It’s episode 217 and time for our Summer Media Update! We discuss shelf trophies, sumo wrestling, Kpop Demon Hunters, blogs in book form, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Jam
  • Bear and Breakfast (video game)
  • Artists on Artists on Artists on Artists (podcast)
    • "The Look" Summer Vacation Special
  • Stop Making Sense (Talking Heads concert film)
• Matthew
  • Sumo Wrestling
    • Blue Whirlwind - A Ukrainian sumo wrestler
    • Sumopedia
    • The places sumo matches happen are “sumo halls”
  • House to Astonish
    • The Lightning Round (Thunderbolts)
    • Daredevil Villains
  • Kpop Demon Hunters
    • Saja Boys - Soda Pop
• Meghan
  • Romantasy and BookTube (Bookhalla)
  • Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter series en francais (Les Aventures d'Anita Blake, tueuse de vampire)
  • The Necromancer's House by Christopher Buehlman
• Anna
  • Honey, I Joined a Cult
  • Puzzles
    • Odd Pieces
  • No Time To Spare: Thinking About What Matters by Ursula K. Le Guin

Other Media We Mentioned

• Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• Between Two Fires by Christopher Buehlman

Links, Articles, and Things

• LRR Twitch Stream Highlights 2025-08-16
• The pretty books YouTube short
• Chuck E. Cheese

True Crime books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Adnan's Story: The Search for Truth and Justice After Serial by Rabia Chaudry
• In the Ghost Shadows: The Untold Story of Chinatown's Most Powerful Crime Boss by Peter Chin and Everett De Morier
• Midnight in Mexico: A Reporter's Journey Through a Country's Descent into Darkness by Alfredo Corchado
• A Massacre in Mexico: The True Story behind the Missing Forty-Three Students by Anabel Hernández
• Stolen Life: The Journey of a Cree Woman by Yvonne Johnson and Rudy Wiebe
• Pulling the Chariot of the Sun: A Memoir of a Kidnapping by Shane McCrae
• Scam Goddess: Lessons from a Life of Cons, Grifts, and Schemes by Laci Mosley
• Underground: The Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche by Haruki Murakami, Alfred Birnbaum (Translator), Philip Gabriel (Translator)
• No Human Involved: The Serial Murder of Black Women and Girls and the Deadly Cost of Police Indifference by Cheryl Neely
• Cold Case North: The Search for James Brady and Absolom Halkett by Michael Nest, Deanna Reder, Eric Bell
• Never Saw Me Coming: How I Outsmarted the FBI and the Entire Banking System—and Pocketed $40 Million by Tanya Smith
• The Gangs of Zion: a Black cop's Crusade in Mormon Country by Ron Stallworth
• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson
• Death of Innocence: The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America by Mamie Till-Mobley and Christopher Benson
• Like Every Form of Love: A Memoir of Friendship and True Crime by Padma Viswanathan

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us on Tuesday, September 2nd we’ll be discussing Book Club Books, whatever that means.

Then on Tuesday, October 7th we’ll be discussing the genre of Vampires!

It’s episode 216 and time for us to talk about the genre of Rural Noir / Grit Lit! We discuss what counts as “rural,” whether “coastal noir” is a thing, how intense these stories can be, and more! Plus: Should fiction about Gritty (the mascot) be classified as about a "real person"?

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Recommend a genre for us to read in 2026!

