Weekly Short Stories Archives - Page 18 of 27

A podcast for literary fiction discussions of short stories and novels.

Attitude Adjustment | Tim Gautreaux |Literary Roadhouse Ep 65

May 17, 2016 Anais Concepcion 0:57:04 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: Attitude Adjustment

Find this weeks story here: Attitude Adjustment by Tim Gautreaux

Next weeks story is The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

Rated: Clean

This week’s story had religious themes that left Gerald as the odd man out. Rammy enjoyed the story’s message of surrendering to a greater plan, while Maya believed that story’s message was about finding the good in pain and suffering. Anais enjoyed the prose and the political subplots. The hosts analyze the morality of the story, and debate whether or not it is religious in nature, and Gerald asks if the politics of immigration in the United States was handled too bluntly in broad strokes of wrong or right. But did everyone read the stories political and religious messages the same way? Tune in to find out.

Also, don’t forget to rate the story! We rated it a 6-6-6-4 (5.5 average). For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Attitude Adjustment? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

The Rat King | Kerry Cullen | Literary Roadhouse Ep 64

May 11, 2016 Maya Goode 0:36:24 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: The Rat King

Find this weeks story here: The Rat King

Next weeks story is Attitude Adjustment by Tim Gautreaux

Rated: Adult themes without Adult Language

Well… this was an odd one for sure. Surprisingly or perhaps not surprisingly, Maya was the only one who enjoyed The Rat King. This story, about a woman who finds herself drawn to the rat king, lent itself to interesting discussion. In this episode, we discuss the structure, characterization, lesbian drama and the juxiposition of these two very different relationships.

Don’t forget to rate the story! We rated it a 4.9, for the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate The Rat King? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

Literary Roadhouse Discussions with Karan Bajaj

May 1, 2016 Maya Goode 00:46:13 0 Comments

Guest: Karan Bajaj

Rated: Clean

This week we have a treat for you! Literary Roadhouse Discussions in a new intermittent extra podcast where we discuss literature and writing with authors and other literary figures. Our first guest is Karan Bajaj.

Karan Bajaj is a #1 bestselling Indian novelist with more than 200,000 copies of his novels in print, both optioned into major films. Karan’s first worldwide novel, The Yoga of Max’s Discontent, will be published by Random House on May 3rd’ 2016. The book, called “The greatest adventure of our Generation” by The Daily Telegraph was inspired by Karan’s one year sabbatical traveling from Europe to India by road and learning yoga and meditation in the Himalayas.

During our discussion, we dove deep into how travel and adventure affects his writing. His own spiritual hero’s journey and the reflections seen in his novels and the four one plan that Karan lives by; where he works a normal job for 4 years and then takes a 1 year sabbatical to refill his well of spirituality and creativity. This a wonderfully interesting discussion on writing, reading and life, we hope you enjoy it.

The Yoga of Maxs Discontent

THE YOGA OF MAX’S DISCONTENT will be published worldwide by Random House on May 3, 2016. The book is about a Wall Street investment banker who becomes a yogi in the Himalayas and is both a page turning adventure through the hidden underbelly of India and a contemporary take on man’s classic quest for transcendence.

The book is receiving excellent advance reviews with The Daily Telegraph calling it “The greatest adventure of our generation” and Sharon Gannon saying it’s “A superb meditation on effort and grace, on the level of Herman Hesse and Victor Frankl,”

Karan is also a yoga instructor and you can get a free meditation course, a Quit Sugar in 7 days nutrition guide, a yoga flow video course and other gifts when you order your book today. Details at www.karanbajaj.com/yogamax

Learn more about Karan:

Website: www.karanbajaj.com
Twitter: @realkaranbajaj
Instagram: realkaranbajaj
Facebook: www.facebook.com/author.karanbajaj

Literary Roadhouse Discussions If you enjoyed this extra content, please support our Patreon campaign. We would love to add Literary Discussions to our regular podcast line up but are struggling with the audio editing. Just as the great painters and writers of old relied of Patrons to produce their art, every dollar of support will get us closer to hiring someone to do the audio editing. An audio editor not only would improve the audio quality but would help up launch three planned future shows. www.patreon.com/literaryRoadhouse

