Historical magical realism and a mythical origin story for America, this week's book makes us second-guess how we're meant to rate the novels we read. Are we aiming for objectivity, or something more personal and idiosyncratic? Plus we judge a couple books by their covers, recommend a couple Netflix streaming documentaries, and possibly alienate any number of our listeners, as per usual. For more, visit bookfightpod.com.

Last week's guest, Dave Thomas, stuck around to help us answer questions about self-publishing, giving away your work for free, the differences between undergrad and graduate workshops, and the joys and aggravations of academia. Talking points include: free e-books, shrimp on the barbie, Tom getting punched in the face, bloomin' onions, Kiwis, the Rocka-Fire Explosion, and belletriciousness. For more, visit bookfightpod.com.

We welcome special guest Dave Thomas to talk about Salter's new novel, Tom as a mentor, horse ejaculate and the sexiness of bakeries.

We talk writers' desks, literary agents, and grad-school recommendations. Plus Garfield, sexual roleplay, eggs (which are delicious!) and Tom's ill-fated turn on reality television. Get more at bookfightpod.com.

Would you like to hear us talk about Disney World for half an hour? If so, then this is the episode for you! Also we dig into Doctorow's first novel, in our continuing efforts to explore some work outside our usual genre comfort zones. Talking points include: the defeat of death, Facebook likes as currency, problematic premises, the Haunted Mansion, Mike's childhood propensity for tears, carnival food, the Gravitron, and Battlestar Galactica. Get more at bookfightpod.com.

We offer tips for organizing your files, dealing with your MFA classmates, and Highlandering your enemies. Got questions for us? Email them to [email protected], or tweet them to us at @Book_Fight.

We foist a book upon Tom's college roommate, an avowed non-reader. Will he like it? Will he spit it out, like a child being forced to eat spinach? Talking points include: 80s trivia, Sarah Palin, TV Guide Recommends, info-dumps, dystopian futures, The Princess Bride, and videogames.

Heartbreaking church lock-ins, awkward rest stop encounters, and also we answer some questions about writing. How does one find a mentor? Once you get some work accepted, do the rejections lose their sting? And what's the deal with book trailers?

Book Fight road trip! We recorded this episode in a car (Tom's) while driving to the annual Conversations and Connections conference in Washington, D.C. The book this week is Tom's pick, and boy is it a bummer. Though a very well-written, culturally important bummer. We still found stuff to joke about, including bears, Tom's driving skills, tunnels, sharks, and Jay Leno's quest for love and approval. We also talked about the upsides and downsides of allegory, and whether Coetzee's narrator is a creep. This week's closing music is from Phosphorescent's 2005 album "To Willie," which you can find in the iTunes store.

To MFA or not to MFA: that is the question. Also, what's our beef with flash fiction? And how should writers use Twitter and Facebook? Plus Tom burns a bridge, and Mike tries to glean some lessons from past failures.

One of Mike's favorite books, which means if Tom doesn't properly love it Mike might have to punch him. Also: Britishisms, the Middle Ages, academic ambivalence, Jenga, and ballet.

Rejecting your friends. Dealing with overzealous editors. Plus: Tom's bloody nipples, which magazines we dislike, and what editors do with their urine. For more, visit us at [email protected].

This book won the 2011 Best Translated Book Award, for which our guest, Matt Jakubowski, was one of the judges. We talk translations, Nordicness, strong female characters, and rabbits. Also, we recommend some music and argue about snacks.

How long is too long for a journal or press to read your submission? How much can you get paid for a short story? What are the worst writerly affectations? Talking points include: therapy dogs, AWP, porn scripts, jaunty hats, and writing in coffee shops. Got a question for us? Want to tell us we're wrong? Email us at [email protected], or visit bookfightpod.com. Thanks for listening!

We're joined by Tod Goldberg and Julia Pistell, of Literary Disco, to talk bedouin poetry tents, writer costumes, Val Kilmer as Mark Twain, and which small presses sound most like metal bands.

