A Book Club For Reformed Nonfiction Supremacists

We crack into the guardian's #1 novel, aka the English Anna Karenina. How does it compare with Tolstoy?

Is the narrator really transformed by drawing the cathedral, or is this just an over-interpreted moment in American fiction? On sincerity, empathy, and seeing other people.

Rich remembered this being a glorified trolley problem that would allow us to settle the question of 'who is the most utilitarian-brained of us all' — but it's not. It's about politics, capitalism, and bold utopian leaps.

Roth vs Dostoevsky, in praise of blue-haired activist types, and the problem of assimilation.

Football star. Marine. Marries a beauty queen. Inherits dad's glove factory. Loves his daughter unconditionally. Then his precious little girl blows up the local post office and kills a man.

Yeah, it's big brain time. Could two superintelligent beings cooperate, or would they have to annihilate each other? An AI doom classic from 1991.

Dissecting the iconic opening line, the precise nature of Ishmael's relationship with our fellow New Zealand native Queequeg, and the question of race and class politics onboard a whaling ship.

A meditation on violence, manifest destiny, self-mythology, and one author's cunning plot to position himself within the literary canon.

The boys put down the heavy tomes for a short story — well, maybe a thought experiment. A meditation on infinity (or almost-might-as-well-be infinity). There are a lot of books.

The elephant in the room is magical realism: have we found our kryptonite? An often-maddening, always-magical journey to Macondo.