think!)

When I came across a new short story by Ben Lerner, an audio version of the story read by Lerner, an interview with Lerner about the short story AND a nonfiction piece by Lerner related to the story, I felt like I'd entered a very Lernerian world. Tune in for a quick ten minutes that will convince you to hunt down out "The Readers." Not only is this the very best prose, but the pieces also combine to provide a fat PRIZE at the end of that hunt. NO READING NECESSARY!

It might not be the flashiest part of Strangers, but it's worth taking a quick look at why Burden's prose functions so well. Also! My sense of specific thing that makes this far more than a cautionary tale about women and personal finances. AND! My own personal crusade about how we should describe this woman while recommending this book to everyone we know.

Andrew Sean Greer is one of those writers who wrote a book that is so uncommonly GOOD that everything after it pales in comparison. Less--with its propulsive plot, its sneaky narrator and its incredible twist--continues to be an enormous favorite of mine. VILLA COCO might stand in the shadow of that earlier work, but so much is working well here. Especially if you're someone who starts it and feels it lag, this lecture is for you. It picks up! And if you have the real strangths of the novel in mind, it'll be all the more CHARMING. NO SPOILERS! A GOOD PRE-READING lecture!

Moore is SO GOOD that the last half of the lecture is just me doing my favorite party trick! I think of two numbers, then go to the first number's corresponding page and the second number's line. Then I sit back and just revel (explaining all the while) in the author's sheer genius. Truly, every single line in this slim cult classic could inspire its own lecture. Listen in now to how Moore pulls off this hilarious, inventive, dark and ultra-intelligent first novel.

Famously, the enduring appeal of 84, Charing Cross Road rests on its correspondence between an American TV-writing woman and a British bookseller. But what if the slim volume's real power comes mostly just from the independent, iconoclastic, sassy and powerful Helene? Or from Helene and all the other female voices in this delightful favorite? Treat yourself today! (If you haven't read it, you might take the hour to do so before listening. No spoilers, really, but we get pretty in depth.)

Much has been made of Nelio Biedermann's wunderkind status. And there are plenty of reasons people are calling his debut novel "virtuousic" and "astonishing." It was SO fun to look at why much of this novel really worked, and why much of it . . . didn't.

Famously, the 240 "propositions" BLUETS produce a genre-bending, poetic, heady, broody, completely INGENIOUS work. Whether you've read it a dozen times or picked it up or, tried it and thought, what is happening here, listen in to more fully appreciate SO MUCH about its structure, its fascinating narrative stance, its HUMOR and the radical thing Nelson is doing by foregrounding all those old, white, male philosophers. This was such a gratifying lecture to record. Seventy-six minutes from now, you could--thanks to Nelson--feel inspired, humbled and a little smarter.