Mars Review of Books
20 episodes listed below
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Live from Pubkey in New York, Mars Review's Editor in Chief Noah Kumin talks to guests about literature, politics, history and current events with a flippancy and verver that is, let's face it, rather winning. Subscribe at marsreview.org marsreview.org
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Noah Kumin turns literary conversation toward the money, institutions, attention, and social rituals that shape cultural work.
Mars Review of Books Podcast lets Noah Kumin's literary conversations roam through the institutions, habits, and economic pressures surrounding culture.
Book blurbs start sounding like Ponzi economics, and you know you're in the right room.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
The review traces a bantering conversation that moves from millennial malaise and Simpsons lighting to Roman history and a Sam Altman play.
The review catches the appeal of a conversation that moves easily between memory, jokes, and theory. It starts with a book, then swings toward Greek poetry, millennial men and their anxieties, Simpsons lighting, and a copy-count feud, before opening out to Roman trade routes,…
A phone-only Mars Review of Books conversation links tarot, comics, and occult theory through a brisk series of cultural references.
A phone-only Mars Review of Books exchange begins in tarot and opens into a broader meditation on how esoteric systems travel through culture.
An art-world argument about speculation, censorship, and H.R. Geiger.
This episode keeps close to the uneasy border between art and speculation, contrasting people who are there for the work with those who may be chasing short-term returns.
A sports riff turns into a sharp, conversational argument about money and value.
Hard Money, Hard Alcohol w/ Thomas Pacchia opens in familiar sports banter, with Celtics, Knicks, and Thibodeau setting the tone before the talk widens into money, value, and modern finance.
A sharp, funny case against smartphone distraction.
This Mars Review of Books episode turns party gossip and political backchat into a conversation about phones, attention, and the cost of being mentally elsewhere.
A loose literary conversation that moves from LA fires and neglect to books, Kafka, and screenwriting.
The piece turns a conversation about the LA fires into something more literary than a routine author interview. It dwells on neglect and incompetence, the empty Palisades reservoir, and the lack of water and fire trucks in readiness, then moves into childhood book fetishism,…
A fast, profane conversation that turns sex talk into a broader argument about meaning and performance.
Magdalene Taylor keeps the conversation moving through familiar but effective ground: dick-pic jokes, a blog-era stunt, and the awkward habit of dressing solicitation up as analysis.
A loud, restless debate about speed, money, names, and who gets to define reality.
The opening hits hard: loud jungle, faster pace, and a conversation that quickly turns into how speed and attention shape the way things get done.
Two classical-education teachers slow-read novels like Jane Eyre, chapter by chapter.
Book talk with room to wander.
Money distorts art.
The phone gets the villain role.
Basketball opens the trapdoor.
A literary feud turns into a theory machine.
Bernini shows up, and Vermeer immediately gets shaky.
Blurbs are begging.
Jeopardy has fallen off.
Magdalene Taylor is handed a strange setup.
The AirPods stay in.
Live from PubKey Bar, the mics are already causing trouble.
Tarot gets pulled into comics.
LA starts as an indictment.
Formerly Crows becomes the method.