Workers' Lit

On September 28, 2021, Lee Mandelo released his debut novel: "Summer Sons," a southern gothic horror that wrestles with guilt, sexual repression, the long shadows of southern history, the evils of academia, and reinventing BDSM dynamics from first principles with your buddies.
On September 28, 2026, Workers' Lit released an episode with Lee himself, looking back on "Summer Sons" as a book.
We've had authors on to talk about their books, but never to break down their novels in a beat-by-beat way we typically review literature. We were thrilled to have Lee back on the show for this amazing topic.
Want more of Workers' Lit/Lee collaboration content? You'd be crazy not to. Links to his two previous appearances and our coverage of "Woods All Black" here:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5j6AH8gxlpojTjZdEiuJH9?si=0qRwbRd3Q_G8w26qW-EGhw
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5M8AaWNVKHh0zuhWDVbt81?si=fl-JuDvlTiqgoojLR7ztGg
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3CRYIorpGHJVC0oYvtJhLu?si=_qTz2i4OR9eWku4PjLnIzQ
Want to support Workers' Lit on Patreon? Of course you do. Link here!
https://patreon.com/workerslit
Want more of Lee? OBVIOUSLY! Link here!
https://leemandelo.com/

Now is the time of monsters!
Caleb from Kill The Computer and 60 Minute Drill returns to the pod to discuss the legendary Italian intellectual, Antonio Gramsci. Trace the life story of this short king with us as he travels from the poor countryside of his youth to meet baddies in a Moscow sanitarium all the way to revolutionary struggle and prison in fascist Italy…and bro didn’t stop there! As soon as he hit the jail cell he started, “The Prison Notebooks.”
Over 3000 pages of documents, “The Prison Notebooks” contains keys for understanding the failure of the working class to defend its own interests, the way the ruling class exerts control despite all odds, and answers the key question: is Macklemore an intellectual?
Go Support Workers’ Lit on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/WorkersLit
Go Check out Caleb’s podcasts!
https://www.killthecomputer.com/
https://linktr.ee/60MinuteDrill

This is a preview. To access the full episode please go support Workers' Lit on Patreon.
https://www.patreon.com/WorkersLit
Once again it's time for an Article Brain, the monthly sub-series where we find the worst articles of our day and age to torment one another with.
First up, we read Ross Douthat's departure from the New York Times. In typical Ross fashion, he manages to "both sides" in a way specifically designed to drive us insane.
And then we get CNN's take on the AI Apocalypse. Sure, it's coming, but don't we prefer an American AI Apocalypse to a Chinese one??
Links (not recommending you read these please God don't):
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/08/opinion/obama-trump-biden-enemy.html
https://us.cnn.com/2026/09/15/tech/ai-kill-everyone-china

It’s another Patron-selection! Welcome to “All Systems Red,” a 2017 sci-fi adventure novella by Martha Wells.
We talk about Wells’ life and the story, but a good chunk of this episode is dedicated to discussing robots in fiction more generally. What makes the robot who wants love such an interesting stand-in for real world alienation? Where do those parallels fall short? How does the rise of Gen AI (particularly AI slop) impact our relationship to robot narratives? Would Muderbot engage in kink at Pride discourse? All this and more will be answered!
Support us on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/workerslit

In the year 2000 a snarky chef named Anthony Bourdain published a collection of essays, rants, and observations about the food industry. The dude went on to do cool stuff, so much that our patrons voted for us to discuss this book!
In this episode we discuss how restaurant culture has (and mostly hasn't) changed, how to have working class solidarity in weird situations, the beauty of loving your job and having dignity in it, and the new A24 Film, "Tony."
Read the original Bourdain essay here:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1999/04/19/dont-eat-before-reading-this
Go support us on Patreon here!
https://www.patreon.com/workerslit