Good Scribes Only

#163 The North Water - Ian McGuire (Thriller)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 2 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Published in 2016, The North Water is a brutal, atmospheric tale set aboard a 19th-century whaling ship bound for the Arctic. The novel follows Patrick Sumner, a disgraced former army surgeon seeking escape from his past, who signs on as the ship’s doctor. Among the crew is Henry Drax, a harpooner of terrifying violence and amorality—a man who embodies the darkest instincts of survival.

As the voyage pushes further into the frozen, unforgiving north, the boundaries between civilization and savagery begin to dissolve. What unfolds is both a survival story and a descent into moral extremity, where the natural world is as indifferent as the men are dangerous. Unflinching and visceral, The North Water explores themes of brutality, isolation, and the thin line separating man from beast. The novel was widely acclaimed for its intensity and later adapted into a television series.

About the Author:

Ian McGuire is a British novelist and academic known for his stark, literary approach to historical fiction. Born in 1964, McGuire studied at the University of Manchester and later at the University of Virginia, where he also taught. His work often blends meticulous historical detail with psychological depth and a willingness to confront violence head-on.

In addition to The North Water, McGuire is the author of Incredible Bodies (2006), a campus novel, and The Abstainer (2020), a historical thriller set between Ireland and England. His writing is marked by its intensity, philosophical undercurrents, and exploration of human nature under extreme conditions.

#162 Crafting the Perfect Fantasy Recipe

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 12:54:31 +0000

About the Book:

First published in 2006, Mistborn: The Final Empire introduces readers to a bleak world ruled for a thousand years by the immortal Lord Ruler. Ash falls from the sky, mist dominates the night, and the oppressed skaa live under the iron grip of a powerful ruling class. Into this world steps Vin, a street-smart orphan who discovers she possesses a rare magical ability known as Allomancy—the power to ingest and “burn” metals to gain extraordinary abilities.

Guided by the charismatic thief Kelsier and a band of rebels, Vin becomes part of an audacious plan: not merely to steal from the empire, but to overthrow it. Blending intricate magic systems, political intrigue, and high-stakes adventure, Sanderson crafts a fantasy that is as intellectually clever as it is thrilling. At its core, Mistborn is a story about trust, belief, and the possibility that even the most entrenched systems of power can be challenged.

About the Author:

Brandon Sanderson is one of the most influential voices in modern fantasy. Born in 1975, Sanderson is known for building expansive fictional worlds governed by carefully constructed magic systems and intricate lore. His breakthrough came with the Mistborn series, which quickly gained a devoted following for its inventive storytelling and dynamic characters.

Sanderson is also the author of the epic The Stormlight Archive, widely regarded as one of the defining fantasy sagas of the 21st century. In addition, he was chosen to complete The Wheel of Time after the death of its creator, Robert Jordan. Through both his novels and his widely followed lectures on writing, Sanderson has become a central figure in contemporary speculative fiction.

#161 Mistborn - Brandon Sanderson (Fantasy)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 10:00:00 +0000

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#160 Voices in Our Heads

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Tue, 3 Mar 2026 15:05:47 +0000

About the Book:

Published in 2009, American Rust is a stark, deeply human portrait of life in a collapsing industrial town in western Pennsylvania. The novel follows Isaac English and Billy Poe, two young men caught between loyalty, anger, and the dwindling promise of a future that once seemed guaranteed. When a violent incident shatters their already-fragile lives, the consequences ripple outward, touching parents, lovers, and an entire community struggling to survive economic ruin.

Gritty yet compassionate, American Rust examines masculinity, class, moral responsibility, and the quiet desperation of people left behind by history. Meyer’s prose is unsentimental but deeply empathetic, revealing how love, shame, and hope persist even in the shadow of decline. The novel was widely praised for its emotional depth and realism and later adapted into a television series, cementing its place as a modern American tragedy.

About the Author:

Philipp Meyer is an American novelist known for his ambitious scope and meticulous realism. Born in New York City, Meyer worked a variety of jobs before turning to fiction, experiences that helped shape his grounded, working-class characters. American Rust was his debut novel and earned critical acclaim for its authenticity and emotional power.

Meyer later published The Son (2013), a multigenerational epic of Texas that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, and The North Water (2016), a brutal historical novel set in the Arctic whaling world. Across his work, Meyer explores violence, inheritance, and the forces—economic, historical, and personal—that shape American identity. His novels are marked by their moral seriousness and refusal to look away from hard truths.

#159 American Rust - Philipp Meyer (Crime)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 13 Feb 2026 11:00:00 +0000

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#158 Paranormal Toilet Paper Cyber Bandits

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 17:07:56 +0000

About the Book:

First published in 1939, And Then There Were None is Agatha Christie’s most famous—and most relentlessly suspenseful—mystery. Ten strangers, each lured to a remote island off the English coast, arrive to find their unseen host absent and their pasts suddenly on trial. When an ominous recording accuses each guest of a grave wrongdoing, the atmosphere shifts from uneasy to terrifying. One by one, they begin to die—each death echoing the sinister rhythm of a nursery rhyme posted in the house.

What makes the novel endure isn’t just its ingenious plotting, but its escalating sense of dread and psychological pressure. As suspicion turns everyone into both detective and potential killer, Christie strips away alibis, social masks, and moral certainty. And Then There Were None is a locked-room mystery expanded to its most ruthless form: justice, guilt, and fear trapped together with nowhere to go.

About the Author:

Agatha Christie (1890–1976) was an English novelist and playwright and remains one of the most widely read authors in history. Often called the “Queen of Mystery,” she wrote 66 detective novels and numerous short stories, creating iconic characters like Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Her work is celebrated for its clean prose, misdirection, and clockwork precision—stories that invite readers to play along, only to pull the rug out at exactly the right moment.

Christie’s influence extends far beyond the page. Her play The Mousetrap became the longest-running play in the world, and her novels have been adapted countless times for film, television, and stage. With And Then There Were None, she delivered a masterpiece of suspense that helped define modern crime fiction—and still sets the standard for the genre today.

#157 And Then There Were None - Agatha Christie (Mystery)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 18:29:59 +0000

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#156 It's All Been Done Before

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 8 Jan 2026 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Published in 2009, Wolf Hall reimagines the rise of Thomas Cromwell, one of the most enigmatic and powerful figures in Tudor England. Set during the reign of Henry VIII, the novel traces Cromwell’s ascent from the son of a blacksmith to the king’s chief minister, moving through a court defined by ambition, betrayal, and shifting loyalties.

Hillary Mantel’s bold narrative voice places readers inside Cromwell’s mind, offering an intimate, morally complex portrait of power in motion. Rather than treating history as spectacle, Wolf Hall examines how decisions are made, alliances are forged, and survival depends on perception as much as principle. The novel won the Man Booker Prize and reshaped historical fiction with its psychological depth, stylistic precision, and radical re-centering of a long-maligned figure.

About the Author:

Hilary Mantel (1952–2022) was an English novelist and critic widely regarded as one of the greatest historical novelists of her generation. Her writing is known for its intelligence, rigor, and emotional restraint, often exploring power, gender, and the forces that shape identity.

Mantel achieved international acclaim with the Thomas Cromwell trilogy—Wolf Hall (2009), Bring Up the Bodies (2012), and The Mirror & the Light (2020). She was the first woman to win the Man Booker Prize twice, and later received a Damehood for services to literature. Mantel’s work transformed the historical novel, demonstrating how the past can be rendered with both immediacy and unsettling relevance.

#155 Wolf Hall - Hillary Mantel (Historical Fiction)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 1 Jan 2026 14:38:22 +0000

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#155 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (Bonus)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 24 Dec 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

First published in 1843, A Christmas Carol is Charles Dickens’ enduring tale of redemption, memory, and moral awakening. The story follows Ebenezer Scrooge, a miserly old man visited on Christmas Eve by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come. Through these supernatural encounters, Scrooge is forced to confront the life he has lived, the harm he has caused, and the future he is racing toward.

Both intimate and expansive, A Christmas Carol blends social critique with warmth, humor, and profound compassion. Dickens’ novella is not simply a holiday story, but a meditation on generosity, responsibility, and the possibility of change. More than 180 years after its publication, its message remains timeless: that it is never too late to choose kindness, connection, and grace.

About the Author:

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) was an English novelist and social critic whose work helped define Victorian literature. Born into poverty and shaped by his own experiences with child labor and debtors’ prisons, Dickens became one of the most widely read and influential writers of the 19th century. His novels often exposed social injustice while celebrating human resilience and empathy.

Dickens wrote some of the most enduring works in the English language, including Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and Bleak House. With A Christmas Carol, he created a story that transcended literature to become a cultural touchstone, reshaping how Christmas itself was imagined and celebrated. His legacy endures as a writer who believed deeply in the power of storytelling to awaken conscience and inspire change.

#154 New Horizons

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Quicksilver is a dark, atmospheric romance by Callie Hart, known for her blend of emotional intensity, sharp suspense, and deeply drawn characters. The story follows Lissa, a young woman living under the shadow of trauma and secrets, and Zeth Mayfair—the dangerous, magnetic figure whose presence upends her world. Drawn together by circumstance and an undeniable pull, the two navigate a web of violence, vulnerability, and trust as they attempt to unravel the mysteries that bind them.

Brooding, seductive, and charged with tension, Quicksilver explores the complicated territory between desire and danger, love and survival. Hart’s writing immerses readers in a world of morally gray characters and high-stakes emotion, crafting a romance that feels as raw as it does riveting.

About the Author:

Callie Hart is a bestselling author of dark romance and romantic suspense whose work is known for its gritty emotional landscapes, complex characters, and fast-paced plotting. Often writing stories that straddle the line between danger and desire, Hart has built a devoted readership drawn to her ability to balance intensity with tenderness.

Her novels frequently feature strong, flawed protagonists navigating trauma, love, and redemption, and her series—particularly those involving the enigmatic Zeth Mayfair—have earned her a prominent place in the world of contemporary dark romance. Hart continues to expand her universe with interconnected stories that deliver both heart-pounding suspense and deeply felt emotion.

#153 Quicksilver - Callie Hart (Romantasy)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 11 Dec 2025 11:00:00 +0000

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#152 Lovely Doodles and Handwritten Letters

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 27 Nov 2025 14:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Published in 1972, Augustus by John Williams is a masterful historical novel that chronicles the life and rule of Rome’s first emperor. Told through a series of letters, journal entries, and memoirs, the book captures the political intrigue, personal ambitions, and moral dilemmas that shaped Augustus’ rise to power and his consolidation of the Roman Empire.

Williams’ spare, elegant prose strips away the grandeur of history to reveal the human side of leadership—the loneliness, compromise, and resilience required to govern. Augustus explores themes of power, legacy, and the tension between public duty and private desire. The novel won the National Book Award and has been praised for its subtle psychological insight and the timeless relevance of its portrayal of leadership and ambition.

About the Author:

John Williams (1922–1994) was an American novelist and short story writer celebrated for his precise, restrained prose and deep psychological insight. Born in Fort Worth, Texas, he is best known for Stoner (1965), a quiet but profoundly influential exploration of an ordinary life, and Augustus (1972), which earned the National Book Award.

Williams’ fiction often examines the inner lives of his characters against broader historical or social backdrops, highlighting moral complexity, personal resilience, and the tension between individual desires and societal expectations. Though his work was modestly recognized during his lifetime, it has since been acclaimed for its clarity, craft, and enduring human insight.

#151 Augustus - John Williams (Epistolary)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 21 Nov 2025 18:15:17 +0000

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#150 Does Art Reveal or Reflect Humanity?

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 12 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Published in 2005, Never Let Me Go is Kazuo Ishiguro’s haunting meditation on memory, identity, and what it means to be human. The novel follows Kathy H., a young woman reflecting on her years at Hailsham—a seemingly idyllic English boarding school where children are raised apart from the outside world. As Kathy recounts her friendships with Ruth and Tommy, a devastating truth slowly emerges about who they are and the purpose for which they exist.

Blending the intimacy of a coming-of-age story with the quiet horror of dystopian science fiction, Ishiguro creates a world that feels both familiar and deeply unsettling. Never Let Me Go is less about the machinery of its imagined future than the emotional landscape of those who live within it—love, loss, and the longing to hold onto something fleetingly human in an inhuman world. The novel was a finalist for the Booker Prize and was later adapted into a celebrated 2010 film.

About the Author:

Kazuo Ishiguro is a British novelist, screenwriter, and short story writer known for his elegant, restrained prose and exploration of memory, morality, and self-deception. Born in Nagasaki, Japan in 1954, he moved to England as a child and later studied creative writing at the University of East Anglia.

Ishiguro’s works include The Remains of the Day (1989), which won the Booker Prize, and Klara and the Sun (2021), among others. His fiction often takes the form of quiet personal reflection that gradually reveals profound emotional truths. In 2017, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for novels that, in the words of the Swedish Academy, “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world.”

#149 Never Let Me Go - Kazou Ishiguro (Speculative Fiction)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 5 Nov 2025 11:00:00 +0000

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#148 Road Trip Recap

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 15 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Published in 1945, Cannery Row is John Steinbeck’s affectionate portrait of a working-class community on the waterfront of Monterey, California, during the Great Depression. The novel centers on the lives of a cast of misfits—Doc, the gentle marine biologist; Mack and his band of good-hearted troublemakers; Dora and her girls at the local brothel—who make do with little but find meaning in friendship, small joys, and resilience.

Rather than a traditional plot, Cannery Row is a series of interconnected sketches that celebrate the humor, hardship, and humanity of ordinary people. Steinbeck blends lyricism with grit, tenderness with satire, capturing both the struggles of poverty and the enduring beauty of community life. At once nostalgic and unsparing, Cannery Row remains one of his most beloved works.

About the Author:

John Steinbeck (1902–1968) was an American novelist, essayist, and journalist whose works captured the spirit and struggles of 20th-century America. Born in Salinas, California, Steinbeck drew heavily on the landscapes, communities, and migrant workers of his native state. His novels often explored themes of labor, poverty, human dignity, and the bonds of community.

Steinbeck’s best-known works include Of Mice and Men (1937), The Grapes of Wrath (1939), which won the Pulitzer Prize, and East of Eden (1952). His clear-eyed yet compassionate storytelling made him one of the most important voices of his generation. In 1962, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for his “realistic and imaginative writings, combining as they do sympathetic humor and keen social perception.”

#147 Cannery Row - John Steinbeck

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 1 Oct 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#146 Lightweight Centurions

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 17 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

First published in 1969, The Andromeda Strain is Michael Crichton’s groundbreaking techno-thriller that launched him into literary stardom. The novel begins when a satellite crashes near a small desert town in Arizona, releasing a deadly extraterrestrial microorganism. A team of top scientists is rushed to a secret underground lab, tasked with identifying, containing, and stopping the microscopic threat before it spreads beyond control.

Taut, chilling, and meticulously researched, The Andromeda Strain blends cutting-edge science with page-turning suspense. Its portrayal of crisis management, biohazards, and the limits of human preparedness was ahead of its time, and it remains a cornerstone of the science-fiction thriller genre. The novel was an instant bestseller and later adapted into both film and television, cementing Crichton’s reputation as a master of high-stakes, science-driven storytelling.

About the Author:

Michael Crichton (1942–2008) was an American author, screenwriter, director, and physician best known for blending science, technology, and suspense in his novels. With works translated into more than 30 languages and over 200 million copies sold worldwide, he was one of the most widely read authors of his time.

Crichton wrote a string of blockbuster novels including Jurassic Park (1990), Congo (1980), Sphere (1987), and Timeline (1999). Many were adapted into major motion pictures, most famously Steven Spielberg’s film version of Jurassic Park. In television, he created the hit medical drama ER, which revolutionized the genre and won numerous awards. Trained as a doctor at Harvard Medical School, Crichton brought an unparalleled authenticity to his science-driven plots. His legacy endures as a storyteller who merged imagination with scientific possibility to both entertain and provoke.

