Latest Threepercent Podcast Episodes
TMR 14.5: "Eagle Mills Employees' Glee Club"
Three Percent Podcast - January 19, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsRodrigo Fresan (The Dreamed Part) joins Chad and Brian to talk about one of his favorite authors and books. There's good banter, some insight into J R, tell a (false) story about Fire the Bastards!, and generally try and entertain you. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find i...
BTBA #1: GUANTANAMO by Dorothea Dieckmann and Tim Mohr
Three Percent Podcast - January 11, 2021 17:12 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThe year-long Best Translated Book Award retrospective kicks off with this episode featuring the very first winner of the BTBA: Guantanamo by Dorothea Dieckmann, translated from the German by Tim Mohr and published by Soft Skull. There are three discussions on this episode: Chad W. Post and Patr...
TMR 14.4: "Who Made the Rules" [J R]
Three Percent Podcast - January 08, 2021 14:34 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsRyan Chapman (Riots I Have Known) joins Chad and Brian to crap on Jonathan Franzen's "famous" "essay" about Gaddis, "Mr. Difficult." They also talk about the casual sexism present in so many of the male characters, the parallels and reversals connecting various scenes, just how funny and readabl...
TMR 14.3: "Stamp Out Smut" [J R]
Three Percent Podcast - January 06, 2021 17:22 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsVince Francone made his TMR debut on this episode about one of the funniest sections of J R to date. They talk about the dirty photos, how the book isn't as challenging as its reputation indicates, the maybe incest scene, shitting in a piano, and much more. If you'd prefer to watch the convers...
TMR 14.2: "How to Make Big Profits Overseas" [J R]
Three Percent Podcast - January 06, 2021 17:20 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsFirst time Gaddis reader Elizabeth DeMeo from Tin House joins Chad and Brian to talk about J R's field trip to the New York Stock Exchange where his class buys a share of Diamond Cable stock. In addition to recapping this somewhat chaotic segment—just imagine twelve sixth graders loose in NYC—th...
Three Percent #183: Sound on Sound on Sound
Three Percent Podcast - January 01, 2021 15:28 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThe first new Three Percent Podcast since May! This is an episode all about sound and curation—in books, in music. It's unlike all the previous episodes, featuring three readings and two interviews. Here are all the songs featured on this episode: Without Me Americana The Pull of You I...
TMR 14.1: "Money?" [J R]
Three Percent Podcast - December 20, 2020 01:25 - 58 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsChad, Mauro Javier Cardenas (Aphasia), and NYRB publisher Edwin Frank kick off season 14 by talking about entropy, Gaddis's humor, how best to approach reading this book (fast and out of control), the little plot hints that are left to figure out, the lack of interiority in J R and how he develo...
TMR 13.12: "Time, Science Fiction, Heaven & Hell" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - December 04, 2020 17:53 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThis is a bonus episode in which Chad and Brian talk about three different essays on Ada, two boring ones by academic males, and an incredible chapter from Azar Nafisi's That Other World. There is good banter, a lot of jokes, and a true appreciation for this novel. Plus, Chad throws down a very ...
TMR 13.11: "Instantogram" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - November 29, 2020 19:30 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsAfter a bit of business banter about publishing mergers and the future of books, Chad and Brian break down the final two parts of Ada, or Ardor, debating the purpose of the book as a whole, whether the ending "works," the unreliable unreliableness of Van Veen, and much more. On next week's episo...
TMR 13.10: "Madhouse Babble" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - November 26, 2020 15:50 - 47 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsAs Chad and Brian finish part III of Ada, or Ardor, they talk about Ada and Van's reunion, the passage of time within this book, moustaches, who knows what about whom, and much more. This week's music is "Endless Night" by Holy Motors. If you'd prefer to watch the conversation, you can find ...