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
• American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell
• Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden
• The White Girl by Tony Birch

Other Media We Mentioned

• True Grit by Charles Portis
• Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
• The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
• Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
• Hatchet by Gary Paulsen
• The Dry by Jane Harper
• Town Smokes by Pinckney Benedict
• Grit Lit: A Rough South Reader
• Scalped: The Deluxe Edition, Book One, by Jason Aaron and R.M. Guéra
• Rez Metal (documentary)
• Rez Metal: Inside the Navajo Nation Heavy Metal Scene by Ashkan Soltani Stone and Natale A Zappia
• Revolutions: Welcome to the Martian Revolution

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 049 - Southern Gothic
• List of states and territories of the United States by population density
  • Rhode Island is the 2nd most densely populated state
• Episode 057 - Nordic/Scandinavian Noir
• Casa Bonita
• Gritty (Hockey RPF) on AO3

11 Rural Noir and Grit Lit books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• The White Girl by Tony Birch
• All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby
• Blacktop Wasteland by S.A. Cosby
• Wounded by Percival Everett
• These Silent Woods by Kimi Cunningham Grant
• Madukka the River Serpent by Julie Janson
• Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke
• Too Much Lip by Melissa Lucashenko
• Wade in the Water by Nyani Nkrumah
• Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jesmyn Ward
• Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, August 19th when it’s time for our summer Media update when we’ll talk about books, comics, games, music and more!

Then on Tuesday, September 2nd we’ll be discussing Book Club Books, whatever that means.

It’s episode 215 and time for our annual Battle of the Books! This year we’re each pitching a non-fiction book we think we should all read and discuss and then you (our listeners) get to vote on which one! Plus! A chance for a listener to win a book!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

What Book Should We Read? (Click to vote by July 31st!)

• Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara
• Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly
• How to Read Now by Elaine Castillo
• How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler

Titles from our Short Lists

• Running Close to the Wind by Alexandra Rowland
• Why Are People Into That?: A Cultural Investigation of Kink by Tina Horn
• I Was a Stripper Librarian: From Cardigans to G-strings by Kristy Cooper
• A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to Know the World's Most Misunderstood Bird by Rosemary Mosco
• Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders by Vanessa Angélica Villarreal
• Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
• Harriet Tubman: Live in Concert by Bob the Drag Queen

Links, Articles, and Things

• Review of Mood Machine from Publishers Weekly
• The Ghosts in the Machine: Spotify’s plot against musicians by Liz Pelly
• If Books Could Kill

Previous episodes

• Episode 058 - The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making (2018)
• Episode 079 - Which Book Should We Read? (2019)
• Episode 083 - The Fifth Season
• Episode 103 - Battle of the Books 2020
• Episode 107 - Pet by Akwaeke Emezi
• Episode 130 - Battle of the Books 2021
• Episode 134 - Piranesi by Susanna Clarke
• Episode 154 - Battle of the Books 2022
• Episode 159 - Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose by Leigh Cowart
• Episode 179 - Battle of the Books 2023
• Episode 183 - One Book One Podcast: Upright Women Wanted
• Episode 196 - Battle of the Books 2024: One Book One Podcast
• Episode 202 - A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
• Matthew finally made a category

15 Supernatural Thrillers by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Five Midnights by Ann Dávila Cardinal
• Empire of Wild by Cherie Dimaline
• The Good House by Tananarive Due
• Shutter by Ramona Emerson
• The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson
• The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
• When Devils Sing by Xan Kaur
• Hammers on Bone by Cassandra Khaw
• Indian Burial Ground by Nick Medina
• Silver Nitrate by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Half-Resurrection Blues by Daniel José Older
• Trail of Lightning by Rebecca Roanhorse
• Model Home by Rivers Solomon
• Honeysuckle and Bone by Trisha Tobias
• The Haunting of Room 904 by Erika T. Wurth

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, August 5th when we’ll be discussing the genre of Rural Noir and Grit Lit!

Then on Tuesday, August 19th when it’s time for our summer Media update when we’ll talk about books, comics, games, music and more!

