The Book XChange Podcast

Episode 11: BXC Recommended Trilogies

There are many classic trilogies of books known and loved the world over, and some that are lesser known but well worth diving into. In this episode, Jude and John recommend some of their favorite Trilogies and discuss why they are worth the investment of your time and energies. Ranging from epic fantasy quests to existential mysteries to poetic elegies of a fading time and culture, this discussion covers a ton of ground and should have something for just about any reader. It's a 3-for-1 special on the latest installment of the Book XChange!
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
Trilogies recommended by both John and Jude:
The Lord of the Rings trilogy (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, Return of the King) - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Border trilogy (All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain) - Cormac McCarthy
The New York trilogy (City of Glass, Ghosts, The Locked Room) - Paul Auster
Other titles from Jude:
Current read: 'The Mirror and the Light,' Hilary Mantel
Other recommended trilogies: The Divine Comedy trilogy by Dante Alighieri, the Los Angeles trilogy by James Ellroy, the Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov, the Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanDerMeer
Upcoming read: 'Paper Doll'/'Project X,' Jim Shepard
Other titles from John:
Current read: Various short stories by Jim Shepard
Other recommended trilogies: The Africa trilogy by Chinua Achebe, the Cairo trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz, the Barrytown trilogy by Roddy Doyle
Upcoming read: Various short stories by Jim Shepard (in preparation for Episode 12)

Episode 10: Isolation

"No man is an island," wrote John Donne... but many of us feel like we've been stranded on one in recent months. One potential remedy for this condition? Reading! For our tenth episode, the BXC brothers take on "isolation" as a literary theme. Books that explore, describe or portray subjects dealing with some form of isolation or solitude - how it challenges us, helps us to grow or forces us to confront the boundless mystery of ourselves. This discussion took us far and wide into many different genres: thrillers, travel books, mysteries, adventure stories and cultural satire. We hope you'll enjoy the diversity, and thanks again to all of you continue to download, stream and listen to our show!
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
From a listener (voice mail)
'Wuthering Heights,' Emily Bronte; 'Tom Sawyer,' Mark Twain; 'Cold Mountain,' Charles Frazier
From John
Recent read: 'Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation,' Joseph J. Ellis
Recommended Titles: 'Darkness at Noon,' Arthur Koestler; 'To the White Sea,' James Dickey; 'The Mysterious Island,' Jules Verne; 'Robinson Crusoe,' Daniel Defoe; 'The Andromeda Strain,' Michael Crichton; 'The Yellow Wallpaper,' Charlotte Perkins Gilman; 'A Time to Keep Silence,' Patrick Leigh Fermor; 'Into the Wild,' Jon Krakauer; 'Sun Dancing: A Vision of Medieval Ireland,' Geoffrey Moorhouse; 'A Time to Keep Silence,' Patrick Leigh Fermor; 'To the Lighthouse,' Virginia Woolf; 'Wittgenstein's Mistress,' David Markson
Next read: 'And Then There Were None,' Agatha Christie
From Jude
Current read: 'The Mirror and the Light,' Hilary Mantel
Recommended Titles: 'The Wisdom of the Desert,' Thomas Merton; 'The Shepherd's Hut,' Tim Winton; 'Drop City,' T. C. Boyle; 'The Temptation of St. Anthony,' Gustave Flaubert
Next read: Our co-host declined to reveal what he is reading next!

Episode 9: A Supposedly Great Book I’ll Never Read Again

This time out, your fraternal co-hosts will take down some beloved classics, and/or more contemporary acclaimed or popular books, that they for whatever reason just didn't "get." We all have books we greatly anticipate or come to with high expectations, only to come away disappointed, or at least confused over what all the fuss was about. We had a good time sharing some of our picks. What are yours? Thanks as always for listening to our show!

Episode 8: Tales of Terror

Muster up your courage, listeners, because in Episode 8 of the Book XChange podcast, your twin co-hosts take on "tales of terror" - books and/or stories (even a few movies are mentioned!) that scare, provoke, disturb, unnerve or simply get under your skin. The twins are often asked by friends and family alike, "Why do you bother reading books that disturb or scare you?" We take a deep dive into horror as a genre, to attempt to answer that interesting question. Is there any value in books that evoke terror, and along the way, what are some of our favorites? We had a lot of fun recording this one (despite one technical glitch, sorry), and we hope you all have fun hearing and processing it. Keep reading, everyone!
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
From Jude
Current read: 'The Exorcist,' William Peter Blatty
Recommended Tales of Terror: 'Night Shift'/'The Shining,' Stephen King; 'Songs of a Dead Dreamer'/'Grimscribe,' Thomas Ligotti; 'Outer Dark'/'Blood Meridian,' Cormac McCarthy; 'Beloved,' Toni Morrison; 'The Factory Series (novels),' Derek Raymond
Next read: 'Our Kind of Traitor,' John Le Carré
From John
Current read: 'Theatre of Fish: Travels Through Newfoundland and Labrador,' John Gimlette
Recommended Tales of Terror: 'At the Mountains of Madness'/'Supernatural Horror in Literature (essay),' H. P. Lovecraft; Classic horror stories medley: "Don't Look Now" & "The Birds" (Daphne du Maurier), "The Tell-Tale Heart" & "The Cask of Amantillado" (Edgar Allen Poe); "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge," "Moxon's Master" & "The Boarded Window" (Ambrose Bierce); "Casting the Runes" & "Oh Whistle and I'll Come for You, My Lad" (M. R. James); 'Horrorstör,' Grady Hendrix; "The Killer Inside Me,' Jim Thompson; 'The Haunting of Hill House,' Shirley Jackson; "Fracture" & "Suicide Station" by Jude Joseph Lovell from his short story collection We'll See You When We Get There
Next read: 'Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe,' Roger McNamee

