All Episodes

Episode 100: “Dutiful Dreams,” or Project Hail Mary 2026 Film

Project Hail Mary Part I (REPOST)

Episode 99: More Robot Friends!: Isaac Asimov’s ‘Robot Visions’ Part 1 with Justin Reich.

Episode 98: ‘Minor League Stew,’ or John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name, Part II

Episode 97: “Baseball’s Ballast,” or John Feinstein’s Where Nobody Knows Your Name: Life in The Minor Leagues of Baseball

Episode 96: “The Clustercus,” or David Halberstam’s The Amateurs, Part II

Episode 95: “Don’t Catch Crabs,” or David Halbertstam’s The Amateurs, Part I

October 6th: Live Draft Coming Soon!

Episode 94: “Chewing Glass” or Tim Krabbe’s The Rider

Episode 94: “A Swiftly Flattening Universe,” or Cixin Liu’s Death’s End, Part II

Episode 93: “Post Humanity Blues,” or Cixin Liu’s Death’s End Part I

Episode 92: “It’s So Dark,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part II

Episode 91: “All Chess Pieces, No Chess,” or Cixin Liu’s The Dark Forest, Part I

Episode 90: “An Egg Slicer Through a Supertanker,” or Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, Part II

Review: John Scalzi’s “When the Moon Hits Your Eye”

Episode 89: “A Creeping Awareness” or Cixin Liu’s The Three Body Problem, Part I

Episode 88: “Creation’s Folly,” or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Part II

Digression: Solo Canoe Sailing on Long Lake

Digression, From the North Woods with Justin Reich

Episode 87: “A Dude who Made a Dude,” or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Part I

Episode 86: “A Study in Structure,” or Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study in Scarlet

Ep 85, “Science vs. Evil” or Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”, Part II

Save the Date: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Live Taping, with Jeph Wilkinson.

Episode 84: “Unnatural Intimacy,” or Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Part I

Episode 83: “I Made a Friend, and Now He’s Dead” or Liliana Calvani’s Ripley’s Game

Episode 82: “Cocaine was Invented for Times Like These,” or Roger Spotiswoode’s Ripley, Underground

Episode 81: “LA Light, LA Darkness,” or Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye w/Professor Peter Lunenfeld

Episode 80: “Frames, Trains, and Burning Automobiles” or Wim Wenders The American Friend

Episode 79: “A Creeping Tom,” or René Clement’s Plein Soleil

Episode 78: “Our Robot Friends, Part II,” or Ted Chiang’s Exhalation

Episode 77: “A Soup of Dreams,” or James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes, Part II

Episode 76: Philip Marlow in Space or James S.A. Corey’s Leviathan Wakes Part 1

Episode 75: “It Was Capitalism All Along!” or China Miéville’s The City and The City, Part II

Episode 74: “Our Robot Friends (and Enemies),” with Leah Jones

Episode 73: “Crosshatched,” or China Mieville’s The City and the City Part I

Episode 72: “Red Herringfest?” or Dashiell Hammett’s Red Harvest

Episode # 71 The Night of a Thousand Crimes, or Raymond Chandler’s “The Long Goodbye” Part II.

Episode 69: “A Surfeit of Injustice,” or Raymond Chandler’s The Long Goodbye, Part I

Episode 68: “From Fiends to Friends,” or Gary Shteyngart’s Our Country Friends, Part II

Episode 67: Revenge of the Jock-Nerds (Season 3 DRAFT)

Episode 66: “Russia With Love (Nesting Dolls),” or Gary Shteyngart’s Our Country Friends Part I

Episode 65: “Our Play with Louis,” or Louis Malle’s Vanya on 42nd Street

Episode 64: “A Cloud on a String,” or Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya

Uncle Baggya Previews the Live Draft

Episode 63: “Cherries, Anyone?” or The National Theatre’s Production of Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard

Episode 62: “To Sell or Not to Sell…Is That Really the Question?” or Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, Part I

Episode 61: “Mathematical” Courage or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner Part II

Episode 60: “Zero Sum Narrative,” or Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.