#145 The Andromeda Strain - Michael Crichton (Arizona)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 11 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#144 There's No Turning Back

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 3 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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Published in 1968, House Made of Dawn is N. Scott Momaday’s landmark debut novel and a defining work of Native American literature. The story follows Abel, a young Native American man who returns to his reservation in New Mexico after serving in World War II. Struggling with alienation, dislocation, and the clash between traditional life and modern America, Abel’s journey is one of trauma, survival, and the search for identity.

Told in shifting voices and lyrical prose, the novel weaves together Native storytelling traditions, modernist techniques, and spiritual imagery. Its exploration of cultural loss, resilience, and belonging earned widespread acclaim, and in 1969 House Made of Dawn won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It remains a foundational text in what came to be known as the Native American Renaissance in literature.

About the Author:

N. Scott Momaday was a Kiowa novelist, poet, essayist, and painter whose work profoundly shaped American literature. Born in 1934 in Lawton, Oklahoma, he grew up in both Native and Anglo-American worlds, an experience that deeply influenced his writing. His first novel, House Made of Dawn, established him as a major literary voice and became the first work by a Native American author to win the Pulitzer Prize.

Momaday went on to write acclaimed works including The Way to Rainy Mountain (1969) and The Names: A Memoir (1976). His writing often blends myth, history, and personal narrative, honoring Native oral traditions while engaging with broader themes of memory, land, and identity. In 2007, he received the National Medal of Arts for his contributions to American letters. Momaday’s legacy endures as both a literary pioneer and a bridge between cultures.

#143 House Made of Dawn - N. Scott Momaday (New Mexico)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#142 People Can't Find Out About the Serial Killer in My Family

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 20 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Winner of the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Angle of Repose is a sweeping American saga that blends history, family drama, and the search for meaning. The novel follows retired historian Lyman Ward as he pieces together the life of his grandmother, Susan Burling Ward—a cultured artist and writer who left the East Coast in the late 19th century to follow her husband, a mining engineer, into the rugged, unsettled landscapes of the American West.

As Lyman reconstructs their lives through letters and documents, he uncovers a marriage tested by hardship, ambition, and compromise. The story becomes as much about Lyman’s own reckoning—with his failed marriage, his estranged family, and his sense of purpose—as it is about the generations before him. With luminous prose and profound insight, Stegner examines how personal choices are shaped by time, place, and the slow erosion—or preservation—of dreams.

About the Author:

Wallace Stegner was an American novelist, historian, environmentalist, and teacher often called “the dean of Western writers.” Born in 1909 in Iowa and raised in Montana, Utah, and Saskatchewan, he drew on the landscapes and histories of the American West throughout his work. Over his career, he published more than thirty books, including The Big Rock Candy Mountain (1943), The Spectator Bird (1976), and Crossing to Safety (1987).

A passionate advocate for land preservation, Stegner was instrumental in the establishment of the National Wilderness Preservation System. He taught at Stanford University for decades, mentoring a generation of writers. His fiction often explored the intersection of personal relationships, history, and the environment, earning him both critical acclaim and lasting influence. Stegner died in 1993, leaving behind a literary legacy rooted in the beauty, contradictions, and endurance of the West.

#141 Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegner (Colorado)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 13 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#140 Where Would We Be Without Books?

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 6 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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Published in 1932, Brave New World is Aldous Huxley’s dystopian vision of a future society engineered for efficiency, order, and pleasure—but at the expense of individuality, emotion, and truth. Set in a World State dominated by genetic engineering, social conditioning, and a strict caste system, the novel follows Bernard Marx, a discontented Alpha, and John “the Savage,” who was raised outside the system and becomes its most poignant critic.

As prophetic as it is provocative, Brave New World explores themes of technological control, consumerism, loss of identity, and the cost of utopia. Nearly a century later, its questions still feel eerily relevant. Are comfort and stability worth trading for truth and freedom? And what happens to the human spirit in a world where nothing is left to chance?

About the Author:

Aldous Huxley was an English novelist, essayist, and social critic best known for his incisive and unsettling visions of the future. Born in 1894 into a prominent intellectual family—his grandfather was biologist T.H. Huxley and his brother was biologist Julian Huxley—Aldous studied at Oxford before launching a prolific literary career.

Though Brave New World remains his most famous novel, Huxley wrote widely across genres, from satire (Crome Yellow) to spiritual memoir (The Doors of Perception). His later work grew increasingly concerned with mysticism, consciousness, and the human condition. A lifelong thinker and experimenter, Huxley spent his final decades in the United States, where he remained a vocal critic of conformity, authoritarianism, and unchecked technological progress. He died in 1963, on the same day as C.S. Lewis and John F. Kennedy.

#139 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley (New Mexico)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 30 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#138 You Have to Walk Before You Run, Trot Before You Canter

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 9 Jul 2025 07:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Horseman, Pass By tells the story of Homer Bannon, an old-time cattleman who epitomizes the frontier values of honesty and decency, and Hud, his unscrupulous stepson. Caught in the middle is the narrator, Homer's young grandson Lonnie, who is as much drawn to his grandfather’s strength of character as he is to Hud's hedonism and materialism.

When first published in 1961, Horseman, Pass By caused a sensation in Texas literary circles for its stark, realistic portrayal of the struggles of a changing West in the years following World War II. Never before had a writer managed to encapsulate its environment with such unsentimental realism. Today, memorable characters, powerful themes, and illuminating detail make Horseman, Pass By vintage McMurtry.

About the Author:

Larry Jeff McMurtry was an American novelist, essayist, and screenwriter whose work was predominantly set in either the Old West or contemporary Texas. His novels included Horseman, Pass By (1962), The Last Picture Show (1966), and Terms of Endearment (1975), which were adapted into films. Films adapted from McMurtry's works earned 34 Oscar nominations (13 wins). He was also a prominent book collector and bookseller.

His 1985 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Lonesome Dove was adapted into a television miniseries that earned 18 Emmy Award nominations (seven wins). The subsequent three novels in his Lonesome Dove series were adapted as three more miniseries, earning eight more Emmy nominations. McMurtry and co-writer Diana Ossana adapted the screenplay for Brokeback Mountain (2005), which earned eight Academy Award nominations with three wins, including McMurtry and Ossana for Best Adapted Screenplay. In 2014, McMurtry received the National Humanities Medal.

#137 Horseman, Pass By - Larry McMurtry (Texas)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 2 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#136 She Fell I Swear!

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 27 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

All the King's Men is a 1946 novel by Robert Penn Warren. Its title is drawn from the nursery rhyme "Humpty Dumpty". The novel tells the story of charismatic populist governor Willie Stark and his political machinations in the Depression-era Deep South. It is commonly thought to have been loosely inspired by the real-life story of U.S. Senator Huey P. Long, who was assassinated in 1935. Warren won the Pulitzer Prize for All the King's Men in 1947. The novel has received critical acclaim and remained perennially popular since its first publication. It was rated the 36th greatest novel of the 20th century by Modern Library, and it was chosen as one of Time magazine's 100 best novels since 1923. All the King's Men portrays the dramatic and theatrical political rise and governorship of Willie Stark, a cynical populist in the 1930s American South.

About the Author:

Robert Penn Warren was an American poet, novelist, and literary critic and was one of the founders of New Criticism. He was also a charter member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers. He founded the literary journal The Southern Review with Cleanth Brooks in 1935. He received the 1947 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel for All the King's Men (1946) and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1958 and 1979. He is the only person to have won Pulitzer Prizes for both fiction and poetry.

#135 All the King's Men - Robert Penn Warren (Louisiana)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 18 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#134 Book Bootleggers

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 11 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Light in August, a novel that contrasts stark tragedy with hopeful perseverance in the face of mortality, which features some of Faulkner’s most memorable characters: guileless, dauntless Lena Grove, in search of the father of her unborn child; Reverend Gail Hightower, a lonely outcast haunted by visions of Confederate glory; and Joe Christmas, a desperate, enigmatic drifter consumed by his mixed ancestry.

About the Author:

William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer. He is best known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, Mississippi, a stand-in for Lafayette County where he spent most of his life. A Nobel laureate, Faulkner is one of the most celebrated writers of American literature and often is considered the greatest writer of Southern literature.

Faulkner was born in New Albany, Mississippi, and raised in Oxford, Mississippi. During World War I, he joined the Royal Canadian Air Force, but did not serve in combat. Returning to Oxford, he attended the University of Mississippi for three semesters before dropping out. He moved to New Orleans, where he wrote his first novel Soldiers' Pay (1925). He went back to Oxford and wrote Sartoris (1927), his first work set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County. In 1929, he published The Sound and the Fury. The following year, he wrote As I Lay Dying. Later that decade, he wrote Light in August, Absalom, Absalom! and The Wild Palms. He also worked as a screenwriter, contributing to Howard Hawks's To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, adapted from Raymond Chandler's novel. The former film, adapted from Ernest Hemingway's novel, is the only film with contributions by two Nobel laureates.

Faulkner's reputation grew following publication of Malcolm Cowley's The Portable Faulkner, and he was awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize in Literature for "his powerful and unique contribution to the modern American novel." He is the only Mississippi-born Nobel laureate. Two of his works, A Fable (1954) and The Reivers (1962), won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Faulkner died from a heart attack on July 6, 1962, following a fall from his horse the month before. Ralph Ellison called him "the greatest artist the South has produced".

#133 Light in August - William Faulkner (Mississippi)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 4 Jun 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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#132 Scorpions and Sauerkraut

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 28 May 2025 14:21:52 +0000

About the Book:

This compelling novel has as its protagonist Cornelius Suttree, living alone and in exile in a disintegrating houseboat on the wrong side of the Tennessee River close by Knoxville. He stays at the edge of an outcast community inhabited by eccentrics, criminals and the poverty-stricken. Rising above the physical and human squalor around him, his detachment and wry humour enable him to survive dereliction and destitution with dignity.

About the Author:

Cormac McCarthy was a highly acclaimed American novelist and screenwriter celebrated for his distinctive literary style, philosophical depth, and exploration of violence, morality, and the human condition. His writing, often characterized by sparse punctuation and lyrical, biblical language, delved into the primal forces that shape human behavior, set against the haunting landscapes of the American South and Southwest.

McCarthy’s early novels, including The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark, established him as a powerful voice in Southern Gothic literature, while Blood Meridian (1985) is frequently cited as his magnum opus—a brutal, visionary epic about violence and manifest destiny in the American West. In the 1990s, his "Border Trilogy"—All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain—garnered widespread popularity and critical acclaim, blending coming-of-age themes with philosophical introspection and tragic realism.
His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into an Academy Award-winning film by the Coen brothers, and his harrowing post-apocalyptic tale The Road (2006) won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was also made into a major motion picture. Both works brought him mainstream recognition and a broader readership later in his career.

Despite his fame, McCarthy remained famously private and rarely gave interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself. His legacy endures through his powerful, often unsettling portrayals of humanity’s struggle with fate, violence, and redemption, making him one of the most influential and original voices in modern American literature.

#131 Suttree - Cormac McCarthy (Tennessee)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 21 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

About the Author:

#130 Third Spaces, Dental Waiting Rooms, and Quiet Uber Rides

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 13 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

“This is a book about Heaven,” says Jayber Crow, “but I must say too that . . . I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell.” It is 1932 and he has returned to his native Port William to become the town's barber. Orphaned at age ten, Jayber Crow’s acquaintance with loneliness and want have made him a patient observer of the human animal, in both its goodness and frailty. He began his search as a "pre-ministerial student" at Pigeonville College. There, freedom met with new burdens and a young man needed more than a mirror to find himself. But the beginning of that finding was a short conversation with "Old Grit," his profound professor of New Testament Greek.

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out―perhaps a little at a time."

"And how long is that going to take?"

"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."

"That could be a long time."

"I will tell you a further mystery," he said. "It may take longer." Wendell Berry’s clear-sighted depiction of humanity’s gifts―love and loss, joy and despair―is seen though his intimate knowledge of the Port William Membership.

About the Author:

Wendell Berry is a conservationist, farmer, essayist, novelist, professor of English and poet. He was born August 5, 1934 in Henry County, Kentucky where he now lives on a farm. The New York Times has called Berry the "prophet of rural America."

#129 Jayber Crow - Wendell Berry (Kentucky)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 1 May 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

"You have been given questions to which you cannot be given answers. You will have to live them out―perhaps a little at a time."

"And how long is that going to take?"

"I don't know. As long as you live, perhaps."

"That could be a long time."

About the Author:

#128🔥 SMOKEBIRDS, a novel by Daniel Breyer: Live Recording at Green Apple Books in SF

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 23 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Jeremy joined Daniel for a live event at Green Apple Books in San Francisco to discuss Daniel’s debut: Smokebirds. Set in the near future, when every autumn is fire season in California, wealthy San Franciscans flee their city for smoke-free pastures. Among them are the Petersons, a family enriched by the lumber industry, who traditionally spend every August in Hawaii. This annual retreat, once a period of leisure and luxury with golf, hikes, and high-society mingling, takes a turn when 22-year-old Cole Peterson aligns himself with Aid For Earth, a climate justice organization. Cole and Aid For Earth proceed to mire the Peterson family in scandal, alleging that Peterson Lumber started a forest fire, covered up their culpability, and then profited off a government contract to extract the burnt lumber.

Smokebirds is not just a narrative about the complexity of familial bonds and the facade of integrity; it is a commentary on the enduring power of privilege against the backdrop of climate justice. It captures the tension between societal expectations of accountability and the reality of an elite untouched by the demands for change, reflecting on who truly bears the cost of our environmental crises.

#127 🪙 24 Hours After You Win the Lottery....

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 9 Apr 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Second only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome, introducing the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout to the world and Vonnegut to the collegiate audience which would soon make him a cult writer.

Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption.

It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference--an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania--and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition.

The novel was adapted for a 1979 Alan Menken musical. The novel is told mostly thru a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. The antagonist's tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion. The stories reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.

About the Author:

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

#126 God Bless You Mr Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut (Indiana)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 2 Apr 2025 13:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

About the Author:

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

#125 🏡 Diets, Taylor Swift, Conformity, and the Myth of Individualism

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is meticulously planned – from the layout of the winding roads, to the colours of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules.

Enter Mia Warren – an enigmatic artist and single mother – who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenage daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than just tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother–daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past, and a disregard for the rules that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community.

When old family friends attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town – and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides. Suspicious of Mia and her motives, Elena is determined to uncover the secrets in Mia's past. But her obsession will come at an unexpected and devastating cost . . .

About the Author:

Celeste Ng is the author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts.

Her first novel, Everything I Never Told You (2014), was a New York Times bestseller, a
New York Times Notable Book of 2014, Amazon’s #1 Best Book of 2014, and named a best book of the year by over a dozen publications. Everything I Never Told You was also the winner of the Massachusetts Book Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, and the ALA’s Alex Award. It has been translated into over thirty languages and is being adapted for the screen.

Her second novel, Little Fires Everywhere (2017) was a #1 New York Times bestseller, a #1 Indie Next bestseller, and Amazon's Best Fiction Book of 2017. It was named a best book of the year by over 25 publications, the winner of the Ohioana Award and the Goodreads Readers Choice Award 2017 in Fiction, and spent over a year on the New York Times bestseller list.
Little Fires Everywhere has been published abroad in more than 30 languages and has been adapted as a limited series on Hulu, starring Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington.

Her third novel, Our Missing Hearts, will be published on October 4, 2022.

Celeste grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Shaker Heights, Ohio. She graduated from Harvard University and earned an MFA from the University of Michigan (now the Helen Zell Writers’ Program at the University of Michigan). Her fiction and essays have appeared in the
New York Times, The Guardian, and many other publications, and she is a recipient of the Pushcart Prize, a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship, among other honors.

#124 Little Fires Everywhere - Celeste Ng (Ohio)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 19 Mar 2025 13:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Everyone in Shaker Heights was talking about it that summer: how Isabelle, the last of the Richardson children, had finally gone around the bend and burned the house down.

