Richard Seymour, author of The Twittering Machine,  joins Eric and Kate to discuss the “social industry" — online platforms that monetize and manipulate our need to share our lives online. Seymour moves beyond the negative effects social media has on us as individuals and as a community, bringing into view a bigger picture: the social, economic, and political perils that are now at our fingertips.

Also, Ayad Akhtar, author of Homeland Elegies, returns to recommend Saul Bellow's Ravelstein.