Another Book on the Shelf

Another Book on the Shelf

By Gen and JetteArtsBooks
Download on the App Store

Another Book on the Shelf episodes

  • 118 - Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Kawaguchi Toshikazu

    In Episode 118, Gen and Jette continue their series #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt with Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi. It takes place in a Tokyo cafe that allows people to time travel...though there are a few rules. We're always suckers for a time travel story and immediately fell in love with this one.
    Show Notes
    Before the Coffee Gets Cold actually began as a stage ply and was adapted into a novel in 2015.
    There is also a film adaptation that came out in 2018, and in 2021 it was announced that the novel was being developed for television.
    The cafe in the novel is called Funiculi Funicula after the song, which was apparently written to mark the opening of the first funicular railway on Mount Vesuvius. The more you know.
    If you want more of us losing our minds over time travel particulars, check out one of our very early episodes (episode 9!) about Eating the Dinosaur by Chuck Klosterman.
    In our next episode we'll be continuing with another series, Page to Screen, and talking about Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk alongside the 1999 film.
    Other Books Mentioned
    Before the Coffee Gets Cold: Tales from the Cafe by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
    Before Your Memory Fades by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

    1 hr 5 min
  • 117 - Coach House Books - Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras

    In Episode 117, Gen and Jette discuss a new release from Coach House Books — Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras, translated by Rhonda Mullins. We always love the unique books from Coach House, and this one is no exception.
    Show Notes
    Obviously we talked about Paper Houses by Dominique Fortier (also translated by Rhonda Mullins).
    The books we read from Coach House never fail to make us looks at writing in a fresh way and spark our creativity.
    Shout out to Rhonda Mullins for her amazing translation of so many wonderful books!
    In our next episode we'll be talking about Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
    Other Coach House Episodes
    Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century by Kim Fu
    Because the Sun by Sarah Burgoyne
    2020 Fall Releases (The Imago Stage by Karoline Georges, Fauna by Christiane Vadnais, The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann)
    Disfigured by Amanda Leduc
    Paper Houses by Dominique Fortier
    And Miles to Go Before I Sleep by Jocelyne Saucier

    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    56 min
  • 116 - Another Cup of Tea - Winter Hangout 2023

    In episode 116, Gen and Jette sit down with a cup of tea for a casual chat about what they've been up to and what they have planned for the spring, and of course what they've been reading.


    Show Notes
    Gen is co-hosting two yoga and writing retreats in the summer — one in Fort Erie and one in Prince Edward County — find out more about them at Wild Wandering Creations.
    Next time you're in Boston, make sure to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum — or at least read up about one of the most infamous unsolved art heists.
    Jette stumbled across a new cafe last time she was in NYC. It's called The Lost Draft and it sounds amazing.
    Check out Self Made Hero, a graphic novel company that publishes a lot of biography and non-fiction titles.
    If you haven't already hopped on the astronomy nerd train with us, check out Episode 107 about How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Michael E. Brown
    In our next episode we'll be talking about a new Coach House release — Sing, Nightingale by Marie Hélène Poitras, translated by Rhonda Mullins.
    Our current book club pick is The Writing Life by Annie Dillard.

    Books & Media Mentioned
    The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
    Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips
    The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay
    Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino
    Minor Feelings by Cathy Park Hong
    The Witches Don't Burn by Isabel Sterling
    Spellbook of the Lost and Found by Moïra Fowley Doyle
    Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman
    Steering the Craft by Ursual K. LeGuin
    The Writing of Fiction by Edith Wharton
    Survive the Night by Riley Sager
    The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager
    The Only One Left by Riley Sager (coming June 20)
    Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney
    The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman
    On Photography by Susan Sontag
    At Work by Annie Leibovitz
    Thoreau and Me by Cédric Taling
    Basquiat by Julian Voloj & Søren Mosdal
    The Neverending Stoy by Michael Ende

    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    45 min
  • 115 - Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion

    In Episode 115, Gen and Jette talk about Jette's most recent book club pick — Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. How have we gone 115 episodes before doing a Didion episode? I know, right. While Jette can't remember where the idea for this book as her pick even came from, she's glad she picked it. This collection of essays from the 1960s, mostly focusing on California, makes it clear why Didion is a classic.