It’s episode 214 and time for us to talk about the genre/topic of Non-Traditional Storytelling! We discuss epistolary novels, novels in verse, punctuation, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra, translated by Megan McDowell
• Time Machine 2: Search For Dinosaurs and David Bischoff
• Inheritance by Daniel Arnold, Darrell Dennis, and Medina Hahn
  • Inheritance: a pick-the-path experience - trailer
• Bats of the Republic by Zachery Thomas Dodson
• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann
• Finding Baba Yaga by Jane Yolen

Other Media We Mentioned

• Choose Your Own Adventure
• S. by J.J. Abrams and Doug Dorst
• If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver
• Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World by Frances Burney
• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
• Ella Minnow Pea: A Novel in Letters by Mark Dunn
• A Void/La Disparition by Georges Perec, translated by Gilbert Adair
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
• We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
• Detroit: Become Human
  • Talking Simulator — Detroit: Become Human
• Garth Marenghi's Darkplace
  • “I know writers who use subtext and they're all cowards.”
• Wanted: Dead
• Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
• War and Peace by Lev Tolstoy, translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky
• Red: A Haida Manga by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas
• Blue Prince
• Can You Solve the Murder?: An Interactive Crime Novel by Antony Johnston
• The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 037 - Experimental Fiction
• Oulipo
• Reddit threads
• Books with experimental or unusual formats - multiple illustrations, combination of mediums, alternating structure etc
• Any books with unconventional or creative storytelling formats/structures you'd recommend?
• List of sandwiches
• Architecture student writes 149-page thesis without punctuation

15 Non-Traditional Storytelling books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Watercolor Women / Opaque Men: A Novel in Verse by Ana Castillo
• Inheritance: A Pick-the-Path Experience by Darrell Dennis, Medina Hahn, and Daniel Arnold 
• The Girl I Am, Was, And Never Will Be by Shannon Gibney
• The Last Final Girl by Stephen Graham Jones
• Inside Out & Back Again by Thanhha Lai
• Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
• This Could Have Become Ramayan Chamar's Tale: Two Anti-Novels by Subimal Misra, translated by V. Ramaswamy
• Monster by Walter Dean Myers
• Gabi, A Girl in Pieces by Isabel Quintero
• Ain’t Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds with art by Jason Griffin
• Please Stop Trying to Leave Me by Alana Saab
• Split Tooth by Tanya Tagaq with art by Jaime Hernandez
• Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon with art by Frank Yoon
• Interior Chinatown by Charles Yu
• Multiple Choice by Alejandro Zambra, translated by Megan McDowell 

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, July 15th. It's time for our “Battle of the Books!” We’ll each pitch a book, and our listeners (that means you) will get to vote on which one we all read.

Then on Tuesday, August 5th when we’ll be discussing the genre of Rural Noir/Grit Lit.

It’s episode 213 and time for us to talk about “Found Books,”  that is books that we’ve found in public little free libraries, book exchanges, and book swaps! We discuss the recently returned book cart, getting books for free, getting rid of books, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Aya: Life in Yop City by Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie
• The Long Walk: The True Story Of A Trek To Freedom by Slavomir Rawicz
• What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, translated by William Weaver
• Wicked Autumn by G.M. Malliet

Other Media We Mentioned

• Yiddish for Pirates by Gary Barwin
• Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
• Returnal
• Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, translated by Nancy Forest-Flier
• The Yucky Reptile Alphabet Book by Jerry Pallotta and Ralph Masiello
• White Dwarf (Warhammer magazine)

Links, Articles, and Things

• #UBCnoox
• Meghan’s map 
• Public bookcase (Wikipedia)
• Little Free Library (Wikipedia)
• Against Little Free Libraries
• Vegetarian Peanut Soup
• Cottage: North America
• Sudoku (Wikipedia)
• Paper embossing (Wikipedia)

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, July 1st when we’ll be discussing the genre/format of Non-Traditional Storytelling (e.g. not prose).

Then on Tuesday,  July 15th it’s time for our “Battle of the Books!” We’ll each pitch a book, and our listeners (that means you) will get to vote on which one we all read.

It’s episode 212 and time for us to talk about excellently complicate the non-fiction genre of Linguistics & Language! We discuss 🤔, our academic backgrounds, the power of words, accents, and more!  

