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So what happened was this . . . At the end of the episode on “Les Miserables” by Victor Hugo, the random number generator gave us #355. The book corresponding to this number was “Emma” by Jane Austen. Rebecca ixnayed that itshay quicker than quick, but she then had to use the random number generator to pick a tome from her veto list. The redraw gave us A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers’ powerful 2000 memoir about caring for his younger brother after the death of his parents.

This book is hard to categorize. The Pulitzer Prize committee felt it was, in fact, a memoir when they shortlisted it for the prize. The author himself acknowledges throughout the book that some of it is fictionalized and not at all depicted the way that events actually happened. Aren’t memoirs by their very nature technically post-modern works?

Is it a comedy? Is it a drama? Is it totally fabricated? Regardless of which genre you choose, however, it cannot be denied that the book is aptly named.

Press “Play” below to hear our discussion!

Did you know that there is a library in Oslo doing quite possibly the coolest literary thing that we have ever read about? Too bad none of us will be alive to experience it!

It’s National Library Week, and the cast here at Just In Case We Die are celebrating with some reminiscing about our favorite memories of the library. They talk about Aaron’s mother and what she is doing for the library in a small town with a population of 500 people. They discuss some fun facts about libraries, librarians, and the library systems in foreign countries.

Push ‘Play” below to hear the discussion, and then make sure you visit your local library!

A nameless narrator commits a murder. As a result, he must traverse an absurdist landscape of two-dimensional buildings, bumbling police officers, and philosophical meanderings about bicycles. What percentage of one man can become a bicycle before he ceases to be more man than bicycle?

Born in 1911, Irish novelist and playwright Brian O’Nolan made a name for himself in the metafiction movement of the 1940s under the pseudonym of Flann O’Brien. The Third Policeman, a novel that never found a publisher until after the author’s death in 1966, is truly one of the strangest novels that any one of us has ever read. It also happens to be one of the more thought-provoking.

Join us on our descent into absurdity by pressing “Play” on the media player below.

On Saturday, February 22, 2025, Rodney and Aaron spent a rather brisk winter day wandering around the town of Rockford for an annual event called The Independent Bookstore Crawl. It’s like a bar crawl with books. There was also comics, though. And vinyl. There was lunch at a local burger joint. We bought battered paperbacks of Robert Heinlein, fantasy novels written by a Rockford native, and a lot of coffee. They met a very interesting woman who seemed to live and breathe charity for her community. They talked with strangers about their favorite writers from Peoria. They saw a painting of a woman performing lewd acts on a rocket ship, an impressive collection of old-school typewriters, and a taxidermied crocodile. It was quite a day y’all!

Press ‘Play’ below to hear the newest episode!

(Incidentally . . .this is the inscription that is mentioned during our interview with the owner of Maze Books . . .

. . . and it’s just as bonkers as you were thinking!)

Victor Hugo’s epic novel of the French revolution is inarguably a classic. Originally published in 1862, it has endured and rightfully been considered one of the greatest novels of all time. It’s long, though– clocking in at 1,662 pages in one version we found– and tangential, which causes a good amount of trouble for Aaron. Rodney and Rebecca are quick to defend Les Miserables, however, and will go to any lengths to prove him wrong, even if Rebecca has to break his brain.

Can Aaron get through this episode without bursting into song? Probably not.

Press “Play” to hear our season 3 premiere!

It’s February!

This week’s episode is a milestone for us, as it is the first episode of our third season. Our very first episode premiered in February of 2023. Here we are– two full years later– with a larger cast, more monthly content, and a decent-sized dent in our list of 1,316 novels. Fun fact: we are actually only 1.6% of the way through the curated list. At our current rate of one novel per month, we should be finished with the list in just over 107 years. Only 105 years left to go!

Our bonus episode this month features a holiday that takes place in February. Naturally, we’re talking about Valentine’s Day. To celebrate, we present another round table discussion. This time, we’ll be discussing love and romance within the literary world. We discuss why some writers just can’t seem to get it right. We don’t stop with books and literature, though: Rodney finally gets to mention Dune, Aaron finds an excuse to discuss Star Trek and Superman, and Rebecca waxes poetic on her favorite sitcom!

Press “Play” to hear this month’s bonus content!

T. C. Boyle has written nineteen novels. He is the celebrated author of more than 150 short stories. He has won the PEN/Faulkner Award and been shortlisted for the National Book Award. He is Aaron’s favorite living novelist, and has been since 1998.

In “Drop City”, Boyle does what he does best– biting satire, sympathetic villains, remarkable sense of place– in a saga about a 1970s hippie commune picking up their California roots and heading north to Alaska. Will Rodney and Rebecca enjoy this book as much as Aaron does?

Push “Play” on the media player below to find out!

The Shining.

The Bridge on the River Kwai.

Gone With The Wind.

Some of the greatest movies ever made started out as novels. A vast majority of contemporary stage plays started their life as a book. Written prose have proven to be a wellspring of inspiration for television shows. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo’s 1862 epic masterpiece and our selection for discussion in February, by itself has been fodder for comic books, stage plays, television miniseries, feature films, and animated cartoons.

This month, our bonus discussion centers around adaptations. We discuss some of our favorites. We discuss how an adaptation, good or bad, can change a reader’s impressions of the source materials. From Walt Disney cartoons to Elmore Leonard to the current phenomenon of Wicked, January’s bonus material is lively and sure to prompt further discussion.

Press “Play” below!

The Sorrow of Belgium by Hugo Klaus? No one here has ever heard of it. No one here has ever even heard of the author. This book was approached with a high degree of trepidation.

As it would turn out, this novel was one of the more thought-provoking works to ever be explored on this podcast. By turns amusing and disturbing, Hugo Klaus’s meandering and emotional examination of a childhood spent in Nazi-occupied Belgium is just as confounding as it is enjoyable– all fodder for an in-depth discussion.

This extra-long episode includes the discussion, an examination of recent news about Cormac McCarthy, a look back at the listener statistics from the previous year, and a fantastic finale when Rodney hand-picks our novel for February! Press “Play” below to hear it!

It’s Christmas time!

But it’s also National Read A New Book Month!

Which do we celebrate? It seems strange to make a big deal out of reading new books since the majority of novels the random number generator assigns are new to at least one member of the cast. “New books” are, basically, what they do here every month.

Rodney was inspired to combine Christmas and National Read A New Book Month into one very unique gift exchange. Each member of the cast came to the table with two book recommendations. It had to be a writer or book not on the curated list, a specialized gift based on what they have learned from each other over the last year of broadcast. To wit: Rodney buys a new book for Aaron, one for Rebecca. Rebecca buys a new book for Rodney, one for Aaron. Aaron . . . well . . . you get the idea. As it turns out, the challenge was harder than expected.

To hear the latest episode– with full discussions of six very different stories by six very different writers– push “Play” on the media player below!