City Lights Booksellers & Publishers is more than just a place to buy books—it is a literary landmark, a symbol of free speech, and the historic epicenter of the Beat Generation. Founded in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, it transformed American literature by challenging censorship laws and championing countercultural voices. Poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D.
Comparing the 2014 New Weird novel to the 2018 Alex Garland movie adaptation SHOW NOTES Jeff Vandermeer’s weird novel Annihilation was published in 2014 to wide acclaim by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux (a publisher not known for weird fiction). It is the first novel in what has become a quartet of novels known as the
This episode begins a series of podcasts on specific books adapted to movies. The chosen book is the 1973 novel, The Princess Bride by William Goldman which was adapted into a famous film by Goldman and director Rob Reiner in 1983. SHOW NOTES The original novel, The Princess Bride, was originally published by Harcourt Brace
This episode features a discussion with Israeli writer, Chen Malul, of J.R.R. Tolkien’s essay, “On Fairy Stories“. Tolkien originally wrote the essay as a speech he delivered as part of the Andrew Lang lectures for St. Andrews College in Scotland. Later, after the publication of The Lord of the Rings and its massive success, Tolkien
I’ve been working on this podcast for years now. Since I first saw the lurid cover of Iceberg Slim’s Pimp in the “Black Fiction” section of a bookstore, I have studied, read, and obsessed with the publisher Holloway House. And, of course, my friend Gary Phillips is the only person I wanted to discuss this
Episode 3 – Chandler Paperback Covers Tom Adam’s Raymond Chandler covers for Ballantine Books. Scans of the covers are from the excellent website Catspaw Dynamics. Other interesting Chandler covers discussed in the podcast
Kathe Koja is a writer’s writer. Her first novel, Cipher, won the Bram Stoker Award and earned high praise from fellow writers and critics. Locus magazine called the novel, “Disturbing, unique, and unforgettable”. And, indeed, that’s just what it is. No one writes horror like Kathe Koja. She takes familiar horror tropes and turns them on
Ian Ballantine was a young graduate student in 1939. He wrote a thesis on the economics of the paperback industry in the late 1930s that brought him to the attention of several paperback publishers. He opened the American branch of Penguin Books (a UK company) in 1939. Ian was primarily responsible for re-selling Penguins in the
SHOW NOTES I owe a debt of gratitude for Michael S. Smith’s article, “Things That Go Bump in the Night: Fringe Science and Ace Books” which appeared in Paperback Parade #113 October 2021. His careful research and excellent commentary on this series were an inspiration. My apologies for misstating his name in the podcast. Ace
This is the second of a series of occasional podcasts focused on what I consider to be a “classic paperback”. A classic paperback has influenced a generation of readers and has sold phenomenally well (although classics aren’t always bestsellers). These are paperbacks that changed our worldview significantly and are still relevant for contemporary readers. Our
This is the first of a series of occasional podcasts focused on what I consider to be a “classic paperback”. A classic paperback is one that has influenced a generation of readers and has sold phenomenally well (although classics aren’t always bestsellers). These are paperbacks that changed our worldview significantly and are still relevant for
