Best Fooled By Randomness Podcasts (2025)

1
Betsy Lerner, "Shred Sisters" (Grove Press, 2024) 41:24

1M ago41:24

41:24

It is said that when one person in a family is unstable, the whole family is destabilized. Meet the Shreds. Olivia is the sister in the spotlight until her stunning confidence becomes erratic and unpredictable, a hurricane leaving people wrecked in her wake. Younger sister Amy, cautious and studious to the core, believes in facts, proof, and the em…

1
Colum McCann, "Twist" (Random House, 2025) 51:14

1M ago51:14

51:14

Anthony Fennell, an Irish journalist and playwright, is assigned to cover the underwater cables that carry the world’s information. The sum of human existence—words, images, transactions, memes, voices, viruses—travels through the tiny fiber-optic tubes. But sometimes the tubes break, at an unfathomable depth. Fennell’s journey brings him to the we…

1
Lauren Elkin, "Scaffolding" (FSG, 2024) 58:13

1M ago58:13

58:13

Paris, 2019. An apartment in Belleville. Following a miscarriage and a breakdown, Anna, a psychoanalyst, ﬁnds herself unable to return to work. Instead, she obsesses over a kitchen renovation and befriends a new neighbor—a younger woman called Clémentine who has just moved into the building and is part of a radical feminist collective. Paris, 1972.…

1
Emma Pattee, "Tilt" (Marysue Rucci Books, 2025) 48:29

2M ago48:29

48:29

Set over the course of a single day, an electrifying debut novel from “a powerful new literary voice” (Vogue) following one woman’s journey across a transformed city, carrying the weight of her past and a fervent hope for the future. Last night, you and I were safe. Last night, in another universe, your father and I stood fighting in the kitchen. A…

1
Joseph Earl Thomas, "God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer" (Grand Central Publishing, 2024) 49:26

2M ago49:26

49:26

After a deployment in the Iraq War dually defined by threat and interminable mundanity, Joseph Thomas is fighting to find his footing. Now a doctoral student at The University, and an EMS worker at the hospital in North Philly, he encounters round the clock friends and family from his past life and would-be future at his job, including contemporari…

1
Nora Lange, "Us Fools" (Two Dollar Radio, 2024) 51:16

3M ago51:16

51:16

Joanne and Bernadette Fareown are raised on their family farm in rural Illinois, keenly affected by their parents' volatile relationship and mounting financial debt, haunted by the cursed history of the women in their family. Largely left to their own devices, the sisters educate themselves on Greek mythology, feminism, and Virginia Woolf, realizin…

1
Cynthia Weiner, "A Gorgeous Excitement" (Crown, 2025) 39:05

3M ago39:05

39:05

There are two things Nina Jacobs is determined to do over the summer of 1986: avoid her mother’s depression-fueled rages, and lose her virginity before she starts college in the fall. Both are seemingly impossible—when her mother isn’t lying in bed for days, she’s lashing out at Nina over any perceived slight. And after a blowjob gone spectacularly…

1
Adam Ross, "Playworld: A Novel" (Knopf, 2025) 1:12:33

3M ago1:12:33

1:12:33

“In the fall of 1980, when I was fourteen, a friend of my parents named Naomi Shah fell in love with me. She was thirty-six, a mother of two, and married to a wealthy man. Like so many things that happened to me that year, it didn’t seem strange at the time.” Griffin Hurt is in over his head. Between his role as Peter Proton on the hit TV show The …

1
Rufi Thorpe, "Margo's Got Money Troubles" (William Morrow, 2024) 1:01:04

4M ago1:01:04

1:01:04

As the child of a Hooters waitress and an ex-pro wrestler, Margo Millet's always known she’d have to make it on her own. So she enrolls at her local junior college, even though she can’t imagine how she’ll ever make a living. She’s still figuring things out and never planned to have an affair with her English professor—and while the affair is brief…

1
"Kazuo Ishiguro is Not Writing World Literature" 54:49

4M ago54:49

54:49

How has a writer known principally for his contained domestic novels come to represent the most dynamic elements of world literature? In Kazuo Ishiguro Against World Literature (Bloomsbury, 2025), Chris Holmes expands our understanding of how world literature engages with the most pressing crises of the 20th and 21st centuries by examining Ishiguro…

