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A Meal of ThornsAuthor: The Ancillary Review of Books
A critical book club from the Ancillary Review of Books. Host Jake Casella Brookins invites writers, scholars, and critics to discuss thorny works of science fiction, fantasy, and other speculative genres. Language: en Genres: Arts, Books, Fiction, Science Fiction Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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A Meal of Thorns 47- CLOUD ATLAS with Abigail Nussbaum
Monday, 6 April, 2026
A nested novel that very pointedly bridges the litfic/specfic divide, David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas takes some big swings at tricky topics. Abigail Nussbaum returns to the podcast with some thoughts on how the novel has aged, and how it’s still relevant to genre thinking today. Podcasts, reviews, interviews, essays, and more at the Ancillary Review of Books. Please consider supporting ARB’s Patreon! Guest: Abigail Nussbaum Title: Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell Host:Jake Casella Brookins Music byGiselle Gabrielle Garcia Artwork byRob Patterson Opening poem by Bhartṛhari, translated by John Brough References: ARB’s Fundraiser!!! Track Changes Aliya Whiteley’s The Misheard World & Abigail’s review Nina Allen Alexis Hall's Hell's Heart Olivia Waite Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick Lincoln Michel's Metallic Realms Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire Hanya Yanagihara's The People in the Trees Readerville forum & Salon Magazine's “The Well” The Cloud Atlas by Liam Callanan Jonathan Lethem's Girl in Landscape & Motherless Brooklyn Kate Atkinson's Case Histories Our episode on The Historian Michael Chabon’s The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union New Wave, Cyberpunk, Mundane SF, The New Weird China Miéville’s Perdido Street Station The “New Adult” category of books Taylor Jenkins Reed Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin The Marvel Cinematic Universe Aragorn’s Tax Policy Jeremy Rosen’s Genre Bending Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, Russel Hoban’s Riddley Walker, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World Sofia Samatar’s The Practice, the Horizon, and the Chain Jean Baudrillard William Gibson The Stanford marshmallow experiment The Chatham Islands, Moriori & Māori peoples Charlie Jane Anders’ piece on Cloud Atlas The Velvet Underground joke (not many people listened, but everybody who did started a band) Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go Niall Harrison’s “In Search of Green Overshoots” The Coral Bones by E.J. Swift In Ascension by Martin MacInnes Gnomon by Nick Harkaway Abigail's Blog & Bluesky Tolkien Series: Roseanna Pendlebury & Ed Morland’s, Ranged Touch’s Shelved by Genre, Nick Hubble, Jared Pechaček, Weird Studies
