An Unofficial 'The MeatEater Podcast' Reading List

Ep. 185: Tom McGuane On The Beauty of Not Knowing

September 09, 2019

Description

Steven Rinella talks with the author Tom McGuane, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: What to write on your gravestone; Tom's lifelong bond with Jimmy Buffett and Jim...
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Books Referenced

Letters from Ecuador

Author: Unknown

Context:

McGuane discusses this National Book Award winning book critically, mentioning it was written by an avant-garde woman living in New York City who was proud she'd never been to Ecuador despite writing about it.

Trout Fishing in America

Author: Richard Brautigan

Context:

McGuane mentions that his friend Richard Brautigan's daughter sent him a new edition with Billy Collins' introduction. Later discussed as a book that people read while fishing even though 'it doesn't really have anything to do with trout fishing.'

Blood Knots

Author: Luke Jennings

Context:

McGuane describes this as an 'unbelievable book' by an English writer who was the dance critic of The Observer, calling it 'a stunning book about fishing' that interweaves fishing with serious life events including war trauma and IRA violence.

Fishing in Utopia

Author: Andrew Brown

Context:

McGuane describes recently getting this book about a fishing fanatic in Sweden during the period of Swedish utopian society, using fishing as a lens to observe social changes in Scandinavia.

The Great Gatsby

Author: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Context:

McGuane uses this as an example of how literature uniquely captures the atmosphere of a time period, saying 'You're never going to get the feeling for the twenties that you're gonna get from reading the Great Gatsby.'

The Art of Forgetting

Author: Lewis Hyde

Context:

McGuane references this as 'a great book by Lewis Hyde that's just being reviewed right now about the art of forgetting,' discussing how one can't be chained by the past.

Starlight Angling Club

Author: Unknown

Context:

Mentioned as one of the books by a wonderful fishing writer named Harry (last name unclear in transcript) whose works were 'so intermeshed with life.'