1
Andrew Lipstein, "Something Rotten" (FSG, 2025) 42:13

4M ago42:13

42:13

Andrew’s debut novel Last Resort was published in 2022 by Farrar, Straus & Giroux in the US, and Weidenfeld & Nicolson in the UK. You can hear our interview about that amazing literary hoax on burned by books at the website or anywhere you find your podcasts. His second novel The Vegan was published in July 2023. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife …

1
Maria Zoccola, "Helen of Troy, 1993" (Scribner, 2025) 39:04

4M ago39:04

39:04

In the hills of Sparta, Tennessee, during the early nineties, Helen decides to break free from the life that stifles her: marriage, motherhood, the monotonous duties of a Southern housewife. But leaving isn't the same thing as staying gone... Rooted in a lush natural landscape, this stunning poetry collection explores Helen's isolation and rebellio…

1
#055 - Poor Charlie’s Almanack: The Essential Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger 2:52:42

4M ago2:52:42

2:52:42

Learn from history's Greatest Minds — and find Timeless ideas you can apply to business and life. Every podcast episode we explore a Timeless book: We strive to become polymaths like our investing and business icons, pulling the Big Ideas from a wide range of disciplines to help us become better investors and operators. For the curious-minded seeki…

1
Anna Moschovakis, "An Earthquake Is a Shaking of the Surface of the Earth" (Soft Skull, 2024) 51:05

4M ago51:05

51:05

After a seismic event leaves the world shattered, an unnamed narrator at the end of a mediocre acting career struggles to regain the ability to walk on ground that is in constant motion. When her alluring younger housemate, Tala, disappears, what had begun as an obsession grows into an impulse to kill, forcing the narrator to confront the meaning o…

1
Booksellers’ Best 2024 49:38

5M ago49:38

49:38

Lisa Swayze has been the General Manager at Buffalo Street Books for 7 years and will transition to becoming the Executive Director of the bookstore’s new literary nonprofit in 2025. Lisa is on the board of directors of the American Booksellers Association and the Downtown Ithaca Alliance. Jessica Stockton-Bagnulo is the owner and co-founder of Gre…

1
Christine Coulson, "One Woman Show" (Avid Reader Press, 2023) 52:05

5M ago52:05

52:05

Author Christine Coulson spent twenty-five years writing for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Her final project was to write wall labels for the museum's new British Galleries. During that time, she dreamt of using The Met's strict label format to describe people as intricate works of art. The result is this "jewel box of a novel" (Kirkus Reviews) t…

1
Sam Sax, "Yr Dead" (McSweeney’s Books, 2024) 48:36

6M ago48:36

48:36

Sam Sax is a queer, jewish, writer and educator. They're the author of Yr Dead (McSweeney's Books, 2024), longlisted for The National Book Award and PIG named one of the best books of 2023 by New York Magazine and Electric Lit. They're also the author of Madness, winner of The National Poetry Series and Bury It winner of the James Laughlin Award fr…

1
Kristopher Jansma, "Our Narrow Hiding Places" (Ecco, 2024), "Revisionaries" (Quirk Books, 2024) 49:19

7M ago49:19

49:19

Kristopher grew up in Lincroft, New Jersey. He received his B.A. in The Writing Seminars from Johns Hopkins University and an M.F.A. in Fiction from Columbia University. He is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels, OUR NARROW HIDING PLACES (Ecco/2024) WHY WE CAME TO THE CITY (Viking/2016) and THE UNCHANGEABLE SPOTS OF LEOPARDS, (Viking/2013…

1
Amy Reading, "The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker" (Mariner Books, 2024) 56:35

7M ago56:35

56:35

In the summer of 1925, Katharine Sergeant Angell White walked into The New Yorker's midtown office and left with a job as an editor. The magazine was only a few months old. Over the next thirty-six years, White would transform the publication into a literary powerhouse. The World She Edited: Katharine S. White at The New Yorker (Mariner Books, 2024…

1
Ursula Villarreal-Moura, "Like Happiness" (Celadon Books, 2024) 39:50

7M ago39:50

39:50

Ursula Villarreal-Moura is the author of Math for the Self-Crippling (2022), selected by Zinzi Clemmons as the Gold Line Press fiction contest winner, and Like Happiness (Celadon Books, 2024). A graduate of Middlebury College, she received her MFA from Sarah Lawrence College and was a VONA/Voices fellow. Her stories, essays, and reviews have appear…

