Required Reading

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

This week on Required Reading, we talk race, mental illness, and the Incredible Hulk. We read Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, but just want to talk about the rabbits. 
Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann
Co-hosts: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll
From the Penguin Classics back cover: "They are an unlikely pair: George is "small and quick and dark of face"; Lennie, a man of tremendous size, has the mind of a young child. Yet they have formed a "family," clinging together in the face of loneliness and alienation.Laborers in California's dusty vegetable fields, they hustle work when they can, living a hand-to-mouth existence. For George and Lennie have a plan: to own an acre of land and a shack they can call their own. When they land jobs on a ranch in the Salinas Valley, the fulfillment of their dream seems to be within their grasp. But even George cannot guard Lennie from the provocations of a flirtatious woman, nor predict the consequences of Lennie's unswerving obedience to the things George taught him."
 

The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams

This week we return to the universe of the Hitchhiker’s Guide as we discuss the sequel The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams.
 
Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann
Panel: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll
"Now celebrating the 42nd anniversary of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,"“Douglas Adams is a terrific satirist.”—The Washington Post Book WorldFacing annihilation at the hands of the warlike Vogons? Time for a cup of tea! Join the cosmically displaced Arthur Dent and his uncommon comrades in arms in their desperate search for a place to eat, as they hurtle across space powered by pure improbability.Among Arthur’s motley shipmates are Ford Prefect, a longtime friend and expert contributor to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; Zaphod Beeblebrox, the three-armed, two-headed ex-president of the galaxy; Tricia McMillan, a fellow Earth refugee who’s gone native (her name is Trillian now); and Marvin, the moody android. Their destination? The ultimate hot spot for an evening of apocalyptic entertainment and fine dining, where the food speaks for itself (literally).Will they make it? The answer: hard to say. But bear in mind that The Hitchhiker’s Guide deleted the term “Future Perfect” from its pages, since it was discovered not to be!“What’s such fun is how amusing the galaxy looks through Adams’s sardonically silly eyes.”—Detroit Free Press" - From the Del Rey back cover. 
 

Just Kids by Patti Smith

This week, for our 50th episode, we talk memoirs, the art scene of the 1970s, the late Robert Mapplethorpe, and the incomparable Patti Smith. We talked Just Kids by Patti Smith. 
"WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD
“Reading rocker Smith’s account of her relationship with photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, it’s hard not to believe in fate. How else to explain the chance encounter that threw them together, allowing both to blossom? Quirky and spellbinding.” -- People
It was the summer Coltrane died, the summer of love and riots, and the summer when a chance encounter in Brooklyn led two young people on a path of art, devotion, and initiation.
Patti Smith would evolve as a poet and performer, and Robert Mapplethorpe would direct his highly provocative style toward photography. Bound in innocence and enthusiasm, they traversed the city from Coney Island to Forty-Second Street, and eventually to the celebrated round table of Max’s Kansas City, where the Andy Warhol contingent held court. In 1969, the pair set up camp at the Hotel Chelsea and soon entered a community of the famous and infamous, the influential artists of the day and the colorful fringe. It was a time of heightened awareness, when the worlds of poetry, rock and roll, art, and sexual politics were colliding and exploding. In this milieu, two kids made a pact to take care of each other. Scrappy, romantic, committed to create, and fueled by their mutual dreams and drives, they would prod and provide for one another during the hungry years.
Just Kids begins as a love story and ends as an elegy. It serves as a salute to New York City during the late sixties and seventies and to its rich and poor, its hustlers and hellions. A true fable, it is a portrait of two young artists’ ascent, a prelude to fame." 
From the back cover from Ecco. 
“[Just Kids] reminds us that innocence, utopian ideals, beauty and revolt are enlightenment’s guiding stars in the human journey. Her book recalls, without blinking or faltering, a collective memory ― one that guides us through the present and into the future.” — Michael Stipe, Time magazine
 

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

This week we deal with an airborne plague that kills everyone to get our mind off of current events. We read Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. 
 
