Book Spider

In which the Spiders ponder Couples, by the now-underappreciated John Updike, a breathtakingly wrought and shockingly lovely work that evinces a now-alien disinterest in judging its characters.

In which the Spiders discuss two email newsletters hybridizing fiction and nonfiction, Sam Kriss's "The law that can be named is not the true law" and Naomi Kanakia's "Lonely Island Adventures," two pieces whose uncertain mingling of fact and invention may either bolster or undermine their points and their readability.

In this episode, the Spiders chat about Homage to Catalonia, Orwell's journalistic account of the Spanish Civil War. This memoir may in fact be his best work.

In which we debate whether Polanski's grounded interpretation is better than Joel Cohen's hallucinatory interpretation, but ultimately circle back to the original play and the undying ritual of embodying, ingesting, and interpreting it.

In which the Spiders consider Jayson Greene's Unworld, a lesson in the perils of blending the techniques and approaches of literary fiction and sci-fi, with reference to an earlier pick, the similarly shaky In Ascension.

In this episode, the Book Spider hosts discuss The Dwarf, an eighty-year-old Swedish novel that may be perfect.

In which we politely drag Harvey's lovely new novel through the mud despite repeated efforts to say nicer things about it. It really is quite lovely to spend time with! We just wished...there was more to it.

In which the spiders approach Bruce Wagner's The Marvel Universe: Origin Stories, a book whose own origin as a victim of cancel culture overshadows its alternately daring and disappointing story choices.