8 Comments

Looking forward to it, woohoo!!!

Expand full comment

I am very much not a podcast person, a fact I accepted after many many tries. But I saw this post yesterday and started listening to the first season and I got completely sucked in. I love being read aloud to and MIB’s asides and insights are usually hilarious and surprisingly thoughtful. I love to read but have never considered myself a close or analytical reader and having different ideas pointed out as we go has kept me interested in a story I would have immediately given up on by myself. And the interviews that relate back to the themes! I’m very excited that I have so many episodes ahead of me.

Expand full comment

Isn’t it awesome? I love season one!

Expand full comment

Arabella has shown up with her saucy pig-entrail throwing ways. I can’t wait to get to season three and Wuthering Heights.

Expand full comment

Oh my goodness, everybody please come and join us as audience members of Obscure! Michael has a soothing voice, does great character voices, and lends his wit, and also his astute observations to these classic novels. He also sometimes shares a little bit about his life living in a haunted mansion in Savannah, and before that in the wilds of Connecticut. If you enjoy Michael’s writing, you will adore this podcast. And sometime there’s even a live video chat book club that I’m too scared to join.

I look forward to every episode and right now I’m re-listening to season one because I adored that book and I never would have read it if Michael hadn’t read it to me. Come join us over on the Patreon! There are a lot of lovely people there.

Expand full comment

You got me thinking about “Classic” American Literature. What era / decade = classic? Are we talking 1800s Nathaniel Hawthorn Scarlet Letter classic? Or 1950’s John Knowles A Separate Peace classic? I guess I’ll have to fork over a fiver to find out.

Expand full comment

Pardon me while I fanboy all over your Substack. I am SO excited for season 4. Of all the terrible ideas to come along in the past few years (and there have been a LOT) this is bar none my favorite terrible idea. I cannot WAIT for the next book. However... in the back of my head there’s a scratchy little voice saying “what if he chooses something awful? What if it’s Little Women, or Moby Dick? Whatcha gonna do then?”

Well, I’m going to listen of course. I’m going to learn something from your interpretation of the book. And then I’m going to gloat when you complain that it’s the worst book anyone has ever written, read, or even heard of. Welcome back, Mansplainer-In-Chief!

Expand full comment

To be completely honest, paying to hear you read aloud and discuss a book in which you have absolutely no interest for hours and hours has always been the primary draw of Obscure for me. Fuck the “literature”. I’m only interested in your uninterestedness.

Expand full comment