Lockdown diaries became a literary fad in 2020, but few if any were memorable. What if the real literature of lockdown was written over a century ago? This is the hypothesis behind "The Machine Book of Weird," an anthology of fiction from the late 19th and early 20th century that explores isolation, domestic confinement, and the uncanniness of home. Publisher Tim Abrahams joins me to discuss this project, plus Freud, Mark Fisher, and more.
You can donate to the project's Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mbow/machine-book-of-weird