The results of our panel dare: Tom goes to a 75-minute session on therapy, while Mike explores the connections between history and poetry. 

Hello, morning! We're a little groggy, but there's important conferencing to be done. Talking points: popping and locking, the guy in the newspaper hat, rejection notes.

More jibber jabber from the AWP conference in Boston. This time we're on the conference floor, recapping Day One in the belly of the beast.

We're at the annual AWP conference in Boston, i.e. ground zero of the American Writing-Industrial Complex. We'll be filing regular brief dispatches from the conference each day. Here's the first one! Talking points include: train travel, poets in newspaper hats, and rolling VIP style.

A novel-in-emails whose main character is annoyed to discover that a former friend has fictionalized his life in a book. Talking points include: Canadian rock, SARS, aggrieved exes, epistolary novels, and grilled cheese sandwiches. 

On this Very Special Episode we field questions from students at Tom's high school alma mater. Changing lives!

An intensely dark, often comic novel about the British landed gentry and child abuse. Talking points include: the decision to write a memoir or a novel, mean-spiritedness versus generosity, inspirational dog films, and which one of us Frazier and which is Roz. Also, another installment of MATR, and whether Tom's recommendations are to be trusted.

Special bonus episode! Our gift to you, listeners. We read a Harlequin Romance novel about Viking love. 

Low-residency MFA programs. Revisiting your old work. And should writers go to AWP? We also debate some new catch phrases, Mike alienates everybody, and we create a new iteration of MTV's Real World franchise.

A novel that prompts a discussion of how we pick books, and why certain books stress us out. Talking points include: story structure, penis length versus penis girth, athletes versus writers, Mexican vacations, and Mike's junior tennis career. We also debut a new feature at the end of the show, tentatively titled Mike and Tom Recommend, in which we ... well, recommend stuff (and bicker about said recommendations, as it turns out).

We answer questions about writers who don't read, the best jobs for writers, and why literature isn't a commodity. Also: naps! And why Tom lives like an old person.

We talk about Portis's picaresque road novel (his first), why we appreciate humor in books, and why it's so hard to do comedy well. Also: another installment of Judge a Book By Its Cover.

How to stand out from the crowd when applying for MFA programs, what's wrong with citing Pushcart Prize nominations in your cover letter, and how to find decent books at a Barnes and Noble.

A Dalkey translation of Serbian writer Svetislav Basara's novel basically landed in Tom's lap, so we figured we might as well read it. And it's crazy in all the best ways. Talking points include: white slave merchants, surrealism, literature as a black box, comedy as rapid-fire truth telling, and The Silver Linings Playbook.

We tackle questions about Duotrope's recent decision to charge for its services, how to give a good literary reading, and whether it's okay to drink while writing.

It's the most wonderful time of the year! This week we put aside our usual reading schedule and tackled two Christmas-themed novels: John Grisham's 'Skipping Christmas' (source material for the Tim Allen movie 'Christmas with the Kranks') and Glenn Beck's 'The Christmas Sweater' (source material for a 'live movie event' that earned 1.9 out of 10 stars on IMDB). Will we deem them New Holiday Classics? Or will we consign them to the dustbin of Christmas history, along with our old pogs and parachute pants and cassingles? Only one way to find out!

This week's a Mike pick: George Singleton's new story collection, which is set in small-town South Carolina and populated by men who use their intelligence toward questionable ends. Plus a monkey, and lots of dogs. We also bring back our Judge A Book By Its Cover feature, take a couple potshots at Tucker Max, and read blurbs for a few more supporters of our fund drive. The episode is spnsored by Cobalt; you can get their new print issue for 1/2 price at the following link: cobaltreview.com/purchase/bookfight.

Special guest Paul Lisicky (Unbuilt Projects, Lawnboy, Famous Builder) helps us get a handle on one of his favorite novels, and discusses his own relationship to structure and linearity. And his love of Lil' Wayne.

