Explore every episode of the podcast The Bookening

Hello. It's us.

Memory. Identity. Barbra Streisand.

We haven't got our actual podcast recorded yet but here's a taste of why you should read along.

An ordinary (kind of) man caught in extraordinary circumstances! A race against time to expose a dangerous spy ring! Long walks through Scotland! It's John Buchan's immortal (?), classic (?): The 39 Steps.

Mysterious intelligent rats??? Please don't refer to our podcasters like that!

Tolstoy is a great writer. The Death of Ivan Ilyich is a novella about a middle-aged man named Ivan Ilyich. Yep, he dies. It's sad, moving, thoughtful, ironic, true to life, etc. And unlike some other Tolstoy books we could name, it's short. Worth your time.

Check out the Kickstarter for our friend's non-woke children's book, The Rainbow Knight.

The Bookening talks about a charming kid's book by the quirky children's author (and longtime New Yorker illustrator) William Steig.

We talk about some of his early books of "symbolic pictures" too—too dark to be kid's stuff. You have been forewarned! You can check out The Agony in the Kindergarten here, or About People here.

"Emma" by Jane Austen is considered a great novel due to its sharp wit, complex characters, and insightful commentary on societal norms and human nature. Austen's writing is known for its irony, subtle humor, and ability to draw readers into the world of her characters. The novel also explores themes of class, romance, self-delusion, and the dangers of interfering in the lives of others. Additionally, the novel's protagonist Emma Woodhouse is a strong, independent woman whose flaws and mistakes make her relatable and endearing to readers. 

The above description was definitely NOT written by a Chatbot.

We loved talking about "Emma" again. Is it Jane Austen's best work? Is Mr Knightley a g-word for shaping the character of a 13 year old girl until she's old enough to marry? Other questions!

A salesman who shared his liquor and steered while sleeping... A Cherokee filled with bourbon. A VW no more than a bubble of hashish fumes, captained by a college student. And a family from Marshalltown who head-onned and killed forever a man driving west out of Bethany, Missouri..

..I rose up sopping wet from sleeping under the pouring rain, and something less than conscious, thanks to the first three of the people I've already named- the salesman and the Indian and the student--all of whom had given me drugs. At the head of the entrance ramp I waited without hope of a ride. What was the point, even, of rolling up my sleeping bag when I was too wet to be let into anybody's car? I draped it around me like a cape. The downpour raked the asphalt and gurgled in the ruts. My thoughts zoomed pitifully. The travelling salesman had fed
me pills that made the linings of my veins feel scraped out. My jaw ached. I knew every raindrop by its name. I sensed everything before it happened. I knew a certain Oldsmobile would stop for me even before it glowed, and by the sweet voices of the family inside it I knew we'd have an accident in the storm. 

Ho ho ho!

All the pretty horses ... where do they all come from? All the pretty horses? Where do they all belong?

Did you know Cormac McCarthy was born in Rhode Island? He had to work to sort of figure out how to become a southern western gothic writer, or whatever he is. Anyway, The Bookening talks about All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy.

For some reason this is our Spooky October episode. Love is ... frightening? Or we dumbly mixed up the Stephen King episode and this one in release order? Who can tell?

The Green Mile by Stephen King. It’s a book we review. 

“My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.” 

The audio quality is not all there in this one. So think of it more as a bonus episode. You'll get giant Romeo and Juliet and Green Miles episodes very soon. They are already recorded. But we're talking about the world's greatest consulting detective in this one! Will Nathan be a snob again???

Nathan checks in with an update on when you can expect the next full episode and a very interesting story about trying to schedule with Brandon. But believe me, if you don't like episodes that aren't just about books, this is NOT the episode for you. You have been warned. 

Revenge, madness, whale blubber, etc. The Bookening discusses one of the best books they've ever discussed. And probably the great American novel. Herman Melville's Moby Dick.

"If it had not borne Mr. Dickens's name, it would in all probability have hardly met with a single reader; and if it has any popularity at all, it must derive it from the circumstance that it stands in the same relation to his other books as salad dressing stands in towards a complete salad. It is a bottle of the sauce in which Pickwick and Nicholas Nickleby were dressed, and to which they owed much of their popularity; and though it has stood open on the sideboard for a very long time, and has lost a good deal of its original flavour, the philosophic inquirer who is willing to go through the penance of tasting it will be, to a certain extent, repaid. He will have an opportunity of studying in its elements a system of cookery which procured for its ingenious inventor unparalleled popularity, and enabled him to infect the literature of his country with a disease which manifests itself in such repulsive symptoms that it has gone far to invert the familiar doctrines of the Latin Grammar about ingenuous arts, and to substitute for them the conviction that the principal results of a persistent devotion to literature are an incurable vulgarity of mind and of taste, and intolerable arrogance of temper."