About the Author:

Celeste Ng is the author of three novels, Everything I Never Told You, Little Fires Everywhere, and Our Missing Hearts.

Her third novel, Our Missing Hearts, will be published on October 4, 2022.

#123 🎮 "Bad" Habits, Video Games, Jiu Jitsu, and the End of Death

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 12 Mar 2025 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Rabbit, Run is the book that established John Updike as one of the major American novelists of his—or any other—generation. Its hero is Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom, a onetime high-school basketball star who on an impulse deserts his wife and son. He is twenty-six years old, a man-child caught in a struggle between instinct and thought, self and society, sexual gratification and family duty—even, in a sense, human hard-heartedness and divine Grace. Though his flight from home traces a zigzag of evasion, he holds to the faith that he is on the right path, an invisible line toward his own salvation as straight as a ruler’s edge.

About The Author:

John Hoyer Updike was an American writer. Updike's most famous work is his Rabbit series (Rabbit, Run; Rabbit Redux; Rabbit Is Rich; Rabbit At Rest; and Rabbit Remembered). Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest both won Pulitzer Prizes for Updike. Describing his subject as "the American small town, Protestant middle class," Updike is well known for his careful craftsmanship and prolific writing, having published 22 novels and more than a dozen short story collections as well as poetry, literary criticism and children's books. Hundreds of his stories, reviews, and poems have appeared in The New Yorker since the 1950s. His works often explore sex, faith, and death, and their inter-relationships.

He died of lung cancer at age 76.

#122 🐇 Rabbit Run by John Updike (Pennsylvania)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 6 Mar 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

#121 New York vs Siberia

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

In this honest and stunning novel, James Baldwin has given America a moving story of love in the face of injustice. Told through the eyes of Tish, a nineteen-year-old girl, in love with Fonny, a young sculptor who is the father of her child, Baldwin's story mixes the sweet and the sad. Tish and Fonny have pledged to get married, but Fonny is falsely accused of a terrible crime and imprisoned. Their families set out to clear his name, and as they face an uncertain future, the young lovers experience a kaleidoscope of emotions—affection, despair, and hope. In a love story that evokes the blues, where passion and sadness are inevitably intertwined, Baldwin has created two characters so alive and profoundly realized that they are unforgettably ingrained in the American psyche.

About the Author:

James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.

He came as the eldest of nine children; his stepfather served as a minister. At 14 years of age in 1938, Baldwin preached at the small fireside Pentecostal church in Harlem. From religion in the early 1940s, he transferred his faith to literature with the still evident impassioned cadences of black churches. From 1948, Baldwin made his home primarily in the south of France but often returned to the United States of America to lecture or to teach.

In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.

James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.

He first partially autobiographically accounted his youth. His influential Nobody Knows My Name and The Fire Next Time informed a large white audience. Another Country talks about gay sexual tensions among intellectuals of New York. Segments of the black nationalist community savaged his gay themes. Eldridge Cleaver of the Black Panthers stated the Baldwin displayed an "agonizing, total hatred of blacks." People produced Blues for Mister Charlie , play of Baldwin, in 1964. Huey Newton, co-founder of the Black Panther Party, defended Baldwin.

Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.

From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.

#120 If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 20 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

About the Author:

James Arthur Baldwin authored plays and poems in society.

In his Giovanni's Room, a white American expatriate must come to terms with his homosexuality. In 1957, he began spending half of each year in city of New York.

James Baldwin offered a vital literary voice during the era of civil rights activism in the 1950s and 1960s.

Going to Meet the Man and Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone provided powerful descriptions. He as an openly gay man increasingly in condemned discrimination against lesbian persons.

From stomach cancer, Baldwin died in Saint-Paul-de-Vence, France. People buried his body at the Ferncliff cemetery in Hartsdale near city of New York.

#119 Full House, ABC Family, Moralizing Content, and the Return of Retro

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Generations of readers young and old, male and female, have fallen in love with the March sisters of Louisa May Alcott’s most popular and enduring novel, Little Women. Here are talented tomboy and author-to-be Jo, tragically frail Beth, beautiful Meg, and romantic, spoiled Amy, united in their devotion to each other and their struggles to survive in New England during the Civil War.

It is no secret that Alcott based Little Women on her own early life. While her father, the freethinking reformer and abolitionist Bronson Alcott, hobnobbed with such eminent male authors as Emerson, Thoreau, and Hawthorne, Louisa supported herself and her sisters with "woman’s work,” including sewing, doing laundry, and acting as a domestic servant. But she soon discovered she could make more money writing. Little Women brought her lasting fame and fortune, and far from being the "girl’s book” her publisher requested, it explores such timeless themes as love and death, war and peace, the conflict between personal ambition and family responsibilities, and the clash of cultures between Europe and America.

About The Author:

Louisa May Alcott was an American novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for writing the novel Little Women (1868) and its sequels Good Wives (1869), Little Men (1871) and Jo's Boys (1886). Raised in New England by her transcendentalist parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott, she grew up among many well-known intellectuals of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Alcott's family suffered from financial difficulties, and while she worked to help support the family from an early age, she also sought an outlet in writing. She began to receive critical success for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used pen names such as A.M. Barnard, under which she wrote lurid short stories and sensation novels for adults that focused on passion and revenge.

Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts, and is loosely based on Alcott's childhood experiences with her three sisters, Abigail May Alcott Nieriker, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Anna Bronson Alcott Pratt. The novel was well-received at the time and is still popular today among both children and adults. It has been adapted for stage plays, films, and television many times.

Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist and remained unmarried throughout her life. She also spent her life active in reform movements such as temperance and women's suffrage. She died from a stroke in Boston on March 6, 1888, just two days after her father's death.

#118 🐴 Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 5 Feb 2025 15:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

#117 🧓🏼 Peak Late! Achieving Artistic Success at a Young Age, Ego in Writing, and Jon Hamm

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 29 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Set at an affluent liberal arts college during the height of the Reagan eighties, The Rules of Attraction follows a handful of rowdy, spoiled, sexually promiscuous students with no plans for the future—or even the present. Three of them—Sean, Paul, and Lauren—become involved in a love triangle of sorts within a sequence of drug runs, "Dressed to Get Screwed" parties, and "End of the World" parties.

As Bret Easton Ellis trains his incisive gaze on the kids at the self-consciously bohemian Camden College, treating their sexual posturing and agonies with a mixture of acrid hilarity and compassion, he exposes the moral vacuum at the center of their lives.

About The Author:

Bret Easton Ellis is an American author and screenwriter. Ellis was one of the literary Brat Pack and is a self-proclaimed satirist whose trademark technique, as a writer, is the expression of extreme acts and opinions in an affectless style. His novels commonly share recurring characters.
When Ellis was 21, his first novel, the controversial bestseller Less than Zero (1985), was published by Simon & Schuster. His third novel, American Psycho (1991), was his most successful. Upon its release the literary establishment widely condemned it as overly violent and misogynistic. Though many petitions to ban the book saw Ellis dropped by Simon & Schuster, the resounding controversy convinced Alfred A. Knopf to release it as a paperback later that year.
Ellis's novels have become increasingly metafictional. Lunar Park (2005), a pseudo-memoir and ghost story, received positive reviews. Imperial Bedrooms (2010), marketed as a sequel to Less than Zero, continues in this vein. The Shards (2023) is a fictionalized memoir of Ellis's final year of high school in 1981 Los Angeles.
Four of Ellis's works have been made into films. Less than Zero was adapted in 1987 as a film of the same name, but the film bore little resemblance to the novel. Mary Harron's adaptation of American Psycho was released in 2000. Roger Avary's adaptation of The Rules of Attraction was released in 2002. The Informers, co-written by Ellis and based on his collection of short stories, was released in 2008. Ellis also wrote the screenplay for the 2013 film The Canyons.

#116 🥵 Rules of Attraction by Bret Easton Ellis (New Hampshire)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 22 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

#115 👻 Do You Believe in Ghosts?

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Four years after the sudden death of his wife, forty-year-old bestselling novelist Mike Noonan is still grieving. Unable to write, and plagued by vivid nightmares set at the western Maine summerhouse he calls Sara Laughs, Mike reluctantly returns to the lakeside getaway. There, he finds his beloved Yankee town held in the grip of a powerful millionaire, Max Devore, whose vindictive purpose is to take his three-year-old granddaughter, Kyra, away from her widowed young mother, Mattie. As Mike is drawn into Mattie and Kyra's struggle, as he falls in love with both of them, he is also drawn into the mystery of Sara Laughs, now the site of ghostly visitations and escalating terrors. What are the forces that have been unleashed here — and what do they want of Mike Noonan?

About the Author:

Stephen Edwin King was born the second son of Donald and Nellie Ruth Pillsbury King. After his father left them when Stephen was two, he and his older brother, David, were raised by his mother. Parts of his childhood were spent in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where his father's family was at the time, and in Stratford, Connecticut. When Stephen was eleven, his mother brought her children back to Durham, Maine, for good. Her parents, Guy and Nellie Pillsbury, had become incapacitated with old age, and Ruth King was persuaded by her sisters to take over the physical care of them. Other family members provided a small house in Durham and financial support. After Stephen's grandparents passed away, Mrs. King found work in the kitchens of Pineland, a nearby residential facility for the mentally challenged.

Stephen attended the grammar school in Durham and Lisbon Falls High School, graduating in 1966. From his sophomore year at the University of Maine at Orono, he wrote a weekly column for the school newspaper, THE MAINE CAMPUS. He was also active in student politics, serving as a member of the Student Senate. He came to support the anti-war movement on the Orono campus, arriving at his stance from a conservative view that the war in Vietnam was unconstitutional. He graduated in 1970, with a B.A. in English and qualified to teach on the high school level. A draft board examination immediately post-graduation found him 4-F on grounds of high blood pressure, limited vision, flat feet, and punctured eardrums.

He met Tabitha Spruce in the stacks of the Fogler Library at the University, where they both worked as students; they married in January of 1971. As Stephen was unable to find placement as a teacher immediately, the Kings lived on his earnings as a laborer at an industrial laundry, and her student loan and savings, with an occasional boost from a short story sale to men's magazines.

Stephen made his first professional short story sale ("The Glass Floor") to Startling Mystery Stories in 1967. Throughout the early years of his marriage, he continued to sell stories to men's magazines. Many were gathered into the Night Shift collection or appeared in other anthologies.

In the fall of 1971, Stephen began teaching English at Hampden Academy, the public high school in Hampden, Maine. Writing in the evenings and on the weekends, he continued to produce short stories and to work on novels.

#114 -SEASON 7 ROAD TRIP USA - Bag of Bones by Stephen King (Maine)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 9 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About the Author:

#113 〽️ Alternative Takes on Classic Characters, A Dangerous Game

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

About the Author:

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.

The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”

Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.

Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.

#112 🌾 James by Percival Everett

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn , both harrowing and ferociously funny, told from the enslaved Jim's point of view.

About the Author:

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

#111 📿 The Spectrum of Spirituality and Rationality

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 4 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

A man starts driving without knowing where he is going. He alternates between turning right and left, and finally he gets stuck at the end of a forest road. Soon it gets dark and starts to snow, but instead of going back to find help, he ventures, foolishly, into the dark forest. Inevitably, the man gets lost, and as he grows cold and tired, he encounters a glowing being amid the obscurity. Strange, haunting and dreamlike, A Shining is the latest work of fiction by Jon Fosse, 'the Beckett of the twenty-first century' (Le Monde).

About the Author:

Jon Olav Fosse was born in Haugesund, Norway and currently lives in Bergen. He debuted in 1983 with the novel Raudt, svart (Red, black). His first play, Og aldri skal vi skiljast, was performed and published in 1994. Jon Fosse has written novels, short stories, poetry, children's books, essays and plays. His works have been translated into more than forty languages. He is widely considered as one of the world's greatest contemporary playwrights. Fosse was made a chevalier of the Ordre national du Mérite of France in 2007. Fosse also has been ranked number 83 on the list of the Top 100 living geniuses by The Daily Telegraph.

He was awarded The Nobel Prize in Literature 2023 "for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable".

Since 2011, Fosse has been granted the Grotten, an honorary residence owned by the Norwegian state and located on the premises of the Royal Palace in the city centre of Oslo. The Grotten is given as a permanent residence to a person specifically bestowed this honour by the King of Norway for their contributions to Norwegian arts and culture.

#110 🌳 A Shining by Jon Fosse (2023)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

#109 👁️‍🗨️ The Allure of Violence, Escapism, Horror, and Finding Humor in Death

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

980, PASS CHRISTIAN, It is three in the morning when Bobby Western zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges from the Coast Guard tender into darkness. His dive light illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot’s flight bag, the plane’s black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit—by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.

Traversing the American South, from the garrulous barrooms of New Orleans to an abandoned oil rig off the Florida coast, The Passenger is a breathtaking novel of morality and science, the legacy of sin, and the madness that is human consciousness.

About the Author:

Cormac McCarthy was a renowned American novelist and playwright, celebrated for his works in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres. He authored twelve novels, including The Road, for which he received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007. His 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted into a 2007 film that won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. McCarthy's earlier work, Blood Meridian (1985), was listed among Time magazine's 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005. He was also recognized as a runner-up in a 2006 New York Times poll of the best American fiction from the past 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom regarded him as one of the four major American novelists of his era, alongside Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth, and he is often compared to William Faulkner by contemporary reviewers. In 2009, McCarthy was honored with the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for lifetime achievement from the PEN American Center.

#108🤿 The Passenger by CORMAC MCCARTHY (2022)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 6 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About the Author:

#107 😗 Would You Be a Whistleblower?

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church.

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

About the Author:

Claire Keegan was raised on a farm in Wicklow. She completed her undergraduate studies at Loyola University, New Orleans, Louisiana and subsequently earned an MA at The University of Wales and an M.Phil at Trinity College, Dublin.

Her first collection of stories, Antarctica, was a Los Angeles Times Book of the Year. Her second, Walk the Blue Fields, was Richard Ford’s book of the year. Her works have won several awards including The Hugh Leonard Bursary, The Macaulay Fellowship, The Rooney Prize for Irish Literature, The Martin Healy Prize, The Olive Cook Award, The Kilkenny Prize, The Tom Gallon Award and The William Trevor Prize, judged by William Trevor. Twice was Keegan the recipient of the Francis MacManus Award. She was also a Wingate Scholar. She lives in Wexford.

#106 🇮🇪 Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Sat, 26 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Already an international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.

About the Author:

#105 🔚 Endings: the Good, the Bad, the Insanely Great

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 16 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. Expert in a very narrow area—the geological history of a cave forty-four meters above the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon—he is a laconic man who plays chess with his daughter, trades puns with his wife while she does yoga, and dodges committee work at the college where he teaches.

After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world crumbling. His daughter has lost her edge at chess, she has developed mysterious eye problems, and her memory has lost its grasp. Powerless in the face of his daughter’s slow deterioration, he finds a mysterious note asking for help tucked into the pocket of a jacket he’s ordered off eBay. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off to New Mexico in secret on a quixotic rescue mission.

A deeply affecting story about the lengths to which loss and grief will drive us, Telephone is a Percival Everett novel we should have seen coming all along, one that will shake you to the core as it asks questions about the power of narrative to save.

About the Author:

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

#104 ☎️ Telephone by Percival Everet (2020)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About the Author:

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

#103 What Your Bookshelf Says About You

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 3 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

#102 The Dutch House by Anne Patchett (2019)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 26 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

#101 🎊 Meet the Team That Got Us to 💯 Episodes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

To honor 100 episodes of Good Scribes Only, we wanted to highlight a few of the people who made it possible (and easy) for us. Thank you to our team, and thanks to all you listeners out there. See y'all at 200!

#100 👯‍♀️ How Friend Groups Change Over Time

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal.

A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other.

Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship.

About the Author:

Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin, where she graduated from Trinity College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Dublin Review, The White Review, The Stinging Fly, and the Winter Pages anthology.

