The Book I Read

In this episode Michael talks about The Kudzu Queen, the new novel by Mimi Herman. By comparison, he'll also take a dip into the classic Harper Lee novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, and reflect on the continued use of that novel in high school English curriculum. He closes with a dedication to Ethna McKiernan and reads the poem "Band-Aid" from her last book of poems, Light Rolling Slowly Backwards. 

In Episode 13 of The Book I Read, Michael discusses Henry Hoke's The Groundhog Forever, a wild and brilliant take, at least conceptually, on the Harold Ramis film, "Groundhog Day," starring the inimitable Bill Murray. 

 In this episode Michael takes a close look at a new collection of essays by Joan Frank, Late Work--A Literary Autobiography of Love, Loss, and What I Was Reading.

In this episode of The Book I Read, Michael pays tribute to a beloved teacher and fiction writer Kevin McIlvoy by exploring his short story collection 57 Octaves Below Middle C. 

In celebration of the impending Halloween season, but more so in celebration of a beloved 19th century English novel, Michael talks about Mary Shelley's Frankenstein --and two other novels inspired by it: his own novel Monster Talk, and Unwieldy Creatures by Addie Tsai.  

In episode 9, the first episode in Season 2 of The Book I Read, Michael Jarmer Writer Guy discusses four books, each in a different genre, that grapple somehow with the concept of time: how much of it do with have and what will we do with it? In this doozy of a returning episode after a long break, Michael talks about Oliver Burkeman's Four Thousand Weeks (Time Management for Mortals), Michelle Zauner's Crying in H Mart, Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, and Virgina Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway by Robin Black. It's a lot! Buckle up! 

In this 8th episode of The Book I Read, published on Christmas Day, no less, Michael discusses the experience of reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens all the way through for the first time in his life. How does the reading of it compare to the countless viewings of this famous novel in film? Let's find out! 

In this episode of The Book I Read, Michael talks about the song that inspired the title of his podcast, a song from '77, the debut album from Talking Heads. He follows that up with by a deep dive into Annie Kim's award winning book of poems, Eros, Unbroken.  

In this episode of The Book I Read Michael discusses his failed attempt at a "reaction video" for literature--which evolves, a year later, into this podcast, and the discussion of this particular classic German novel, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. 

In episode 5 of The Book I Read, Michael talks about attempting Moby Dick and The Magic Mountain, makes some promises to try again, and then takes the final dive into Dale Neal's The Appalachian Book of the Dead. He concludes with an exquisite October poem by David Ruekberg. 

In episode 4 of The Book I Read, Michael talks about the difficulty of choosing the next book and a process for doing so, the novel Appalachian Book of the Dead by Dale Neal, the abandoned but not forgotten Magic Mountain, and returning to full time in-person school in the era of the delta variant of COVID 19. 

In this third episode of The Book I Read, Michael talks about all the wisdom literature he hasn't read, the wonders of literary allusion, George Saunders' Lincoln in the Bardo, and a poem by Don Colburn--also about Abraham Lincoln.  

In Episode 2 of The Book I Read, Michael Jarmer talks about the dreaded responsibility of reading books gifted to him by friends--and then discusses one, the novel Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis. He'll also share a poem by Terri Ford, his favorite of her infamous and celebrated budgie poems from the collection, Hams Beneath the Firmament.  

In this first full episode of The Book I Read, Michael Jarmer Writer Guy talks about John Darnielle's Wolf in White Van, Jennifer Sperry Steinorth's Her Read, and Mary Lou Buschi's Paddock. 

Here is an introductory trailer for a new podcast about books, reading, writing, creativity, music, teaching and learning. Your host, Michael Jarmer, is a veteran public high school English teacher of 32 years, a fiction writer, essayist, poet, and musician. He's got an MFA in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson, he teaches in Milwaukie, Oregon, and he plays drums and sings in a band called Here Comes Everybody with his partner René Ormae-Jarmer. He also plays the drums in a cover band called the Nu Wavers and they perform in and around Portland, Oregon.