MashReads Podcast: Exploring the bravery and resistance of 'Cloud Atlas'

"Yet, what is any ocean but a multitude of drops?"

So asks David Mitchell in his post-modern masterpiece Cloud Atlas. In many ways, it's a fitting question that sums up the book entirely.

Cloud Atlas is composed of six stories, each about bravery and resistance in their own ways. Throughout the book, each story looks at the figures on the cusp a revolution, turning the tide of either personal or far-reaching history. (i.e. the individual drops that form the ocean of revolution).

Each story is told in a different style and genre, all nested within each other, creating a larger novel about how seemingly disparate narratives come together to tell a much larger and richer story (i.e. drops forming an ocean.).

Cloud Atlas is also one entry into David Mitchell's uber novel, the immersive world that Mitchell is constructing throughout all of his books: Ghostwritten, number9dream, Cloud Atlas, Black Swan Green, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, The Bone Clocks and Slade House (i.e. a drop of a novel forming an ocean of a world.).

See the pattern?

This week on the MashReads Podcast, we read and discuss David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas.

Join us as we talk about post-modern story telling, why this book failed as a movie and the genius of Cloud Atlas.

And as always, we close the show with recommendations:

• For anybody looking for a behind the scenes discussion with the creators of the Cloud Atlas movie, check out an interview with The Nerdist here.

• Aliza recommends a tiny little movie you may not have heard of yet called Rogue One. "It's real good. I highly recommend it. It's a very different feel and tone from the other Star Wars movies but it really ladders up well to them." She also recommends Amy Adams' recent movie Arrival. "I had my hands in the air freaking out because it was everything that I wanted."

• MJ recommends Slate's "I'm Not Your Racial Confessor," a conversation between a host of black writers about their experience how and with whom do we have conversations about race, especially on the internet and in the age of Trump. "It's just a really thoughtful conversation about how we approach race. and the safety we feel that we have in a conversation about race."

• Miriam recommends the new podcast Homecoming from Gimlet. It's a serialized radio psychological thriller with Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac and David Schwimmer. "It's just immersive! You'll like it. Go listen to it." She also recommends the video game The Witness. "It's amazing! It changes the way you look at the world."

Next week, we are discussing our favorite books of 2016. We hope you'll join us.

And if you're looking for more book news, don't forget to follow MashReads on Facebook and Twitter.