#99 ❤️‍🩹 Normal People by Sally Rooney (2018)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 5 Sep 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book: At school Connell and Marianne pretend not to know each other. He’s popular and well-adjusted, star of the school soccer team while she is lonely, proud, and intensely private. But when Connell comes to pick his mother up from her housekeeping job at Marianne’s house, a strange and indelible connection grows between the two teenagers - one they are determined to conceal. A year later, they’re both studying at Trinity College in Dublin. Marianne has found her feet in a new social world while Connell hangs at the sidelines, shy and uncertain. Throughout their years in college, Marianne and Connell circle one another, straying toward other people and possibilities but always magnetically, irresistibly drawn back together. Then, as she veers into self-destruction and he begins to search for meaning elsewhere, each must confront how far they are willing to go to save the other. Sally Rooney brings her brilliant psychological acuity and perfectly spare prose to a story that explores the subtleties of class, the electricity of first love, and the complex entanglements of family and friendship. About the Author: Sally Rooney was born in 1991 and lives in Dublin, where she graduated from Trinity College. Her work has appeared in Granta, The Dublin Review, The White Review, The Stinging Fly, and the Winter Pages anthology. Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#98 🪷 Do We Have a Soul?

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Week's Book:

In his long-awaited first novel, American master George Saunders delivers his most original, transcendent, and moving work yet. Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other—for no one but Saunders could conceive it.

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. "My poor boy, he was too good for this earth," the president says at the time. "God has called him home." Newspapers report that a grief-stricken Lincoln returned to the crypt several times alone to hold his boy's body.

From that seed of historical truth, George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a thrilling, supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory, where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie's soul.

Lincoln in the Bardo is an astonishing feat of imagination and a bold step forward from one of the most important and influential writers of his generation. Formally daring, generous in spirit, deeply concerned with matters of the heart, it is a testament to fiction's ability to speak honestly and powerfully to the things that really matter to us. Saunders has invented a thrilling new form that deploys a kaleidoscopic, theatrical panorama of voices—living and dead, historical and invented—to ask a timeless, profound question: How do we live and love when we know that everything we love must end?

About The Author:

George Saunders was born December 2, 1958 and raised on the south side of Chicago. In 1981 he received a B.S. in Geophysical Engineering from Colorado School of Mines in Golden, Colorado. He worked at Radian International, an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, NY as a technical writer and geophysical engineer from 1989 to 1996. He has also worked in Sumatra on an oil exploration geophysics crew, as a doorman in Beverly Hills, a roofer in Chicago, a convenience store clerk, a guitarist in a Texas country-and-western band, and a knuckle-puller in a West Texas slaughterhouse.

After reading in People magazine about the Master's program at Syracuse University, he applied. Mr. Saunders received an MA with an emphasis in creative writing in 1988. His thesis advisor was Doug Unger.

He has been an Assistant Professor, Syracuse University Creative Writing Program since 1997. He has also been a Visiting Writer at Vermont Studio Center, University of Georgia MayMester Program, University of Denver, University of Texas at Austin, St. Petersburg Literary Seminar (St. Petersburg, Russia, Summer 2000), Brown University, Dickinson College, Hobart & William Smith Colleges.

He conducted a Guest Workshop at the Eastman School of Music, Fall 1995, and was an Adjunct Professor at Saint John Fisher College, Rochester, New York, 1990-1995; and Adjunct Professor at Siena College, Loudonville, New York in Fall 1989.

#97 🥀 Lincoln In the Bardo by George Saunders (2017)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

About The Author:

#96➗Maybe We're Less Divided Than We Think We Are? (Plus Daniel's Suspension From Twitter 🫠)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

About The Episode:

Set in contemporary times, Baron Wenckheim’s Homecoming tells the story of a Prince Myshkin–like figure, Baron Bela Wenckheim, who decides to return at the end of his life to the provincial Hungarian town of his birth. Having escaped from his many casino debts in Buenos Aires, where he was living in exile, he wishes to be reunited with his high school sweetheart Marika. What follows is an endless storm of gossip, con men, and local politicians, vividly evoking the small town’s alternately drab and absurd existence. All along, the Professor—a world-famous natural scientist who studies mosses and inhabits a bizarre Zen-like shack in a desolate area outside of town—offers long rants and disquisitions on his own attempts to immunize himself from thought. Spectacular actions are staged, death and the abyss loom, until finally doom is brought down on the unsuspecting residents of the town.

About the Author:

László Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter who is known for critically difficult and demanding novels, often labelled as postmodern, with dystopian and bleak melancholic themes.

He is probably best known through the oeuvre of the director Béla Tarr, who has collaborated with him on several movies.

Krasznahorkai has been honored with numerous literary prizes, among them the highest award of the Hungarian state, the Kossuth Prize, and the 2015 Man Booker International Prize for his English-translated oeuvre.

#95 🇭🇺 Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming by Laszlo Krasznahorkai

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 7 Aug 2024 13:00:00 +0000

About The Episode:

About the Author:

László Krasznahorkai is a Hungarian novelist and screenwriter who is known for critically difficult and demanding novels, often labelled as postmodern, with dystopian and bleak melancholic themes.

He is probably best known through the oeuvre of the director Béla Tarr, who has collaborated with him on several movies.

#94 🎭 The Masks We Wear

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 18 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings.

Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue.

About the Author:

Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella, McGlue. She lives in Southern California.

About The Podcast:

Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 6, we’re traveling through 2010-2024, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT.

#93 😳 Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 12 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book: The Christmas season offers little cheer for Eileen Dunlop, an unassuming yet disturbed young woman trapped between her role as her alcoholic father’s caretaker in a home whose squalor is the talk of the neighborhood and a day job as a secretary at the boys’ prison, filled with its own quotidian horrors. Consumed by resentment and self-loathing, Eileen tempers her dreary days with perverse fantasies and dreams of escaping to the big city. In the meantime, she fills her nights and weekends with shoplifting, stalking a buff prison guard named Randy, and cleaning up her increasingly deranged father’s messes. When the bright, beautiful, and cheery Rebecca Saint John arrives on the scene as the new counselor at Moorehead, Eileen is enchanted and proves unable to resist what appears at first to be a miraculously budding friendship. In a Hitchcockian twist, her affection for Rebecca ultimately pulls her into complicity in a crime that surpasses her wildest imaginings. Played out against the snowy landscape of coastal New England in the days leading up to Christmas, young Eileen’s story is told from the gimlet-eyed perspective of the now much older narrator. Creepy, mesmerizing, and sublimely funny, in the tradition of Shirley Jackson and early Vladimir Nabokov, this powerful debut novel enthralls and shocks, and introduces one of the most original new voices in contemporary literature. Ottessa Moshfegh is also the author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation, Homesick for Another World: Stories, and McGlue. About the Author: Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. My Year of Rest and Relaxation and Death in Her Hands, her second and third novels, were New York Times bestsellers. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World and a novella, McGlue. She lives in Southern California. About The Podcast: Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 6, we’re traveling through 2010-2024, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT. Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#92 👓 Blindness, Eyesight, and the Problem(?!) of Reading

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 3 Jul 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary About The Book: Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel. In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another. About The Author: Anthony Doerr is the author of six books, The Shell Collector , About Grace , Memory Wall , Four Seasons in Rome , All the Light We Cannot See , and Cloud Cuckoo Land . Doerr is a two-time National Book Award finalist, and his fiction has won five O. Henry Prizes and won a number of prizes including the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal. Become a fan on Facebook and stay up-to-date on his latest publications. About The Podcast: Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 6, we’re traveling through 2010-2024, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT. Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#91 🏰 All the Light We Cannot See (2014)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 26 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Marie-Laure lives in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where her father works. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, Werner Pfennig, an orphan, grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find that brings them news and stories from places they have never seen or imagined. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments and is enlisted to use his talent to track down the resistance. Deftly interweaving the lives of Marie-Laure and Werner, Doerr illuminates the ways, against all odds, people try to be good to one another.

About The Author:

Anthony Doerr is the author of six books, The Shell Collector , About Grace , Memory Wall , Four Seasons in Rome , All the Light We Cannot See , and Cloud Cuckoo Land . Doerr is a two-time National Book Award finalist, and his fiction has won five O. Henry Prizes and won a number of prizes including the Pulitzer Prize and the Carnegie Medal. Become a fan on Facebook and stay up-to-date on his latest publications.

About The Podcast:

#90 👨‍🚀 Texas, California, Jon Stewart, Wokism, and an Unfortunate Foray into Politics

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

The acclaimed author of American Rust, returns with The Son: an epic, multigenerational saga of power, blood, and land that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the...

Episode Notes

About the Book:

The acclaimed author of American Rust, returns with The Son: an epic, multigenerational saga of power, blood, and land that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the border raids of the early 1900s to the oil booms of the 20th century.

Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.

Spring, 1849. The first male child born in the newly established Republic of Texas, Eli McCullough is thirteen years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to Comanche life, learning their ways and language, answering to a new name, carving a place as the chief's adopted son, and waging war against their enemies, including white men-complicating his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is. But when disease, starvation, and overwhelming numbers of armed Americans decimate the tribe, Eli finds himself alone. Neither white nor Indian, civilized or fully wild, he must carve a place for himself in a world in which he does not fully belong-a journey of adventure, tragedy, hardship, grit, and luck that reverberates in the lives of his progeny.

Intertwined with Eli's story are those of his son, Peter, a man who bears the emotional cost of his father's drive for power, and JA, Eli's great-granddaughter, a woman who must fight hardened rivals to succeed in a man's world.

Phillipp Meyer deftly explores how Eli's ruthlessness and steely pragmatism transform subsequent generations of McCulloughs. Love, honor, children are sacrificed in the name of ambition, as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCoulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.

Harrowing, panoramic, and vividly drawn, The Son is a masterful achievement from a sublime young talent.

About the Author:

Philipp Meyer's novel, American Rust, was an Economist Book of the Year, a Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2009, a New York Times Notable Book, A Kansas City Star Top 100 Book of 2009, and an Amazon Top 100 Book of 2009.

Philipp Meyer grew up in Baltimore, dropped out of high school, and got his GED when he was sixteen. After spending several years working as a bike mechanic and volunteering at a trauma center in downtown Baltimore, he attended Cornell University, where he studied English. Since graduating, Meyer has worked as a derivatives trader at UBS, a construction worker, and an EMT, among other jobs. His writing has been published in McSweeney's, The United States of McSweeney's, The Best of McSweeney's 11-20, Esquire UK, The Iowa Review, The Independent (UK), Salon.com, and New Stories from the South. From 2005 to 2008 Meyer was a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. He splits his time between Texas and upstate New York.

About The Podcast:

#89 🏇 The Son by Philipp Meyer (2013)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

Harrowing, panoramic, and vividly drawn, The Son is a masterful achievement from a sublime young talent.

About the Author:

About The Podcast:

#88 🤨 Mad Men, Succession, Anti-heroes, and Complex Characters

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 5 Jun 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart--he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season's first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone--but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

About The Author:

Eowyn Ivey's first novel, The Snow Child, was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in fiction and an international bestseller. To the Bright Edge of the World was a Library Journal Top Ten Book of the Year, a BookPage Best Book of the year, and a Washington Post Notable Book. Eowyn was raised in Alaska and continues to live there with her husband and two daughters.

About The Podcast:

About The Show:

#87 ⛄️ Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey (2012)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Fri, 31 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

About The Podcast:

About The Show:

Website

TikTok

Instagram

YouTube

Newsletter

Jeremy's Website

Dan's Website

Website

TikTok

Instagram

YouTube

Newsletter

Jeremy's Website

Dan's Website

#86 🥱 Could Boredom Be the Spice of Life?!

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 23 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

The agents at the IRS Regional Examination Center in Peoria, Illinois, appear ordinary enough to newly arrived trainee David Foster Wallace. But as he immerses himself in a routine so tedious and repetitive that new employees receive boredom-survival training, he learns of the extraordinary variety of personalities drawn to this strange calling. And he has arrived at a moment when forces within the IRS are plotting to eliminate even what little humanity and dignity the work still has.

The Pale King remained unfinished at the time of David Foster Wallace's death, but it is a deeply compelling and satisfying novel, hilarious and fearless and as original as anything Wallace ever undertook. It grapples directly with ultimate questions--questions of life's meaning and of the value of work and society--through characters imagined with the interior force and generosity that were Wallace's unique gifts. Along the way it suggests a new idea of heroism and commands infinite respect for one of the most daring writers of our time.

About The Author:

David Foster Wallace worked surprising turns on nearly everything: novels, journalism, vacation. His life was an information hunt, collecting hows and whys. "I received 500,000 discrete bits of information today," he once said, "of which maybe 25 are important. My job is to make some sense of it." He wanted to write "stuff about what it feels like to live. Instead of being a relief from what it feels like to live." Readers curled up in the nooks and clearings of his style: his comedy, his brilliance, his humaneness.

About The Show:

#85 🧾 The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (2011)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 15 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book:

About The Author:

About The Show:

#84 🎬 American Fiction, Dark comedies, and Love on a Leash

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 8 May 2024 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

About the Book

Goodreads Summarizes A Visit from the Goon Squad as: a book about the interplay of time and music, about survival, about the stirrings and transformations set inexorably in motion by even the most passing conjunction of our fates. In a breathtaking array of styles and tones ranging from tragedy to satire to PowerPoint, Egan captures the undertow of self-destruction that we all must either master or succumb to; the basic human hunger for redemption; and the universal tendency to reach for both—and escape the merciless progress of time—in the transporting realms of art and music. Sly, startling, exhilarating work from one of our boldest writers.

About the Author:

Jennifer Egan is the author of several novels and a short story collection. Her 2017 novel, Manhattan Beach, a New York Times bestseller, was awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, and was chosen as New York City’s One Book One New York read. Her previous novel, A Visit From the Goon Squad, won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the Los Angeles Times book prize, and was named one of the best books of the decade by Time Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. Also a journalist, she has written frequently in the New York Times Magazine, and she recently completed a term as President of PEN America. Her new novel, The Candy House, a sibling to A Visit From the Goon Squad, was published in April, 2022, and was recently named one of the New York Times’s 10 Best Books of 2022, as well as one of President Obama’s favorite reads of 2022

About the Show:

#83 👨‍🎤 A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (2010)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 30 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book

About the Author:

About the Show:

#82 🗺️ Cities, Access to Nature, Norway, and Choosing Where to Live

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

My Struggle: Book One introduces American listeners to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intensely, irresistibly readable. Unafraid of the big issues - death, love, art, fear - and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, My Struggle is an essential work of contemporary literature.

About The Author:

Nominated to the 2004 Nordic Council’s Literature Prize & awarded the 2004 Norwegian Critics’ Prize.

Karl Ove Knausgård (b. 1968) made his literary debut in 1998 with the widely acclaimed novel Out of the World, which was a great critical and commercial success and won him, as the first debut novel ever, The Norwegian Critics' Prize. He then went on to write six autobiographical novels, titled My Struggle (Min Kamp), which have become a publication phenomenon in his native Norway as well as the world over.

About the Show:

Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 5, we’re traveling through 2000-2010, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT.

#81 🏀 Book Madness 2024

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 8 Apr 2024 14:33:10 +0000

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In our final episode of Season Five: Into the 21st Century, we create a March Madness bracket for all the books we have read this season on Good Scribes Only. We hope you enjoy! Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#80 🇳🇴 My Struggle by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2009)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Wed, 3 Apr 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

Nominated to the 2004 Nordic Council’s Literature Prize & awarded the 2004 Norwegian Critics’ Prize.

About the Show:

# 79 🧌 Book Deals, Scranches, Historical Fiction, and Intense Experiences

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About this week's book:

In the days before the Civil War, a runaway slave named Liz Spocott breaks free from her captors and escapes into the labyrinthine swamps of Maryland’s eastern shore, setting loose a drama of violence and hope among slave catchers, plantation owners, watermen, runaway slaves, and free blacks. Liz is near death, wracked by disturbing visions of the future, and armed with “the Code,” a fiercely guarded cryptic means of communication for slaves on the run. Liz’s flight and her dreams of tomorrow will thrust all those near her toward a mysterious, redemptive fate.