    Show Notes

    If you're ever in LA, you must visit the Howard Hughes Headquarters

    This is the SNL skit that Jette is still laughing at – The Californians

    If you love Joan Didion be sure to check out the Netflix documentary The Centre Will Not Hold

    Other Works by Joan Didion

    The Year of Magical Thinking

    Blue Nights

    The White Album

    South and West: From a Notebook

    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    1 hr 17 min
  • 114 - Hayley Aldridge is Still Here by Elissa R. Sloan

    In Episode 114, Gen and Jette read the latest novel from Elissa R. Sloan, Hayley Aldridge is Still Here. The novel follows the life of former child star Hayley Aldridge as she tells her story and works to get out from under a conservatorship that she's been in for a decade. Sound familiar? Sloan draws on the real life stars of the '90s and early '00s and slots Hayley's story seamlessly into that history. 

    If you loved the Sloan's last book, The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes (which we talked about in Episode 60), you're going to love this one.

    Show Notes

    We really did treat our young celebrities very badly back in the day. A lot of what makes Hayley Aldridge so effective is knowing that everything that happened to her was also happening in real life.

    Reading this made us think of so many young stars, such as Drew Barrymore, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes, and Brad Renfro. 

    So, conservatorships should be banned, right? Why are they allowed?

    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    1 hr 2 min
  • 113 - Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin

    In Episode 113, Gen and Jette return to one of their all time favourite authors, James Baldwin. We're finally talking about Giovanni's Room, probably Baldwin's most well known novel. Get ready to be devastated and blown away by Baldwin's writing all over again. (No, we'll never get over it. Yes, we will continue to ramble our glowing praise.)


    Show Notes:
    Did anyone out there read any James Baldwin at the university level or do many of us have this appalling gap in our literary education?
    As always, there were some lines in this novel that absolutely wrecked us. Which one is living in your brain rent free for the rest of time?
    For more about Paris, listen to Episode 97 about A Waiter in Paris by Edward Chisholm.
    For more James Baldwin, check out Episode 55 on Another Country and Episode 61 where we talk about If Beale Street Could Talk and the film adaptation.
    In our next episode we'll be returning to another well loved author, Elissa R. Sloan, with her latest book Hayley Aldridge is Still Here. The episode is out February 15, the day after the book's release date.

    Other Books by James Baldwin
    Another Country
    If Beale Street Could Talk
    Go Tell It on the Mountain
    Notes of a Native Son
    The Fire Next Time
    The Devil Finds Work

    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    53 min
  • 112 - Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips

    In Episode 112, it's time for another instalment of our unofficial graphic novel book club — this time with Fatale by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. We cover volumes 1 & 2 (with little sneak peeks at volumes 3–5) of this supernatural noir thriller from one of the most celebrated duos in graphic novels today.


    Show Notes
    Ed Brubaker has won a whopping 7 Eisner Awards for his work, which includes Batman, Catwoman, Winter Soldier, Criminal, Incognito, and Reckless among many others.
    Sean Phillips' son also works in graphic novels and has actually done some of the colouring for Phillips' work.
    We loved diving into all these different decades and getting a bit more of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythology (even if we still can't pronounce it).
    For more graphic novel goodness, check out our episodes on Shade, the Changing Girl, The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, Fun Home , and Something is Killing the Children. And listen to our interviews with Stephanie Cooke, and with husband and wife duo Brenda Hickey and Troy Little of Pegamoose Press.

    In our next episode we'll be talking about Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin.

    Other Books by Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips
    Reckless
    Criminal
    Incognito
    Fatale
    The Fade Out
    Kill or Be Killed
    My Heroes Have Always Been Junkies

    48 min
  • 111 - The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

    In Episode 111, Gen and Jette talk about their most recent book club book, The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle. It's a retelling of H.P. Lovecraft's short story, "The Horror at Red Hook" that subverts the xenophobic message of the original tale.


