Three Percent Podcast

Jan 11 2025 418 ep. 57 mins 1k

Three Percent Podcast artwork

The Three Percent Podcast is a weekly(ish) conversation about new books, the publishing scene, international literature in translation, and many other random rants and raves. Chad W. Post of Open Letter Books and Tom Roberge of New Directions and Albertine Bookstore keep things irreverent, informed, and funny in a podcast that'll keep you up to date on the international literary and publishing worlds. Maybe. (Presented by Three Percent @ the University of Rochester.)

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TMR 24.9: "I Hate Thinking about Thinking about Myself Like This" [Melvill]

Jan 11 2025 53 mins

In the penultimate episode of this season, there’s a lot of talk about Melville’s relationship with Nathaniel Hawthorne as we get more of Melville’s life as he bounces through time, writes Moby-Dick and the creation of “its own kind of reader: an inexhaustible reader. A reader that didn’t yet exist . . .” The "Grifters Gonna Grift" t-shirt is still available and still s

TMR 24.8: "Fampiro" [Melvill]

Jan 11 2025 61 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. And this one if you listen on Spotify. The others will be going away in the near future.] On the final episode of 2024, Chad, Brian, and Kaija talk about Nico C. and being unmoored from time, last words, footnotes and ellipses, some highlights from the past year, ice, and more. The "Grifters Gonna Grift"

TMR 24.7: "The White Delirium" [Melvill]

Dec 20 2024 74 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please subscribe to this feed.] Lori Feathers (Across the Pond podcast, Involutions of the Seashell, Interabang Books, and Republic of Consciousness Prize USA) joins Chad and Kaija to talk about prizes—Melvill is longlisted for the NBCC Greg Barrios Prize for Translated Literature!—the narrative structure of Melvill, Nico C., and vampi

TMR 24.6: "Liquidate It At Cost" [Melvill]

Dec 13 2024 80 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] With Melville's Fidèle receding into the dark distance, we turn our attention to Rodrigo Fresán's Melvill, a bombastic book about Alan Melvill and Herman and the passing down of stories from one generation to the next. On this special episode, transla

TMR 24.5: "Very Charming." [Confidence-Man]

Dec 06 2024 63 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] Chad, Brian, and Kaija venture into the darkness and turn off the light on Melville's The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade, one of the oddest, most slippery books to be included in the Two Month Review. They talk about transcendentalism, self-reliance, Me

TMR 24.4: "How Unreal All This Is!" [Confidence-Man]

Nov 29 2024 64 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] Opening with a couple of rants, this week's podcast is spicy and also tries to make sense of a few of the more perplexing parts of the book. There's a wonderful interlude in this section from the narrator themselves, and, apparently, nine jokes? And a m

TMR 24.3: "You Are a Punster" [Confidence-Man]

Nov 22 2024 60 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] "Grifters Gonna Grift" merchandise coming soon! This episode exposes just how useful footnotes can be as we transition from dusk to darkness, with the confidence-men being replaced by the Cosmopolitan. Under Discussion: The WWE, how nothing ever changes

TMR 24.2: "Trust Me, Nature Is Health" [Confidence-Man]

Nov 15 2024 64 mins

[Note: If you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, please resubscribe to this feed. The other one will be going away in the near future.] Chad and Kaija go it alone this week, talking about some of the more uncomfortable parts of the book to read in 2024, the Goneril story and the "evil touch," how almost every beat in this novel has a counterpart, the wonderful authorial intrusion discus

TMR 24.1: "May I Ask if You Have Confidence?" [Confidence-Man]

Nov 07 2024 59 mins

Not the happiest day in which to record a podcast, but Chad, Brian, and Kaija speak their fears and then dive into Melville's Confidence-Man, talking about grifters, the value of footnotes, and just how modern and amazing Melville's prose is. They guess at who the "confidence man" might be, the burnt over district of western New York, Mormons, and a lot more. This week's music is "

TMR Supplement #2: "Joytime Killbox" by Brian Wood

Nov 01 2024 69 mins

After referencing Joytime Killbox on hundreds of TMR episodes, we finally break it down with the author himself! Conversation includes ideas about short stories and how they function, the nature of endings, and how Brian has grown as a writer since this collection first came out, while also examining the intent behind a number of the stories, and how they work. This week's music is