Radio Derb is on the air.  Click on the Radio Derb tab, then on the latest edition.  The transcript will be archived on my own website next Wednesday night.

This week’s podcast naturally focuses on the GOP candidates’ debates.  It wouldn’t be Radio Derb without some commentary on the nation’s literary high culture, though.

Top of the New York Times hardcover bestseller list this week is Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I know that Radio Derb listeners are a bookish crowd who like to keep up with cutting-edge literary trends, so by kind permission of Mr Coates’ publisher I am privileged — yes, privileged — to be able to read you a short extract from Between the World and Me.

This is the dramatic opening of Chapter 849, actual quote:

"[Clears throat]: Black. Black. Black. Blackety-black. Blackety-blackety-black. Blackety-blackety-blackety-blackety-blackety-blackety-blackety-black! Black? Bla-a-ack! Blackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblackblack. Blackety-black! [Andante]: Black … black … black … black … [Accelerando]: Black, black, black, blackblackblackblack … [Allegro]: Blacketyblacketyblacketyblack, blackblackblackblack, …"

The full Radio Derb playbill:

• Numbers are of the essence. (Ten’s a crowd.)
• Trump lives! (But the gravitas deficit will be a problem.)
• You can’t talk about that. (The National Question is still radioactive.)
• Candidates say the darnedest things. (And a VP prediction.)
• A segment about nothing. (Iran deal, zzzz.)
• The complacency trap. (H. sap. not good at eternal vigilance.)
• From the police blotter. (Recharge your cynicism.)
• Taking a crack at the title. (Miss Bum Bum pageant early voting.)
• Fix the schools! (All it needs is more money, right?)
• Book notes. (America’s foremost intellectual explores a theme.)

It’s all here at Radio Derb.