Book Society

Most Civilizations in history grew up around rivers, lakes, and in places with rain.  So what's up with the American West?  Why and how are we even here?  And how long can this last?

Judith Dupré and I talk about literature and art and buildings and, very briefly, Bertrand Russell.

Me and Daniel Murfet talk about marginal revolutions, sustainable growth, and air conditioning. 

Eric and I talk about art, social media, and birds.

Dyalekt and I talk about Hitler's American Model by James Q Whitman.  We have a pretty intense conversation about racism in America and our own experience as people of color.  Dyalekt gives me grace for misunderstanding the term "passing" and we discuss one of Jim Henson's lesser know projects.  

Cliff and I talk about Watchmen, Zach Snyder, Richard Nixon, Lost, and other stuff.  I get confused about who went to the moon.  There is also a level 10 nerd question in there that I seriously want an answer to.

Conductor, Composer and Candidate Julian Gallant and I discuss the greatest novel ever written: Middlemarch.  We talk about the reform act that I'd never heard of but everyone in the UK knows about and we postulate that one Middlemarch inhabitant is a refugee form another novel.  There's also something about The Office in there... Julian's British so it all sounds very high brow.  There's a bit in there about Stalin as well...

Jesse Cameron Alick and I talk about N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth Trilogy, make a pretty good case that black women are the best sci-fi writers and forget, for a moment, that the sun exists.

Renowned Author Esmeralda Santiago and I talk about There, There by Tommy Orange, and House Made Of Dawn by M. Scott Momaday.  We talk about what it means to "belong" to a culture and I relive a time where I embarrassed myself in front of 2,000 people.