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The Twist 325: Weekly News Roundup Returns, Road Trip Fun Facts, and Rick Interviews Enjoyiana Nururdin
Episode 325 of The Twist is packed. Mark and Rick dig into the week’s biggest news stories in their Weekly News Roundup — the headlines, the highlights, and the takes you won’t get anywhere else. Then things get a little lighter with Road Trip Fun Facts, just in time for the open road season. And Rick sits down with Enjoyiana Nururdin, journalist and lifestyle content creator, for a conversation about her work, her voice, and what drives her to tell the stories she tells.
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Mark McNease’s Fearsome Fiction Podcast: Genre Classic ‘The Mystery of the Yellow Room’ by Gaston Leroux (Chapters 1 – 6)
Fearsome Fiction Podcast: Genre Classic Series The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux — Chapters 1–6
Let’s talk about a book that has been quietly influencing mystery writers for over a hundred years. The Mystery of the Yellow Room by Gaston Leroux was published in 1907, and it did something so clever, so carefully constructed, that readers and writers are still talking about it. You may know Leroux from The Phantom of the Opera — but this is the book that made him a legend among mystery aficionados.
And once you spend the first six chapters inside the Château du Glandier, you’ll understand why.
An Impossible Crime
Here’s what we know. Mademoiselle Stangerson was attacked inside her laboratory — a small room with yellow wallpaper that gives the novel its name. The door was bolted from the inside. The windows were secured. No one could have gotten in, and no one could have gotten out. And yet the evidence of violence is everywhere: blood, a weapon, signs of a brutal, terrifying struggle.
Leroux doesn’t bury the lead. He plants the impossibility right in front of you in the opening chapters and essentially says: go ahead, figure it out. Most readers can’t. That’s the fun.
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This Week’s Survey: What’s Your Preferred Way to Travel?
What is your preferred way to travel?
- By plane — I love getting there fast and going far
- By car — I enjoy the freedom of the open road
- By train — I prefer a scenic, relaxed journey
- By cruise ship — I like the destination to be part of the experience
- I don’t enjoy travel and prefer to stay close to home
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April eBook and Audiobook Giveaway: One Thing Or Another – Life, Aging, and the Absurdities of It All (Second Edition)
Welcome to the Second Edition of One Thing or Another, a collection of humor columns that takes a look at life, aging, and the absurdities of it all. It’s been a few years since the first edition, and even more since they were written. The Big Six-Oh is now the Big Six-Seven, and life is just as absurd as it was the first go-round.
From our culture’s refusal to use the word ‘old,’ to the sometimes comical consequences of aging in body and mind, if not always in spirit, you’re sure to enjoy this skewed look at life’s foibles for the ages. Collected from the author’s personal columns, these short essays will make you chuckle, recognize yourself, and sometimes grimace at the not-always-funny price we pay for simply staying alive.
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The Twist Podcast 324: Venal Virtue Signaling, Gardening Goodness, and an Interview with Alexandra Paul
This week Mark and Rick reveal fun facts about cloning, the benefits of gardening, and cringey virtue signaling. After that we soak up some wisdom from Jo, following Rick’s interview with actor and activist Alexandra Paul.
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The Twist Podcast Android News Edition: Science, Politics, Entertainment and Culture Small Plates
If you’ve been listening to The Twist Podcast for any length of time, you know that Mark and Rick have opinions about things. Science, politics, food, entertainment, and the general state of the world as it lurches forward into whatever this era is going to be called when historians get around to naming it.
So we did what any reasonable pair of podcasters would do: we cloned ourselves.
Meet the android versions of Mark and Rick — same voices, same sensibilities, significantly less coffee dependency — and they’re here every week with The Twist Podcast: Android News Edition, your weekly roundup of everything worth knowing and a few things worth arguing about. Will we go weekly? If the interest is there and we can hire more robots.
Each week we’re covering four beats: science, politics, food trends, and entertainment. Politics, because ignoring it hasn’t been working out great for anyone. Science, because it tells you more about the world than just the news does. Food trends, because you deserve to know that beef tallow is making a comeback and tiramisu is officially everywhere. And entertainment, because even in complicated times the shows we watch and the stories we tell matter.
New episodes drop every Friday. Find us wherever you’ve always found The Twist, same feed, no new subscriptions required.
— Mark & Rick
(The originals. Probably.)
