The Pynchon in Public Podcast, or PIPcast as we sometimes call it, came out of the desire to have someone to talk about Thomas Pynchon’s novels with. Pynchon fans tend to be somewhat reclusive, and, even in America, Pynchon scholars are comparatively rare. So we established this podcast as basically public meetings of what’s maybe the world’s most sadistic bookclub.

The important thing to keep in mind is that we’re not experts. We address one book per season. Each episode is a panel-discussion. Our panelists hail from around the globe and have differing levels of education and differing interests. The only real qualifications we look for in panelists is that they like Pynchon, have Skype, do the reading, and are willing to put in the time and work involved.

Our purpose is to help people get through Pynchon’s novels. While we do bring scholarly sources to our discussions, we are not particularly interested in furthering academic research. We rely on the Pynchon Wiki as much as academic libraries and journals. We simply want to understand each of his novels as well as we can and to help create a community for Pynchon’s fans.

If there’s a problem with the site, the feed, or the podcast, email Bo.