Filled with rich, true details—much of the story is drawn from historical events—and told in McBride’s signature lyrical style, Song Yet Sung is a story of tragic triumph, violent decisions, and unexpected kindness.

About The Author:

James McBride is a native New Yorker and a graduate of New York City public schools. He studied composition at The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in Ohio and received his Masters in Journalism from Columbia University in New York at age 22. He holds several honorary doctorates and is currently a Distinguished Writer in Residence at New York University. He is married with three children. He lives in Pennsylvania and New York.

James McBride is a former staff writer for The Washington Post, People Magazine, and The Boston Globe. His work has also appeared in Essence, Rolling Stone, and The New York Times. His April, 2007 National Geographic story entitled “Hip Hop Planet” is considered a respected treatise on African American music and culture.

As a musician, he has written songs (music and lyrics) for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., and Gary Burton, among others. He served as a tenor saxophone sideman for jazz legend Little Jimmy Scott. He is the recipient of several awards for his work as a composer in musical theater including the Stephen Sondheim Award and the Richard Rodgers Foundation Horizon Award. His “Riffin’ and Pontificatin’ ” Tour, a nationwide tour of high schools and colleges promoting reading through jazz, was captured in a 2003 Comcast documentary. He has been featured on national radio and television programs in America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

About the Show:

# 78 🌾 Song Yet Sung by James McBride (2008)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 21 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

About the Show:

#77 🎮 Escapism, Dungeons + Dragons, Obsessions, Going Through the Motions, and Spiritual Materialism

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 10:00:00 +0000

About The Show:

About The Book:

Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fukœ—the curse that has haunted the Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.

Diaz immerses us in the tumultuous life of Oscar and the history of the family at large, rendering with genuine warmth and dazzling energy, humor, and insight the Dominican-American experience, and, ultimately, the endless human capacity to persevere in the face of heartbreak and loss. A true literary triumph, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao confirms Junot Diaz as one of the best and most exciting voices of our time.

About the Author:

Junot Díaz was born in the Dominican Republic and raised in New Jersey. He is the author of the critically acclaimed Drown; The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, which won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and This Is How You Lose Her, a New York Times bestseller and National Book Award finalist. He is the recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Dayton Literary Peace Prize, Guggenheim Fellowship, and PEN/O. Henry Award. A graduate of Rutgers College, Díaz is currently the fiction editor at Boston Review and the Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

#76 🇩🇴 The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz (2007)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 7 Mar 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About the Author:

About the Show:

5-15 min — Casting the characters

15-20 min — Fantasy and musicals

20-25 min — The immigrant experience

25-35 min — Oscar and his family

35-40 min — Dominican culture

40-45 min — Dictatorships

45-50 min — Plot continues

50-55 min — Curses and colonialism

55-60 min — Escapism and fantasy

60-67 min — Conclusion

#75 🛸🫠 "Are Extra-Terrestrials Anti-Semitic?"

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Set against the backdrop of China's Cultural Revolution, a secret military project sends signals into space to establish contact with aliens. An alien civilization on the brink of destruction captures the signal and plans to invade Earth. Meanwhile, on Earth, different camps start forming, planning to either welcome the superior beings and help them take over a world seen as corrupt, or to fight against the invasion.

About The Author:

Liu Cixin is a Chinese computer engineer and science fiction writer. He is a nine-time winner of China's Galaxy Award and has also received the 2015 Hugo Award for his novel The Three-Body Problem as well as the 2017 Locus Award for Death's End. He is also a winner of the Chinese Nebula Award. In English translations of his works, his name is given as Cixin Liu. He is a member of China Science Writers Association and the vice president of Shanxi Writers Association. He is sometimes called "Da Liu" ("Big Liu") by his fellow science fiction writers in China.

About The Show:

#74 👾 The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu (2006)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 20 Feb 2024 14:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

pisode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-10 min — Science fiction and the author

10-15 min — On form and style

15-20 min — Plot summary

20-25 min — On translation

25-30 min — Tropes vs archetypes

30-35 min — Why people like this book

35-40 min — Meaning of 3 body problem

40-45 min — The VR game in the story

45-55 min — Closing thoughts

About The Show:

#73 🦿Consumption Habits, Re-reading Books, and Will AI Write as Well As Cormac McCarthy?

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

The setting is the Texas-Mexico border. The time is our own, when rustlers have given way to drug-runners and small towns have become free-fire zones. A good old boy named Llewellyn Moss finds a pickup truck surrounded by dead men. A load of heroin and two million dollars in cash are still in the back. When Moss takes the money, he sets off a chain reaction that not even the law can contain. Encompassing themes as ancient as the Bible and as bloodily contemporary as this morning’s headlines, No Country for Old Men is a triumph.

About the Author:

Cormac McCarthy was an American novelist and playwright. He wrote twelve novels in the Southern Gothic, western, and post-apocalyptic genres and also wrote plays and screenplays. He received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for The Road, and his 2005 novel No Country for Old Men was adapted as a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards, including Best Picture. His earlier Blood Meridian (1985) was among Time Magazine's poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005, and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years. Literary critic Harold Bloom named him one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner. In 2009, Cormac McCarthy won the PEN/Saul Bellow Award, a lifetime achievement award given by the PEN American Center.

About the Show

# 72 💰 No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy (2005)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 6 Feb 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About the Author:

About the Show

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Dan’s first foray into novel writing

5-10 min — The book versus the movie

10-15 min — Quote guessing game

15-20 min — The movie’s characters

20-25 min — Interiority vs exteriority in writing

25-35 min — Anton Chigurh, one of the greatest Antagonists of all time

35-40 min — The origin of evil

40-45 min — Plot continued

45-55 min — Cormac’s characters and free will

55-60 min — Extremism

60-65 min — Conclusion and chatGPT debacle

#71 🔖 Social Bubbles, Satire, Realism vs Fantasy, and Writing with Sincerity - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

Composed in the last years of Roberto Bolaño's life, 2666 was greeted across Europe and Latin America as his highest achievement, surpassing even his previous work in its strangeness, beauty, and scope. Its throng of unforgettable characters includes academics and convicts, an American sportswriter, an elusive German novelist, and a teenage student and her widowed, mentally unstable father. Their lives intersect in the urban sprawl of SantaTeresa―a fictional Juárez―on the U.S.-Mexico border, where hundreds of young factory workers, in the novel as in life, have disappeared.

About The Author:

For most of his early adulthood, Bolaño was a vagabond, living at one time or another in Chile, Mexico, El Salvador, France and Spain. Bolaño moved to Europe in 1977, and finally made his way to Spain, where he married and settled on the Mediterranean coast near Barcelona, working as a dishwasher, a campground custodian, bellhop and garbage collector — working during the day and writing at night.

He continued with his poetry, before shifting to fiction in his early forties. In an interview Bolaño stated that he made this decision because he felt responsible for the future financial well-being of his family, which he knew he could never secure from the earnings of a poet. This was confirmed by Jorge Herralde, who explained that Bolaño "abandoned his parsimonious beatnik existence" because the birth of his son in 1990 made him "decide that he was responsible for his family's future and that it would be easier to earn a living by writing fiction." However, he continued to think of himself primarily as a poet, and a collection of his verse, spanning 20 years, was published in 2000 under the title The Romantic Dogs.

Regarding his native country Chile, which he visited just once after going into voluntary exile, Bolaño had conflicted feelings. He was notorious in Chile for his fierce attacks on Isabel Allende and other members of the literary establishment.

In 2003, after a long period of declining health, Bolaño passed away. Bolaño was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland."

Although deep down he always felt like a poet, his reputation ultimately rests on his novels, novellas and short story collections. Although Bolaño espoused the lifestyle of a bohemian poet and literary enfant terrible for all his adult life, he only began to produce substantial works of fiction in the 1990s. He almost immediately became a highly regarded figure in Spanish and Latin American letters.

In rapid succession, he published a series of critically acclaimed works, the most important of which are the novel Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives), the novella Nocturno de Chile (By Night In Chile), and, posthumously, the novel 2666. His two collections of short stories Llamadas telefónicas and Putas asesinas were awarded literary prizes.

In 2009 a number of unpublished novels were discovered among the author's papers.

About The Show:

#70 🇲🇽 2666 by Roberto Bolaño (2004)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 22 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About The Book:

About The Author:

In 2003, after a long period of declining health, Bolaño passed away. Bolaño was survived by his Spanish wife and their two children, whom he once called "my only motherland."

In 2009 a number of unpublished novels were discovered among the author's papers.

About The Show:

#69 ♾️ Therapy, Science vs Humanities, Higher Education, and The Wisdom of Chasing Your Strengths - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book
He is a brilliant mathematics professor grappling with a unique challenge - following a traumatic head injury, he retains only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is a perceptive young housekeeper, raising a ten-year-old son, and she is hired to provide care for him.

Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper reintroduce themselves to each other, a remarkable and touching relationship unfolds. Despite his limited memory span (his mind erases itself every eighty minutes), the Professor's intellect is alive with intricate mathematical equations from the past. These numbers, with their precise order, reveal a captivating and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor possesses a knack for uncovering connections between the most mundane details, such as the Housekeeper's shoe size, and the vast universe, drawing their lives closer together even as his memories slip away.

"The Housekeeper and the Professor" is a captivating tale that explores the essence of living in the present and the intriguing equations that can forge a sense of family.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 5, we’re traveling through 2000-2010, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT.

Episode Notes

0-10 min — Dan’s interesting medical history

10-15 min — Intro to the novel

15-20 min — Plot begins

20-25 min — Broader message of the book

25-30 min — The Professor as a character

30-35 min — Why the novel works

35-40 min — Chosen and given families

40-45 min — The power of relationships in fiction

45-55 min — Mathematics as a theme

55-60 min — Conclusion and ratings

#68 🧮 The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (2003)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book
He is a brilliant mathematics professor grappling with a unique challenge - following a traumatic head injury, he retains only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is a perceptive young housekeeper, raising a ten-year-old son, and she is hired to provide care for him.

"The Housekeeper and the Professor" is a captivating tale that explores the essence of living in the present and the intriguing equations that can forge a sense of family.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 5, we’re traveling through 2000-2010, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT.

Episode Notes

0-10 min — Dan’s interesting medical history

10-15 min — Intro to the novel

15-20 min — Plot begins

20-25 min — Broader message of the book

25-30 min — The Professor as a character

30-35 min — Why the novel works

35-40 min — Chosen and given families

40-45 min — The power of relationships in fiction

45-55 min — Mathematics as a theme

55-60 min — Conclusion and ratings

#67 🥋 Fear, Regret, Shadow Careers, and Brazilian Jiujitsu

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 12 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book

Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle—yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.

About the Author

Murakami Haruki (Japanese: 村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'. He can be located on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/harukimuraka...Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences.Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife.Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole).

About the Show

#66 🐈 Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami (2002)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 9 Jan 2024 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book

Kafka on the Shore, a tour de force of metaphysical reality, is powered by two remarkable characters: a teenage boy, Kafka Tamura, who runs away from home either to escape a gruesome oedipal prophecy or to search for his long-missing mother and sister; and an aging simpleton called Nakata, who never recovered from a wartime affliction and now is drawn toward Kafka for reasons that, like the most basic activities of daily life, he cannot fathom. Their odyssey, as mysterious to them as it is to us, is enriched throughout by vivid accomplices and mesmerizing events. Cats and people carry on conversations, a ghostlike pimp employs a Hegel-quoting prostitute, a forest harbors soldiers apparently unaged since World War II, and rainstorms of fish (and worse) fall from the sky. There is a brutal murder, with the identity of both victim and perpetrator a riddle—yet this, along with everything else, is eventually answered, just as the entwined destinies of Kafka and Nakata are gradually revealed, with one escaping his fate entirely and the other given a fresh start on his own.

About the Author

Murakami Haruki (Japanese: 村上春樹) is a popular contemporary Japanese writer and translator. His work has been described as 'easily accessible, yet profoundly complex'. He can be located on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/harukimuraka...

Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences.

Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo, where he met his wife, Yoko. His first job was at a record store, which is where one of his main characters, Toru Watanabe in Norwegian Wood, works. Shortly before finishing his studies, Murakami opened the coffeehouse 'Peter Cat' which was a jazz bar in the evening in Kokubunji, Tokyo with his wife.

Many of his novels have themes and titles that invoke classical music, such as the three books making up The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle: The Thieving Magpie (after Rossini's opera), Bird as Prophet (after a piano piece by Robert Schumann usually known in English as The Prophet Bird), and The Bird-Catcher (a character in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute). Some of his novels take their titles from songs: Dance, Dance, Dance (after The Dells' song, although it is widely thought it was titled after the Beach Boys tune), Norwegian Wood (after The Beatles' song) and South of the Border, West of the Sun (the first part being the title of a song by Nat King Cole).

About the Show

Show Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-10 min — Casting

10-15 min — Murakami’s process

15-25 min — Plot summary

25-30 min — Characters: Nkata and Kafka

30-35 min — Sexuality in the book

35-40 min — Free will and fate

40-45 min — Plot conclusion

45-50 min — What we liked

50-55 min — On loss and regret

55-60 min — John Updike’s thoughts

60-70 min — Conclusion

#65 🎁 2023 Wrapped - Our Fav Books, Shows, Movies, Docs, and Pods

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 1 Jan 2024 09:00:00 +0000

2023! Complete! Our fav books! Shows! Movies! Pods! Ranked! Godspeed! 💪 🖖

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

#64 🎊 Nostalgia, Holidays, and the Changing American Dream - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Continuing the discussion on Corrections. Mini episode 🏠

About the Book

The novel centers on the Lambert family, particularly the struggles of aging patriarch Alfred and his wife, Enid, who yearns for family unity. Their adult children face personal crises, from failing marriages to moral dilemmas, reflecting the broader changes and challenges in American society. Franzen weaves a rich narrative that delves into themes of aging, capitalism, and the pursuit of happiness, offering a poignant look at the complexities of family life and the shifting American dream.

About the Author

Jonathan Franzen is an acclaimed American novelist and essayist widely recognized for his keen observations on contemporary society, family dynamics, and personal relationships. Franzen first gained major literary acclaim with his third novel, "The Corrections," published in 2001, which won the National Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His works are known for their detailed characterizations and deep insights into the American middle class.

About the Show

#63 🎄 The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 22 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book

About the Author

About the Show

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Our holiday stories

5-10 min — Praise for Franzen

10-20 min — ChatGPT quiz, Casting the actors

20-30 min — Initial plot and title meaning

30-35 min — Parenting and Gary’s arc

35-40 min — Character differences in the novel

40-45 min — Gary’s toxic relationship

45-50 min — Consumerism and holidays

50-55 min — Enid’s character resolution

55-60 min — Denise’s character resolution

60-65 min — Gary’s character resolution

65-70 min — Farsical nature of humanity, Rankings

70-75 min — Conclusion

#62 🫡 ✍️ Why Are Superhero Movies So Popular? - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 19 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Mark Twain once said that "The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.” When he said this, he forgot to consider Nahko and Pepper 🐾

We're talking superheroes today 🦸💪💥

About the Week's Book

Joe Kavalier, a young Jewish artist who has also been trained in the art of Houdini-esque escape, has just smuggled himself out of Nazi-invaded Prague and landed in New York City. His Brooklyn cousin Sammy Clay is looking for a partner to create heroes, stories, and art for the latest novelty to hit America - the comic book. Drawing on their own fears and dreams, Kavalier and Clay create the Escapist, the Monitor, and Luna Moth, inspired by the beautiful Rosa Saks, who will become linked by powerful ties to both men. With exhilarating style and grace, Michael Chabon tells an unforgettable story about American romance and possibility.

