Another Book on the Shelf

Episode 168 is our first hangout episode of 2025! As always we chat about what we've been up to, what we've been reading, and what we've been (not) writing.
Show Notes
Shout out to all our library apps always (Libby and Hoopla, we're looking at you), and also LibroFM. It's the audiobook app that lets you support your favourite local bookstore at the same time. (This is not a paid ad, we just love them.) We both support our local indie horror bookshop, Little Ghosts Books.
We both agree that 2025 has not been it so far, but there are so many books coming out this year that we're looking forward to. Keep an eye out for Gen's upcoming blog post about their most anticipated releases in March!
Our next episode is an instalment of Page to Screen. We'll be reading Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and watching the film adaptation of the same name.
After that we'll be reading Alone in Space, a graphic novel by Tillie Walden. (You might remember Tillie Walden as the artist for Tegan and Sara's graphic novel Junior High. We talked about it in Episode 123.)
Don't forget to read along with our book club pick, Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler.
Books and Media Mentioned
Her Majesty's Royal Coven Trilogy by Juno Dawson
Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater
Run Towards the Danger by Sarah Polley
The Wandering Fire by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman
The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle
Book Lovers by Emily Henry
Light Carries On by Ray Nadine
Private Rites by Julia Armfield
Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert
Little Fish by Casey Plett
Season of the Bruja by Aaron Duran and Sara Soler
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
The Cull by Kelly Thompson and Mattia de Iulius
Over My Dead Body by Sweeney Boo
House of Slaughter Vol. 2 by James Tynion IV, Sam Johns, Letizia Candonici
The Neighbors by Jude Ellison S. Doyle and Letizia Candonici
Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies by Léonie Bischoff and Jenna Allen
The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore by Laurie Gilmore
Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday (audiobook featuring voice work by Joshua Jackson!)
Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison
Cackle by Rachel Harrison
A Sea of Unspoken Things by Adrienne Young
Model Home by Rivers Solomon
Goddess of Filth by V. Castro
The Afterdark by E. Latimer
Weyward by Emilia Hart
Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch
Didion and Babitz by Lili Anolik
They Bloom at Night by Trang Thanh Tran
The Nice House on the Lake by James Tynion IV and Álvaro Martínez Bueno

In Episode 167, Gen and Jette discuss their latest book club pick, The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. As children of the nineties ourselves, we loved revisiting this decade through Klosterman's pop culture lens.
Show Notes
One of our earliest episodes—episode 9!—was also a Chuck Klosterman book. We read his essay collection Eating the Dinosaur and absolutely loved it.
This might be our longest episode. There was so much jam-packed into this book we could have talked about each chapter for an hour.
Our next episode is a hangout episode. We'll be talking about everything we've been up to lately.
Later this month we'll be doing another Page to Screen episode about Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and the film adaptation
For our next book club pick we'll be reading Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. It's a dystopian novel that takes place in 2024, in a world ravaged by climate change. Gen's been meaning to read it for years, and decided it's finally time.
More Books by Chuck Klosterman
Fargo Rock City
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
Killing Yourself to Live
But What If We're Wrong
I Wear the Black Hat
Chuck Klosterman IV
Chuck Klosterman X
Other Books and Media Mentioned
Generation X by Douglas Coupland
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Prozac Nation by Elizabeth Wurtzel
Falling Down
In the Company of Men
American History X
Jurassic Park
Dallas
The Sopranos
Seinfeld
The Pit
Romeo + Juliet
Titanic
The Phantom Menace
The Matrix
American Beauty
The Blair Witch Project

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, it's time for our annual James Baldwin episode. This year we're reading Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Show Notes
Thankfully, we're not close to running out of Baldwin books just yet, but we may have to do a retrospective at some point anyway. Really we just want an excuse to re-read Another Country.
Go Tell It On the Mountain is on both Modern Library and Time's list of Top 100 Books of the 20th Century. (The Time list is actually weirdly specific to between 1923 and 2005, but it's easier to say 20th century.)
Find the full list of all our James Baldwin episodes below.
The next episode is a book club episode and we'll be reading Jette's pick, The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. As children of the 90s, we're looking forward to revisiting this decade.
Other James Baldwin Episodes
55: Another Country
61: If Beale Street Could Talk
113: Giovanni's Room
141: Notes of a Native Son

Episode 165 is another instalment of #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt, and this time Gen and Jette are reading Book Lovers by Emily Henry.
Show Notes
The banter between Nora and Charlie is perfect and we need to know if this is true for all Emily Henry books.
The town hall meeting was giving major Gilmore Girls vibes and we loved it.
We love a Sarah MacLachlan reference.
The next episode is our beloved annual James Baldwin episode. We'll be reading Go Tell It On the Mountain.
Don't forget to read along with our book club pick, The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman, which we'll be talking about in early March.
Update - The Rural Diaries and Slouching Towards Bethlehem are still holding strong at #1 and #2
Other Books by Emily Henry
Beach Read
People We Meet on Vacation
Happy Place
Funny Story
Great, Big, Beautiful Life (Coming April 2025)
Other Books Mentioned
The Dream Harbor Series by Laurie Gilmore
Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper
More #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt Episodes
60: The Unraveling of Cassidy Holmes by Elissa R. Sloan
69: These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong
75: Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley
86: Our Violent Ends by Chloe Gong
99: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
114: Hayley Aldridge is Still Here by Elissa R. Sloan
118: Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi
125: Verity by Colleen Hoover
139: The Twist of the Knife by Anthony Horowitz
154: I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones

In Episode 164, Gen and Jette talk about the graphic novel, Light Carries On, by Ray Nadine. The story follows Leon and the ghost of Cody, who is tethered to Leon's camera.

