Dukes and Bagg are taking a break from books to talk about Netflixs Ripley created by Steve Zailian. Having watched the first episode, its obvious the series is beautiful, and stark. Its NOT a rema

Arionne Nettles joins to talk about her new book We Are The Culture: Black Chicago's Influence On Everything, as well as to recommend a couple of novels she thinks Upper Middlebrow listeners would par

On our FOURTH EVER episode, Dukes and Bagg explore why they have different emotional responses to Tom Ripley, and how Patricia Highsmith might have raised the stakes more effectively in the second hal

Netflixs new Ripley series has critics musing on why Tom Ripley is such a persistent character in our day and age. Patricia Highsmith created a character that has endured and appeared in many (excell

The Sympathizer is brought to a powerful, if occasionally puzzling conclusion, with the narrator returning to his home country for a series of misadventures. The meaning of Ho Chi Minhs slogan Nothi

Jason Herbert, from the Historians at the Movies community and podcast, joins us to talk about favorite baseball films. We share an uncomfortable moment when Chris learns who Jasons favorite team is

Viet Thanh Nguyens narrator tells us right off the bat that hes a sympathizer. He can see any issue from both sides, he claims, a dubious virtue in the chaotic Vietnamese history following the fal

Theologian Beatrice Marovich reacts to our discussions of Octavia Butlers Parable of the Sower, exploring the relationship between theology and fiction. We talk about her book Sister Death: Politic

The second half of The Sellout does feature a MacGuffin and resolution of sorts, although the plot is minimal compared to the satire and world building. The UMBs struggle to understand the book, but u

Chris and Jesse are thrown into Paul Beatty's 2015 Man Booker Prize Winner The Sellout, because this novel seems to try to take the upper hand with its reader. Our two heroes agree that it's beautiful