1
Rory Sutherland | Talebian Thinking Applied To Marketing 57:12

8M ago57:12

57:12

The Curious Worldview Podcast Spotify The Curious Worldview Podcast Apple ✍︎: The Curious Worldview Newsletter - the ultimate compliment to the podcast... I am stoked to welcome back one of the most out there and interesting writers, thinkers and speakers, Rory Sutherland. He founded the behavioural science team at the Ogilvy group, he is one of Eu…

1
S J. Naudé, "Fathers and Fugitives" (Europa, 2024) 44:56

8M ago44:56

44:56

Daniel is a worldly and urbane journalist living in London. His relationships appear to be sexually fulfilling but sentimentally meager. A young gay man with no relationships outside of sexual ones, he can seem at once callow and, at times, cold to the point of cruel with his lovers. Emotionally distant from his elderly, senile father, Daniel nonet…

1
Rachel Kushner, "Creation Lake" (Scribner, 2024) 58:19

8M ago58:19

58:19

Creation Lake (Scribner, 2024) is a novel about a secret agent, a thirty-four-year-old American woman of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty, who is sent to do dirty work in France. "Sadie Smith" is how the narrator introduces herself to her lover, to the rural commune of French subversives on whom she is keeping tabs, and to the read…

1
#054 - The Bed of Procrustes: Nassim Taleb (Incerto Series) 2:33:13

8M ago2:33:13

2:33:13

Learn from history's Greatest Minds — and find Timeless ideas you can apply to business and life. Every episode we explore a Lindy book: We strive to become polymaths like our investing and business icons, pulling the Big Ideas from a wide range of disciplines. For the curious-minded seeking Worldly Wisdom. Join 3,000+ others by subscribing @ ratio…

1
Mary Jones, "The Goodbye Process" (Zibby Books, 2024) 28:51

8M ago28:51

28:51

In her stunning debut short story collection, The Goodbye Process (Zibby Books, 2024), Mary Jones uses her distinctive voice to examine the painful and sometimes surreal ways we say goodbye. The stories--which range from tender and heartbreaking to unsettling and darkly funny--will push you out of your comfort zone and ignite intense emotions surro…

1
Kaliane Bradley, "The Ministry of Time" (Avid Reader Press, 2024) 52:25

8M ago52:25

52:25

In the near future, a civil servant is offered the salary of her dreams and is, shortly afterward, told what project she'll be working on. A recently established government ministry is gathering "expats" from across history to establish whether time travel is feasible--for the body, but also for the fabric of space-time. She is tasked with working …

1
Chelsea Bieker, "Madwoman" (Little, Brown, 2024) 35:21

8M ago35:21

35:21

Today I talked to Chelsea Biker about her novel Madwoman (Little, Brown, 2024). Clove has gone to extremes to keep her past a secret. Thanks to her lies, she's landed the life of her dreams, complete with a safe husband and two adoring children who will never know the terror that was routine in her own childhood. If her buried anxiety threatens to …

1
C. Michelle Lindley, "The Nude" (Atria Books, 2024) 39:46

9M ago39:46

39:46

1999: An island off the southern coast of Greece. Art historian Elizabeth Clarke arrives with the intent to acquire a rare female sculpture. But what begins as a quest for a highly valued cultural artifact evolves into a trip that will force Elizabeth to contend with her career, her ambition, and her troubling history. Disoriented by jet lag, debil…

1
M03: Mallory and the Ghost Cat! 1:07:14

9M ago1:07:14

1:07:14

We're wrapping up our season with our third mystery, this time focused on a mysterious white cat that might be a ghost or might not be a ghost or may be a reincarnated version of a cat referenced in the letters of a previous occupant. It's another mystery that might not be much of a mystery after all! Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbs…

1
Jessica Anthony, "The Most" (Little, Brown, 2024) 37:33

9M ago37:33

37:33

It's November 3, 1957. As Sputnik 2 launches into space, carrying Laika, the doomed Soviet dog, a couple begin their day. Virgil Beckett, an insurance salesman, isn't particularly happy in his job but he fulfills the role. Kathleen Beckett, once a promising tennis champion with a key shot up her sleeve, is now a mother and homemaker. On this unseas…

