Latest Bulgakov Podcast Episodes
104 - Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
Books of Some Substance - February 07, 2024 15:00 - 56 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsNathan and David continue their exploration of control with Waiting for Barbarians, a 1980 novel by South African writer J.M. Coetzee. Empire! Torture! Manipulation! Control! Quite the book, and quite the episode.
103 - Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (2/2)
Books of Some Substance - January 03, 2024 15:00 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsOur second episode on Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, and again David is joined by Seth from W.A.S.T.E. Mailing List. Seth is here to nimbly unravel some of the meaning of this insane and insanely good novel, and he does an excellent job. But no matter what they tend to get lost along the w...
102 - Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon (1/2)
Books of Some Substance - December 06, 2023 15:00 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsIn our first of two episodes on Thomas Pynchon's 1973 masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow, David is joined, once again, by Seth from W.A.S.T.E. Mailing List to talk about one of his favorite ways to approach the novel. Seth brings an invaluable depth of knowledge and research to this episode, exami...
101: The Hour of the Star by Clarice Lispector
Books of Some Substance - November 01, 2023 14:00 - 45 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsWelcome all and sundry to the first episode of Season 2: Control. Join us, David and Nathan, as we start this new season dancing to the beautifully strange rhythms of Clarice Lispector's The Hour of the Star. In between quoting and praising this novella, we discuss narrative techniques, met...
Season 2 Books Announcement
Books of Some Substance - October 25, 2023 00:11 - 2 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsWith the 100th episode behind us, and with Nick off exploring the world of dance music, David and Nathan have decided to try some new things. We're going into video (as you can see). We're going seasonal. And we will have a new website, logo, slogan, and much more coming soon. Each new episode w...
100 - End of an Era
Books of Some Substance - October 13, 2023 13:22 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsOn this, our 100th episode, we answered some of your questions from our B.O.S.S. voicemail. Sadly we could not get to them all, but we talked about memory, books worth reading a 1,000 times, and childhood books. Sadly, we also said farewell to our founding father, Nick, who started this whole...
Special Announcement
Books of Some Substance - September 14, 2023 04:50 - 2 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsOur 100th episode is coming up. And we want you to call in and leave us a message, ask us a question, read a quote, file a complaint, suggest a book, or leave a cool noise (like a ghost or a fart or a ghost fart or something like that...). This episode will also, sadly, be Nick's final episode...
99 - László Krasznahorkai's Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (Guest: Derek Maine)
Books of Some Substance - September 12, 2023 02:20 - 59 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsOn this episode, David is joined by reader and writer Derek Maine to discuss Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming by everyone's favorite pessimistic, long-winded, Hungraian doom master László Krasznahorkai. By everyone, we mean ours. He's a favorite here at BOSS. And we are happy to be joined by Dere...
98 - Jon Fosse's Melancholy I-II
Books of Some Substance - July 21, 2023 16:56 - 41 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Eric, and Nick read Jon Fosse’s Melancholy I-II, a mid-90s Norwegian novel in two parts that explores the connections between art, death, and the divine. Also discussed in this episode: what exactly is “the divine.” For fans of cyclic long sentences and also cyclic short sentences, Mela...
97 - Franza Kafka's Diaries (Guest: Ross Benjamin)
Books of Some Substance - June 05, 2023 21:00 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid is joined by Ross Benjamin, translator of Franz Kafka’s Diaries in its most authentic form to date. Listen in as they discuss Benjamin’s start in the field of translation, his love for Kafka’s craftsmanship and humor, and why a new edition of Kafka’s diaries needed to be released. Benjam...
96 - Marcel Proust's Time Regained (In Search of Lost Time #6)
Books of Some Substance - May 12, 2023 20:27 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsWe have (finally) found the lost time! It was inside us all along! Listen in as Nathan, David, and Nick complete their tour through Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, concluding with a discussion on the final volume, Time Regained. Topics include: memory, the purpose of art, and . . . BDSM?...
95 - Henri Lefebvre's The Missing Pieces (Guest: Tom Comitta)
Books of Some Substance - April 04, 2023 15:57 - 58 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsIn this episode Nick is joined by Tom Comitta, aficionado of citational fiction and author of The Nature Book, newly released and available now from Coffee House Press. Tom selected Henri Lefebvre’s The Missing Pieces as the work of focus for today’s discussion, so listen in as we talk through ...
94 - Anton Chekhov's Difficult People (Guest: Bob Blaisdell)
Books of Some Substance - February 28, 2023 15:47 - 50 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsIn this episode Nick is joined by Bob Blaisdell, Professor of English at the City University of New York’s Kingsborough College and author of a new work on Anton Chekhov titled Chekhov Becomes Chekhov: The Emergence of a Literary Genius. Listen in as they talk in depth about the story Difficult ...
93 - Marcel Proust's The Captive & The Fugitive (In Search of Lost Time #5)
Books of Some Substance - January 29, 2023 18:28 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Nathan, and Nick continue on their expedition for misplaced minutes, this time tackling Marcel Proust’s fifth installment, The Captive & The Fugitive. Topics this time around include: the endless cycle of the narrator’s obsession and apathy toward Albertine; the errors and inconsistencies...
92 - Han Kang's The Vegetarian
Books of Some Substance - December 30, 2022 19:44 - 36 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Eric, and Nick dive into The Vegetarian, a 2007 novel by Han Kang that, after its English translation, won the 2016 Man Booker International Prize. This compact work will appeal to anyone interested in tightly architected narrative structures, complex questions of individual agency, and v...
