Literary Fiction

1. 2
   A Little Life

   by Hanya Yanagihara · 1 episode

   “grew up rich and feels bad about it, you know? And it's like so boring. And then the stuff they do champion, like a little life is the most ridiculous hyperbolic bullshit that's never happened to anyone. But since these people never lived and they were all at school, they don't know what the average American is like doing.”

   The Joe Rogan Experience · #2575 - Sam Tallent · 03/11/2026 · at 1:24:29

2. 3
   A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

   by George Saunders · 1 episode

   “just dies. And they were just like, all right, bury him. I was like, what the fuck about the fucked up? It's the most Russian story. Yeah. I read, it's called A Swim in a Pond in the Rain. And it's basically nine short stories, Russian short stories. And after every page, the guy that actually wrote the book explains how to read it.”

   Modern Wisdom · Raccoon Wars, Lindsay Clancy, NFL Scammers & Past Crimes - Matt McCusker #1149 · 12/09/2026 · at 1:00:32

3. 4
   A Tale of Two Cities

   by Charles Dickens · 1 episode

   “And those 100 people went into the city looking for work all at once. And it was Charles Dickens wrote The Tale of Two Cities. He wrote Oliver Twist. Guess who else came out of the Jevons paradox? Our good friend Karl Marx, who came up with the most toxic ideas ever created and written down, right?”

   The Diary Of A CEO · Death of the Middle Class: Billionaire vs Entrepreneur DEBATE - Daniel Priestley v Nick Hanauer · 08/06/2026 · at 1:08:42

4. 5
   Angels

   by Denis Johnson · 1 episode

   “Okay. Yeah. Rogue Mail is a heater. Okay. A heater. Yeah, man. Nice. And Angels. If anyone out there is listening and they want to read a really good book, Angels by Dennis Johnson is about a bank robbery gone awry, and it might be the most beautiful, ugly, bleak thing.”

   The Joe Rogan Experience · #2575 - Sam Tallent · 03/11/2026 · at 1:29:20

5. 6
   Asylum

   by Patrick McGrath · 1 episode

   “I thought was quite well done. And my friend Patrick McGrath, who's a novelist, wrote a book called Asylum. Patrick grew up in the grounds of Broadmoor. Broadmoor is England's premier hospital for the criminally insane.”

   Lex Fridman Podcast · #502 – Psychiatry, Insane Asylums, Mental Illness, ECT, Lobotomies, Freud & Jung · 17/09/2026 · at 1:54:51

6. 7
   Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West

   by Cormac McCarthy · 1 episode

   “Get someone into Blood Meridian or some of the really Blood Meridian. Start with No Country for Old Men and then get a feeling of how Cormac writes and then finish up when you're done with all of his work and then finish up with Blood Meridian. Which is the best book we've produced.”

   The Joe Rogan Experience · #2575 - Sam Tallent · 03/11/2026 · at 1:30:06

7. 8
   Butter: A Novel of Food and Murder

   by Asako Yuzuki · 1 episode

   “Japan. Oh dude, Japanese fiction is fucked. There's all these books about like women who eat each other. What? Yeah, dude. Yeah. Butter is an insane novel. Um, uh, uh, uh, convenience store girl or dude, Japanese fiction is still publishing stuff that used to be, you know, be okay to write about cause it was weird and it was far out, but it's still fiction.”

   The Joe Rogan Experience · #2575 - Sam Tallent · 03/11/2026 · at 1:24:05

8. 9
   Daytripper

   by Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá · 1 episode

   “Daytripper this is from brazil and is does not have any sci-fi any fantasy it's sort of a reflection on mortality it's about this young man who has a star author as a father whose”

   Modern Wisdom · Black Holes, Denny’s Fist Fights & Japanese Handjob Culture - Rabbit Hole #4 - #1118 · 02/07/2026 · at 2:20:38

9. 10
   East of Eden

   by John Steinbeck · 1 episode

   “That's what a cliche is. And you really want to just write original sentences. If you read East of Eden by Steinbeck, it's the last sort of big book I read. And you drop his sentences into Google. No one said sentences like that, like the whole book. And I looked at the chapter you had and you drop a couple of things into Google search, direct quotes, and it's just been said before.”

   Modern Wisdom · Mexican Batman, Britain’s Downfall, Mr Bean’s Comeback & Jimmy Carr - Rabbit Hole #5 - #1143 · 29/08/2026 · at 49:18

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