We're back to finish the fight - this week we take on the third and final book in EL James' Fifty Shades of Grey trilogy.
It's not that a book about a BDSM relationship (complete with graphic sex scenes) can't be good, it's just that THESE books are intensely frustrating. The repetitive prose and awkward sex end up back in our crosshairs, but this time around we pay especial attention to Ana and Christian and just how frustrating they are as characters.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
This week we're going around the world -- in 80 days, no less! Well, actually, Andrew read Jules Verne's classic globetrotting adventure Around the World in Eighty Days, but we still TALK about a lot of places even if we don't go there.
Other travel tips include cultural broad strokes. fast food pranks, and scientific romance.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
Our belated bonus episode for November tackles Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, a seminal work of Nigerian literature and a look at the bad things that can happen when cultures clash.
Join us for a treatise on present wrapping, discussions of colonialism and yams, and a tiny, disturbing sneak peek into our next 50 Shades of Grey talk.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
War...war never changes. But it does get more and more absurd the deeper you dive into Joseph Heller's Catch-22.
Join us for a discussion of potato tips, alternate podcast titles, double binds and logic traps, and the celebrity resemblance of one Major Major Major Major.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
Flannery O'Connor was a master of the Southern Gothic short story. Her characters are vivid, her turns of phrase equal parts memorable and chilling. These stories make you laugh, make you cringe, and sometimes make you wish you could forget how they end.
This week we chat about two or three collected O'Connor stories, including the renowned A Good Man is Hard to Find. Other topics include desktop deodorant, the science of smooching, the good old days, and the ultimate fate of the baby from Nevermind.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
Every once in awhile you read a character study about a character who is uniquely unpleasant to study—such is the case with John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces, a thoroughly delightful book about the thoroughly repulsive Ignatius J. Reilly.
Join us for a discussion of baby birthdays, Seinfeld, dialect, jelly donuts, and solo hobbies.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
Mary Renault's The Last of the Wine depicts Ancient Greece as truthfully as possible. It is historical fiction filled with war, political intrigue, pederasty and explicit homosexual love - the likes of which were rather scandalous when she published it in the 1950s.
Her book also spawned an episode complete with discussions of Mr(s). Doubtfire, Alexander the Fine, unread text messages, and mummy libraries.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
To close out Spooktober, we thought it only appropriate that we gather around the digital campfire and swap some spooooooky stories. Tales told include the Legend of Bloody Mary, an email forward about spiders, The Hook, and a rather disturbing story about Soviet sleep science gone horribly wrong (no really this one's actually sort of graphic and gross).
We forgot the s'mores, but we didn't forget to talk about pleasing terrors, picking up mummies, haunted sandwiches, and Oklahoma ghost stories.
This week we go back to the Brontë well to read Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, the only novel she published before her untimely death at the age of 30.
Wuthering Heights is about romance, vengeance, catching cold, inheriting property, and the perils of attempting to marry above or below your station - all the hallmarks of a good 19th century novel, in other words. We also talk about Thanksgiving, spelling bees, and Muppet Babies - all the hallmarks of an Overdue episode, in other words.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
Though not conventionally spooky, Daphne du Maurier's classic novel Rebecca is a perfect fit for Spooktober. It takes place at a big creepy (but beautiful) house. There's an evil maid. And the late wife of Maxim de Winter haunts every action, every line of dialogue. Rebecca's also a powerful exploration and indictment of how women can have their identity defined for them.
Join us for a chat about terrible husbands, Halloween costumes, plagiarism, old people, and Ace Ventura.
Support the show by buying the book!
Bookshop.org · Kobo · Nook