91 - Marcel Proust's Sodom and Gomorrah (In Search of Lost Time #4)
Books of Some Substance - November 14, 2022 15:35 - 45 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsNathan, David, and Nick tackle Sodom and Gomorrah, the fourth volume of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. They discuss how groundbreaking it was at the time to so openly write about homosexuality, the noticeable increase in the narrator’s presence in the book’s happenings, and the increase...
90 - Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (Guest: Seth of WASTE Mailing List)
Books of Some Substance - October 09, 2022 00:15 - 56 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsSeth — aficionado of difficult fiction and driving force behind WASTE Mailing List — joins the podcast this episode to chat with David about the endless gifts to be found within the endless layers of Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49. Pynchon-lite it is not! Encompassing both the absurd and ...
89 - Marcel Proust's The Guermantes Way (In Search of Lost Time #3)
Books of Some Substance - September 17, 2022 23:32 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Nathan, and Nick continue their journey through Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, this time discussing the third volume, The Guermantes Way. While this one might very well be “a middle book” — and by proximity, this episode “a middle episode” — there is continued brilliance to be en...
88 - Alexander Theroux's Fables (Guest: George Salis)
Books of Some Substance - August 21, 2022 18:26 - 49 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsWriter, interviewer, and heavy reader George Salis returns to the podcast, this time to discuss Alexander Theroux’s Fables with David. The two tackle a list of maximalist topics: deep cuts of vocabulary (real and invented), the forever ongoing inclusions of edits and additions that make a work e...
87 - Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Books of Some Substance - August 07, 2022 21:43 - 36 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Eric, and Nick seek out some mid-summer spookiness in Shirley Jackson’s acclaimed We Have Always Lived in the Castle and instead find a compact work that is much more complicated than the horror themes, accessible sentences, and vaguely young adult-ish book cover (thanks Penguin Classics)...
86 - Marcel Proust's Within a Budding Grove (In Search of Lost Time #2)
Books of Some Substance - July 04, 2022 19:43 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Nick, and Nathan reconvene to continue their Proust pilgrimage, this time tackling the second volume, Within a Budding Grove. There is discussion around the narrator’s age — whether it be twelve or twenty-two, Proust certainly has a knack for combining the idealism and naiveté of youth wi...
85 - Franz Kafka's Short Stories (The Judgment, A Country Doctor, In the Penal Colony)
Books of Some Substance - June 07, 2022 18:48 - 58 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Eric, and Nick spend a beautiful Saturday doing what they love: wading into the tides of the irrational, crushing systems in which we have existed, currently exist, and will continue to exist. In other words: Discussing Franz Kafka! Three of Kafka’s short works provide more than eno...
84 - Marcel Proust's Swann's Way (In Search of Lost Time #1)
Books of Some Substance - May 01, 2022 21:22 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsNo more searching is necessary. It’s time. It’s time to read In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust, that is. And we here at Books of Some Substance will be doing just that, starting off with this episode on the first volume, Swann’s Way. Listen in as David, Nick, and Nathan begin this long j...
83 - Bohumil Hrabal's Closely Watched Trains
Books of Some Substance - March 09, 2022 21:39 - 49 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsDavid, Nick, and Nathan dive into Bohumil Hrabal’s short novel Closely Watched Trains in this latest episode of the podcast. One part coming of age tale, one part (somewhat) epic tale of resistance, and one part celebration of life’s beautiful banality, this compact work will have you simultaneou...
82 - Jorge Luis Borges' The Garden of Forking Paths
Books of Some Substance - February 08, 2022 04:47 - 1 hour ★★★★ - 61 ratingsIt is a homecoming of sorts. Sixteen years after David made Nathan read Jorge Luis Borges, the two return to discuss the great Argentinian writer in an episode that has as many labyrinths (well, not quite) and is as infinite (also probably not true) as every one of Borges’ short stories. And whil...
81 - Renata Adler's Speedboat
Books of Some Substance - January 20, 2022 18:38 - 41 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsRenata Adler’s Speedboat starts and stops, accelerates and leaps, soars and crashes just like some sort of . . . well, you get it. Join David, Nathan, and Nick as they discuss this compact novel filled with vignettes of 1970s life and all of the sardonic observations that come along with it. But...
80 - W.G. Sebald's The Emigrants
Books of Some Substance - December 28, 2021 22:49 - 52 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsJust because you bought a copy of W.G. Sebald’s The Emigrants in the fiction section doesn’t make it fiction. Or does it? Join Nathan, David, and Nick for a conversation about fiction vs. non-fiction vs. creative non-fiction vs. journalism vs. memoir vs. Nick’s favorite genre of “who cares as lo...
79 - George Saunders' Tenth of December (Guest: Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts)
Books of Some Substance - November 15, 2021 03:12 - 40 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsBay Area musician Taylor Vick of Boy Scouts joins the podcast this episode to share her love for George Saunders’ The Tenth of December. Listen in as Taylor and Nick talk about the book’s use of absurdist mechanisms to move the reader, the connections between Saunders’ work and Boy Scouts, and t...
78 - W.G. Sebald's The Rings of Saturn
Books of Some Substance - October 10, 2021 17:37 - 54 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsIn this episode, friend of the podcast and book club Eric Heiman joins David and Nathan to talk about W.G. Sebald's Rings of Saturn. The three get into the melancholic depiction of entropy eating away so much of human life, the sense of historical vertigo, and the (un)fictionality of the novel. ...
77 - Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (Guest: Aatif Rashid)
Books of Some Substance - August 31, 2021 20:02 - 56 minutes ★★★★ - 61 ratingsAatif Rashid, author of the novel Portrait of Sebastian Khan, joins the podcast to profess his love for Anthony Powell’s A Dance to the Music of Time. The one with, like, a million volumes? The one that’s jam-packed with the subtleties of human interactions, relationships, and communications (or...
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