All aboard for Season 4! We crash through snowy Russian landscapes and meander about pastoral Russian farmlands in our exploration of Russian foundational novel Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy. We certainly had enough to say on this one, which i

Fun Home

30 days ago 56m 30s

We round out season 3 of our little podcast with another graphic novel, this time from revered author Alison Bechdel and her 2006 masterpiece, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. There was so much to discuss here, including, but not limited to sexu

The Left Hand of Darkness

Mar 2nd, 2024 1h 6m

Now is the time to explore strange new alien civilizations, and thereby explore strange new ideas within ourselves with Ursula K. Le Guin's 1969 sci-fi classic The Left Hand of Darkness! We found a lot to engage with this month, especially in

Kindred

Feb 3rd, 2024 59m 19s

None of us can ever know what it was like to live the harrowing experience of being a black slave in America in the early 1800's, but Octavia Butler was determined to try and give her readers a taste in 1979's Kindred. While the book was not p

Hamlet

Jan 6th, 2024 1h 10m

Let us sit upon the ground and listen to nerdy podcasts about the death of kings. Alas, poor Hamlet! We reviewed it, dear listener! There was so much ground to cover in this legendary play by William Shakespeare and we mulled over wordplay,

Slaughterhouse-Five or The Children's Crusade

Dec 9th, 2023 1h 22m

It can be hard putting your life back together after the traumas of war, especially if you are perceiving different portions of your life out of order. Or at least you think you are. Come unstuck with us as we wander passively through the lif

The Secret History

Nov 11th, 2023 1h 16m

It's time we come clean about something with you...we covered the Secret History by Donna Tartt and we just can't hold it in any longer. Listen in on our confessions of researching the details of the murder filled book along with the mysteriou

Frankenstein; or, the Modern Prometheus

Oct 14th, 2023 1h 16m

The pumpkins are out, the wind is getting colder, it's time to hit the books and resurrect the dead! This month, we climb the glaciers of Switzerland and explore the involved and fascinating life of Frankenstein's author Mary Shelley. Further

A Wrinkle In Time

Sep 16th, 2023 1h 5m

Come along with us as we try to rescue ourselves from our youngest demographically targeted book yet, A Wrinkle In Time! While we may not cover impossible distances instantaneously, we do cover our regular broad range of topics, this time incl

Fight Club

Aug 19th, 2023 1h 33m

This month we're going underground talking about the book, movie, and phenomena that is Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. We break the first two rules of the club pretty brazenly as we discuss masculinity, facing your feelings honestly, and "hitti

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Jul 22nd, 2023 1h 18m

For America's birthday month, we decided to peruse Mark Twain's much discussed Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. There were so many topics to cover including geography, the long-term effects of alcoholism, river travel, and, of course, the uniqu

The Hobbit, or There and Back Again

Jun 24th, 2023 1h 13m

Set out with us on our summer reading journey with the Hobbit by the wizard himself, J.R.R. Tolkien. We find a lot of comfortable knowledge holes to explore in our travels without too many bumps or things we wish we didn't know along the way.

The Fountainhead

May 6th, 2023 1h 22m

Here's quite a book for our season 3 opener! If you've ever been curious what the Fountainhead is and what it's all about, come join for a rousing discussion on this much pointed to tome. We dive into the details of Ayn Rand's life, her follo

Watchmen

Apr 1st, 2023 1h 44m

In our giant-sized season closer, we square up against Alan Moore's seminal graphic novel Watchmen. This book contains so many details, nuggets, and plot elements that we had more than usual to say. Too much? You decide true, believer! We h

In Cold Blood

Mar 4th, 2023 1h 23m

The winds and rain of March seem like the perfect time to bring you our take on Truman Capote's true crime novel, In Cold Blood. In the episode, we discuss about the appeal of the true crime genre, prisons, and of course something relevant fro

The Color Purple

Feb 4th, 2023 1h 8m

Sometimes beautiful things are also very hard things and the Color Purple by Alice Walker is just like that. In our discussion we range over topics including abuse, racial tensions, and also the idea of rebuilding yourself after tremendous tra

The Bell Jar

Jan 7th, 2023 1h 20m

Perhaps appropriate for January and the post-holidays slump, we take a look at the Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath's singular novel. As we swim out, we discuss honesty in writing, personality disorders, and even have a culinary portion where we try a "

Little Women

Dec 3rd, 2022 1h 26m

Okay, hear me out, there was a lot more to talk about with Little Women than I thought there would be. We cartwheel over the topics of domesticity, sexual orientation, and transcendental history, all while wondering if Beth is going to pull th

The Kite Runner

Nov 5th, 2022 59m 18s

In this month's episode, we finally get around to reading a book I had deliberately been avoiding my whole life, The Kite Runner. I'm not exactly sure what made me want to read it, but coming back to things you've long been avoiding did to tur

Carrie

Oct 1st, 2022 1h 7m

For our October episode, we ran into the darkness with horror master Steven King and his first novel Carrie. We touch on high school trauma, anatomy, and have an in depth discussion on the life and works of King himself. Of course, we watched

Valley of the Dolls

Sep 3rd, 2022 1h 10m

Come along with us as we explore sex, drugs, and camp in Jacqueline Susann's bestseller Valley of the Dolls. We also...talk about the movie...yeesh. And because nothing's ever easy, we paired our conversation with a host of technical problems

Valley of the Dolls (Real)

Sep 3rd, 2022 1h 10m

Valley of the Dolls (Real)

Sep 3rd, 2022 1h 10m

The Grapes of Wrath

Aug 6th, 2022 1h 4m

It's late summer and that means it's time to celebrate the great American road trip! Maybe this trip with the Joads wasn't so great after all, but the Grapes of Wrath sure was. Ride with us in our podcast jalopy as we talk about unions, socia

Ender's Game

Jul 2nd, 2022 59m 41s

Next on our summer reading list, we voyage into a little science fiction with Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. We dig into biases, warfare, and latent messages within the book and it turns out there was a lot of important topics to talk about