--from an original review of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. Don't worry, our heroes talk about it. 

The senselessness of life. The meaninglessness of death. Those moments where you murder someone in cold blood for no particular reason. Hope you like existential stuff. Because Ernest Heminway and Albert Camus sure do, as we talk about in this mega-stuft episode of none other than ..... THE BOOKENING. 

The Bookening is divided over one of the great (?) Russian novels!

Here's a link to that great piece on Tolstoy and Turgenev's relationship.

Two children's books that we had STRONG feelings about!

Happy Valentine's Day! It's been six years. Can you believe it? Time for The Bookening to return to the book that started it all. Will our opinions have changed? Will we argue our former selves into the dust? Will we now HATE Pride and Prejudice???? Find out in this mega stuffed episode.

How is the Bookening moving forward after a 2021 that wasn't what we wanted? What are we reading in 2022? Was Ender's Game a good novel? The answers to all these questions and more in the mega-long super spectacular new episode!

Next week (Lord willing) Jake and Brandon will face off in the epic trial of Ender's Game. This week Jake prepares.

Ender's Game on, Bro!

A Room with a View by E. M. Forster. Will our heroes decide this book is romantic wish fulfillment? Or just really good? 

In which our heroes discuss E. M. Forster, a gay guy who lived his mom until she died at 90. But also wrote some great novels!

What do a great Russian novel, an iconic horror story, and some classic regency romance all have in common? They all appear on our list of books to buy even the most difficult people for Christmas this year. 

3 fetters that hold back 21st century style. 

ANOTHER EPISODE ABOUT HAMLET!

You didn't think we'd leave you hanging for Halloween did you? It's one of the most influential supernatural stories of the twentieth century, "The Call of Cthulhu", by H.P. Lovecraft. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!

Hamlet! We keep discussing it!

A classic episode of The Bookening in which eventually we talk about Hamlet. 

Some much needed context on William Shakespeare's Hamlet. 

Oh the rapture. 

This is one of those books never quite joins the canon, but also will never die. It's the quintessential modern gothic novel, featuring a lot of sexual tension, a protagonist the author seems to not like that much, and all kinds of questions for our heroic podcasters to answer. 

Of all the Daphne du Mauriers, Daphne du Maurier was the Daphne du Maurieriest. That's the lesson from today's sterling episode of The Bookening. 

Is Walter Wangerin's The Book of the Dun Cow a good book? What does it have to say about sin, depravity, judgement, and the anger that we sometimes feel at God? Should you read it? THE BOOKENING IS ON THE CASE!

Walter Wangerin passed away not too long ago, so what better time to talk about his life and the writing of The Book of the Dun Cow? Answer: THERE IS NO BETTER TIME, LISTEN TO THIS PODCAST! Bonus: our heroes read an all-time classic bad review inspired by their lack of blind devotion to C. S. Lewis. And they read some of Walter Wangerin's poetry. 

Our heroes begin to review the first book that was actually written in their current hometown, as Nathan and Jake discuss at length in this episode of THE BOOKENING.

Is Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones one of the great fantasy novels you've never read? Does its wit and consideration of human nature bear comparison with Jane Austen? Is the fantasy stuff just awesome? (A MOVING CASTLE!) ANSWERS TO ALL THESE QUESTIONS AND MORE! 

Move aside, Miyazaki! The Bookening is talking about the awesome Diana Wynne Jones novel that is Howl's Moving Castle. If you haven't read it, what are you waiting for? Brandon provides some much needed context in this episode. Plus Jake talks all about Harry Potter world. 

It's part 4 of our Watership Down discussion. Yay!

What makes Watership Down the perfect adventure story? ALL THREE MEMBERS OF THE BOOKENING are finally together to tell you all about it, in this CLASSIC episode of our fine, fine podcast. Enjoy. 

IS THIS THE END OF THE BOOKENING??!??!?

John Updike, Norman Mailer, David Foster Wallace, Dennis Johnson ... these are the people we talk about today for some reason. 

The Bookening talks anthropomorphic animal stories. Hopefully we'll have all 3 of us to finally LITIGATE Watership Down next week. 

In which a whole bunch of thoughts about Watership Down by Richard Adams are spilled into a microphone. Bonus ep with Nathan and Brandon coming later this week. 

Did we actually like this book? Our first episode on Watership Down by Richard Adams. Context. What else do you need to know? 

In which our heroes come up with a new Patreon motivator that's pretty exciting, talk about King Arthur stuff that happened after Sir Thomas Mallory, and other things. 

You asked for it! And Brandon's son ran over his internet cable. We have all the luck lately. But Nathan and Jake are talking audiobooks, baby!