how to win the lottery s2e16 – either/or by elif batuman
campus season continues with either/or, our second elif batuman novel in a row, and this time, we’re following selin’s sophomore year at harvard. we talk about how selin’s story is an unusual (in a good way!) type of book series and how these novels manage to capture the american experience of late adolescence. we talk about noticeable growth within selin, debate her level of agency in the story, and talk about how much she reads — and how it influences her. we also talk about the novel’s darkness, its “boy crazy” section, and how it seems to divorce kierkegaard from religion. do we live ethical or aesthetic lives? how will selin grow in a third novel?
reading list for season two
the bell jar by sylvia plath, 11/4
prep by curtis sittenfeld, 11/18
the art of fielding by chad harbach, 12/2
nickel boys by colson whitehead, 12/16
the virgins by pamela erens, 12/30
my education by susan choi, 1/13
giles goat-boy by john barth, 1/27
end zone by don delillo, 2/10
loner by teddy wayne, 2/24
the secret history by donna tartt, 3/10
sweet days of discipline by fleur jaeggy, 3/24
college novel by blake middleton, 4/7
real life by brandon taylor, 4/21
the instructions by adam levin, 5/5
the idiot by elif batuman, 5/19
either/or by elif batuman, 6/2
teenager by bud smith, 6/16
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