Podcast to Catch: Serial

I'm not alone in raving about this particular offering, but if for some reason you ARE a person who likes podcasts and you have not yet checked out Serial, you really need to do so right away. I'm aware that raving about an NPR-related podcast like this is squarely in the

The first spin-off from the consistently good, rightly beloved This American Life, Serial has been buffed to a high sheen by one of my favorite TAL personalities, Sarah Koenig, as well as the paragon of men, Ira Glass, and it's really wonderful. It is a discussion of a fifteen-year old murder case, and one of the strengths of the writing and the format of the story line is that it continues to raise valid questions for both the defense and the prosecution of Adnan Syed. I am up-to-date, and while I do have an opinion (a strong one!) on the case now, I do occasionally waver in my certitude as Koenig unspools what she's learned in digging deeper into the murder of Hae Min Lee.

The only downside I can think of for picking it up right away is that they are still in production, so there will be no chance to binge-watch these. In fact, the Serial site has a statement up currently in the face of what I can only assume were strenuous calls to release all the episodes at once for binge-consumption:

We’ve been getting lots of questions about why we’re only releasing one episode per week instead of the entire season all at once for those of you inclined to binge-listen. The reason is: We're still making them. As I write this, in fact, Sarah is re-writing Episode 5. 

I guess you could say we didn’t get all our work done ahead of time. We’re reporting this story as we write it. We’re still pinning down information, doing interviews, following leads. So when you listen each week, the truth is that you’re actually not all that far behind us.

 I sympathize. If all the episodes had gone up on iTunes all at once, Orange Is the New Black style, I would have made it to the end already. I love it, and I really need some people I know to watch it so I can ~talk~ about it.

Anyone seen it? What have you thought so far?

If you haven't tried it yet, you can find it here.

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente

 Doing occasional reprints of reviews of books I really, really loved. This one is so sad and so very gorgeous. I wouldn't recommend it for everyone: it's sort of adult. At the same time, it's a book that's not like anything else I've read in recent memory, and if you think it might be your cup of tea, you should try it, too. --Kristen

Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Long ago, I was at a writers' meet-up during NaNoWriMo where I met an older woman of the Probing Question Asking sort. She wanted to know what everyone was writing, and if each story had "a sense of longing" to it. To her, a story that instilled a deep sense of longing in the reader was a GOOD story. Her earnestness in this opinion made me uncomfortable, and I squirmed as I answered her questions about my post-apocalyptic vampire story with killer pagan nuns. Stories that hollow us out and make us hungry, I thought, are not the only stories worth reading...

And here I find a story that would completely satisfy PQA lady. It hollowed me out. It made me sad for the characters. It filled me with a deep sense of longing that they would prevail in their quest. It had as much or more sex than most books I read (and I read Jacqueline Carey!) but none of it felt prurient. Little of it was hot. It just filled me with a desire for the connection that these characters were reaching for, as well.

I'll try this author again, though first I might do a little time with escapist fiction, until I need to be hollowed out again.

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