{"version":1,"type":"rich","provider_name":"Libsyn","provider_url":"https:\/\/www.libsyn.com","height":90,"width":600,"title":"Patton Oswalt on "This Paradise" || Books That Changed My Life","description":"In this episode of Books That Changed My Life, host Chris "Bulldog" Collins sits down with actor and comedian Patton Oswalt to discuss This Paradise, a short story collection by Ruby Cowling. Check out Patton's new special, "Tea & Scotch" here: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=sRFgLNxygC4 Oswalt, an evangel for the book, has bought and given away dozens of copies since discovering Cowling's short fiction through a Canadian publisher's Christmas advent calendar of stories. Oswalt traces his relationship with books back to reading Stephen King's The Stand at age 10, and talks about raising his 17-year-old daughter as a reader \u2014 from Harry Potter read-alouds to introducing her to graphic novels, and first films by directors who started with nothing but a camera and a script. He also revisits a formative English class argument over Carson McCullers that taught him to defend his opinions on the page. The conversation moves through the terrain of This Paradise itself: stories that grapple with an openly unapologetic billionaire class, the erosion of consequence and accountability, climate collapse, and the daily impossibility of making ethical choices in a world where "every network is connected to something horrifying." Oswalt and Collins dig into specific stories from the collection \u2014 including "The Ground Is Considerably Distorted," "Eliminate Toxins and Increase Blood Flow," and "Flamingo Land" \u2014 unpacking how Cowling captures the disorientation of modern life without sacrificing humanity or humor. ","author_name":"Books That Changed My Life","author_url":"https:\/\/www.booksthatchangedmylife.org","html":"