Congratulations, You're a Failure! Stephen Ma...

We're back from the holiday break! (Sort of.) This interview with the inimitable Mike Pesca was recorded on Boxing Day and released right away to paying subscribers. Now it's available to everyone. Host of The Gist and author of the newsletters Pesca Profundities and The Gist Lis ...  Show more

This week, I talk with author Lili Anolik about her book on two writers whose lives overlapped in ways that were both unlikely and (in retrospect) inevitable. One is Eve Babitz, the exuberant chronicler of 1970s Hollywood. The other is Joan Didion, whose notoriously "cool," exact ...  Show more

Oprah travels to Stephen Colbert's hometown of Charleston, South Carolina. While sipping sweet tea on the piazza of Stephen’s in-laws’ house, a place where he celebrated his wedding and spends Christmas with his family, Oprah discusses what makes Stephen one of the smartest, m ...

Today, we know F. Scott Fitzgerald as one of the greatest novelists of the 20th century. Tragically, in his own time, many regarded Fitzgerald as a failure. Sure, he was one of the highest paid writers of his time, but his novels sold poorly, and the critical reviews were prec ...

It's the season finale, so obviously I insisted our last guest be a Nobel Prize winner and...HERE HE IS! Kazuo Ishiguro, arguably one of our greatest writers of contemporary fiction, and a very lovely man to boot. His most famous book, The Remains of the Day, was written when Ish ...  Show more

For our season finale, I bring you the glorious Maggie O'Farrell. She is one of my favourite authors, and her books include the highly acclaimed novels After You'd Gone, The Hand That First Held Mine, Instructions for a Heatwave and the bestselling memoir I Am, I Am, I Am. Her mo ...  Show more