Show Notes
Is ghost romance it's own sub-genre? It should be. And if it is we would like to read all the rest of them please. So far in this theme we also have Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore and Cemetery Boys by Aiden Thomas.
Speaking of Cemetery Boys, the sequel comes out later this year and we are stoked!
We loved the art style in this one and the way that it helped build the atmosphere and tone of the story.
Of course graphic novels always get us excited for TCAF (Toronto Comic Arts Festival). It's already in our calendars even though it's not until June.
Our next episode is #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt and we're finally reading some Emily Henry. We're leaning into our love of books with, you guessed it, Book Lovers.

Other Books & Authors Mentioned
Everything is Going Wrong edited by Mark Bouchard
Raise Hell by Jordan Alsaqa & Ray Nadine
A Sea of Unspokend Things by Adrienne Young
Monstress by Sana Takeda & Marjorie Liu
The Night Eaters by Marjorie Liu
Lucy Foley

Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram and check out our website!

It's a new year and we're kicking it off, as always, with a book club episode. Gen's pick for the end of 2024 was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It follows the narrator through his journal entries as he records his life amongst the statues and tides that occupy a series of labyrinthine halls that he calls home.
Show Notes
This one prompted a discussion about what counts as fantasy.
Piranesi is only Susanna Clarke's second novel, published sixteen years after her debut, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell was adapted for TV as a miniseries by BBC1. It came out in 2014.
Our next book club book is Jette's pick and we're revisiting Chuck Klosterman with his essay collection, The Nineties.
As is now January tradition, our next episode is a graphic novel episode. We'll be talking about Light Carries On by Ray Nadine.
Other Books & Media Mentioned
Peter Pan by JM Barrie
His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
Stephen King
Starling House by Alix E. Harrow
The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for Gen and Jette to see how they did on the reading and writing goals they set back in January. (Spoiler: We crushed the audiobook minutes.)
Show Notes
We recorded part of the episode and then had technical difficulties, so the first part of this is re-recorded. Since it's the first time we've lost any significant audio in 162 episodes, we think we've done pretty well so far.
We're already pencilling in an episode for Her Majesty's Royal Coven, Book 3.
Our first episode back in January will be on Wednesday the 8th, since doing it on the 1st seemed kinda weird. We'll be talking about Gen's book club pick, Piranesi by Susanna Clarke.
Jette's book club pick for January/February is The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. Going back to our roots to kick off the year!
Books and Media Mentioned
House of Hollow by Krystal Sutherland
The Wedding Witch by Erin Sterling
The Kiss Curse by Erin Sterling
Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore
The Society for Soulless Girls by Laura Steven
The Christmas Tree Farm by Laurie Gilmore
Southern Cross by Becky Cloonan
Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio
Payback's a Witch by Lana Harper
Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss
The Ex Hex by Erin Sterling
Just Kids by Patti Smith
The House Where Death Lives edited by Alex Brown
We Mostly Come Out at Night edited by Rob Costello
From Here to the Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley & Riley Keogh
My Murder by Katie Williams
The Pumpkin Spice Cafe by Laurie Gilmore
If Something Happens to Me by Alex Finlay
The Unmaking of June Farrow by Adrienne Young
Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon
Horror Movie by Paul Tremblay
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl's Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom
The Other Olympians: Fascism, Queerness, and the Making of Modern Sports by Michael Waters
The Cinnamon Bun Bookstore by Laurie Gilmore
Canadian Boyfriend by Jenny Holiday
Come Out Come Out by Alexia Onyx
Private Rites by Julia Armfield

It's Non-Fiction November and NaNoWriMo, so for Episode 160 we decided to read Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami. In this essay collection, Murakami talks about everything from his journey as a novelist to his writing routine to his thoughts on school and literary prizes.
Show Notes
As you can probably guess, we absolutely loved this one and we're thinking it's time to read a Murakami novel on the pod. Anyone have any favourites?
Shout out to all translators and especially Rhonda Mullins, who translated several of the books in translation that we've read for the podacst, including pod favourite, Paper Houses.
Our next episode is our annual F*ck You JK episode. We're reading Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore, which is super queer and will also let us have a bit of a spooky season revival.
Other Books and Authors Mentioned
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
On Writing by Stephen King
Books by Haruki Murakami
What I Talk About When I Talk About Running
Norwegian Wood
Wind Up Bird Chronicles
Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
1Q84
Kafka on the Shore
(and more!)

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!

Episode 159 is a book club episode. Gen and Jette talk about Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids. The book chronicles her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their early days in New York City before they were the artists we know them as today.
Show Notes
This book. THIS BOOK! We just want to be artists doing all the things with our soulmate muses.
We saw Patti Smith at Budweiser Stage last summer. She was incredible and exactly as cool as you'd think. Listen to her cover of Neil Young's "After the Gold Rush" if you want to cry.
Patti Smith wrote this book for Robert Mapplethorpe and we'll by crying about it forever.
Check out the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation to see some of his work.
We're going to be reading everything else Patti Smith has written.
This podcast is taking a stand against deckled edges. They are the WORST.
Next episode we'll be honouring non-fiction November and NaNoWriMo (though we are not participating) with Haruki Murakami's book, Novelist as a Vocation.
Our next book club selection is Gen' pick, and we'll be reading Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, about a labyrinthine house.
Other Books by Patti Smith
M Train
Devotion