1
Episode 051: Stacey's Ex-Best Friend! 1:24:02

9M ago1:24:02

1:24:02

Stacey is dealing with the realization that she and Laine have grown apart and what that means for their friendship after Laine comes to visit Stoneybrook. It's a difficult situation all around and our girls (including Laine) could've handled it better. And it all ends with a pretty brutal letter from Stacey to Laine, essentially calling it quits o…

1
Cally Fiedorek, "Atta Boy" (U Iowa Press, 2024) 39:00

9M ago39:00

39:00

In December 2018, we meet Rudy Coyle, a bar owner's son from Flushing, Queens, in the throes of a major quarter-life crisis. Cut out of the family business, he gets a Hail Mary job as a night doorman in a storied Park Avenue apartment building, where he comes under the wing of the family in 4E, the Cohens. Jacob "Jake" Cohen, the fast-talking patri…

1
Megan Nolan, "Ordinary Human Failings" (Little, Brown, 2024) 48:06

9M ago48:06

48:06

It's 1990 in London and Tom Hargreaves has it all: a burgeoning career as a reporter, fierce ambition and a brisk disregard for the "peasants" -- ordinary people, his readers, easy tabloid fodder. His star seems set to rise when he stumbles across a sensational scoop: a dead child on a London estate, grieving parents beloved across the neighborhood…

1
Laura van den Berg, "State of Paradise" (FSG, 2024) 55:16

10M ago55:16

55:16

It's another summer in a small Florida town. After an illness that vanishes as mysteriously as it arrived, everything appears to be getting back to normal: soul-crushing heat, torrential downpours, sinkholes swallowing the earth, ominous cats, a world-bending virtual reality device being handed out by a company called ELECTRA, and an increasing num…

1
Episode 050: Dawn's Big Date! 1:12:03

10M ago1:12:03

1:12:03

Dawn's focused on Logan's cousin Lewis coming to visit because she needs to get a boyfriend (out of nowhere), but despite Lewis seemingly knowing and liking the real Dawn, she decides to change everything about herself, only to realize by the end of the book that she should just be herself. And in the B-plot this book, we have a huge content warnin…

1
Aysegül Savas, "The Anthropologists" (Bloomsbury, 2024) 30:40

10M ago30:40

30:40

Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family? As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist…

1
Tom Chivers | Probability & Bayes Theorem 1:21:19

10M ago1:21:19

1:21:19

✍︎: The Curious Worldview Newsletter - the ultimate compliment to the podcast... Other episode of the podcast that suit this episode... Brian Klaas – Fluke & Randomness Russ Roberts – EconTalk Luca Dellanna – Ergodicity All The Way Down Scott Patterson – Chaos Kings Nassim Taleb & Incerto Podcast Follow me on Instagram – @ryanfhogg Everything Is Pr…

1
#053 - Skin in the Game: Nassim Taleb (Incerto Series) 2:58:49

10M ago2:58:49

2:58:49

Learn from history's Greatest Minds — and find Timeless ideas you can apply to business and life. Every episode we explore a Lindy book: We strive to become polymaths like our investing and business icons, pulling the Big Ideas from a wide range of disciplines to help us become better investors and operators. For the curious-minded seeking Worldly …

1
Anthony Di Renzo, "Pasquinades: Essays from Rome's Famous Talking Statue" (Cayuga Lake Books, 2023) 43:21

10M ago43:21

43:21

Anthony Di Renzo's Pasquinades: Essays from Rome's Famous Talking Statue (Cayuga Lake Books, 2023) is the most audacious guide to Rome you will ever read. Pasquino, the city’s witty talking statue, will introduce you to the gallant heroes and grotesque villains, humble peddlers and flamboyant nobles, whores and saints and movie stars who have reign…

1
SS07: Snowbound! 1:45:54

10M ago1:45:54

1:45:54

We're joined by artist extraordinaire, Rosie Shaw, to discuss the various adventures and misadventures of our girls when a snowstorm of the century hits Stoneybrook with tons of warning that no-one heeds. The parents make a lot of dubious choices when it comes to the girls and their predicaments, but it wouldn't be a BSC super special without some …

