Bookin’

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Paul Cantor, author of Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Miller, which is published by our friends at Abrams Press.  Topics of discussion include the drive to succeed, car crashes, fame and the aversion to fame, Ariana Grande, Kurt Cobain, Dale and Andrew Carnegie, a "dependable middle class existence", Mac Miller as a "Jewish rapper", whether or not Bob Dylan is a rockstar, Outkast's Aquemeni, whether we will be listening to Mac Miller in twenty years, and much more.  Copies of Most Dope: The Extraordinary Life of Mac Miller can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Mesha Maren, author of Perpetual West, which is published by our friends at Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.  Topics of conversation include traveling in the COVID-era, Roberto Bolaño, literary allusions in works of literature, the idea of originality, stalking Cormac McCarthy, Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Lucha Libre wrestling, how wrestling is like a presidential election, and much more.  Copies of Perpetual West can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by David Sanchez, author of All Day Is A Long Time, which is published by our friends at Harper.  Topics of conversation include working construction during COVID-19, the line between memoir and fiction, compartmentalization, first-person vs. second-person narrative, the science of drug use, hyper-literary fiction, time loops, and much more.  Copies of All Day Is A Long Time can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.  

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by New York Times bestselling author Jon Peterson, who discusses his newest book Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons, which is published by our friends at MIT Press.  Topics of discussion include playing D&D while COVID-19 runs amok, Gary Gygax and the formation of TSR, Lake Geneva, the business model of selling rule books vs. more traditionally packaged board games, fanzines, whether gigantic rulebooks are barriers to entry for the aspiring player of D&D, Dragonlance, Wizards of the Coast, and much more!  Copies of Game Wizards can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING.

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Cara Blue Adams, author of You Never Get It Back, which is published by our friends at University of Iowa Press.  Topics of conversation include teaching creative writing, Marilynne Robinson, Arizona, the personification of loss, Kafka, novels vs. linked story collections, Y2K, Vermont, Dante, Hemingway and abortion, and much more.  Copies of You Never Get It Back can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Karen Tucker, author of Bewilderness, which is published by our friends at Catapult.  Topics of discussion include teaching at the University of North Carolina in 2021, scraping more out of life than most, trust, a 30mg moon, the record number of reported drug overdoses in the USA in 2021, Charlotte vs. Atlanta, addiction, Reddit and censorship, and much more.  Copies of Bewilderness can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING.  

For this special Christmas week episode, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Benjamin M. Friedman, the William Joseph Maier Professor of Political Economy and former chair of the Department of Economics at Harvard University, who discusses his new book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, which is published by our friends at Alfred A. Knopf.  Topics of discussion include the perception that any challenge to a market-centered conduct of economic affairs is a fundamental threat to our lives, how economic thinking is rooted in religious thinking, belief in free markets, England's bishops as "Retainers to Superstition", why some low-income Americans don't want higher taxes on high-income Americans, how Adam Smith inspired Ronald Reagan, cryptocurrencies, and much more.  Copies of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Jeremy B. Jones, author of Bearwallow, which is published by our friends at Blair.  Topics of discussion include planning literary festivals during a pandemic, the life of a place, how ancestors can be like leprechauns, how entering a teacher's lounge is like being backstage at a concert, normal teacher behavior, bears, "the pull", the Civil War, and much more.  Copies of Bearwallow can be ordered here with FREE SHIPPING.

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Makiia Lucier, author of Year of the Reaper, which is published by our friends at Clarion Books.  Topics of discussion include plagues, ghosts, librarians, arranged marriages, religion (or lack thereof) during trying times, traveling by horse, lynx, Guam, and much more.  Copies of Year of the Reaper can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING.  

This week, host Jason Jefferies is joined by Farah Ali, who discusses her new book People Want to Live, which is published by our friends at McSweeney's.  Topics of discussion include shootings in the media, desensitization, whether parents can ever truly know their children, whether corporate news organizations are alarmist by nature, the evil eye, tourism, Dubliners and much more.  Copies of People Want to Live can be purchased here with FREE SHIPPING.