Episode 7: Our Favorite Biographies

On the 244th birthday of the United States of America, the BXC brothers tackle some of their favorite biographies (excluding autobiographies, that's an episode for another day). Also discussed: what makes a compelling biography and how favorite biographies usually align with personal interests.
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
From John
Current read: 'The Devil's Highway: A True Story,' Luis Alberto Urrea
Recommended biographies: 'John Adams' by David McCullough; 'Wisdom and Innocence: A Life of G. K. Chesterton' by Joseph Pearce; 'Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare' by Stephen Greenblatt; Life of St. Columba by Adomnan of Iona; 'Truman' by David McCullough; 'The Man Who Went into the West: A Life of R. S. Thomas' by Byron Rodgers, 'Leadership in Turbulent Times,' Doris Kearns Goodwin
Next read: 'Go Down, Moses,' William Faulkner
From Jude
Current read: 'Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression,' Morris Dickstein
Recommended biographies: 'The Seven Mountains of Thomas Merton' by Michael Mott; 'Melville: His World and His Work' by Andrew Delbanco; 'Van Gogh: The Life' by Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith; 'One Matchless Time,' Jay Parini; 'The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer' by Jackson Benson
Next read: 'The Exorcist,' William Peter Blatty

Episode 6: The BXC Review of Richard Powers’ ”The Overstory”

Here's our first episode dedicated to a single book: in this case, Richard Powers' 2019 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel "The Overstory." On occasion this show will take a deep dive into a popular and/or intriguing book that the twin co-hosts think merits in-depth examination. This ambitious, fascinating novel about trees and their relationships to human beings on this planet made for a great discussion, and whether you've read the book or not we hope you'll find enough here to hold your interest! Thanks for listening to The Book XChange...

Episode 5: (Some of) Our Favorite Female Writers

America's favorite bibliotwins are back (hah!) with another freewheeling episode of the Book XChange 'cast, in which we share some of our favorite all-time writers who happen to be female. This was a fun discussion covering 19th century British fiction, a smattering of poetry, medieval epics from Norway, contemporary genre fiction and more. Looking forward to hearing some of your voices as we continue "The Great Conversation"!
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
From Jude
Current read: The Overstory, Richard Powers
Recommended female writers/books: Jane Austen; Toni Morrison (Beloved, Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye); Jennifer Egan; Flannery O'Connor (Wise Blood, The Violent Bear it Away); Hilary Mantel (the Thomas Cromwell trilogy)
Next read: Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression, Morris Dickstein
From John
Current read: Cry, the Beloved Country, Alan Paton
Recommended female writers/books: Sigrid Undset (The Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy); Mary Oliver; George Eliot (Middlemarch); Ursula K. Le Guin; P.D. James
Next read: The War of the Saints, Jorge Amado

Episode 4: ”Into the Wild” - The Best Imaginative and Original Books We’ve Read

In this wide-ranging and fun episode, John and Jude share books with some of the most wild, weird and original premises they've come across. Mind-bending dystopian epics, imaginative speculations on the nature of time and mortality, harebrained schemes hatched in the jungle and picaresque novels featuring murderous mutants - it's all here in this bizarre bouillabaisse of a show! Bon áppetit!!
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
From John
Current read: The Thirty Years War, C. V. Wedgwood
Wild/imaginative books: Toilers of the Sea, Victor Hugo; Einstein's Dreams, Alan Lightman; The Financial Lives of the Poets, Jess Walter; Madness is Better Than Defeat, Ned Beauman; The Postmortal, Drew Magary; Our Town, play by Thornton Wilder; The Spoon River Anthology, Edgar Lee Masters; Moravagine, Blaise Cendrars; The Memory of Fire trilogy, Eduardo Galeano
Next read: The Plague, Albert Camus
From Jude
Current read: Moby , Herman Melville
Wild/imaginative books: Inverted World, Christopher Priest; Railsea, China Miéville; The Stone Raft and Death with Interruptions, José Saramago; M31: A Family Romance, Stephen Wright; Conquest of the Useless, Werner Herzog
Next read: Get That N----- Off the Field: An Oral History of the Negro League, Art Rust, Jr.

Episode 3: The Funniest Books We’ve Read

In this installment, co-hosts Jude and John Lovell discuss some of their favorite funny books and writers, from classics of world literature to more contemporary American titles. Short stories, novels, satires and books that defy classification - the common theme here is that one way or another, these are books that will not fail to entertain... or even inspire!
BOOKS DISCUSSED/MENTIONED/RECOMMENDED IN THIS EPISODE:
From JudeCurrent read: Moby , Herman Melville
Funny books: Don Quixote, Miguel de Cervantes; Skippy Dies, Paul Murray; The Broom of the System, Girl with Curious Hair, Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
Next read: Get That N____ Off the Field: The Oral History of the Negro Leagues, Art Rust, Jr.
From John
Current read: Day of the Oprichnik, Vladimir Sorokin
Funny books: Various works by Flannery O'Connor and Mark Twain; The Hitchhiker's Guide and Dirk Gently books, Douglas Adams; Homeland and The Ask, Sam Lipsyte; Pastoralia, George Saunders; Lost in the Cosmos: The Last Self-Help Book, Walker Percy; A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
Next read: Out Stealing Horses, Per Pettersen
"Parting Gift," short story by Jude Joseph Lovell published by Silver Sage magazine

Episode 2: The Books That Made Us (Non-Fiction)

In part 2 of the inaugural pair of shows, the twins/co-hosts choose and discuss three non-fiction titles that were fundamental to their lives as readers/writers. They also briefly cover books they are reading now, and tease what's coming up for Episode 3.