Whitney, Chelsea, and Gary analyze another recently-published novel on the next episode of Writers Who Read. Next up: Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid.

Reid writes novels about the “type of woman who I want to talk about, a woman who has naked ambition.” Atmosphere features Joan, an aspiring astronaut in the early 1980s, desperate to get into space, desperate to be one of the guys, who hides a secret she knows will get her kicked out of NASA's budding space shuttle program. We first meet Joan in her career as the steadying voice at mission control, attempting to guide the surviving crew of a harrowing spaceflight safely home.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney Pinion, Risë Keller, and Gary McBride talk about The Director by Daniel Kehlmann, translated from the German by Ross Benjamin in 2025, which is Writers Who Read book number 79. Discussion slides for this novel and all novels discussed are available at WritersWhoRead.com. You can learn more about Literary Forensics here, and find the book at bookstores everywhere.

In every episode we analyze and discuss one novel that has been published within the past 18-24 months. We do this because we are writers who read with intent–we read to study content and form and to uncover techniques that we can apply to our own writing. We read like writers, turning our favorite authors into our writing teachers.

We do this through Literary Forensics, a set of tools that allow us to look beyond the surface of plot points, down into the tapestry of themes, contexts, and symbols that hold the very intentions of the author.

We uncover why they wrote this novel and how they did it.

If you'd like to join our LIVE! meetings in person, find upcoming novel titles and event registration information here and be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Writers Who Read has been meeting in Boulder, Colorado, since 2018, and we are affiliated with the Boulder Writers Alliance.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney, Risë, and Gary analyze another recently-published novel on the next episode of Writers Who Read. Next up: The Director by Daniel Kehlmann.

The influential Austrian film director G W Pabst discovered Louise Brooks and Leni Riefenstahl, worked with Greta Garbo and Kurt Weill, and moved to Hollywood in the 1930s. Unfortunately, just as WWII began he returned to Austria to care for his ailing mother, trapping Pabst and his family in Nazi Germany and turning him into a tool of the Reich. The stark soundstage, dark shadows, and sharp camera angles of Expressionist cinema infuse Kehlmann's novel, translated from the German, chilling our bones with the horror of seeing precisely how totalitarianism breaks us.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney Pinion, Mira Landry, and Gary McBride talk about Flesh by David Szalay, which is Writers Who Read book number 78. Discussion slides for this novel and all novels discussed are available at WritersWhoRead.com. You can learn more about Literary Forensics here, and find the book at bookstores everywhere.

In every episode we analyze and discuss one novel that has been published within the past 18-24 months. We do this because we are writers who read with intent–we read to study content and form and to uncover techniques that we can apply to our own writing. We read like writers, turning our favorite authors into our writing teachers.

We do this through Literary Forensics, a set of tools that allow us to look beyond the surface of plot points, down into the tapestry of themes, contexts, and symbols that hold the very intentions of the author.

We uncover why they wrote this novel and how they did it.

If you'd like to join our LIVE! meetings in person, find upcoming novel titles and event registration information here and be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Writers Who Read has been meeting in Boulder, Colorado, since 2018, and we are affiliated with the Boulder Writers Alliance.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney, Mira, and Gary analyze another recently-published novel on the next episode of Writers Who Read. Next up: Flesh by David Szalay.

Flesh is an unvarnished exploration of lonely masculinity. Okay. Istvǎn's interiority is a virtual blank slate, much like Rachel Cusk accomplished for her Outline trilogy narrator, okay? Stark Hemingwayesque prose and dialogue. Okay. Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize. Deservedly.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney Pinion, Rachel Dempsey, and Gary McBride talk about The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones, which is Writers Who Read book number 77. Discussion slides for this novel and all novels discussed are available at WritersWhoRead.com. You can learn more about Literary Forensics here, and find the book at bookstores everywhere.

In every episode we analyze and discuss one novel that has been published within the past 18-24 months. We do this because we are writers who read with intent–we read to study content and form and to uncover techniques that we can apply to our own writing. We read like writers, turning our favorite authors into our writing teachers.

We do this through Literary Forensics, a set of tools that allow us to look beyond the surface of plot points, down into the tapestry of themes, contexts, and symbols that hold the very intentions of the author.

We uncover why they wrote this novel and how they did it.

If you'd like to join our LIVE! meetings in person, find upcoming novel titles and event registration information here and be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Writers Who Read has been meeting in Boulder, Colorado, since 2018, and we are affiliated with the Boulder Writers Alliance.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney, Rachel, and Gary analyze another recently-published novel on the next episode of Writers Who Read. Next up: The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones.

On January 23, 1870, along the Bear River in Montana, approximately 200 Blackfeet, mostly women, children, and elders, were killed by the 2nd US Cavalry. Stephen Graham Jones memorializes this massacre in his epic Cormac McCarthyesque hellscape, set mostly in 1912, and bookended by the woes of a 21st century professor who can't get tenure. Horrific in all things temporal, intellectual, and spiritual: Cat Man is coming for you.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whitney Pinion, Mira Landry, and Gary McBride talk about Isola by Allegra Goodman, which is Writers Who Read book number 76. Discussion slides for this novel and all novels discussed are available at WritersWhoRead.com. You can learn more about Literary Forensics here, and find the book at bookstores everywhere.

In every episode we analyze and discuss one novel that has been published within the past 18-24 months. We do this because we are writers who read with intent–we read to study content and form and to uncover techniques that we can apply to our own writing. We read like writers, turning our favorite authors into our writing teachers.

We do this through Literary Forensics, a set of tools that allow us to look beyond the surface of plot points, down into the tapestry of themes, contexts, and symbols that hold the very intentions of the author.

We uncover why they wrote this novel and how they did it.

If you'd like to join our LIVE! meetings in person, find upcoming novel titles and event registration information here and be sure to sign up for our monthly newsletter.

Writers Who Read has been meeting in Boulder, Colorado, since 2018, and we are affiliated with the Boulder Writers Alliance.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.