A Handful of Dates | Tayeb Saleh | Literary Roadhouse Ep 63

April 26, 2016 Maya Goode 0:39:47 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: A Handful of Dates

Find this weeks story here: A Handful of Dates

Next weeks story is The Rat King by Kerry Cullen

Rated: Clean

This weeks story was about at it’s essence a coming of age story. We follow as a young man’s vision of his grandfather is changed and he develops a deeper understanding of write and wrong. Maya, Gerald and all liked the story a great deal, while Anais and Rammy came down the middle. This story reminded Maya of the history of how conquered people are treated by conquerors. It also prompted a discussion of what is moral and how morality is tied to economics.

Don’t forget to rate the story! We rated it a 4.9, for the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate A Handful of Dates? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

We Launched a Patreon Campaign!

April 16, 2016 Anais Concepcion 0 Comments

Literary Roadhouse is now on Patreon! For those of you familiar with Patreon, great! Check out our profile at patreon.com/literaryroadhouse

Patreon lets fans directly support their favorite content creators, such as podcasters! Literary Roadhouse is free to our listeners, but unfortunately not free to create. Through Patreon you can pledge a monthly financial contribution to keep the podcast going and growing. It can be as low as $1 a month, or as high as your wallet and heart allows.

We’re ambitious. We want to grow. We have three new shows we want to produce, but we need a little help to reach our goal. We currently publish 9 episodes a month, which means Maya and Anais spend 60 hours each month sound editing. We want to grow to 16 episodes a month across 6 shows, but need a little boost getting there. Hey, maybe we can even hire a professional sound editor too! Dream big. And monthly contributions, even small ones, help us reach our goals and create better podcasts for you.

And if you prefer to make a one time contribution, you can sign up, pledge the amount you want to donate, then cancel the monthly pledge. Don’t worry about hurting our feelings by canceling a pledge, we know it’s a one-time donation and greatly appreciate it.

As a monthly patron you would have access to our Patreon activity feed where we will post special, patron-only content, such as patron-only conversations with the hosts, and sneak peeks behind the scenes.

Just to be clear, we are not charging you for our podcasts, and we don’t plan on ever doing so. Our shows are still free to anyone who reads.

If you love what what we do as much as we love doing it, help us keep doing it. And thank you.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Ghost Birds | Nicolas Pizzolatto | Literary Roadhouse Ep 62

April 15, 2016 Maya Goode 0:36:46 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: Ghost Birds

Find this weeks story here: Ghost Birds

Next week’s story is A Handful of Dates by Tayeb Saleh

Rated: Clean

Everyone liked this weeks story but Maya had issues with the 1st have of the story. Ghost Birds is about loss and fear of loss explored through the eyes of a man who uses extreme sports to overcome his inner demons. It touched on interesting and important ideas with strong themes of feeling alive, order and fear of death. Maya’s main problem with the story ended up almost being a deal breaker as she felt the story ended and then started again. While Anais thought the 2nd half of the story wasn’t as strong as the first, it didn’t take away from her enjoyment. Gerald and Rammy both enjoyed the story as well attesting to it’s strengths. Ghost Birds is an interesting tale, told in an unconventional way with thought provoking ideas.

Don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Ghost Birds? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

Drone | Hari Kunzru | Literary Roadhouse Ep 61

April 6, 2016 Maya Goode 1:00:13 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: Drone

Next week’s story is Ghost Birds by Nicolas Pizzalotto

Rated: Clean

As Anais was editing this weeks bickering, she realized that we’ve hit the old married couple phase of our podcast. Drone is excerpt of an upcoming novel that gave Rammy pause. We spent a good deal of time discussing whether it should qualify as a short story. I was right of course 😉 Set in a future India, this story touched on economic disparity, religion, and genetic modification.

Anais appreciated the clever writing and nods to Indian culture and current politics. Maya loved seeing a post apocalyptic science story set outside Europe or the US and populated with people of color. The story had interesting vocabulary in addition to science fiction terms which disrupted his reading experience.

