boredom

2013-2014 Year in Review

Posted on March 31, 2014

We’re capping year two of Novel Ideas with our Year in Review episode. In this episode we list our Top and Bottom 5 books of the year, as well as handing out various awards for books we read this year. Subjects include the typical, such as: classics, YA, science fiction, bestsellers, characters, and social issues. We also get into some of our usual silliness like the importance of staying alive versus finding a boyfriend, weird sex, Gabs ships, and terrible ad copy. For those of you playing at home, see if you can guess which twenty minutes were punched in after the fact.

The music bump is “Happy” by Pharrell Williams.

2013 – 2014 Year in Review

At the end of this episode, we will tell you that our next episode will be a “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, but I think it will actually be The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman.

This entry was posted in Episodes and tagged awards, best/worst characters, best/worst relationships, boredom, bottom 5, criteria for lists, disappointment, dishonorable mentions, finding a boyfriend, Gabs ships, honorable mentions, importance of classics, listener questions, lists, Maurice and modernity, neverending sucky, Neville takes a level in badass, parental guidance, representations of women, slavery?, social issues, surprises, terrible ad copy, top 5, weird sex.

The Great Gatsby

Posted on May 14, 2013

Welcome back, old sport. It’s so good to see you yet again at one of our extravagant parties, old sport. This week’s discussion topic is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. (Old sport.) Listen as we analyze racism, how to identify a protagonist, hypocrisy, and the danger of being tied to your past. We also look at verbal tics, what is actually the “midwest,” and the various ways in which Tom is a dick. Though it’s short, this book is a pretty rich source of material. You can read it in less time than it takes to go see the movie, so consider doing that before you join us.

The music bump is “Beale Street Blues,” a popular piece of music from around the time the book was written, and furthermore, a piece of music that gets specifically mentioned in the text. This particular recording was made a few years later, sung by the still amazing Ella Fitzgerald. No relation to the author, but I hope I didn’t need to tell you that.

This entry was posted in Episodes and tagged boredom, broadcast professionalism, Cowboy Bebop, F. Scott Fitzgerald, fake people, Gatsby movie, history of music, hitting women is bad, hypocrisy, infidelity, jazz age, midwest, old sport, phrasing!, popularity v. intimacy, prisoners of the past, protagonist tiebreaker, racism, real people, SparkNotes, symbolism, The Great Gatsby, Tom's a dick, verbal tics.