Best Last Books

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07/21/21 • 45 min

1 Listener

In this episode Marlon and Jake ponder the tricky question of the last books by authors who’ve ... um ... left this mortal coil. Which last books are actually worth reading? (Not many, it turns out.) From Roberto Bolaño to Penelope Fitzgerald, Sylvia Plath to Eudora Welty, Marlon and Jake discuss how an author's last book compares to their previous ones, how success and age changed how and what they wrote, and the wistfulness that comes when some last books are actually good and you wonder what the authors might have written next, if, you know, they hadn't died. Tune in for this and more, including Marlon and Jake’s surprising thoughts on James Thurber's humorous memoir, My Life and Hard Times.

Select titles discussed:

Maurice by E. M. Forster
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty
The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
“Where is the Voice Coming From?” by Eudora Welty
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
Typee by Herman Melville
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

Select titles discussed:

Maurice by E. M. Forster
Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolaño
2666 by Roberto Bolaño
Exercises in Style by Raymond Queneau
A Room with a View by E. M. Forster
Passage to India by E. M. Forster
Something Happened by Joseph Heller
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
One Writer’s Beginnings by Eudora Welty
The Robber Bridegroom by Eudora Welty
The Optimist’s Daughter by Eudora Welty
“Where is the Voice Coming From?” by Eudora Welty
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber
Typee by Herman Melville
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara

Previous Episode

Our Second Favorite Books by Dead Authors

2 Recommendations

We've heard them rave about their favorites and rant about their least favorites, but Marlon and Jake reveal in this episode their second favorite books by dead authors: the books they love that are the runners-up to the #1 spots in their hearts. From Amos Tutuola to Gabriel García Márquez to John le Carré and more, Marlon and Jake explore why one's favorite book by an author might not always be their best book, what separates an intellectual vs. an emotional response to a book, and the importance of being a promiscuous reader. (That’s right, promiscuous.) And what is the next book by a dead author Marlon and Jake will be reading together for the first time? Tune in to find out!

Select Titles Discussed:

Hamlet by William Shakespeare
Macbeth by William Shakespeare
A House for Mr. Biswas by V.S. Naipaul
Darkness Visible by William Golding
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Shardik by Richard Adams
Watership Down by Richard Adams
The Palm-Wine Drinkard by Amos Tutuola
My Life in the Bush of Ghosts by Amos Tutuola
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry
Shōgun by James Clavell
Airport by Arthur Hailey
The Moneychangers by Arthur Hailey
The Spy Who Came In From the Cold by John le Carré
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
The Honorable Schoolboy by John le Carré
Smiley’s People by John le Carré
A Perfect Spy by John le Carré
Persuasion by Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Sula by Toni Morrison
Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Middlemarch by George Eliot
Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Barchester Towers by Anthony Trollope
Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Blood on the Forge by William Attaway
My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber

Next Episode

Gateway Books

1 Recommendations

Marlon and Jake share their "gateway" books by dead authors, the first books they read that that turned them on—or off—the rest of an author's work. From John Steinbeck to Dorothy Parker, Umberto Eco to Norman Mailer, Ayn Rand to Carson McCullers, Marlon and Jake don't hold back in discussing the imprints, footprints, and thumbprints these books left on them. They also ponder the long-lasting consequences of the high school lit class, whether a gateway book can be assigned, and the enduring power of dullness in a novel, no matter the century. Listen for this and more, including what Marlon and Jake think of The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara, edited by one Toni Morrison.

The Pearl by John Steinbeck
The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
Cannery Row by John Steinbeck
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Mrs. Caliban by Rachel Ingalls
The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
Sula by Toni Morrison
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange
Night of January 16th by Ayn Rand
The Fountainhead Ayn Rand
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez
Chronicle of a Death Foretold by Gabriel García Márquez
News of a Kidnapping by Gabriel García Márquez
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel García Márquez
The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel García Márquez
Enough Rope by Dorothy Parker
The collected poetry of Dorothy Parker
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
The Island of the Day Before by Umberto Eco
In the hand of Dante by Nicholas Tosches
Ancient Evenings by Norman Mailer
Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence
Miami and the Siege of Chicago by Norman Mailer
Harlot’s Ghost by Norman Mailer
An American Dream by Norman Mailer
Why Are We In Vietnam? by Norman Mailer
The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer
Look Back in Anger by John Osborne
Loot by Joe Orton
What the Butler Saw by joe Orton
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe
"The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" by Alan Sillitoe
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas hardy
The Return of the Native by Thomas hardy
Already Dead by Denis Johnson
The Salt Eaters by Toni Cade Bambara
The Lesson by Toni Cade Bambara
Gorilla, My Love by Toni Cade Bambara