After years of writing poetry Chilean author Roberto Bolaño made the decision to secure more financial security for his family by making the transition into scribing novels. His first novel, La pista de hielo (The Skating Rink), was published in 1993. His breakthrough, Los detectives salvajes (The Savage Detectives), came about in 1998.

Unbeknownst to the public and his ever-growing fanbase, in 1992 Bolaño had been diagnosed with a terminal liver ailment, kickstarting a frenetic writing pace. Spurred in large part by a looming awareness of his impending death, he published at least one new book every year until his death in 2003.

Although he was, by this point, a well-known and critically-hailed author in Spanish-speaking countries, Bolaño was not widely translated until after his death. That changed with the posthumous publication of his magnum opus, 2666, in 2005. This massive novel, divided into five loosely-connected sections, secured his worldwide literary reputation. Since his death, all of his earlier works have been translated into English and there have been four additional posthumous works released.

Rebecca handpicked 2666 as her selection for the month of July. Yes, the discussion isn’t being posted until August, but everyone is still playing catch-up from a summer that has gotten out of control. Besides, posting late gave Rodney an opportunity to savor and digest this most post-modern of novels. Y’all know how he struggles with those.

To hear the 75th episode– man, how time does fly!– press PLAY on the media player below!

The folks here at Just In Case We Die have decided that all a novelist has to do to earn a spot on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is to pen a book about identity chasing. From On the Road (which Aaron adores) to Disappearance (which all but Rodney found boring), there have been many spotlighted novels that cover this theme. This novel, one that the cast was somewhat interested in based solely on the writer being from India, is one of the blandest novels they’ve ever had to discuss. Literally nothing happens save some not-very-subtle character introductions and drab postulating about whether ’tis better to embrace a new India or the encroachment of the Western world. This time around, there’s not even an interesting history to share about the novelist.

To hear the discussion of The Romantics, push PLAY on the media player below.

June is almost over and you have probably noticed that the fine folks at Just In Case We Die haven’t posted any new material. This month, there was supposed to be a discussion of The Romantics by Pankaj Mishra (#1022 on the curated list). Well, guess what? It’s June 24th and Aaron hasn’t even had a chance to start reading it yet.

At the end of May, Rebecca’s teenage son moved to Illinois from Tennessee just in time for summer to start. Summertime means that now there are four teenagers in their house that need fed, housed, and entertained. Mixed in with that, their daughter needs rides to and from work (at least until she has had her permit for ninety days and can at long last get her license and drive herself). During all of that, Rebecca had a work trip to Washington, D.C. and returned home just in time for Aaron to head to summer camp for a week. He returned from camp just in time to move into tech week for the production of 1776 he has been rehearsing (a production–it should be noted–that also involves Rebecca in many capacities. At the end of the month, Rodney’s son is (finally) getting married. There has been legitimately no time to give this podcast the attention it deserves.

Rebecca suggested that the discussion of The Romantics be moved into next month. Instead, the bandwidth in June could be utilized for a round-table discussion of James by Percival Everett, a novel that all three cast members have recently completed. This novel, published in 2024, has won (or been nominated for) almost every literary award on the planet. A reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn as told through the eyes of the enslaved man, Jim, it is also a great introduction into the work of Percival Everett, a prolific author of considerable talent. This month, the cast of Just In Case We Die dissects this award-winning novel. Is it a reimagining? Is it a retelling? Does it go too far in its diversions from the original book? Does it deserve a spot on the list of “essentials”? Does this tome have Mark Twain rolling in his grave?

Press PLAY below to hear the discussion!

The critical blurb on the cover of book #776 on our curated list states that The Memoirs of Hadrian is “singularly beautiful”, which is a really interesting opinion since the cast of Just In Case We Die found it “boring”, “tedious”, and “uneventful.” Ostensibly, a 300+ page passing-of-the-torch epistle between emperors in ancient Rome, it reads like a textbook by a professor who doesn’t care if the reader passes this class or not. The author, a renowned Belgian-French novelist, has some interesting things in her personal biography, but seems to have no grasp whatsoever on how to write one for someone else. Suffice it to say that Aaron, Rodney, and Rebecca are not the audience for this book. Neither can they fathom why this book was chosen by Le Temps as the sixth best book written in French in the 20th and 21st centuries.

Press PLAY on the media player below to hear the latest discussion!

