Episode 89: Benchwarmer Books

We all have those books that are waiting in the wings, begging for a chance to make their way off the shelf and into our hands. This week, we chat about why some books seem to get stuck on the sidelines, even though we always think they’ll be the next one up. We discuss some of the reasons this happens and each share five of our own benchwarmer books, doing our best to justify why we keep ignoring their pleas to “put me in coach!”

Shownotes

Books

Horror Movie, by Paul Tremblay

Proust Was a Neuroscientist, by Jonah Lehrer

The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller

Circe, by Madeline Miller

To the Lighthouse, by Virginia Woolfe

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

The Human Stain, by Philip Roth

The Passenger, by Cormac McCarthy

Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

Pnin, by Vladimir Nabokov

Absalolm, Absalom!, by William Faulkner

Baudolino, by Umberto Eco

The Gormenghast Novels, by Mervyn Peake

Strong Motion, by Jonathan Franzen

The Twenty-Seventh City, by Jonathan Franzen

Night Watch, by Jayne Anne Phillips

The Year of Reading Dangerously: How Fifty Great Books (and Two Not-So-Great Books) Saved My Life, by Andy Miller

We, the Drowned, by Carsten Jensen

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, by Honoree Fanonne Jeffers

Lady Chatterley’s Lover, by D.H. Lawrence

The Rainbow, by D.H. Lawrence

Sons and Lovers, by D.H. Lawrence

Women in Love, by D.H. Lawrence

Homegoing, by Yaa Gyasi

Hurricane Season, by Fernanda Melchor, translated by Sophie Hughes

Hons and Rebels, by Jessica Mitford

Romola, by George Eliot

The Snow Leopard, by Peter Matthiessen

At Play in the Fields of the Lord, by Peter Matthiessen

The Peregrine, by J.A. Baker

Shadow Country, by Peter Matthiessen

Tigana, by Guy Gabriel Kay

Up in the Old Hotel, by Joseph Mitchell

The Last Colony, by John Scalzi

Old Mans’ War, by John Scalzi

The Ghost Brigade, by John Scalzi

Zoe’s Tale, by John Scalzi

The Adventures of China Iron, by Gabriela Cabezón Cámara, translated by Fiona Mackintosh and Iona Macintyre

Swann’s Way, by Marcel Proust

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy, translated by Anthony Briggs

The Expendable Man, by Dorothy B. Hughes

Felix Holt, the Radical, by George Eliot

Phineas Redux, by Anthony Trollope

Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope

Doctor Thorne, by Anthony Trollope

Suttree, by Cormac McCarthy

Other Links

Jack’s Instagram Post

Episode 31: New Directions, with Mark Haber

Episode 6: Our Fantasy Past (and Future?)

The Mookse and the Gripes Podcast is a book chat podcast. Every other week Paul and Trevor get together to talk about some bookish topic or another. We hope you’ll continue to join us!

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