Poured Over

Told from the perspective of a wax doll, Olga Ravn's The Wax Child is a chilling tale inspired by a real group of women accused of dark magic in seventeenth-century Denmark. Olga joins us to talk about her craft, the power of ritual, collective memory, creepy children, and contemporary Scandinavian literature with cohost Jenna Seery.
This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.
New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Featured Books:
The Wax Child by Olga Ravn
The Employees by Olga Ravn
alphabet by Inger Christensen
The Condition of Secrecy: Selected Essays by Inger Christensen
it by Inger Christensen
How I Became a Nun by César Aira
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
Dark Spring by Unica Zürn
The Man of Jasmine and Other Texts by Unica Zürn
The Trumpets of Jericho by Unica Zürn
The Cinnamon Shops and Other Stories by Bruno Schulz
The Wall by Marlen Haushofer
Strega by Johanne Lykke Holm
Sweet Days of Discipline by Fleur Jaeggy
The Copenhagen Trilogy: Childhood; Youth; Dependency by Tove Ditlevsen
Vilhelm's Room by Tove Ditlevsen
The Faces by Tove Ditlevsen
On the Calculation of Volume, Book I by Solvej Balle
After the Sun by Jonas Eika
Money to Burn by Asta Olivia Nordenhof
Valerie: or, The Faculty of Dreams: Amendment to the Theory of Sexuality by Sara Stridberg

Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson takes readers on a tour through the ancient world for an entertaining examination of Greek and Roman literature and their impact on our modern world. Emily joins us to talk about the joys and challenges of interpreting antiquity, the stakes of poetic form and re-translating The Odyssey with cohost Jenna Seery.
This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Jenna Seery and mixed by Harry Liang.
New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Featured Books:
Crossing the Wine-Dark Sea by Emily Wilson
The Odyssey by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
The Iliad by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho by Sappho, translated by Anne Carson
The Oresteia by Aeschylus, translated by Robert Fagles
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, translated by Marin Hammond
The Aeneid by Virgil, translated by Scott McGill & Susannah Wright
The Poems of Catullus by Gaius Valerius Catullus, translated by Stephanie McCarter
Oedipus Tyrannus by Sophocles, translated by Robert Fagles

The Booker Prize–winning author Marlon James returns with The Disappearers, a deeply human story exploring queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s. Marlon joined us live from Stony Brook University to talk about the consequences of violence, the loss of monoculture, Polari, post-colonial literature, and the X-Men with host Miwa Messer.
This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.
New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Featured Books:
The Disappearers by Marlon James
Book of Night Women by Marlon James
Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James
 A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
Bringing Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel
A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Dracula by Bram Stoker
The Spirit of Science Fiction by Robert Bolaño
Beloved by Toni Morrison
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
Flowers in the Attic by V.C. Andrews
The Lonely Londoners by Sam Selvon
A New World Order by Caryl Phillips
The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt
And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
The Godfather by Mario Puzo
In the Hand of Dante by Nick Toches
Nocturnes for the King of Naples by Edmund White
Money by Martin Amis
Bright Lights, Big City by Jay McInerney
Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedon
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
Moderation by Elaine Castillo
James by Percival Everett
Watchmen by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
X Men Comics
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Odyssey by Homer

Kai Bird follows his Pulitzer Prize-winning biography of J. Robert Oppenheimer with a timely and meticulously researched true story of Roy Cohn — a friend of the famous, the right-hand man to Joseph McCarthy, mentor to a US President and a lawyer who showed no respect for the law. Kai joins us to talk about American Scoundrel, the McCarthy era, the politics of celebrity, and the cycles of American history with host Miwa Messer.
This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang.
New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Featured Books:
American Scoundrel: Roy Cohn's Dark Journey from Joe McCarthy to Donald Trump by Kai Bird
American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird
The Outlier: The Unfinished Presidency of Jimmy Carter by Kai Bird
The Good Spy: The Life and Death of Robert Ames by Kai Bird
The Color of Truth: McGeorge Bundy and William Bundy: Brothers in Arms by Kai Bird
Crossing Mandelbaum Gate by Kai Bird
The Chairman: John J McCloy & The Making of the American Establishment by Kai Bird
G-Man: J. Edgar Hoover and the Making of the American Century by Beverly Gage
Mailer: His Life and Times by Peter Manso
Ptown: Art, Sex, and Money on the Outer Cape by Peter Manso
The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump
Angels in America by Tony Kushner

Gripping, visceral and taut, Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy is a complex story about survival, isolation and hope at the end of the world. Charlotte joins us to talk about family, nature, secrets, eco-pessimism and radical hope with cohost Brenda Allison.
This episode of Poured Over was hosted by Brenda Allison and mixed by Harry Liang.                    
New episodes land Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays) here and on your favorite podcast app.
Featured Books:
Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy
Once There Were Wolves by Charlotte McConaghy
Migrations by Charlotte McConaghy
Hollywood, Ending by John Green
Land by Maggie O'Farrell
Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
Up to the Light by Julia Armfield (out March 2027)
The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber & David Wengrow