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
• Fifty Sounds by Polly Barton
• In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri, translated by Ann Goldstein
• I is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How it Shapes the Way We See the World by James Geary
• Babel: Around the World in Twenty Languages by Gaston Dorren

Other Media We Mentioned

• 19 Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: With More Ways by Eliot Weinberger
• Through the Language Glass: Why the World Looks Different in Other Languages by Guy Deutscher
• Otherwords - Inside the Fiercest Debate in Linguistics
• Your Computer Is on Fire edited by Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Marie Hicks, and Kavita Philip
• What the Font?! - A Manga Guide to Western Typeface by Kuniichi Ashiya
• Giga Town: A Guide to Manga Iconography by Fumiyo Kouno, translated by Ko Ransom
• The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying by Marie Kondō, translated by Cathy Hirano
  • Occasional reminder that whenever you say "sparks joy" you are not quoting Marie Kondo.You are quoting her translator, Cathy Hirano. She invented "sparks joy" out of whole cloth. What Marie Kondo says is "This makes my heart go pitter pat.” -Zack Davisson
• Eine wie Alaska [Looking for Alaska] by John Green, translated by Sophie Zeitz
  • “I would read it in German, for a few reasons” - John Green
• Die kleine Fledermaus Wegda by Nanna Nesshöver and Wiebke Rauers
• Lingo: A Language Spotter's Guide to Europe by Gaston Dorren, translated by Alison Edwards

Links, Articles, and Things

• Great Vowel Shift (Wikipedia)
• Lolcat (Wikipedia)
• Kinokuniya
  • There are four Kinokuniya shops in Texas. Four! Put one in Denver!
• Abugida (Wikipedia)
• Episode 209 - Design

15 Language & Linguistics Books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Otter's Journey Through Indigenous Language and Law by Lindsay Keegitah Borrows
• The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom edited by Joanne Kilgour Dowdy and Lisa Delpit
• Tongues: On Longing and Belonging Through Language edited by Eufemia Fantetti, Leonarda Carranza, and Ayelet Tsabari
• Living Language Rights: Constitutional Pathways to Indigenous Language Education by Lorena Sekwan Fontaine
• Grammar Matters: The Social Significance of How We Use Language by Jila Ghomeshi
• A Tale of Monstrous Extravagance: Imagining Multilingualism by Tomson Highway
• My Broken Language: A Memoir by Quiara Alegría Hudes
• Et Cetera: An Illustrated Guide to Latin Phrases by Maia Lee-Chin with illustrations by Marta Bertello
• Translating Myself and Others by Jhumpa Lahiri
• Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter – Then, Now, and Forever by John McWhorter
• The Ecology of Language Evolution by Salikoko S. Mufwene
• Mâci-Nêhiyawêwin / Beginning Cree by Solomon Ratt with illustrations by Holly Martin
• Living Pidgin: Contemplations on Pidgin Culture by Lee A. Tonouchi
• Kingdom of Characters: The Language Revolution That Made China Modern by Jing Tsu
• Decolonizing Language and Other Revolutionary Ideas by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, June 3rd when we’ll be discussing “Found Books,”  that is books that we’ve found in public little free libraries, book exchanges, and book swaps.

Then on July 1st we’ll be talking about Non-Traditional Storytelling (e.g. fiction that’s not prose)!