    Show Notes:
    We fell down a Lovecraft rabbit hole that made us realize how little we know about him (and how many references we probably missed in the novel!)
    As with so many books we read, we now want to get our hands on everything else Victor  LaValle has written...and also up out Lovecraft knowledge so we're better prepared to catch those references
    Turns out we've inadvertently made Lovecraft the theme for January. For more Lovecraftian vibes, stay tuned for our next episode on Ed Brubaker's graphic novel Fatale.
    Read along with our current book club pick, Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.

    Other Books Mentioned
    By Victor LaValle – Slapboxing with Jesus, The Ecstatic, Big Machine, The Devil in Silver, The Changeling, and Destroyer (graphic novel)
    The Girls by Emma Cline
    The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
    Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
    The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin
    Lovecraft Country by Matt RuffDon’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    1 hr 1 min
  • 110 - 2022 Holiday Wrap Up

    It's our last episode of 2022, so we're taking a look back at our reading and writing goals for the year, as well as looking ahead to 2023.


    Show Notes:
    We may have dropped the ball on 52 Weeks of Short Stories, but that doesn't mean we won't try something new in 2023. The Artist's Way, anyone?
    Jette is so close to being done her graphic novel script!
    Gen finally finished the first draft of her YA novel!
    We can't wait for all the events next year, like Word on the Street, TCAF, and Toronto Festival of Authors.
    Stelliform Press is a new to us publisher that we hope to work with in the new year!
    Check out our holiday wrap-up blog post for more of our 2023 reading and writing goals.
    Our first book club pick of 2023 is Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion.

    Books Mentioned:
    Ghost World by Daniel Clowes
    The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin
    I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
    Bitter by Akwaeke Emezi
    Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
    The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
    Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV & Werther Dell'Edera
    Hawkeye by Matt Fraction & David Aja
    Sandford Meisner on Acting
    How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming by Michael E. Brown
    Persuasion by Jane Austen
    21 Things You May Not Know About the Indian Act by Bob Joseph
    Through the Woods by Emily Carrol
    Shades of Fear edited by Allison O'Toole
    By Chance or Providence by Becky Cloonan
    Making A Scene by Constance Wu
    Paper Houses by Dominique Fortier
    Thoreau and Me by Cedric Taling
    The Book of Magic by Alice Hoffman
    Book of Accidents by Chuck Wendig


    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    41 min
  • 109 - Pet by Akwaeke Emezi

    In Episode 109, Gen and Jette discuss Pet by Akwaeke Emezi. We absolutely loved this one and are now planning on reading everything Emezi has written, including Bitter, the prequel story to Pet.


    Show Notes:
    This episode is in keeping with our annual December tradition of replacing a discussion about a certain series featuring a certain boy wizard in favour of queer, and especially trans, stories. Check out last year's discussion of A Lesson in Vengeance by Victoria Lee, and our episode on Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas from the year before that.

    The name of the poem by Dylan Thomas featuring the line "rage against the dying of the light" is called "Do not go gentle into that good night." Another poem that Gen loves is, "In my craft or sullen art." The radio play that she has yet to read is called Under Milk Wood.

    Emezi's novel You Made A Fool of Death with Your Beauty, their first romance, is partially inspired by Florence + The Machine's song "Hunger." That might be enough for us to give romance a try.

    Other Books by Akwaeke Emezi
    Bitter
    The Death Vivek Oji
    Freshwater
    You Made A Fool of Death with Your Beauty
    Dear Senthuran: A Black Spirit Memoir


    Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter or email us at [email protected]. We’d love to hear from you! Sign up for our newsletter and add us to Pinterest!

    58 min

About Another Book on the Shelf

From the publisher's feed

We started a book club but never actually talked about the books, so we started a podcast! And here we are almost a decade later.