À propos de ce podcast
The Cosmic Library explores massive books in order to explore everything else. Here, books that can seem overwhelming—books of dreams, infinity, mysteries—turn out to be intensely accessible, offering so many different ways to read them and think with them. Season one considered Finnegans Wake; in season two, it was 1,001 Nights. Season three journeyed through and beyond the Hebrew Bible. In season four, we considered Journey to the West. For season five, we talk about a kind of writing that's filled many massive books: the American short story. Season six: The Brothers Karamazov.
Épisodes
Les 20 épisodes les plus récents sur 42
- 7.5 In Search of Lost Time: Surprise Ending · 33 min · Saison 7 Épisode 5In Time Regained, the concluding volume of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, an older version of the narrator gloomily decides to attend a gathering at the Guermantes'…
- 7.4 In Search of Lost Time: Art vs. Jealousy · 31 min · Saison 7 Épisode 4The Prisoner—the fifth volume of In Search of Lost Time—spirals through the vortex of the narrator’s jealousy concerning Albertine. Something of that vortex churns on into The…
- 7.3 In Search of Lost Time: Wasting Time · 24 min · Saison 7 Épisode 3The “lost time” of In Search of Lost Time can connote “wasted time,” and Marcel Proust’s narrator does confront wastes of time, through pretentious conversations and moments when…
- 7.2 In Search of Lost Time: Enchanted Self-Discovery · 44 min · Saison 7 Épisode 2Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time follows the development of a self. The narrator grows up in Combray, in the seaside town of Balbec, in Paris, and resolves to become a…
- 7.1 In Search of Lost Time: Imaginary Music · 43 min · Saison 7 Épisode 1Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time lifts off on page after page, but it always returns to earth, back to the narrator’s memories and thoughts and experiences. Somehow, this…
- Season 7 Trailer: In Search of Lost Time · 1 min · Saison 7Introducing the new season of The Cosmic Library—this time, the focus is Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time.
- 6.5 Karamazov Season: Where Parallels Converge · 16 min · Saison 6 Épisode 5By now, it's clear that The Brothers Karamazov sits comfortably on the shelf of books of infinity, books that can never be completed. It is, for one thing, only the first part of…
- 6.4 Karamazov Season: Math Dreams · 35 min · Saison 6 Épisode 4In this season of The Cosmic Library, you’ve heard us discuss how Fyodor Dostoevsky's Karamazov brothers converge, even as they're on seemingly distinct tracks. And the novel…
- 6.3 Karamazov Season: Philosophical Phrenzy · 21 min · Saison 6 Épisode 3In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky created his ultimate novel of ideas, with brothers Dmitri, Ivan, and Alyosha pursuing a range of philosophical, theological, and…
- 6.2 Karamazov Season: The Fiction Machine · 40 min · Saison 6 Épisode 2In The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky puts ideas into motion, and into emotional conflict, with combustible results. The convictions he expressed in his…
- 6.1 Karamazov Season: The Radio Play · 47 min · Saison 6 Épisode 1Here, in the first episode of The Cosmic Library’s new season, we start with our radio-play adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Brothers Karamazov. The play is read for you by…
- Season 6 Trailer: Karamazov Season · 1 min · Saison 6Here it is: the trailer for season six of The Cosmic Library, which comes out this month. It’s "Karamazov Season," which means this five-episode miniseries will go into and…
- 5.5 The Short Story in the U.S.: Otherworldly Bedtime Stories · 24 min · Saison 5 Épisode 5The word “story” often comes after the word “bedtime,” and for good reason. Stories can frighten us, disturb and shock us, prompt us to change our thinking, but compared to most…
- 5.4 The Short Story in the U.S.: NYC+MFA+ATL · 36 min · Saison 5 Épisode 4“If my college-age self, reading White Noise, had thought I would one day be discussing word placement with Don DeLillo, I would have had a heart attack,” Deborah Treisman says…
- 5.3 The Short Story in the U.S.: It's Weird · 20 min · Saison 5 Épisode 3American short stories started out weird. Consider Nathaniel Hawthorne, as we just did in episode two this season—or, consider Edgar Allan Poe. Existential strangeness and cosmic…
- 5.2 The Short Story in the U.S.: Wake Up with Wakefield · 36 min · Saison 5 Épisode 2It’s time for a story. In this episode of our season on short stories in the United States, you'll hear Nathaniel Hawthorne’s mysterious short story “Wakefield,” read by the…
- 5.1 The Short Story in the U.S.: Introduction · 28 min · Saison 5 Épisode 1The Cosmic Library has always followed notions, tangents, and moods prompted by books that can never be neatly summarized or simply decoded. This new season is no exception…
- Season 5 Trailer: The Short Story in the United States · 2 min · Saison 5The trailer is here for the new season of The Cosmic Library! This five-episode season concerns a subject both smaller and vaster than any massive book, and that subject is…
- 4.5 The Hall of the Monkey King: Immortality · 24 min · Saison 4 Épisode 5Here, in the conclusion of our five-episode season on The Hall of the Monkey King, you’ll hear about Journey to the West’s capacity for reinvention across centuries—about, in…
- 4.4 The Hall of the Monkey King: Cinematic Transcendence · 19 min · Saison 4 Épisode 4You can encounter Journey to the West in film, on television, in comic books—it’s a sixteenth-century novel that lives comfortably in an age of cinema and video games. This…
