If the future takes the zippers from us, I'm going to turn into one of those people like, get off my lawn! Leave my zippers out of this!

That's how you'll be a cool old school person. Your jacket has zippers? What's good. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Neust Olympian. My name is Mike Schubert. I'm the titular Newst Olympian. I'm a grown man who never read the Percy Jackson books as a kid, but I'm reading them now as an adult because I'm on a quest to determine

if this is a book series that we've all been sleeping on as a society. And I'm not on this quest alone. I am joined by someone who used to podcast in the past and will podcast in the future. So depending on when you're listening to this, look her up and see what she's up to. It's Leah Kordish.

Leah, how's it going? It's going, dude. Thank you so much for that. No problem. Thank you for being on the show. I was very delighted to learn that you were a big Percy Jackson fan. And even after we arranged this, you let me know that you are Greek and you said you are shaking your head at many of the things

that I've said. So feel free to put me on blast for anything I've said in any of the episodes prior to this. I'm very happy to have you on the show. No, no, no. Thank you. I think I might be your first Greek guest, so I feel very proud about that. Not that the Greek gods and like Greek humans are like anywhere near the same thing, but I still feel pretty good about it.

Hey, it's a title that

you can run with forever, first Greek guest on TNO, or at least first Greek guest to admit that

they are Greek on TNO. We may have had somewhat else, but no one said anything. But yeah, I do feel

strange sometimes when I'm talking about Greek things versus Greek things. It makes me feel like one

should maybe be spelled differently so that, you know, maybe one has like a E with an umlaut or an accent mark

or something. So I can be clear what I'm saying Greek stuff. I don't mean from the country

of Greece necessarily. Yeah, no, whenever you say like, oh, that's just a Greek thing, I always

have this like instinctual moment of like, it's not, oh, no, yeah, no, the gods. I got you. Yeah, so far, no Greece Greek things. But maybe they'll go to Greece in a future book. Who's to say? Who's to say? Certainly not me. I've never read them. So that is a good transition point, since that is a blatant lie. What is your

history with the Percy Jackson books? How did you get into them? Where's your fandom? All that good

stuff. I've been trying to place it like ever since. You're like, come on the pod. And I know where I was.

So it was between late 2007, early 2009. So I know I was in my college dorm, but I had that apartment for two years. So, like, in that range, I know the only book I had to wait for was the last Olympian. I went out, and I was at Borders and Columbus Circle, RIP. Rip, rip. I remember just seeing it, and I picked it up. And I always, like, I love Greek mythology. I love mythology in general, but like the Percy Jackson books or Hades the video game. I'll just pick it up like if it has to do with mythology because like, I don't know, it's really fun. And I just remember reading the first one on the train back to my dorm and being done with it like pretty much by the time I was like back in my room and I was like, guess I'm going to borders tomorrow.

Uh-huh. Yeah. My wife, Kelly, did that for the third book. We were taking a train to go to a

celebration party for my aunt. She was celebrating being a nun for 60 years, which is awesome.

And we took a train down to New Jersey. And it was like a two to three hour train with transfers and all that. And Kelly finished the book, I think, in one direction, or at least by the time we were home, she completed the Titans Curse. Yeah, so I was probably 21 or so when I read these. And I just ate them up. They were so great. I wish I had them as a kid, but I had them when they needed to appear. I really love these books. And I've read The Kane Chronicles, right? Yes. And almost all of the one that's got the mark of Apollo in it. Yeah, the Heroes of Olympus. Yes. I got to get back on that train now because now I can't stop reading them ever since I started reading them for this, I'm like, gosh, damn it, this is so good.

You have continued the trend for this book where I think 100% of guests who have been on the podcast for Titans Curse episodes have continued to read either the rest of the book or the whole rest of the series.

My buddy, Stephen, who was always trying to be just on

whatever book I was doing for the episodes, now he's on the second book in the sequel series. So

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