On Sunday, May 3, 2026, The Davis Theatre in Chicago had a single screening of Knife: The Attempted Murder of Salman Rushdie, a new film by Academy-Award-winning director Alex Gibney, as part of the annual Doc10 Festival. This film is a documentary partially stitched together from footage filmed by novelist Rachel Eliza Griffiths as her husband, Salman Rushdie, recovered from the 2022 attempt on his life by a 24-year-old religious extremist. Tickets for this screening were not inexpensive, but the admission price included signed copies of the memoir that this film is based on and an invitation to attend a post-screening Q & A with journalist Bethany McLean, Alex Gibney, Rachel Eliza Griffiths, and . . . wait for it . . . Salman Rushdie himself. That’s right, attendance at this screening allowed the cast at Just In Case We Die the rare chance to be in the same room with a novelist that everyone involved admires greatly.

Yes, you read that right. Aaron, Rodney, and Rebecca were IN THE SAME ROOM WITH SALMAN RUSHDIE!

Press PLAY on the media player below to hear their discussion about this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Once upon a time, Aaron recommended a novel he had recently completed to Rebecca, citing it as his favorite novel of 2021. Already familiar with the work of Mr. Doerr, Rebecca jumped right in, despite Aaron’s misgivings about the science-fiction content of this spectacular book. Rebecca loved Cloud Cuckoo Land so much that she brought it to the table as an entry on her veto list when she joined the cast in 2024. In February of 2026, this novel became up for discussion when a German epic poem (Hyperion by Friedrich Hölderlin, #569 on the original list) got vetoed for being, well, a German epic poem.

Here we are . . . April of 2026. Aaron and Rebecca are hungry to know what Rodney thought of one of their favorite novels. There’s no way he can hate this novel, right?

Press PLAY below to find out!

Last year, for the bonus material in April, Just In Case We Die celebrated National Library Week with a lively discussion about some of the unique things libraries are doing all around the world. The year before that, the cast celebrated International Children’s Book Day by reminiscing about some of their favorite books and authors from when they were kids. What do they have in store for April 2026?

No idea. April is also National Poetry Month and there is no one in the cast with anything interesting (or pleasant) to say about poetry, so it’s time for a deep dive into some literature news items that are making headlines. Hated writers making super-considerate gestures, secret identities revealed, biographies from surprising sources, and the knowledge that a favorite writer of everyone in the cast will soon be within two hours of their homes. It’s also about time that all these books on the veto lists got replaced.

For having nothing to talk about, it sure was easy to fill an hour . . .

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Back in January, the random number generator gave us #1, 167. This number corresponded to a Cuban novel by Guillermo Cabrera Infante entitled Three Trapped Tigers. None of the cast had heard of it.

Research ensued, and the following information was discovered:

1. A paperback in English was going to cost $73.85.
2. The cheapest editions were either in Chinese ($17.85) or on Kindle in Spanish ($9.99) and no one but Rebecca can read Spanish.
3. There is an audiobook version of Three Trapped Tigers on Audible but that doesn’t do anyone any good but Rodney.
4. The book is well-known for its punning, wordplay, and excessive use of Cuban street slang and has often been jokingly referred to as “the Cuban Ulysses.”

All of these things combined led to Rodney vetoing a novel for the very first time. His replacement? A Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier. This novel and its vision of a unique afterlife– a purgatory fueled by the memories of the living– is one of the first books that Rodney and Aaron can remember discussing back when their friendship first formed. Both of them are very excited for Rebecca to read this novel for the very first time.

Press PLAY on the media player below to hear what she thought!

It occurred to the crew here at Just In Case We Die that a vast majority of the broadcast space is devoted to male authors. It would seem that the editors of the original list didn’t have as many women writers that they found to be “essential.” In three full years of episode dropping, with the minor exception of three short stories, there have only been six discussions featuring novels written by female authors– and one of them was written by a woman who had to pretend she was a man!

March is Women’s History Month, so it was decided to center this month’s bonus episode around feminine writers. There’s plenty to discuss: genres that have secretly been hiding excellent female authors amongst their ranks, the favorite female scribes of all three members of the cast, and stereotypes about female writers that need to go away. It’s Just In Case We Die’s first ever episode dedicated to women!

Press PLAY below to hear the latest discussion!

Watchmen is, without question, the most unique book to be up for discussion on Just In Case We Die. Of all the tomes to ever appear on the curated list, Watchmen is the only comic book. Originally released as twelve individual issues, the final collected volume premiered at the end of 1987 and has subsequently become one of the most consistently-reprinted graphic novels of all time. It also managed to win the Hugo award and find a spot on Time Magazine‘s list of 100 Best Novels as one of the most influential English-language books since 1923. Not bad for a comic book, eh?

Well, not every comic book is superhero nonsense intended for children. Knowing this, Rodney hand-selected this influential work for discussion this month. What exactly is Watchmen? What makes this influential work literary enough to stand amongst the likes of Dickens, Faulkner, and Haruki Murakami? Did Rebecca like this book? Have Aaron and Rodney gotten her to climb aboard the comic book train?

Press PLAY on the media player below to find out!