1
Iris Mwanza, "The Lions' Den" (Graydon House, 2024) 40:21

10M ago40:21

40:21

A missing boy. A corrupt system. A case that could change everything... When young queer dancer Wilbess "Bessy" Mulenga is arrested by corrupt police, fresh-from-the-village rookie lawyer Grace Zulu takes up his cause in her first pro bono case. Presented with a freshly beaten client, Grace protests to the police and gets barred from accessing Bess…

1
M02: Beware, Dawn!! 1:10:52

11M ago1:10:52

1:10:52

We're back with our new season and second mystery! The kids in Stoneybrook decide to elect Sitter of the Month, which goes about as well as usual when our girls compete, but this time there's someone playing pranks on all of them... except Kristy. There are many mysteries throughout that we discuss and unpack, but it's no mystery how excited we are…

1
Rachel Khong, "Real Americans" (Knopf, 2024) 46:47

11M ago46:47

46:47

Real Americans (Knopf, 2024) begins on the precipice of Y2K in New York City, when twenty-two-year-old Lily Chen, an unpaid intern at a slick media company, meets Matthew. Matthew is everything Lily is not: easygoing and effortlessly attractive, a native East Coaster, and, most notably, heir to a vast pharmaceutical empire. Lily couldn't be more di…

1
#052 - Antifragile: Nassim Taleb (Incerto Series) 3:42:56

11M ago3:42:56

3:42:56

Learn from history's Greatest Minds — and find Timeless ideas you can apply to business and life. Every episode we explore a Lindy book: We strive to become polymaths like our investing and business icons, pulling the Big Ideas from a wide range of disciplines to help us become better investors and operators. For the curious-minded seeking Worldly …

1
Kimberly King Parsons, "We Were the Universe" (Knopf, 2024) 37:33

11M ago37:33

37:33

The trip was supposed to be fun. When Kit's best friend gets dumped by his boyfriend, he begs her to ditch her family responsibilities for an idyllic weekend in the Montana mountains. They'll soak in hot springs, then sneak a vape into a dive bar and drink too much, like old times. Instead, their getaway only reminds Kit of everything she's lost la…

1
EM026: Emergency Meeting - Announcing our next season! 2:12

11M ago2:12

2:12

Kate and Lauryn check in to provide an update on when our next season returns! We'll be back with new episodes starting Tuesday, July 2, with more episodes to follow every two weeks through July and August. We're so happy to be back and to share more books with all of you! Follow us! Instagram and Twitter: @generationbsc Contact us! E-mail: generat…

1
Jennine Capó Crucet, "Say Hello to My Little Friend" (Simon and Schuster, 2024) 36:07

12M ago36:07

36:07

Failed Pitbull impersonator Ismael Reyes--you can call him Izzy--might not be the Scarface type, but why should that keep him from trying? Growing up in Miami has shaped him into someone who dreams of being the King of the 305, with the money, power, and respect he assumes comes with it. After finding himself at the mercy of a cease-and-desist lett…

1
Jennifer Savran Kelly, "Endpapers" (Algonquin Books, 2023) 38:21

12M ago38:21

38:21

It's 2003, and artist Dawn Levit is stuck. A bookbinder who works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she spends all day repairing old books but hasn't created anything of her own in years. What's more, although she doesn't have a word for it yet, Dawn is genderqueer, and with a partner who wishes she were a man and a society that wants her to be a …

1
Gina Chung, "Green Frog: Stories" (Vintage, 2024) 36:05

12M ago36:05

36:05

From the author of Sea Change comes Green Frog: Stories (Vintage, 2024) a short story collection that explores Korean American womanhood, bodies, animals, and transformation as a means of survival. Equal parts fantastical--a pair of talking dolls help twins escape a stifling home, a heart boils on the stove as part of an elaborate cure for melancho…

1
#051 - The Black Swan: Nassim Taleb (Incerto Series) 3:00:25

1y ago3:00:25

3:00:25

Learn from history's Greatest Minds — and find Timeless ideas you can apply to business and life. Every podcast episode we explore a Lindy book: We strive to become polymaths like our investing and business icons, pulling the Big Ideas from a wide range of disciplines to help us become better investors and operators. For the curious-minded seeking …

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