Episode 59: “The Bathetic Fallacy,” or Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451

Episode 58: “The Deus is in the Details,” or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Part II

Episode 57: “Highest Stakes Scrabble,” or Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Part I

Episode 56: “Philosophial Poetry,” or Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye

“The Curious Case of the Beard and the Mustache,” or our final Ripley coda

Episode 54: “A Brilliant Disguise,” or Steve Zaillian’s Ripley, Part II

Episode 53: “Watch Out for Busts,” or Steve Zaillian’s Ripley

TEASER: Steve Zallian’s (and Netflix’s) Ripley

Digression: Black Chicago’s Influence on Everything with Arionne NettlesDigression:

REPOST: Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, Part II

Episode 51: The Talented Mr. Ripley, Part I (REPOST)

Episode 50: “Nothing is More Important,” or Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, Part II

Digression: Underdogs, Comebacks, and Seafood Substitutes, or Baseball Movies with Jason Herbert

Episode 48: “So Long, and Thanks for All The Squid,” or Viet Than Nguyen’s The Sympathizer, Part I

Digression: Literary Theologies with Beatrice Marovich

Episode 46: “Yelling ‘Racism’ in a ‘Post-racist’ World,” or Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, Part II

Episode 44: “Faintly Dickensian?” or Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, Part I

Episode 44: “Put On Your Seatbelt,” or Alexander Payne’s Sideways

Digression: Demented Whimsy with Joshua Mohr.

Episode 42: “Waiting for Prima,” or Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci’s Big Night

Coming Soon: A Live Discussion of Sideways!

Episode 41: “Borrowing the Bigness,” or Sandra Nettlebeck’s Mostly Martha

Episode 40: “All’s Well That Tastes Well,” Or Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman

Episode 39: “A Fistful of Noodles,” or Juzo Itami’s Tampopo

Episode 38: “Michael a l’Orange,” or Peter Greenaway’s The Cook, The Thief, His Wife, and Her Lover

Episode 37: “Maxing Out the Turtle Budget,” or Axel Gabriel’s Babette’s Feast

Digression II: Foodie Films Preview with Chewing host Monica Eng

Season Two Trailer!

Episode 35: “DON’T Save the Cat!” or Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, Part II

Episode 34: “Einstein, Hemingway, and Vietnam,” or Joe Haldeman’s Forever War, Part I

Episode 33: “Real Sheep Don’t Buy Themselves,” or Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Part II

Episode 32: “Keeping up with the Jetsons,” or Phillip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Part I

Episode 31: “Frogmarched to the Head,” or William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Part II

DIGRESSION I: Pas de Joie de Neuromancer

Episode 29: “Blind Animal Panic,” or William Gibson’s Neuromancer, Part I

Episode 28: “Tales of Teachers,” with Educator Justin Reich

Episode 27: “Don’t Believe your Eyes,” or Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist, Part II

Episode 26: “Uplift!” or Colson Whitehead’s The Intuitionist

Episode 25: “Deus Ex Rockina,” or N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season, Part II

Episode 24: “How to Make a Pangea Omelette,” or N.K. Jemisin’s The Fifth Season

Episode 23: “In Search of the Perfect Read, Part III,” or “Baseball, Massholes, and Interspecies Dorking”

Episode 22: “In Search of the Perfect Read, Part II” or “Summer Reading for Grown Ups.”

Episode 21: “In Search of the Perfect Read, Part I” or “Summer Reading for Teens”.

Episode 20: “The Eye of the Speculator,” or Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Part II

Episode 19: “A Wizard of Earthseed,” or Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Sower, Part I

Episode 18: “No Apocalypse,No Foul,” Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary, Part II

Episode 17: “Bromancing the Stone Carapace,” or Andy Weir’s Project Hail Mary

Episode 16: “Big Claws! Big MECHANICAL Claws!” or Jonathan Lethem’s The Arrest, Part II

Episode 15: “Big Tank! Big NUCLEAR Tank!” Jonathan Lethem’s The Arrest, Part I

Episode 14: “The Impervious Battleship Egan,” or A Visit From the Goon Squad, Part II

Episode 13: “Time the Ravager” or Jennifer Egan’s 2010 A Visit From the Goon Squad, Part I

Episode 12: “Hitler’s Springtime + Ziegfried’s Follies,” or Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Part III

Episode 11: “The Utopia of Fresno” or Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Part II

Episode 10: “Underlying Math Skeleton” or Neal Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, Part I

Episode 9: “Underwater Burning Man,” or Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Part II

Episode 8: “Stephenson’s a flame-kindling kind of guy,” or Upper Middle Brow Phones a Friend

Episode 7: Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age, Part One, or “Nitrates, Nitrites, Nitrotes, and Nitrutes”

Episode 6: Neal Stephenson’s Zodiac, Part Two, or “Cran-Razz with your Deus ex Machina?”

Episode 5: Neal Stephenson’s Zodiac, or “Poorly Foreshadowed Dorking”

Episode 4: Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, Part Two, or “Coach Class on the White Boat”

Episode 3: Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley, Part One

Episode 2: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Part Two

Episode 1: Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Part One

Trailer: Upper Middle Brow LIVE Tomorrow