how to win the lottery: a book club podcast
a book club, like oprah’s if oprah were two suburban guys from new jersey, or reese witherspoon’s if reese were two suburban guys from new jersey, except without the engine of fame that those two huge stars provide. but come on: oprah is not going to answer your emails. (trust us, we know.) every two weeks, a new book microscoped and surgeried by benevolent despot joey lewandowski and disgraced college professor "shreds"... with your help! here's a guarantee: every episode ends with an arrestable crime. will it be something boring like credit card fraud or something sexy like a casino heist? listen to find out.
- Update frequency
- every 11 days
- Average duration
- 50 minutes
- Episodes
- 145
- Years Active
- 2021 - 2025
baby bruise and female loneliness epidemic by danielle chelosky
it’s another double dip of danielle chelosky’s writing this episode, as we cover baby bruise and female loneliness epidemic.
after lamenting what twitter has become (and what we lost), we talk about …
00:52:09 |
Thu 11 Sep 2025
pregaming grief by danielle chelosky
our danielle chelosky module continues with pregaming grief, her first published piece of long-form writing. we talk about its ties to cheat, whether it could (canonically) be in the gossip girl univ…
00:29:58 |
Thu 28 Aug 2025
cheat and show me your face by danielle chelosky
our danielle chelosky module kicks off with a pair of chapbooks that she self-published: cheat and show me your face. (it’s our first-ever “two books in one podcast” episode, and we do our best to ke…
00:37:50 |
Thu 14 Aug 2025
season fifteen theme and reading list
we’ve done it. we’ve closed the big account, ghostbusters-style, and landed another author focus module. this time, we’re talking about the work of danielle chelosky. we discuss other authors whom we…
00:06:11 |
Thu 07 Aug 2025
ohio by stephen markley
we’re closing out our ohio module with ohio by stephen markley, who honored us by naming this book after our module. we talk about the impact of the title and writing about where you’re from, how the…
00:57:41 |
Thu 31 Jul 2025
outside in by doug cooper
our ohio module continues with outside in by doug cooper and some “ohio facts” (island facts?) about the town of put-in-bay. after learning about island culture in ohio — we want to go so bad — we ta…
00:52:29 |
Thu 17 Jul 2025
omensetter's luck by william gass
our ohio module keeps on truckin’ with both a pop quiz about the state and a discussion of omensetter’s luck by william gass. we talk about the difficulty in reading the novel (and how the first two …
00:40:10 |
Thu 03 Jul 2025
the bluest eye by toni morrison
our ohio module kicks off with a known quantity: the undeniably great debut novel from toni morrison, the bluest eye. after briefly reflecting on the states so far, we talk about famous people from o…
00:48:05 |
Thu 19 Jun 2025
season fourteen theme and reading list
it’s time for another card drawing on lottery pod, and even though we don’t say it in this episode: suck shit, sufjan stevens. after we struggle to remember which states we’ve already covered, we mak…
00:11:05 |
Thu 12 Jun 2025
open water by caleb azumah nelson
we’re closing out our second-person module with one of our strongest books yet: open water by caleb azumah nelson. after talking about the pitt (and the mount rushmore of tv), we talk about the lack …
00:34:51 |
Thu 05 Jun 2025
a man asleep by georges perec
our penultimate book in the “you” module is a man asleep by georges perec, which is a return to form as it’s once again french as hell. we talk about how it compares to suicide by édouard levé and th…
00:30:49 |
Thu 22 May 2025
the night circus by erin morgenstern
our “you” module is winding down, so it feels like the perfect time to cover a book that shouldn’t be in the module at all: the night circus by erin morgenstern. first, though, we talk about the film…
00:41:59 |
Thu 08 May 2025
the diver's clothes lie empty by vendela vida
shreds continues to physically fall apart on our latest episode as we talk about the diver’s clothes lie empty by vendela vida. joey rejoices as we finally hit a book this module that he loves, and w…
00:46:46 |
Thu 24 Apr 2025
how like a god by rex stout
our episode about how like a god by rex stout starts with joey immediately killing one of shreds’ bits, setting a vibe. after talking about dave “storyteller” grohl, we talk a lot about shakespeare (…
00:41:34 |
Thu 10 Apr 2025
the malady of death by marguerite duras
the malady of death by marguerite duras is likely the shortest text we’ve covered on the main feed so far. like suicide last week, it’s also european as all hell. after celebrating the 100th book cov…
00:34:26 |
Thu 27 Mar 2025
suicide by édouard levé
the next book in our second-person module is suicide by édouard levé, which kicks off a mini-module of shorter writing that is also european as hell. after discussing a gem of a film we discovered on…
00:39:32 |
Thu 13 Mar 2025
bright lights, big city by jay mcinerney
welcome back to the penn badgley module. today’s episode is the most “normal” book we’ve read in a while: bright lights, big city by jay mcinerney. we talk about the novel’s deadpan humor, whether it…
00:47:51 |
Thu 27 Feb 2025
if on a winter's night a traveler by italo calvino
our next second-person novel is if on a winter’s night a traveler by italo calvino, which features an all-time great first chapter. before we talk about the novel, though, we simply must talk about t…
00:46:05 |
Thu 13 Feb 2025
interior chinatown by charles yu
our second-person module kicks off with interior chinatown by charles yu, which gives us literary whiplash both in terms of difficulty and perspective. we talk about the type of racism that charles y…
00:31:23 |
Thu 30 Jan 2025
season thirteen theme and reading list
it’s time for another season of lottery pod, and today’s theme reveal is news to everyone, including joey. (well, not everyone. shreds knows. he made it.) we discuss the theme as structure (rather th…
00:12:14 |
Thu 23 Jan 2025
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