What Did They Read?

Dungeon Crawler Carl

Matt Dinniman

Mentions3 mentions
First heard16 June 2026
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Episodes about this book

3 episodes

The Only 12 Lessons Buried In Every Self-Help Book - Spencer Greenberg - #1161

Modern Wisdom, 10 October 2026. The book comes up at 1 hr 4 min in. It comes up in passing.

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Combating the Whirlwind with a Single Sheet of Paper

Deep Questions with Cal Newport, 5 October 2026. The book comes up at 59 min 52 sec in.

Cal Newport read Dungeon Crawler Carl for a book group. He describes the 'lit RPG' genre — structured like a video game with achievements and level-ups — and notes a pacing revelation: the story spends so long on early levels that you eventually realise it will take an entire series to clear the dungeon, which he compares to discovering that the TV series Lost would run for multiple seasons.

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Summer Chat: Reading + Father's Day EP 463

Best of Both Worlds Podcast, 16 June 2026. The book comes up at 32 min 23 sec in.

Sarah Hart Unger mentions that her son Cameron is enthusiastic about the Dungeon Crawler Carl series. New installments keep appearing and are phone-book-sized, so they keep him occupied; he may be nearly caught up with the latest releases.

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September 2026

Combating the Whirlwind with a Single Sheet of Paper

Compiled from Cal Newport’s Deep Questions. Books read, not necessarily recommendations.

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All summaries are AI generated based on the original transcript.