TMR 13.9: "Pale Fire with Tom Cox Up" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - November 13, 2020 15:00 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsFollowing a long discussion about what actually happens on this podcast (spoiler: definitely not critical analysis), Chad and Brian dive into Part III of Ada, or Ardor, asking what the point of whole book is, what type of fragmented postmodernism Nabokov is playing with, the passage of time and ...
TMR 13.8: "Vinelander" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - November 12, 2020 17:58 - 56 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsIn a rather subdued (re: election night hangover) episode, Chad and Brian discuss the relationship between cinema and writing, photos and memory, and what seems to be Nabokov's relationship to movies as art. They also talk about the screwball comedy nature of Van and Ada being found out, discuss...
TMR 13.7: "From Dodo to Dada" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - October 30, 2020 14:00 - 48 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsFrom the International House of Prostitutes to the reunion of Ada and Van, this week's episode is quite a trip. Chad and Brian talk about dreams, John Garner, Martin Amis on "obscure" and "difficult" novels, how to actually pronounce Van, and much more. This week's music is "Money" by Widowspe...
TMR 13.6: "Star Rats and Space Aces" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - October 16, 2020 14:00 - 57 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsChad and Brian wrap up Part One of Ada, or Ardor—which features a duel, multiple deaths, an existential diatribe, and canes—and move onto Part Two, which is very Pynchon-esque. They get to dive into Van's "philosophical novel," ideas of time, questions about Terra, and much more. This episode is...
TMR 13.5: "The Accursed Children" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - October 09, 2020 14:00 - 51 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsA family dinner, a picnic in the woods—what could be more innocent? Well, in Ada, or Ardor, everything is tinged with a baseline feeling of "kind of creepy," especially the "passionate pump-joy exertions." Chad and Brian break it all down, talking about Demon, unraveling Nabokovian puns, finding...
TMR 13.4: "Terra: Eremitic Reality of Collective Dream?" [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - October 08, 2020 15:46 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThings shift in Ada, or Ardor this week, with Van's second trip to Ardis being much darker, much more perverse and troubling than the first, "more innocent" summer with Ada. There's also another couple hints about Terra, and the possiblity of Ada having another lover . . . And, as is par for the...
TMR 13.3 “Hammock and Honey” [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - September 18, 2020 17:18 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsRodrigo Fresán (The Invented Part, The Dreamed Part, Bottom of the Sky) joins Chad and Brian to talk about the only Nabokov book he hasn't read. In addition to talking about all the reasons to love Nabokov, about how this book is the one where he actually seems to be measuring himself against th...
TMR 13.1 “Hammock and Honey” [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - September 18, 2020 17:18 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsRodrigo Fresán (The Invented Part, The Dreamed Part, Bottom of the Sky) joins Chad and Brian to talk about the only Nabokov book he hasn't read. In addition to talking about all the reasons to love Nabokov, about how this book is the one where he actually seems to be measuring himself against th...
TMR 13.1 “All Happy Families” [ADA, OR ARDOR]
Three Percent Podcast - September 11, 2020 14:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsChad and Brian try their best to unpack the first three chapters of Vladimir Nabokov's Ada, or Ardor, in an attempt to find some solid footing for this sci-fi (?), ambitious, reference-laded masterwork of one of the greatest writers of our times. Lots of questions about where we are (Terra or An...
TMR 12.12 “Finale” [THE BOOK OF ANNA]
Three Percent Podcast - August 21, 2020 13:00 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsCarmen Boullosa joined Chad and Brian this week to talk about The Book of Anna, memories of watching baseball, why she (today) supports Karenin and thinks Anna K made a mistake with Vronsky, the origin and structure of the novel, her system of having a book in the queue before the previous one i...
TMR 12.11 “The Book of Anna” [THE BOOK OF ANNA]
Three Percent Podcast - August 20, 2020 14:43 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsTranslator and Words Without Borders co-founder Samantha Schnee joined Chad and Brian this week to talk about Anna's "opium-fueled" fairy tale that was referenced in passing in Anna Karenina, and a centerpiece of Boullosa's "sequel." A lively conversation about language, various Tolstoy translat...
