Menagerie #3
An audio recording of Richard Connell “The Most Dangerous Game.” Long considered one of the most popular short stories of all time, Connell’s thriller has influenced countless stories and at least one serial killer.


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Episode 9.1
The brilliant and magnanimous Jacob Everett, the mastermind behind Apocalypse Confidential, joins me to discuss AMERICAN TABLOID by James Ellroy—a masterful classic of paranoia, carnage, and the real deal behind the forces of history. We talk the potency of Ellroy’s style, crime fiction as high art, the resonance of the JFK assassination, Ellroy contra Quentin Tarantino, and figure out which more recent unsolved mystery is prime to spawn its own subgenre in the coming years.

Follow Jacob on Twitter.

Apocalypse Confidential is one the best literary mags out there. You should be reading it closely.

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Cairo Smith is the founder and EIC of Futurist Letters, host of The Futurist Letters Show, filmmaker, and author of the forthcoming novel SCENEBUX, out September 6, 2025 from New Ritual Press.

.We talked about the New Wave, a certain LA literary party that made headlines, what happens when no one puts you in check, the Idaho Basque, some of the books that have been most influential on Cairo and his work, and much, much more.


Pre-order SCENEBUX at Cairo’s website.

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Following down just some of the rabbit-holes in THE MAGUS by John Fowles.
Hypnotism, Magic, Cruelty, and the so-called Real World

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Menagerie #2
An audio recording of Jack London’s “Love of Life” first published in McClure’s Magazine in 1905. All the classic Jack London themes are here: the Yukon, survival, the cold, and wolves.


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Alexandru Constantin joins me to talk in depth on John Fowles’ classic 1965 novel THE MAGUS. A postmodern bildungsroman that’ll remind every former sensitive young man of himself in his cringier days—and a mind-bending trip through a beautiful labyrinth.


https://substack.com/@deceneus

Don’t miss Alex’s podcast, the Black Ibis Social Club: https://blackibissocialclub.substack.com/

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The incredibly talented author Andrew Edwards joins me to talk about his upcoming novel CROWBAR, his absolute banger of a novel KING OF DOGS, the philosophy of survival, and much more.

This will be on the free feed next week.

Support Andrew’s crowdfunding effort for CROWBAR:
https://substack.com/@goldengoatguild/p-166445394

X: x.com/goldengoatguild
Website: https://www.goldengoatguild.net/

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Brian Patrick Eha is a widely-published essayist, journalist and critic. In this expansive conversation we talk Gustave Flaubert as a precursor to Modernism, the method of free indirect discourse in Madame Bovary and the madness of The Temptation of St. Anthony, as well as a few under-appreciated books from Brian’s personal canon.

This will be on the free feed sometime next week.

https://x.com/brianeha

Essays by Brian that we mention:
https://www.city-journal.org/article/madame-bovary-author-gustave-flaubert
https://www.city-journal.org/article/alfred-hayess-fiction-retains-contemporary-relevance

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[PREVIEW}
Gerald Murnane’s THE PLAINS is a novel that opens on vista after vista. I go into the politics of colors, attempts at filming Australia, how Murnane is exploring the Dreamtime (whether he knows it or not), and much, much more.

For the full episode, subscribe to the patreon or substack feed via madmethodpod.com/subscribe

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Jack BC of the always entertaining and enlightening podcast Book Club from Hell, joins me to talk about the singular masterpiece of Australian letters, Gerald Murnane's strange and beautiful book THE PLAINS. A book that is somehow about itself, and everything else. We talk about the many questions Murnane raises on the nature of creativity, subjectivity, and the very form of the novel.

https://bookclubfromhell.substack.com/

bookclubfromhell.com

Jack’s Twitter: https://x.com/supersquat1

Jack’s novel TOWER: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC/dp/0645928208

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Andrew Wittstadt (@andrewwittstadt) joins me to talk about his great podcast on poetry and literature, HEAVY BORED. We also get into the problem of authority in academia and why it’s necessary as well as Andrew’s personal canon and much more.

https://www.patreon.com/HeavyBored
x.com/andrewwittstadt

x.com/heavyboredpod

https://www.instagram.com/heavybored/

https://www.youtube.com/@heavybored

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An audio recording of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1840 short story “The Man of the Crowd", in which Poe’s narrator finds that he can read a man’s entire history in his expression—but some things are left better unseen.

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How DeLillo renders visible the invisible, the forces of history, conspiracy theory as literature, and the Discordian weirdness of the JFK assassination.

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I joined Glen Rockney on his monumental Gain of Fiction bookclub show to talk about Don DeLillo’s 1988 pseudohistorical masterpiece LIBRA—arguably THE novel about the JFK assassination.

This one is for premium subscribers ONLY.

Follow Rare Candy: rarecandy.substack.com (where premium subscribers can also get this episode) or wherever you get your podcasts

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Jack BC of the great books podcast Bookclub from Hell joins me to discuss his exceptional work of corporate surrealism, TOWER and the origins of Bookclub from Hell, as well as the legacy of literary realism, the exquisite weirdness of JG Ballard, and much much more.

Jack’s podcast: https://www.bookclubfromhell.com/,https://x.com/bookclubhell666
Buy TOWER: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC/dp/0645928208

Follow Jack: https://substack.com/@jackbc

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Glen Rockney of Rare Candy joins me to talk about his superb Gain of Fiction bookclub show, bros reading and why they should, and I finally share what happened to the 2024 live Art of Darkness show.

Rare Candy on Substack

Rare Candy on Twitter

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In the first installment of my ongoing 5 Fathoms project, here I give an in-depth presentation on the history of the Tarot.

In the first solo deep dive on Method and Madness, I go into LOLITA contra CRASH, what the hell even is literary Postmodernism, theories of time, and Nabokov’s prophetic dreams.

Thanks for joining me.

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More LOLITA. Aaron walks us through the deep narratology behind the concept of the ‘unreliable narrator’ and how Nabokov keeps the reader at just the right distance to make this book a masterpiece.

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In this Melee episode, the brilliant Dustin Cole joins Brad to discuss his new poetry collection AFTER SUNSTONE, writing poetry versus writing novels, what social media does for/to a writer, and W.G. Sebald’s singular book THE RINGS OF SATURN.


BUY AFTER SUNSTONE: https://farthestheaven.com/products/after-sunstone

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