About the Week's Author

Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was made into a film starring Michael Douglas. One of America’s most distinctive voices, Chabon has been called “a magical prose stylist” by the New York Times Book Review, and is known for his lively writing, nostalgia for bygone modes of storytelling, and deep empathy for the human predicament.

About the Show

#61 🦸 The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Klay by Michael Chabon (2000)

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 15 Dec 2023 11:00:00 +0000

About the Book

About the Author

Michael Chabon (b. 1963) is an acclaimed and bestselling author whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (2000). Chabon achieved literary fame at age twenty-four with his first novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburgh (1988), which was a major critical and commercial success. He then published Wonder Boys (1995), another bestseller, which was made into a film starring Michael Douglas. One of America’s most distinctive voices, Chabon has been called “a magical prose stylist” by the New York Times Book Review, and is known for his lively writing, nostalgia for bygone modes of storytelling, and deep empathy for the human predicament.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 5 we’re traveling through 2000-2010year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Intro and plot brief

5-10 min — Casting Actors

10-20 min — Full plot summary

20-25 min — Literary vs Genre Fiction

25-30 min — Beauty, Art, and Post Modernism

30-40 min — Plot continued

40-45 min — The Golem of Prague

45-50 min — Women in the story

45-50 min — Lone flaw of the book

50-60 min — Conclusion

55-60 min — Ratings and Final thoughts

#60 ✅ Season Four #Wrapped - Ranking the Reads

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Fri, 13 Oct 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Season four! Complete! All the books! Ranked! Godspeed! 💪 🖖

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

#59 🫡 ✍️ Earning Respect, Credentialism, and the Importance of Writing - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 10 Oct 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Mark Twain once said that "The universal brotherhood of man is our most precious possession.” When he said this, he forgot to consider Nahko and Pepper 🐾

About the Week's Book
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

About the Week's Author
Tim O'Brien (born October 1, 1946) is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his later work often explores the postwar lives of its veterans. O’Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (1990), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by O'Brien's wartime experiences. In 2010, The New York Times described the latter as “ a classic of contemporary war fiction.”In addition, O’Brien is acclaimed for his war novel, Going After Cacciato (1978), which received the National Book Award.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

#58 🪖 The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 5 Oct 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book
A classic work of American literature that has not stopped changing minds and lives since it burst onto the literary scene, The Things They Carried is a ground-breaking meditation on war, memory, imagination, and the redemptive power of storytelling.
The Things They Carried depicts the men of Alpha Company: Jimmy Cross, Henry Dobbins, Rat Kiley, Mitchell Sanders, Norman Bowker, Kiowa, and the character Tim O’Brien, who has survived his tour in Vietnam to become a father and writer at the age of forty-three.

About the Author
Tim O'Brien (born October 1, 1946) is an American novelist who served as a soldier in the Vietnam War. Much of his writing is about wartime Vietnam, and his later work often explores the postwar lives of its veterans. O’Brien is perhaps best known for his book The Things They Carried (1990), a collection of linked semi-autobiographical stories inspired by O'Brien's wartime experiences. In 2010, The New York Times described the latter as “ a classic of contemporary war fiction.”In addition, O’Brien is acclaimed for his war novel, Going After Cacciato (1978), which received the National Book Award.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-15 min — Casting the actors

15-20 min — Plot summary begins

20-25 min — Post modernism and stories

25-30 min — Real truth vs story truth

30-35 min — Brotherhood and camaraderie

35-40 min — Anthropological explanations

40-45 min — Loneliness in a modern context

45-50 min — Comedy as a coping device

50-55 min — Problems with memory

55-60 min — Schizophrenia of war

60-65 min — Conclusion

#57 🥀🥶 The Anti-Library, Reading Challenges, and Cold Plunging - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 28 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Are reading challenges worth it? What thousand page book is Dan dying to read? And what in god's name is an "anti-library?" Enjoy!

About the Week's Book

Here’s the rub, The Name of the Rose is one of the highest selling books ever. Ever! It sold more copies than The Great Gatsby and To Kill a Mockingbird, and yet it is hard to fathom how. The book is extraordinarily dense, so fraught with allusions and references that 50% of the its subtext sails quietly past, like a ship in the night. On the podcast we discuss a few theories how this could be. To us, it seems that Eco essentially wrote two novels in one—a detective thriller for the common man6, and a critical commentary for the 20th century post-modernist. At bottom it’s a medieval detective whodunnit whose principle characters are not investigators but 13th century christian monks. Church thrillers are not my jam, but I sure as h-e-c-k admire its commentary, and the man’s hustle 🧠🫡.

About the Show

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

#56 - The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco 🥀

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 12:53:32 +0000

About the Book
The year is 1327. Benedictines in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Baskerville arrives to investigate. When his delicate mission is suddenly overshadowed by seven bizarre deaths, Brother William turns detective. His tools are the logic of Aristotle, the theology of Aquinas, the empirical insights of Roger Bacon—all sharpened to a glistening edge by wry humor and a ferocious curiosity. He collects evidence, deciphers secret symbols and coded manuscripts, and digs into the eerie labyrinth of the abbey, where “the most interesting things happen at night.”

About the Author
Umberto Eco was an Italian writer of fiction, essays, academic texts, and children's books. A professor of semiotics at the University of Bologna, Eco’s brilliant fiction is known for its playful use of language and symbols, its astonishing array of allusions and references, and clever use of puzzles and narrative inventions. His perceptive essays on modern culture are filled with a delightful sense of humor and irony, and his ideas on semiotics, interpretation, and aesthetics have established his reputation as one of academia’s foremost thinkers.

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-10 min — ChatGPT guessing game + Casting

10-15 min — Plot summary

15-20 min — Qualms with the novel

20-25 min — Why this is a post-modernist novel

25-30 min — Plot continued

30-40 min — Problems with Post-modernism

40-45 min — Credentialism

45-55 min — The novel’s success

55-60 min — Episode conclusion

Episode Cheat Sheet -> Also ideally hyperlinked

Thanks!

#55 - What is Meaning Anyway? - Inside Good Scribes -

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Fri, 22 Sep 2023 14:00:30 +0000

Find out who's the real nihilist, and how Daniel derives meaning from his copious acting deals, not to mention one poorly thought out sports analogy. Enjoy!About the Week's Book

Though most people think essays1 when talking Joan Didion, Dan and I read her best known novel for the podcast. Play it as it Lays is the story of an actor whose journey oscillates between dizzying and domestic, as her acting career slows and her personal life collapses. While running barely 200 pages, the book has a quality of being adrift to it that connects directly to Didion’s belief that who we are is affected by where we are.

It’s clear that her reputation is well earned, and I appreciate what’s regarded as Didion’s “Hollywood” book, but I can’t say I’ll be returning to it any time soon. Like her essays, the novel is fragmented in a way that creates an aspect not of closure but its opposite, a kind of frantic recognition that all stories have holes and flaws and will collapse, eventually. The story mirrors LA’s mix of grimness and glamour, and echoes one of her core beliefs: all of us are in some essential fashion, “working” in the dark.

We hope you enjoy this discussion on Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays.

About the ShowHosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

#54 - Play it as it Lays by Joan Didion

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

Though most people think essays1 when talking Joan Didion, Dan and I read her best known novel for the podcast. Play it as it Lays is the story of an actor whose journey oscillates between dizzying and domestic, as her acting career slows and her personal life collapses. While running barely 200 pages, the book has a quality of being adrift to it that connects directly to Didion’s belief that who we are is affected by where we are.

Which is why Dan sleeps with a nightlight on, to this day.

We hope you enjoy this discussion on Joan Didion’s Play It as It Lays.

About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Intro

5-10 min — Casting the movie

10-15 min — Plot summary

15-20 min — On creative nonfiction

20-25 min — Writing fiction vs nonfiction

25-30 min — Self destructive characters

30-35 min — Finding meaning as a parent

35-40 min — Nihilism vs purpose

40-45 min — Following our parents

45-50 min — The landscape of Los Angeles

50-55 min — Purpose during success

55-65 min — Conclusion

#53 👨🏻‍🏫 To Academia, or Not to Academia - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 14 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In the main episode for Stoner, Jeremy and Daniel discuss John Williams' uminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection in which William Stoner emerges not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero. In this episode we discuss passion, academia, stoicism, and profundity in ordinary life. To get the inside scoop and much more, don’t just take a hit and pass but stay with us to the end of the episode. As always, thanks for listening and enjoy. on point by discussing another theme they have no credibility to discuss: politics. If you haven't already heard enough uninformed political drivel, this mini may just turn you off from political chatter for a good while. If we can do that, it's a job well done — time's better spent reading, or listening to the Good Scribes Only podcast.

Enjoy!

#52 - 🏫 Stoner by John Williams

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Mon, 11 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

Welcome back, folks, to Good Scribes Only. Today we’re discussing Stoner by John Williams, and no, despite the title, this isn’t about our escapades with Cannabis. John Williams’s luminous and deeply moving novel is a work of quiet perfection in which William Stoner emerges not only as an archetypal American, but as an unlikely existential hero. In this episode we discuss passion, academia, stoicism, and profundity in ordinary life. To get the inside scoop and much more, don’t just take a hit and pass but stay with us to the end of the episode. As always, thanks for listening and enjoy.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-10 min — Praise for Stoner

10-18 min — GuessGPT and casting the movie

18-25 min — Plot summary

25-35 min — The evolution of film and books

35-40 min — Plot continued

40-45 min — On control and surrender

45-50 min — On academia

50-55 min — Plot wrap up

55-60 min — Ranking and conclusion

#51 - How Can You Follow Up a Masterpiece? - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 7 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

In the main episode this week, Dan and Jeremy discussed John Steinbeck's East of Eden. While they enjoyed the read, it did not stand up against a few of Steinbeck's other works, and thus pushed Dan and J to discuss the oeuvre of a literary career. How the heck can someone expect to follow up Grapes of Wrath?!

We hope you enjoy the always meandering discussion inspired by East of Eden.

About the Book

Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

#50 🌾 John Steinbeck's East of Eden

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 5 Sep 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas Valley, this sprawling and often brutal novel follows the intertwined destinies of two families—the Trasks and the Hamiltons—whose generations helplessly reenact the fall of Adam and Eve and the poisonous rivalry of Cain and Abel.First published in 1952, East of Eden is the work in which Steinbeck created his most mesmerizing characters and explored his most enduring themes: the mystery of identity, the inexplicability of love, and the murderous consequences of love's absence. A masterpiece of Steinbeck's later years, East of Eden is a powerful and vastly ambitious novel that is at once a family saga and a modern retelling of the Book of Genesis.

Please enjoy our discussion about East of Eden by John Steinbeck

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction and biblical allusino

5-10 min — Initial feelings about the novel

10-25 min — Plot and casting the characters

25-30 min — On Nature vs nurture

30-35 min — Plot continued

35-45 min — Inner narratives and Dan’s acting gig

45-50 min — Religion in fiction and reality

50-55 min — Is free will an illusion?

55-60 min — Final thoughts and ratings

#49 🇺🇸 Jed Bartlet for President, Why Politics Stinks - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 31 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In the main episode for Native Son by Richard Wright, Dan urged Jeremy to watch the West Wing. In the mini, Jeremy and Daniel stay on point by discussing another theme they have no credibility to discuss: politics. If you haven't already heard enough uninformed political drivel, this mini may just turn you off from political chatter for a good while. If we can do that, it's a job well done — time's better spent reading, or listening to the Good Scribes Only podcast...

Enjoy!

#48 - Native Son by Richard Wright ⛓️🐁

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 28 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

To honor our watching of Back to the Future for the first time… we went back to 1940s Chicago with Richard Wright’s Native Son which deals with racial and social inequality. It’s a powerful novel and an unsparing reflection on the poverty and feelings of hopelessness experienced by people in inner cities across the country and of what it means to be black in America. Wright is one of those exceptionally intelligent writers and it shows. We learned a lot from this book and think it’s an important read for a variety of reasons that you’ll hear about in this episode.

Please enjoy our discussion about Native Son by Richard Wright.

Episode Notes

0-10 min — Intro and a brief discussion of race

10-15 min — Casting the movie

15-25 min — Plot first third

25-35 min — On Richard Wright and communism

35-40 min — Plot second third

40-45 min — Chicago in the 1940s

45-55 min — Plot final third

55-60 min — Conclusion

#47 ✨✍️ Blending Fiction and Reality - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 24 Aug 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Set in the French Riviera in the late 1920s, Tender Is the Night is a novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald about the tragic romance of Dick and Nicole Diver and young actress Rosemary Hoyt. Dick is a brilliant young psychiatrist who marries his mentally ill patient, Nicole, who also happens to be an heiress. The novel explores themes of social class, mental illness, sexual abuse, and codependent love and is considered one of the best books of the 20th century. Tender Is the Night was Fitzgerald's fourth and final novel, and was based almost entirely on his relationship with Zelda.

Enjoy!

#46 Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald 👒

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 21 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

Enjoy!

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-8 min — Casting

8-12 min - Ryan Gosling, Alan Tudick, Hugh Jackman, Charlie Day

12-20 min — Plot summary begins

20-25 min — Alcoholism and writing

25-30 min — How mental illness is portrayed

30-35 min — Writing what you know

35-40 min — James Joyce vs Scott Fitzgerald

40-45 min — Plot continued

45-50 min — Wrapping up the story

50-55 min — Conclusion and ranking

#45 🤔 Where Does the Idea for a Novel Come From? - Inside Good Scribes

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 17 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

In this 5th episode, you have now entered the 1920s. Well, sorta.

For this decade we read Virginia Woolf's Orlando which has been called 'The longest and most charming love letter in literature.' Orlando is the fictional embodiment of Woolf's close friend and lover, Vita Sackville-West, except Orlando (the character) lives for three hundred years, so kinda relevant to this season eh? We meet characters like the Queen of England, James I, and ultimately our main character awakes in Constantinople to find that he is now a woman. The novel indulges in farce and irony to consider the roles of gender in the 18th and 19th centuries and the novel ends in 1928, the year when women’s suffrage became reality.

Woolf is the type of literary master we want to read more of and we loved the way she stepped out of her comfort zone with this book, as Dan does every time he attempts to pronounce a name on this show.

Please enjoy this window into Orlando by Virginia Woolf.

#44 - Orlando by Virginia Woolf 💁‍♂️💁‍♀️

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 15 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

In this 5th episode, you have now entered the 1920s. Well, sorta.

Please enjoy this window into Orlando by Virginia Woolf.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction and main themes

5-10 min — On Virginia Woolf and genre

10-15 min — Casting the movie

15-20 min — Gender in a modern context

20-30 min — Plot summary

30-35 min — On Criticism

35-45 min — The gap between fact and fiction

45-50 min — Chasing fame and notoriety

50-55 min — Conclusion

55-60 min — Ratings

#43 Inside Good Scribes - On Writing, Art, and Changing Genre 🎨🪞

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

GOAT ALERT 🐐

For the 1910's episode of Season 4, we read Portrait of the Artist as a Man by James Joyce

Rich in details that offer vital insights into Joyce's art, this masterpiece of semi-autobiographical fiction remains essential reading in any program of study in modern literature. The book follows its main character, Stephen Dedalus, from childhood to adulthood on a quest to find identity. Through art, Dedalus gradually emancipates himself from family, religious, and claims of Ireland itself. Both an insight into Joyce's life and childhood, and a unique work of modernist fiction, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a novel of sexual awakening, religious rebellion and the essential search for voice and meaning that every nascent artist must face in order to blossom fully into themselves.

We hope you enjoy!

#42 🧑‍🎨 Portrait of the Artist as a Man by James Joyce

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 8 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

In this 3rd episode of Season 4, we read Portrait of the Artist as a Man by James Joyce

We hope you enjoy!