TMR 12.10 “Karenina's Portrait” [THE BOOK OF ANNA]
Three Percent Podcast - August 06, 2020 20:00 - 41 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsAfter talking a bit about Women in Translation Month and the voting process for choosing the Season 13 title, Chad and Brian get into the twisty nature of Part III of The Book of Anna, in which Anna's portrait is given to the tsar, and Leo Tolstoy appears in the dreams of two characters, both to...
TMR 12.9 “Bloody Sunday” [THE BOOK OF ANNA]
Three Percent Podcast - July 30, 2020 19:00 - 38 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThis week's episode is one of the more political ones to date, as Chad and Brian talk about Russia's "Bloody Sunday," comparing the Tsar's actions to Trump and what's going on in Portland. (They also sigh loudly over his most recent attempt to stoke racial and class anger.) They talk about the p...
TMR 12.8 “Anna’s Sergei and Anya’s City” [THE BOOK OF ANNA]
Three Percent Podcast - July 24, 2020 18:00 - 45 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThe final part of season 12 kicks off with Chad and Brian discussing the first part of Carmen Boullosa's The Book of Anna, translated from the Spanish by Samantha Schnee and published by Coffee House. Chad gives a brief recap of Leo Tolstoy's novella, Anna Karenina, then they discuss how and wha...
TMR 12.7: "Heroes and Mercenaries" [FOUR BY FOUR]
Three Percent Podcast - July 16, 2020 14:56 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsKatie Whittemore joins on this episode to refute a list of crazy fan theories about Four by Four, and to talk about the difficulties of translating a book in which there's really no where to hide. Chad also shares some new, bad, jacket copy, and makes a pitch for one of Katie's next books to com...
TMR 12.6: "A Substitute's Diary, Part II" [FOUR BY FOUR]
Three Percent Podcast - July 16, 2020 14:55 - 59 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsALTA executive director and Arabic translator (Minor Detail), Lissie Jaquette joined Chad and Brian to talk about Bedragare's breakdown and all the events in the second half of his journal. They also wonder what the "mystery" of the novel is, and talk about various (possibly nutty) theories abou...
TMR 12.5: "A Substitute's Diary, Part I" [FOUR BY FOUR]
Three Percent Podcast - July 02, 2020 13:48 - 55 minutes ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsAfter being taken over by Chad's daughter, the podcast gets back on track, and Chad and Derek Maine (Read the World YouTube channel) break down the first half of part two of Four by Four, talking about the ways in which power structures are replicated, the increasing scope of the novel's constru...
TMR 12.4: "Never More Than Two Hundred" [FOUR BY FOUR]
Three Percent Podcast - June 27, 2020 14:37 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThis week's episode kicks off the four-week discussion of Four by Four by Sara Mesa, translated from the Spanish by Katie Whittemore. A great book for our time (for all times) in relationship to power structures and their systems. And whether it's better to be "free and vulnerable or protected b...
TMR 12.3 "Scenes from the Spectral Zone" [CARS ON FIRE]
Three Percent Podcast - June 18, 2020 18:10 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsOn this episode of the Two Month Review, translator Robin Myers joins Chad and Brian to talk about her translation, Mexican and Argentine poetry, what was most challenging/liberating about the text, ALTA 2009, and much much more. Very insightful conversation for anyone interested in professional...
TMR 12.2 "Invocation" [CARS ON FIRE]
Three Percent Podcast - June 11, 2020 18:31 - 1 hour ★★★★★ - 83 ratingsThis week, Mónica Ramón Ríos joins Chad and Brian to talk about her literary career, how she came to write Cars on Fire, Rutgers, some movies she's recently watched, how to read "Invocation," protests in Chile and NYC, and much much more. An incredibly interesting and informative episode that se...
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