Jess Walter is So Far Gone

The Book Case

ABC News

Fiction, Arts, Books, Society & Culture

4.1 • 766 Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2025

⏱️ 40 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jess Walter has written a book that is funny, compulsively readable, and complex. In So Far Gone, he reminds us, in a world that sometimes seems to have gone crazy, you escape society at your own peril. Can you escape the world into isolation or is life only meaningful when you live it for and with others? We ask the very talented Jess Walter that very question. Find books mentioned on The Book Case: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/shop/story/book-case-podcast-reading-list-118433302 Books mentioned on this week's episode: So Far Gone by Jess Walter Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter The Cold Millions by Jess Walter Citizen Vance by Jess Walter Ruby Ridge by Jess Walter Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter The Zero by Jess Walter Land of the Blind by Jess Walter We Live in Water by Jess Walter The Angel of Rome by Jess Walter Walden by Henry David Thoreau Bowling Aline by Robert D. Putnam Family Sayings by Natalia Ginzburg Stoner by John Edwards Williams James by Percival Everett The Dutch House by Ann Patchett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello and happy Thursday, listeners.
0:10.3	If it's Thursday, it is time for the bookcase with Kate and Charlie.
0:15.0	So, book nerds, I'll introduce myself.
0:17.3	I am the Kate part of that duo, and I will allow my co-host to introduce himself because I'm so
0:23.0	so giving like that. I see. Book nerds, you take that as a pejorative term or do you take that as a
0:31.5	compliment? I do not. As a matter of that, yes, I do. I do. I'm very proud of being a book nerd.
0:38.0	I really am.
0:39.2	There are more unhealthy habits to have.
0:42.7	And if that's the area in which you are nerdy, then thumbs up to you.
0:46.1	You are my friend.
0:47.0	You are part of my community.
0:49.1	Well, okay.
0:50.3	You know, if you go back to the high school playground and you call somebody a nerd,
0:56.0	I think that's taken as something of an insult, isn't it?
0:58.8	Now, it's been a long time since I've been in high school.
1:01.4	It's been a long time since I've been anywhere.
1:02.9	But then you get older and you realize, one, that educated people are cool, too, and that nerds do pretty well from themselves in adulthood. So I don't know,
1:12.6	maybe we then sort of desire to join the nerd group. At least I do. I don't mind it anymore.
1:19.5	Maybe it bothered me on the playground, but I embrace it now. I will leave that to the judgment
1:24.6	of all who are listening. You can decide for yourself.
1:28.2	The book this week is So Far Gone.
1:31.7	That's the title of the book.
	...

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