Recorded 11/18/2023Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: orangesandlemonspodcast@gmail.com

Published five years before his infamous Satanic Verses, Shame is Salman Rushdie's third novel. It is written in his characteristic style of magical realism and explores the themes of shame, shamelessness, and violence in a fictitious country that is "not quite Pakistan." In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the work, covering topics including the morality of body modification, religion in totalitarian regimes, the value of formal literary critique, the concepts of shame and shamelessness, ...

Jonathan Haidt is a social psychologist and professor at NYU best known for his contributions in the field of moral psychology. He has written three books, including the highly regarded The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion, which presents his Moral Foundations Theory and its supporting research. In their discussion of the book, Greg and Bird cover topics including moral intuition vs. moral reasoning, the necessity of conversation for changing one's mind, th...

The Old Man and the Sea (1952) was Ernest Hemingway’s last major publication of fiction. The novel was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1953 and is considered by many to be a classic of American literature. Topics discussed include how one should read great literature, the author’s views on death as expressed in the novel, the purpose of art and its transcendent qualities, the influence of companionship on suffering, man’s place in nature, and more. Also discussed is William E....

Written almost 2,000 years ago, Meditations is a collection of the private notes of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. While the author likely never intended his notes to be published, the collection has nevertheless become a cornerstone of Stoic philosophy literature and is still widely read today. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the work, covering topics including a brief overview of the author and stoicism generally, the nature of responsibility with respect to one's own inner well-bein...

Often regarded as a standard of modern political literature, George Orwell's 1984 maintains broad cultural influence and recognition to this day. The novel depicts a terrible future in which totalitarian governments, bearing a strong resemblance to Stalinist Russia, have snuffed out all individuality and free thought. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the novel and its prescience, touching on a range of topics including power as a motivation in itself, self-awareness in malevolent actors...

Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is one of the most recognizable and studied works of twentieth-century dystopian literature. In this episode, Bird and Greg discuss the novel, along with the author’s later essay, Brave New World Revisited, published in 1958. Among others, discussion topics include sexuality, the experience of music, suggestibility and persuasion, individual and collective ethics, the value of suffering and the risks of eliminating it, the potential dangers of pursuing happines...

J. A. Baker's The Peregrine, at its simplest, is a poetic journal of the author's observations of peregrine falcons one winter in England, but it is perhaps better described as an aesthetic meditation on life, death, the natural world, and man's place in it. The guys discuss their experience reading this unique work of nonfiction, touching on a variety of topics including the nature and cost of genius and obsession, seeing the hidden beauty in the world, the effects of recreational drugs on t...

Bird and Greg discuss Viktor Frankl’s Man's Search for Meaning.Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: orangesandlemonspodcast@gmail.com

Bird and Greg discuss Fyodor Dostoevsky’s novel Crime and Punishment. Both read the Pevear & Volokhonsky translation. Warning: the ending of Breaking Bad is spoiled during this discussion.Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: orangesandlemonspodcast@gmail.com

In this brief introductory episode, Bird explains the format and motivations of the Oranges and Lemons podcast. Website: www.orangesandlemonspodcast.com Email: orangesandlemonspodcast@gmail.com