Don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate A Handful of Dates? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

Queenie | Alice Munro | Literary Roadhouse Ep 60

March 30, 2016 Maya Goode 0:44:46 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: Queenie

Next week’s story is Drone by Hari Kunzru

Rated: Clean

Queenie is a short story about a young woman who visits her sister who ran away with the neighbor and is in a difficult relationship. We discussed abuse, lost and sisterhood. This is our second Alice Munro story and Anais found herself enjoying it more now that she understood Munro’s writing better. Maya enjoyed the story but found it less strong than Amundsen which we read in March of 2015.

We all enjoyed this story and found comparing our experiences a valuable experience.

Don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Queenie? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

Delira | Hitomi Kanehara | Literary Roadhouse Ep 59

March 23, 2016 Maya Goode 0:47:23 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: Delira

Next week’s story is Queenie by Alice Munro

Rated: Dirty!!!! Adult Themes & Language

So, we don’t read these stories in advance and this week we were a little surprised. Upon starting the story… this happened.

Gerald: Good Lord! This story is a little … ahem … steamy.

Maya: hahahaha! Poor Rammy, no wonder he hasn’t replied. He’s either in shock or…

So after the necessary laughter, we dove into this story searching for the meaning and artistic merit. Delira is an extremely graphic story about a depressed woman who is molested at her new job. Maya wonders if the icky and non-titillating descriptions of sex have a larger message about abuse, depression and Japanese society. Anais, found the slimy nature of the story difficult to get through and Rammy wondered why we would torture him so. While Gerald was disturbed by the abuse narrative. By the end of the episode one host had a surprising reversal during the rating.

Don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Delira? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

Switzerland Today | Michael Chabon | Literary Roadhouse Ep 58

March 22, 2016 Maya Goode 00:42:24 0 Comments

Discussion Notes: Switzerland Today

Next week’s story is Delira by Hitomi Kanehara

Rated: Clean but Gerald does call us dumb asses under his breath

First off, thank you for your patience. This episode and last weeks Bradbury Challenge had major sound issues and took almost a week to edit. It’s okay but not up to our normal sound standards. So again, thank you.

Switzerland Today was a beautifully written but confusing story for us. In this episode, we try to sort out what this story was actually about and on a more basic level… what actually happened. All of our scores shifted after this discussion, 3 of us moved our scores down but one of us lost his sense and raised his score. Listen to find out who! For Maya, the beautiful language made her even more irritated by the ending. The imagery and characterization felt real to both Rammy and Anais, while Anais found the characterization lacking.

Don’t forget to rate the story! For the history of our goofy system, see Anais’ post “Read Short Stories or Ray Bradbury Cries.” On a scale of 1-6 Bradberries, how do you rate Switzerland Today? Tell us in the comments below or via voicemail, and we will give the final tally on the next episode. We are also in desperate need of iTunes reviews. Please search Literary Roadhouse in iTunes and leave reviews for all of our shows.

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Weekly Short Stories

Each week The Literary Roadhouse podcast hosts deeply read and discuss one short story.

Attitude Adjustment | Tim Gautreaux |Literary Roadhouse Ep 65

Discussion Notes: Attitude Adjustment

The Rat King | Kerry Cullen | Literary Roadhouse Ep 64

Discussion Notes: The Rat King

Literary Roadhouse Discussions with Karan Bajaj

Guest: Karan Bajaj

Learn more about Karan:

A Handful of Dates | Tayeb Saleh | Literary Roadhouse Ep 63

Discussion Notes: A Handful of Dates

We Launched a Patreon Campaign!

Ghost Birds | Nicolas Pizzolatto | Literary Roadhouse Ep 62

Discussion Notes: Ghost Birds

Drone | Hari Kunzru | Literary Roadhouse Ep 61

Discussion Notes: Drone

Queenie | Alice Munro | Literary Roadhouse Ep 60

Discussion Notes: Queenie

Delira | Hitomi Kanehara | Literary Roadhouse Ep 59

Discussion Notes: Delira

Switzerland Today | Michael Chabon | Literary Roadhouse Ep 58

Discussion Notes: Switzerland Today

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