This week we tackle questions about personalized rejections, gifts for writers, and how to overcome writers' block. Fair warning: We recorded this after eating a Thanksgiving meal with Tom's relatives, and we're a little punchier than usual. Talking points include: pajamas, Mark Twain, diapers that look like jeans, and why you should consider donating a few bucks to help us upgrade our audio equipment. This week's episode is sponsored by Participants, the new story collection from Andrew Keating. You can learn more about the book, and pre-order it, at participantsbook.com.

We welcome special guest Owen King (We're All In This Together, Double Feature) to discuss Thomas Bernhard's novel about a Wittgenstein-like character who builds a cone in the woods for his sister.

Tips for revision. Should you pay reading fees? And Tom goes ham on NaNoWriMo in our special lightning round.

This week we're flying without a net. By which we mean the hurricane changed our plans. No guest. No book. Just two grown men who, because of Hurricane Sandy, have been spending too much time cooped up indoors. We've got bits! And new segments, including Bookshelf of Shame and Judge A Book By Its Cover. Sh*t's about to get real, Book Fighters.

This week, we tackle questions about how to promote your book without annoying people, whether writing can be taught, and if you should worry too much about your stylistic influences. Talking points include: Facebook baby photos, giving out healthy treats for Halloween, John Gardner's On Becoming a Novelist, Tom's love of animals, and The Lockhorns, America's least happy cartoon couple.

Zadie's new one is so good it leads us into a larger discussion of the relationship between truth and art. Also, we squabble over the word 'relatable,' Tom's generation vs. Mike's generation, and whether we're ready to take over for the retiring Car Talk guys.

What kind of blowback can you expect when you portray someone ungenerously in your memoir? What if that person ends up sitting next to you, in your basement, with a belly full of scotch? Also: questions about character development and how to explain your writing to a date.

We're joined by novelist Stewart O'Nan (The Odds, Last Night at the Lobster, many many more) to discuss a book he calls "a great American novel no one has read." In the second half of the show, we hit him up for advice on writing, publishing, not getting obsessed about your sales figures. Talking points include: emotional complexity, detective stories, O.J.'s fictional confession, and tossing novels onto Michiko Kakutani's lawn. Get more at bookfightpod.com.

Which lit mags should you subscribe to? Should you publish with a small press or hold out for one of the big boys? Should you end your story with a character offing himself? Also: the etiquette of question-asking, diamond floors, and ruby teeth.

This one was a Mike pick, a book he first read as a teenager living in Charleston, South Carolina, only a few miles from The Citadel, which may or may not bear some resemblance to The Institute, the military school at the center of this novel. Join us for a discussion of hazing, the Southern aristocracy, superfluous romantic entaglements, the whitest basketball game ever played, and lots and lots of adjectives.

This week Tom tells you why National Novel Writing Month is terrible for humanity. Plus: what books are best for killing bugs, and how much money can a novelist expect to make? Also, the latest missive in our ongoing feud with the literary journal Hobart. Got a question for us? Email us at [email protected], or hit us up on Twitter, @Book_Fight.

Mike and Tom reminisce (and gossip) about their time at the Iowa Writers Workshop and their memories of Frank Conroy, the larger-than-life writer and teacher at the center of Tom Grimes' memoir.

Terrible cover letters, faint praise, and what it's like to get beaten by a sack full of doorknobs. It's our third installment of Writers Ask, where we solve all your problems, writing and otherwise. Get into it! If you want to ask a question, hit us up on Twitter @Book_Fight.

We welcome back our first repeat guest, fan favorite Katherine Hill, to discuss this "novel from life." Opinions are strong on this one. Talking points include: source material for novels, the need for writers to have non-writer friends, and Tom's weird love for the TV show Frasier. Plus the debut of our new and improved intro music!

In the second installment of Writers Ask, Tom and Mike tell you how to recommend books to your non-literary friends, and how to deal with relatives who think they know what you should write about. Special bonus: Lightning round!