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Poor excuse for Irish accents

5-10 min — Introduction to James Joyce

10-15 min — Plot summary

15-20 min — Irish Independence

20-25 min — Meaning of the title

25-30 min — Genius in art

30-40 min — Plot continued

40-45 min — On retreats

45-50 min — Religion at the time

50-55 min — Final thoughts on the book

55-60 min — Ratings and conclusion

#41 Inside Good Scribes - Rock and Roll, Megachurches, Political Identity, and Having an Impact ⚡ 🏛️

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 3 Aug 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Book

In this 1st episode of Season 4, we read a book whose original version has never been seen. The Jungle that we know, by Upton Sinclair, is the version that was highly censored because of its political context. To gather information for this novel, Sinclair spent seven weeks undercover working in the meat packing plants of Chicago, ultimately exposing the horrific conditions in the U.S. meat packing industry, that led to the passage a few months later of the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. The main reason for the censorship, however, as Sinclair’s belief in socialism. It’s at that point that Dan and I start to goof in good old Upton Sincy. It’ll make sense why if you manage to make it to that point in the pod.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 4 we’re traveling through the 20th century, decade by decade, because Dan really wanted to see what the world was like before plumbing was a common thing.

#40 🍖🥶 The Jungle by Upton Sinclair

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 31 Jul 2023 10:00:00 +0000

The main reason for the censorship, however, as Sinclair’s belief in socialism. It’s at that point that Dan and I start to goof in good old Upton Sincy. It’ll make sense why if you manage to make it to that point in the pod.

We hope you enjoy!

About the Episode

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introduction

5-10 min — About the author / Casting

10-25 min — Plot summary

25-30 min — Corruption in 20th-century Chicago

30-35 min — Deep fakes and post-truth

35-45 min — On socialism through history

45-49 min — The Jungle vs Grapes of Wrath

49-55 min — Closing

#39 - 📚🏆 Ranking the Reads of Season 3

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

In this final episode of the season, we rank all our stops on the world tour. As you know, we believe you don’t always need a plane ticket to travel; sometimes, all you need is a book. Often, fictional stories can help us explore worlds outside our own, take us out of life’s everyday tangles, and allow us to widen our perspective.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along and can help do the same.

#38 🇯🇵 🦋1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

You don’t always need a plane ticket to travel; sometimes, all you need is a book. Often, fiction books can help us explore world's outside our own, take us out of life’s everyday tangles, and allow us to widen our perspective. Seventh stop, Asia! We hope you enjoy this discussion about '1Q84' by Haruki Murakami.

About the Book

This was our biggest disagreement yet, and widest split in rankings. Murakami's most ambitious work is love story, a mystery, a fantasy, a novel of self-discovery, a dystopia to rival George Orwell’s 1984. The book was an instant best seller in his native Japan, and a tremendous feat of imagination from one of the most revered contemporary writers.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along and can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

Episodes Notes

0-5 min — Introduction feelings

5-10 min — Murakami’s style

10-20 min — Casting the “movie”

20-25 min — Book I and Book II Plot summary

25-30 min — On the author

30-35 min — The best chapter

35-40 min — Book III summary

40-45 min — Religion and Power

45-50 min — Passages on writing and ghostwriting

50-55 min — Problems with the book

55-60 min — Style of the novel

60-66 min — Conclusion and Rating

#37 📟🦧 Inside Good Scribes - Modernization, Religion, and Chimp Empire

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 8 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

You don’t always need a plane ticket to travel; sometimes, all you need is a book. Often, fictional stories can help us explore worlds outside our own, take us out of life’s everyday tangles, and allow us to widen our perspective. Fifth stop, Oceania! We hope you enjoy this discussion about 'Celestial Bodies' by Jokha Alharthi.

About the Book

In the village of al-Awafi, Oman, we encounter three sisters: Mayya, who marries following a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a feeling of duty; and Khawla, who refuses all marital offers and awaits a reunion with her true love, who has moved to Canada. Against the backdrop of a country modernizing from a traditional, slave-owning society, we follow the losses and love affairs of these three women and their families. Through the sisters, we’re provided a panoramic view into Omani society from the poorest slaves to the families who profited off capitalism, globalism, and modernization. Spread over several decades and generations, the narrative structure is both original and impressive and is a prime example of the beauty and power of fictional storytelling.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along and can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

#36 🇴🇲🐫 Celestial Bodies - Jokha Alharthi

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 5 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

About the Book

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along and can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introductory thoughts

5-15 min — Casting the actors

15-20 min — Title and broader significance

20-25 min — Tradition vs Progress

25-30 min — The three sisters

30-35 min — On arranged vs choice marriages

35-40 min — Kowla’s self-deceit

40-45 min — Subtle power of women in the community

45-50 min — Self-acceptance vs resignation from social roles

50-55 min — Conclusion and structure of the novel

55-60 min — Thoughts on the book

#35 🫡🧗‍♀️ Inside Good Scribes - Australian Rock Bands, Suffering, Physical Challenge, and the Human Spirit

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 1 Jun 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

This episode is a follow up to this week's discussion about The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

If you missed it, here's that episode Cheat Sheet

#34 🇦🇺🛤️ The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 29 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

About the Book

🦘 Welcome to Australia. This week we read The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a book about war’s cruelties as well as the impossibility of love. The novel follows a single day in the life of Dorrigo Evans, an Australian doctor working as a slave in a Japanese labor camp in 1943. The novel jumps around in time and setting, journeying from Tokyo to the Burma railway, from the caves of Tasmania to a pre-war beachside hotel, ultimately providing the reader a view into just how challenging it can be to find meaning and love after an intense war experience.

In this episode Dan and I discuss memory, time, the dual nature of man, art, eastern vs western culture, ethnocentrism, and the challenge of love. It’s a dark, intense, poetically written book and a great stop for the Australia episode of this season.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan

Episode Cheat Sheet

Episode Notes:

0-5 min — Squirrel gate!

5-10 min — Book introduction

10-15 min — Casting the movie

15-22 min — Plot summary

22-25 min — Novel’s structure

25-30 min — On memory

30-35 min — Post-war treatment of enemies

35-40 min — Dorrigo’s affair

40-45 min — Dorrigo’s struggles

45-50 min — Philosophies behind the novel

50-55 min — Fame and reality

55-60 min — Final thoughts

#33 🤖🚜 Inside Good Scribes - A Discussion on A.I.

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 25 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

You don’t always need a plane ticket to travel; sometimes, all you need is a book. Fiction allows us explore worlds beyond our own, taking us out of life’s everyday tangles, and allowing us to move forward with a wider perspective. So rather than travel physically, Good Scribes Only is traveling to Europe, Africa, Central America, North America, Oceania, the Middle East, and Asia by way of literature. Fourth stop, North America!

#32 🍇🇺🇸 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Mon, 22 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

About the Book

Published in 1939 and set against the backdrop of the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl, the Grapes of Wrath follows one family's repeated collisions with the hard realities of America at the time, and what emerges is an intensely human yet majestic, tragic, stirring view into those who find (or fail to find) dignity in hard times. A snapshot of the tension between high and low class Americans, of one man’s inspired responses to injustice, and one woman’s unyielding courage, the novel probes the very core of equality and justice in America. At once a naturalistic tale, road novel, social commentary, and philosophical discussion, Steinbeck’s magnum opus may be the most American book in the canon of North America's best literature.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Introductory comments

5-10 min — Background on the time

10-15 min — Casting our movie

15-20 min — Character introductions

20-30 min — Religion and runaway capitalism

30-35 min — The “fambly” leaves Oklahoma

35-40 min — California and the American dream

40-45 min — Classism in Grapes of Wrath

45-50 min — The family struggles in California

50-55 min — Themes and devastating conclusion

55-60 min — Title meaning and final thoughts

60-65 min — Ratings and conclusion

#31 🎭😹 Inside Good Scribes - The Power of Comedy

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 18 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

This weeks book: The President by Miguel Angel Asturias is as ruthless as it is hilarious. It chronicles the tale of a cruel dictator and his plots to eliminate just about every political opponent in his path. The book has long been lauded as one of, if not the greatest, depiction of the harmful affects of totalitarianism within a country, and its people.

In The President, Asturias draws from personal experience as a journalist in an oppressive time in Guatemala's history, but it's not as dark as some other books we've discussed. He uses humor, satire, and absurdism to illustrate the kinds of governmental transgressions he dealt with, and how living in a police state warps an individual’s psyche. Asturias was famously outspoken against all forms of injustice in Guatemala, and it earned him a reputation that brought both awards and imprisonment. But the man was clearly a trailblazer for his time: In his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech, for example, Asturias vowed that his work would "continue to reflect the voice of the Latin American people and their problems." Part satire, part who-dunnit crime drama, part social commentary, The President is a great read for anyone interested in social commentary and/or in that bizarre (and unfortunate) moment in Latin American history.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about The President by Miguel Angel Asturias

#30 🇬🇹⚔️ The President by Miguel Angel Asturias

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Mon, 15 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

The President by Miguel Angel Asturias is as ruthless as it is hilarious. It chronicles the tale of a cruel dictator and his plots to eliminate just about every political opponent in his path. The book has long been lauded as one of, if not the greatest, depiction of the harmful affects of totalitarianism within a country, and its people.

In The President, Asturias draws from personal experience as a journalist in an oppressive time in Guatemala's history, but it's not as dark as some other books we've discussed. He uses humor, satire, and absurdism to illustrate the kinds of governmental transgressions he dealt with, and how living in a police state warps an individual’s psyche. Asturias was famously outspoken against all forms of injustice in Guatemala, and it earned him a reputation that brought both awards and imprisonment. But the man was clearly a trailblazer for his time: In his Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech, for example, Asturias vowed that his work would "continue to reflect the voice of the Latin American people and their problems." Part satire, part who-dunnit crime drama, part social commentary, The President is a great read for anyone interested in social commentary and/or in that bizarre (and unfortunate) moment in Latin American history.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about The President by Miguel Angel Asturias

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Intro

5-15 min — Casting the movie

10-15 min — Part 1 plot summary

15-20 min — Why use humor?

20-25 min — Depiction of totalitarianism

25-30 min — Viewing culture from the outside

30-35 min — Character overview

35-40 min — Part 2 plot summary

40-45 min — Political history in Latin America

45-50 min — The power of fiction

50-55 min — Plot conclusion

55-60 min — Wrap up

#29 🤝🚩 Inside Good Scribes - Doing Business Abroad, Red and Green Flags 🤝🚩

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Fri, 12 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

In this episode Dan and Jeremy share personal experiences around traveling and doing business as Americans on the African continent

This weeks book: 'Paradise' by Abdulrazak Gurnah is at once the story of an African boy's coming of age, a tragic love story, and a tale of the corruption of traditional African patterns by European colonialism. It presents a major African voice to western readers, depicting how Africans had to adjust to the new reality of European colonialism. The result is a page-turning saga that covers the same territory as the novels of Isak Dinesen and William Boyd, but does so from a perspective never before available on that seldom-chronicled part of the world.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about 'Paradise' by Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

#28 - 🌍🇹🇿 Paradise by Abdulrazak Gurnah

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Mon, 8 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

'Paradise' by Abdulrazak Gurnah is at once the story of an African boy's coming of age, a tragic love story, and a tale of the corruption of traditional African patterns by European colonialism. It presents a major African voice to western readers, depicting how Africans had to adjust to the new reality of European colonialism. The result is a page-turning saga that covers the same territory as the novels of Isak Dinesen and William Boyd, but does so from a perspective never before available on that seldom-chronicled part of the world.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about 'Paradise' by Abdulrazak Gurnah.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Intro

5-10 min — Casting the movie

10-15 min — Plot Summary

15-20 min — On “form” in novels

20-25 min — The multiculturality of Africa

25-30 min — History of Tanzania

30-35 min — European and religious influences

35-40 min — Plot continued

40-45 min — The garden motif

45-50 min — Underlying philosophies in the book

50-55 min — Yusuf’s coming of age and title significance

55-60 min — Conclusion and final thoughts

#27 🌍🛫 Inside Good Scribes - Thoughts on Travel, Tourism, and Authenticity

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 4 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode
In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore their personal reflections, tips, and thoughts on travel. This week's read was “Flights” by the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, a fascinating book in the way that mysterious, chin-scratching things are fascinating. It is sometimes a work of fiction, but also a treatise in her theories on anatomy, philosophy, and human nature, all centered around the experience of traveling, both through the world and over time in the body.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about 'Flights' by Olga Tokarczuk.

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

#26 — Let's Travel! 🧳🛫 Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 2 May 2023 10:00:00 +0000

About the Episode

“Flights” by the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk is fascinating in the way that mysterious, chin-scratching things are exciting….It is sometimes a work of fiction, but it is also a treatise in her theories on anatomy, philosophy, and human nature, all centered around the experience of traveling, both through the world and over time in the body.

The narrator, an unnamed Polish writer is a modern-day hunter-gatherer: she has an unending need for exploration, picking up ideas and filling them into a book of many strange parts: there are mini-essays on airports, hotels, travel psychology, guidebooks, ruminations on language, excursions into historical figures like Chopin. Some less than a page, while the fictional tales stretch 20 plus pages, all over the world and time periods. Flights is a book unlike any we've read, and if you can make it through this episode, it’s definitely worth your time.

About Good Scribes Only

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Sometimes even traveling to a place doesn't permit you to see it for how it really is for those who live there. Fiction, on the other hand, can. And thus, season 3 is about widening our perspective. We hope you're coming along can help do the same. Be sure to check out the Episode Cheat Sheet for an overview.

We hope you enjoy this discussion about 'Flights' by Olga Tokarczuk.

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Intro

5-10 min — Movie Casting

10-15 min — On Flights’ form and structure

15-20 min — Fragmentation, exploring cultures, and the human body

20-25 min — Authenticity in travel

25-30 min — Plot discussion

30-35 min — Network state and technological confusion

35-40 min — Discussion of the author

40-45 min — Anatomy and the human body

45-50 min — The spiritual side of travel

50-55 min — Favorite passages

55-60 min — Conclusion and rating

#25 - S2 Book Madness

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#24 - Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian 🏜️

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 16 Mar 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility.

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with all Virtues and Vices, look no further than Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. We hope you enjoy!

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

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0-4 min — 😂

4-10 min — Romanticism, “westerns”, and introductory thoughts

10-18 min — Casting the TV Series

15-20 min — Plot summary

20-25 min — Realism in the novel

25-30 min — What sets this book apart

30-35 min — Can we read the author’s intentions?

35-40 min — Gnosticism and Evil in Blood Meridian

40-45 min — Discussing an important passage

45-50 min — Thoughts, metaphysics, and the human mind

50-57 min — Is there redemption?

57-64 min — Story’s conclusion

64-67 min — Jeremy and Daniel’s rating

#23 - Inside Good Scribes - Gluttony in Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Tue, 14 Mar 2023 10:00:00 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore takeaways, tips, and how Joyce Carol Oates' novel, Blonde, relates to everyday life. Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Envy and Charity, look no further than Joyce Carol Oates' novel, Blonde. We hope you enjoy.

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

#22 - Joyce Carol Oates - Blonde 👱🏻‍♀️

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 9 Mar 2023 15:46:27 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy discuss Gluttony and Temperance in Joyce Carol Oates' Blonde.

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Gluttony and Temperance, look no further than Joyce Carol Oates's Blonde. We hope you enjoy!

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

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0-5 min — Introductory thoughts

5-10 min — Gluttony and Hollywood

10-14 min — Marilyn Monroe’s Life

14-21 min — Casting Our Actors

21-25 min — Initial Plot Summary

25-30 min — Norma Jeane ‘before’ Marilyn Monroe

30-35 min — Transformation of Norma Jeane

35-40 min — Manipulation of Marilyn by men

40-45 min — Monroe’s unappreciated skill, Joe Dimaggio

45-50 min — MM’s growth as an actress

50-55 min — Acting and mental deterioration, Arthur Miller

55-63 min — Fall from grace, John F Kennedy

63-70 min — Tragic ending and conclusion

#21 - Inside Good Scribes - Envy in Madeline Miller's Circe 🧙🏼‍♀️

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 6 Mar 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore takeaways, tips, and how Madeline Miller's Circe relates to everyday life. Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Envy and Charity, look no further than Madeline Miller's Circe . We hope you enjoy.

