Canonical Podcast
1) Can You Create a New Canon?
What can we as readers do to change which books the world considers 'important'? Three years ago, we started this podcast with a mission to create a more inclusive, contemporary canon. Were we success...Show More
2) Why Is Everyone Talking About The Multiverse?
Everyone is talking about the multiverse these days. Why do we so often hear about alternate histories and alternate worlds in the fiction we see in novels and on television? In today's episode we try...Show More
3) Hidden Subtexts of Never Let Me Go
We've discussed how Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go both is and isn't about cloning. So what is it about? We talk this week about other concerns that come into play and how the vague nature of the no...Show More
4) Is Never Let Me Go Science Fiction?
Never Let Me Go is an unusual novel: Can there be a book about clones that isn't about cloning? In this episode we discuss the genre of this novel and how that genre influences the way it treats its t...Show More
5) Review: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
Spoilers abound in this review of Kazuo Ishiguro's alternate reality classic Never Let Me Go. One of us found it engrossing. One of us found it bland. The third was of two minds. Who would have gu...Show More
6) Rodham: New Timeline, Same Hillary
We wind down our discussion of Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld with the question of how much sidestepping of the facts should be permissible in alternate history fiction. Also, is this book a push back ag...Show More
7) Rodham: Feminism Without Politics
We continue our discussion of Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld by examining its political point of view (or lack thereof). Despite taking on one of the most famous politicians in the world as its subject, ...Show More
8) Review: Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld
A surprising pick from Eyad is this week's read and review. Sittenfeld's Rodham, an alternate history what-if about Hilary Clinton, spurs discussion of the ethics of Real Person Fiction, what it mean...Show More
9) Ghosts + History = Lincoln in the Bardo
In our last week with George Saunders's Lincoln in the Bardo, we talk about whether it matters if some of the "quotations" from supposedly contemporary sources are fictional, and if it would matter if...Show More
10) Has George Saunders Changed?
In our second look at George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, we examine whether his book has more to say about history or theology, its mixture or Buddhist and Christian ideas about the afterlife, and...Show More