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Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst 

Nate DiMeo

the memory palace

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

Starting off the year with a new tradition: the first annual Public Domain Theater, in which Nate reads an important work of American literature that entered the public domain on January 1st of a given year. First up, the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock. 

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Public Domain Theater 2026

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com. 

Music

 • Sincerely Yours by LLLL

 • Across the Other Side by Infinite Scale

 • Sunset by Resavoir

 • Mammoth by Golden Brown

 • Unassigned by Vernon Spring

 • Swimming by Explosions in the Sky

 • Pure (Ride the World) by The Brendan Eder Ensemble

 • Le Tunnel by Sylvain Chauveau

 • Floating Away by Lullatone

Notes

 • There's a ton written about Emma Rowena Gatewood but so much of it, including this story, owes a huge debt to Ben Montgomery's book, 
Grandma Gatewood's Walk, • which excavated the story of her life with her husband. Besides that, it is wonderfully written. Totally recommend it. 

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Nate's Favorite Episode of the Year: Emma and the Trail

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

Music

 • The Lady With the Golden Stockings from the Sun Ra Arkestra

 • The Sage from the Chico Hamilton Quintet

 • Falling in Love with a New York Pigeon by Birb

 • Bocherini's fourth quintet as performed by the Ensemble of St. Martin of the Fields

 • From a Dream by Oregon

 • Jaybird from the great Charlie Parr

 • Pool of Love by Les Baxter

 • And House Tuner Theme from Will Bates' gorgeous score to The Sound of Silence.

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Episode 239: Blank Pages

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House.

Buy the audiobook wherever you get audiobooks (like libro.fm!)

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. I have recently launched a newsletter. You can subscribe to it at thememorypalacepodcast.substack.com. 

Audio excerpted courtesy of Random House Audio from THE MEMORY PALACE by Nate DiMeo, read by a full cast. Excerpt read by Nate DiMeo, © 2024 Nate DiMeo, ℗ 2024 Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved.

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From The Memory Palace Audiobook: Fine New England Granite

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

Music

 • Kara-Lis Coverdale's A480

 • Palimpsest from Will Bate's score to The Sound of Silence

 • Harriett Smith and Robert Martin Meet in the Rain from Isobel Waller Bridge's score to Emma.

 • The Play from Dan Romer's score to (the terrific) Station Eleven.

 • Cutting Branches from a Temporary Shelter from the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

 • Sustainable from H. Takahashi.

Notes

 • There's a particularly good 
article • by Colin Dickey about Jacobs and The Crypt in American Scholar. 

 • You can read all 1100 pages of Jacobs' autobiography 
here • , if you haven't already.

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Episode 238: The Crypt of Thornwell Jacobs

On Sunday, October 26th, 2025, Nate DiMeo of this here show, The Memory Palace, and his friends and colleagues at his fellow Radiotopia show, This Day, will be holding a good, old-fashioned teach-in in defense of history and museums currently targeted by the Trump Administration. Readings and lectures from sun-up to sundown on the National Mall in Washington D.C. 

Learn more here. 

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

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A Teach-In for History

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

Music

 • On-ness by Tom Rogerson and Eno.

 • Etude by Joep Beving

 • Ebb Tide by Houston & Dorsey

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Episode 237: Vigil

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

This episode was originally released in October of 2018.

Music

 • We start with the very English, 
Voluntary No. 4 in b-flat Minor, • by Margaret Phillips.

 • Hear 
Nero’s Nocturne • from Chilly Gonzales.

 • Some of
 The Stars vs. Creatures • by Colleen.

 • 
Abide with Me from the Thelonious Monk Septet • off his Monk’s Music album.

 • 
Walzer fur Robert • by Anne Muller off of Erased Tapes Volume 5.

 • 
Evening at Eight • by Keith Kenniff.

 • and 
Berceuse • by Alexandra Streliski.

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Episode 133: Antidisestablishmentarianism

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

Music

 • A couple by C. Diab: Tiny Umbrellas and Crypsis

 • The beginning of Cats Cradle (Iris) by Hannah Epperson

 • Dawning and Wind by Shida Shihabi

 • A couple from Ceeys: Neighbour II and Union

Notes

 • I really enjoyed reading both Lew Irwin's Deadly Times: the 1910 Bombing of the L.A. Times and America's Forgotten Decade of Terror, and Bread and Hyacinths: the Rise and Fall of Utopian Los Angeles, by Lionel Rolfe

 • As an, at this point, long-time Angeleno, I highly recommend visiting the Hollywood Forever Cemetery.

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Episode 236: The Times

Order The Memory Palace book now, dear listener. On Bookshop.org, on Amazon.com, on Barnes & Noble, or directly from Random House. Or order the audiobook at places like Libro.fm.

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX. Radiotopia is a collective of independently owned and operated podcasts that’s a part of PRX, a not-for-profit public media company. If you’d like to directly support this show, you can make a donation at Radiotopia.fm/donate. 

While Nate takes a little summer break, he reads you two poems. 

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Summer Reading: Two Transcendent Poems About Public Transportation

The Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX.

A Note on Notes:

I always prefer that the listener goes into each episode cold, not knowing what it's going to be about. So, you might want to tread carefully, as there are spoilers in the notes below. 

Music

 • L'espagne pour memoire by Michel Portal

 • Find me Tomorrow from Christophe Beck's score to Charlie Countryman

 • The old Soviet philharmonic plays some Shostakovich.

 • The London Symphony Orchestra plays The Blue Danube Waltz.

 • We hear Walt by Mother Falcon.

 • Sombolero by Luiz Bonfa

Notes

 • Like a lot of people below, say, 55, I first heard about Olga Fikotova-Connolly when reading her 
obituary • in the New York Times.

 • By far the best thing you can do if you want to know more about her is track down her out-of-print memoir, 
The Rings of Destiny • , which, despite its rather puffed-up title, is so warm and detailed and intimate. It's a delight. 

 • You might also enjoy this 
late-in-life interview • with Olga as well. 

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Episode 218: Olga

Lyt når som helst, hvor som helst

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