Back of the book from Vintage: 
"NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST • A PEN/FAULKNER AWARD FINALIST • Set in the eerie days of civilization’s collapse—the spellbinding story of a Hollywood star, his would-be savior, and a nomadic group of actors roaming the scattered outposts of the Great Lakes region, risking everything for art and humanity. • Now an original series on HBO Max. • Over one million copies sold!Kirsten Raymonde will never forget the night Arthur Leander, the famous Hollywood actor, had a heart attack on stage during a production of King Lear. That was the night when a devastating flu pandemic arrived in the city, and within weeks, civilization as we know it came to an end.Twenty years later, Kirsten moves between the settlements of the altered world with a small troupe of actors and musicians. They call themselves The Traveling Symphony, and they have dedicated themselves to keeping the remnants of art and humanity alive. But when they arrive in St. Deborah by the Water, they encounter a violent prophet who will threaten the tiny band’s existence. And as the story takes off, moving back and forth in time, and vividly depicting life before and after the pandemic, the strange twist of fate that connects them all will be revealed."
 
Host: Nic
Co-host: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll
Panel: Katherine Carroll

World War Z by Max Brooks

This week we get alllll spooky and cinematic! We talk Zombie apocalypse with World War Z by Max Brooks (also, this one has an incredible audiobook)!
Thanks for reading along with us! Our next book will be Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel, because we just can't get optimistic.
Host: Nic
Co-host: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll
"We survived the zombie apocalypse, but how many of us are still haunted by that terrible time? We have (temporarily?) defeated the living dead, but at what cost? Told in the haunting and riveting voices of the men and women who witnessed the horror firsthand, World War Z is the only record of the pandemic. The Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. Max Brooks, driven by the urgency of preserving the acid-etched first-hand experiences of the survivors, traveled across the United States of America and throughout the world, from decimated cities that once teemed with upwards of thirty million souls to the most remote and inhospitable areas of the planet. He recorded the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. World War Z is the result. Never before have we had access to a document that so powerfully conveys the depth of fear and horror, and also the ineradicable spirit of resistance, that gripped human society through the plague years." From the Three Rivers Press back cover. 
 
 

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

We start this season in earnest with a classic Cold War espionage thriller, but I can't remember which one. We read The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum. 
From the Bantam summary: "His memory is a blank. His bullet-ridden body was fished from the Mediterranean Sea. His face has been altered by plastic surgery. A frame of microfilm has been surgically implanted in his hip. Even his name is a mystery. Marked for death, he is racing for survival through a bizarre world of murderous conspirators—led by Carlos, the world’s most dangerous assassin. Who is Jason Bourne? The answer may kill him.
“[Robert] Ludlum stuffs more surprises into his novels than any other six-pack of thriller writers combined.”—The New York Times""
Host: Nic
Panel: Michael Carroll and Michael Burns
 
 

A Wrong Cruelly Done by Michael Carroll

Hey readers! This summer has been a mess and I promise we will soon return with a regular episode. In the meantime, here is a short story, soon to be published, by panelist Mike Carroll. A Wrong Cruelly Done.
Enjoy,
Nic

Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

This month in Required Reading we talk about Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk. The book that coined the term 'snowflake,' gave us the rules, and made you question fancy soap.  From a philosophical work that came out before 9/11, clearly, join us as we meet Tyler Durden. 
Host: Dr. Nic Hoffmann
Co-Hosted: Mike Burns and Mike Carroll
From the W. W. Norton book description: "
The first rule about fight club is you don't talk about fight club.
In his debut novel, Chuck Palahniuk showed himself to be his generation's most visionary satirist. Fight Club's estranged narrator leaves his lackluster job when he comes under the thrall of Tyler Durden, an enigmatic young man who holds secret boxing matches in the basement of bars. There two men fight "as long as they have to." A gloriously original work that exposes what is at the core of our modern world."