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#20 - Madeline Miller - Circe 🧙🏼‍♀️

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Thu, 2 Mar 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy discuss Envy and Charity in Madeline Miller's Circe

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and broaden our perspective. To further explore your own relationship with Envy and Kindness, look no further than Madeline Miller's Circe. We hope you enjoy!

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

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0-5 min — Introductory thoughts

5-10 min — Recasting Greek myths in modern light

10-15 min — Actor Castings

15-20 min — Themes and Plot Summary

20-25 min — Characterization of irce

25-30 min — Why myth is important

30-35 min — On leaving home

35-40 min — Feminism in the novel

40-45 min — Circe overcoming obstacles

45-50 min — Miller’s recasting of Odysseus as a false hero

50-55 min — The Oddysey over the years

55-60 min — What we can learn from ancient myths

60-65 min — Concluding line and ratings

#19 - Inside Good Scribes - Wrath in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 22:10:37 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore takeaways, tips, and how Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart relates to everyday life. Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Wrath and Patience, look no further than . We hope you enjoy.

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#18 - Chinua Achebe - Things Fall Apart

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 24 Feb 2023 11:00:00 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore Wrath and Patience in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Wrath and Patience, look no further than Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. We hope you enjoy!

Episode Notes

0-5 min — Background on book and wrath

5-11 min — Casting the “movie”

11-15 min — Plot summary

15-21min — Control and what this book is ‘really’ about

21-29 min — Wrath and human nature

29-32 min — Plot summary continued

32-40 min — Colonialism and customs

40-43 min — Persuasiveness of western religion

43-49 min — Clash between missionaries and tribe

49-59 min — Tragic conclusion and cultural relativism

59-60 min — Book ratings

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#17 - Inside Good Scribes - Lust in Nabokov's Lolita

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Mon, 20 Feb 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Episode Notes

In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore takeaways, tips, and how Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita relates to everyday life. Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Lust and Chastity, look no further than Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita . We hope you enjoy

Episode Cheat Sheet

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#16 - Vladimir Nabokov - Lolita

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 17 Feb 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Episode Notes

Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore Lust and Chastity in Vladimir Nabokov's, magnum opus Lolita

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Lust and Chastity, look no further than Lolita. We hope you enjoy

Episode Cheat Sheet

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**Episode Notes**

0-2.5 min — Intro

3-6 min — Thoughts Lex Fridman book-drama

8-12 min — Backstory of the novel and the author

13-18 min — Lust, chastity, and innocence

20-22 min — Casting Hollywood actors

22-27 min — Plot summary

27-31 min — Sexualization in society

31-38 min — Narrator reliability

39-42 min — Comedy and irony in the novel

43-46 min — Praise for the author

46-52 min — On the language and prose

52-56 min — Value of the “outsider” perspective

56 min — Conclusion

#15 - Inside Good Scribes: Sloth in Ottessa Moshfegh's My Year of Rest and Relaxation

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 00:46:19 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet Good Scribes Only on Instagram Find Jeremy online Find Daniel online In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore takeaways, tips, and how Jane Smiley’s, Good Faith relates to everyday life. Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Greed and Generosity, look no further than Good Faith. We hope you enjoy More Good Scribes Only Content

#14 - Ottessa Moshfegh - My Year of Rest and Relaxation

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Thu, 9 Feb 2023 14:21:17 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

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Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore Sloth and Diligence in Ottessa Moshfegh's, My Year of Rest and Relaxation.

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Sloth and Diligence, look no further than My Year of Rest and Relaxation. We hope you enjoy

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**Episode Notes**

0-6 min — Intro and Initial thoughts

6-13 min — Casting Characters for the ‘movie’

13-20 min — Plot summary

20-27 min — Character Motivations

27-31 min — NYC Art scene vs Finance scene

31-35 min — Narrator’s struggle and purpose 35-41 min — The sanctity (or superficiality) of art

41-45 min — ‘Intention’ as an artist

45-50 min — New York pre and post 9/11

50-57 min — Book’s conclusion

57-60 min — Episode Wrap up and Book Rating

#13 - Inside Good Scribes - Greed in Jane Smiley's Good Faith 💸

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Mon, 6 Feb 2023 14:00:00 +0000

In this mini-episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore takeaways, tips, and how Jane Smiley’s, Good Faith relates to everyday life.

Good Scribes Only on Instagram

Find Jeremy online

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Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore Greed and Charity in Jane Smiley’s, Good Faith.

Oftentimes, fiction books can take us out of life’s everyday tangles and help us see reality with new eyes. To further explore your own relationship with Greed and Generosity, look no further than Good Faith. We hope you enjoy

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#12 - Jane Smiley - Good Faith

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 2 Feb 2023 15:00:00 +0000

Episode Cheat Sheet

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Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore Greed and Charity in Jane Smiley’s, Good Faith.

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Episode Notes

0-5 min — Initial thoughts on Good Faith 5-11 min — Actor Castings

10-15 min — Plot Summary

15-20 min — Dissecting the characters

20-25 min — On writing: creating nuanced characters and outlining

25-28 min — Romances in the novel

28-35 min — The power of fiction

35-40 min — Greed and the American dream

40-45 min — What is the state of greed today? (crypto) 45-50 min — The climax

50-55 min — How ‘literary’ is this book? 55-60 min — Problems with this book

60-65 min — Final thoughts on the novel

#11 - Graham Greene - Power and Glory

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Thu, 26 Jan 2023 12:00:00 +0000

Episode Summary

Power and Glory Cheat Sheet

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Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. Season 2 focuses on the cardinal vices and virtues: Lust and chastity, gluttony and temperance, greed and charity, sloth and diligence, envy and kindness, wrath and patience, pride and humility. In this episode, Daniel and Jeremy explore Pride and Humility in Graham Greene's most prolific work, Power and Glory.

Oftentimes, fiction provides a clearer view of reality than life itself. Power and Glory is no exception. Join in and explore your own Pride and Humility with Jeremy and Daniel in this episode of Good Scribes Only.

0-5 min — Intro and Actor Casting

5-10 min — Initial thoughts and historical background

10-15 min — Main character: the whiskey priest

15-20 min — Is it about Pride?

20-22 min — Dan calling Jeremy on his bullsh**

22-25 min — On writing: creating dynamic characters

25-29 min — Hope and the duality of man 29-35 min — The climax

35-40 min — Is a post-religious society actually better? 40-44 min — Would people read this book today?

44-46 min — On writing: a striking literary device

46-50 min — What is Pride fundamentally?

50-55 min — The power of community

55-60 min — Our final feelings on the novel

2022 in Review

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Tue, 10 Jan 2023 14:00:00 +0000

In our final episode of the season, we discuss our favorite books of 2022, a few movies that stood out, plus our favorite moments of season one—often the (copious) occasions when Jeremy gets himself canceled. As far as books go, none of you will be surprised to hear how many Daniel read this year, but you might not have expected his favorite. And, as always, you'll get an appearance from one of our dogs, the true MVPs. We hope you enjoy!

#10 Salman Rushdie - Midnight's Children

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 14:30:00 +0000

We're back with another towering work from one of the most noteworthy names in modern literature. *Midnight's Children,* published in 1981, is considered the seminal work from Indian-British writer, Salman Rushdie. The novel is what some describe as magical realism, though Rushdie prefers self describes as a "Surrealist" author. In the novel we follow one narrator and protagonist, Saleem Sinai, through the turbulent years of India's transition from British colonial rule to independence and partition. It is rich postcolonial, postmodern, self-reflexive work which strives to preserve history by way of story, rather than facts and data. The novel not only won the Booker prize for fiction in 1981 but was dubbed "Best of the Bookers" twelve years later. If you appreciate Jose Luis Borges, Neil Gaiman, surrealist/magical realism, or high-literature you will likely enjoy this tome. Don't let our meandering conversation steer you wrong — this one is a must read. We hope you enjoy ✌️ *Episode Notes* 0:00 - Intro and Casting 3:00 - Our lack of historical perspective for India and Pakistan 5:00 - On surrealism and Salman Rushdie’s masterclass 7:30 - Significance and historicity of Midnight’s Children 11:30 - Comparable books and Plot Summary 15:00 - Motifs and Plot Summary 25:00 - On Saleem’s Family and other Characters 29:00 - Saleem’s reliability as a narrator 33:00 - Shiva as a character and myth 38:00 - Nature and nurture in the novel 42:00 - The multi-genre nature of the novel 43:45 - Multi-culturality of India 48:30 - Wholeness and fragmentation 51:00 - Religion and conflict in the novel 56:00 - The beauty of fiction versus facts 58:00 - Closing sequence 1:01:00 - On Memory as a theme 1:06:00 - History and Rushdie’s main thesis 1:11:00 - Literary style of the novel 1:15:00 - Overall thoughts on the book 1:21:00 - Self reflexive art Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#9 - Mary Shelley - Frankenstein

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Jeremy Streich, Daniel Breyer) — Fri, 28 Oct 2022 12:58:17 +0000

In episode 10, we discuss Mary Shelley's classic novel, Frankenstein. This early 19th century novel is one of the most widely read books of all time. Daughter of a novelist and philosopher, it's no surprise that Shelley's first book is stupendous; however, as we discuss in the episode, Shelley's Promethean tale, Frankenstein, was not always so well received. In this episode we discuss: feminism, race, ambition, alienation, motherhood, and more. Thanks for listening. And enjoy✌️

02:00 — Casting Frankenstein the Movie

05:30 — Initial thoughts of Frankenstein

10:50— Plot Summary

20:50— Shelley on Ambition, Alienation, Revenge, and Human Nature

25:50— Female Characters

31:20— Mary Shelley’s Life

37:30 — Race in Frankenstein

44:40— Alienation and Loneliness

46:20 — Favorite passages

#8 - James Baldwin - Another Country

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 30 Sep 2022 16:23:15 +0000

In this episode we discuss the legendary African American novelist James Baldwin's third novel, "Another Country." Set primarily in Greenwich Village and Harlem, New York City, in the late 1950s, the novel portrays rubs against many taboos of the time such as bisexuality, interracial romance and extramarital affairs. Beyond sexuality, the novel is a diatribe on what it's like to be an artist in New York City and beyond. We cast our absurdly high-budget movie and then dive into Baldwin's world - touching everything we probably shouldn't ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ - We hope you enjoy and thanks for listening Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#7 Fyodor Dostoevsky - Notes From Underground

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 9 Sep 2022 15:47:54 +0000

Welcome back for another episode of Good Scribes Only. Today we're discussing Fyodor Dostoevsky's legendary novella, *Notes from Underground*. The story is split in two parts: 1) a rambling memoir-style philosophical treatise from the book's main lead "Underground Man," and 2) a short but hilarious and incisive glimpse into the Underground Man's personal life. Dostoevsky is known as one of Russia's great bards having written other classics such as *Crime and Punishment* and *The Brothers Karzamov.* If you appreciate existential fiction and classic literature, you are in for quite a right with this 115 page story. This innovative novella is bizarre on loads of levels, and we enjoyed every minute of it. We hope you will too. ✌️ Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#6 Amy Tan - The Joy Luck Club

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 29 Jul 2022 11:15:00 +0000

Welcome back to another episode of Good Scribes Only. Today we'll be speaking about Amy Tan's award winning novel, The Joy Luck Club. The bookcontains sixteen interconnected stories about conflicts between Chinese immigrant mothers and their American-raised daughters. Tan herself is the daughter of two Chinese immigrants and has discussed how her own personal journey was absorbed by several characters in the work. It's a novel which challenges the reader (and the foolish podcasters who choose to discuss it) with balancing a wide range of characters and stories, and to appreciate the nuance brought on when two starkly different cultures collide. If you find it hard to keep the names straight, you can take solace in the fact that we probably butchered them in the first place. Otherwise, we hope you enjoy Good Scribes Only's take on the Joy Luck Club ✌️ Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

Mid-Season Break

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Mon, 27 Jun 2022 12:00:00 +0000

Five episodes down, five more to go. Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#5 Toni Morrison - Song of Solomon

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 10 Jun 2022 11:00:00 +0000

Today we’re discussing Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon, a lyrical and thematic masterpiece. We cast our over-budget movie and then dig into the novel’s world - discussing everything from nomenclature to embodied writing. Thanks for listening! Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#4 Cormac McCarthy - All The Pretty Horses

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 27 May 2022 10:30:00 +0000

Ready for another cowboy story? Though it has horses and cowboys and a severe desert landscape Cormac McCarthy's 1991 All The Pretty Horses is anything but your tropey Western. Suffice to say, Mr. McCarthy is one of the greatest living writers and has earned his place on the writers' Mount Olympus with a slew of critically acclaimed novels such as No Country For Old Men, Suttree, Blood Meridian, and his most famous (though our least favorite) The Road. By title, today's novel may strike you as a light read, but All the Pretty Horses is at once beautiful, haunting, memorable, and romantic. In this episode we dig into the psychology behind its lead John Grady Cole, his 'pardner' Lacey Rawlins, their unexpected companion Jimmy Blevins and of course, Alejandra. Oh Alejandra. If you appreciate the natural world and are in the market for an author with a unique writing style this novel might just be your finest caviar. We hope you enjoy ✌️ Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#3 Kazuo Ishiguro- Remains of the Day

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel, Jeremy) — Fri, 13 May 2022 11:45:00 +0000

In episode 3, we discuss Kazuo Ishiguro's Booker-Prize winning novel, Remains of the Day. This Japanese-born British novelist is one of the most decorated living writers. Remains of the Day is Ishiguro's first novelistic venture outside of Japan, and the novel is fresh and smart and filled with the originality of a master storyteller who is capable of travel and metamorphosis. In this show. we discuss: unreliable narrators, dignity, banter, the pursuit of goodness, and much more. Thanks for listening. And enjoy✌️

#2 Kurt Vonnegut — Breakfast of Champions

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Daniel Breyer, Callen Turnbull, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 13 May 2022 11:35:00 +0000

If there were ever a man who embodies the "Good Scribe" it's Kurt Vonnegut. In a career spanning over 50 years, Vonnegut is lauded as one of the 20th century's greatest writers and social critics. He published 14 novels, three short story collections, five plays, five works of nonfiction before his death in New York City in 2007 at the age of 84. Thematically, this book is a boilerplate. In this black comedy, Vonnegut puts under the microscope: writing, fame, consumerism, American social values, freewill, race and many other themes most authors actively avoid. Breakfast of Champions lives in the Pantheon of literature, alongside other novels by Kurt Vonnegut such as Cat's Cradle, Slaughterhouse Five, and Welcome to the Monkey House. After this conversation, we hope you'll read (or re-read) what might be the bestnovel from one of the greatest novelists to ever do it. Enjoy ✌️ Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website

#1 Ted Chiang - Stories of Your Life and Others

goodscribesonly@gmail.com (Callen Turnbull, Daniel Breyer, Jeremy Streich) — Fri, 13 May 2022 11:30:00 +0000

In this episode, we discussed Ted Chaing's short story collection: Stories of Your Life and Others. Mr. Chiang is, to put it lightly, a rare breed of science fiction author. Perhaps this is because, before becoming a novelist, was a technical writer in during the American software boom. He is one of the only sci-fi authors either of us have read who manages to successfully balance a rigorous understanding of science and technology with authorial emotional depth. We spent most of our time on two of the stories in the collection: Tower of Babylon and Story of Your Life. Babylon is a science fiction, fantasy novelette and Chiang's first (and towering) published work. As you might expect, the story examines the Tower of Babel myth from the Old Testament and this story won the 1991 Nebula Award for Best novelette. Story of Your Life is perhaps Chiang's best known work, mostly because of the popularity of its film adaptation arrival, starring Amy Adams and Jeremy Renner. For the Story of Your Life portion of the podcast, we focus our attention on the written version, and its major themes like language and free will. Enjoy ✌️ Website TikTok Instagram YouTube Newsletter Jeremy's Website Dan's Website