 It’s episode 211 and we’re talking about books and other media we’ve enjoyed recently! We discuss early internet chatrooms, shuttlecocks, haunted dolls, what constitutes a “banger”, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

What We’re Into:

• Anna
  • Acid West by Joshua Wheeler
  • Two Point Museum
    • Trailer
  • R.E.P.O. || Crossing the Streams
    • R.E.P.O. on Stream
• Matthew
  • Never a Sidekick: Exploring the Dynamic History of Batgirl by Tim Hanley
  • Yakuza: Like a Dragon
    • 7 Weirdest Yakuza: Like a Dragon Quests That Were Bizarre Even by Yakuza Standards
  • Mantracks: a True Story of Fake Fossils
• Jam
  • WEBFISHING
    • Trailer
  • Murdle Volume 1 by G.T. Karber
  • RuPaul’s Drag Race adjacent media
    • Runnereye (YouTube)
    • Drag Her (podcast)
    • UpUntil Dawn (YouTube)
    • I Got Dr*nk and Built the Lego Tuxedo Cat (Crashout Included)
    • Crystal Envy & Lexi Love’s “Alter Ego” Lip Sync
    • Arrietty & Lydia B Kollins’ “Boogie Wonderland” Lip Sync
• Meghan
  • Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt
  • Badminton
    • Pilou
  • Meeting Infinity and Infinity Wars (short story collections)

Other Media We Mentioned

• Didi (film)
• Doechii - Denial is a River

Links, Articles, and Things

• RA in a Day
• folio - 019 - immanence 01 - with jam edwards & garbageface aka gnostic front aka karol orzechowski
• Spaceport America

15 Fairy Tales, Fables, Legends, Myths, and Folklore books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Women Wide Awake: Stories, Sculptures and Poems From Sindhi Folklore by  Nimra Bandukwala and Manahil Bandukwala

• Blue Bamboo: Japanese Tales of Fantasy and Romance by Osamu Dazai, translated by Ralph F. McCarthy

• The Annotated African American Folktales by Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Maria Tatar

• Blackberry Blue: And Other Fairy Tales by Jamila Gavin

• Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales by Virginia Hamilton, illustrated by Diane Dillon and Leo Dillon

• The Dragon Slayer: Folktales From Latin America by Jamie Hernandez

• Laughing with the Trickster: On Sex, Death, and Accordions by Tomson Highway

• Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson

• Living Ghosts & Mischievous Monsters: Chilling American Indian Stories by Dan SaSuWeh Jones, illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre

• An Introduction to Yōkai Culture: Monsters, Ghosts, and Outsiders in Japanese History by Komatsu Kazuhiko, translated by Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda

• Rediscovering Turtle Island: a First Peoples' Account of the Sacred Geography of America by Taylor Keen

• Night Stories: Folktales From Latin America by Liniers

• Mangoes, Mischief, and Tales of Friendship: Stories From India by Chitra Soundar, illustrated by Uma Krishnaswamy

• Vietnamese Folktales for Children: Stories of Adventure and Wonder in Vietnamese and English by Phuoc Thi Minh Tran, illustrated by Dong Nguyen and Hop Thi Nguyen

• The Little Hummingbird by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, May 6th when we’ll be discussing the genre/topic of Linguistics and Language!

Then on Tuesday, June 3rd we’ll be discussing “Found Books,” that is books that we’ve found in public little free libraries, book exchanges, and book swaps.

It’s episode 210 and time for us to talk about the genre of Romantasy! We discuss romance series, happily ever afters, tropes, social media, and more! Plus, special guest romance fiction researcher Christine Larson!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Wooing the Witch Queen by Stephanie Burgis, narrated by Amanda Leigh Cobb
• A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
• Assistant to the Villain by Hannah Nicole Maehrer
• The City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
  • The Significance Of S.A. Chakraborty’s Name Adjustment In Upcoming Book
• One Dark Window by Rachel Gillig
• Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
• Newt’s Emerald by Garth Nix  (not mentioned in episode)
• The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle L. Jensen (not mentioned in episode)
• Order of Swans by Jude Deveraux (not mentioned by name)

Other Media We Mentioned

• Love in the Time of Self-Publishing: How Romance Writers Changed the Rules of Writing and Success by Christine Larson
• Ender’s Game / Ender’s Shadow by Orson Scott Card
• Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
• Graceling by Kristin Cashore
• Redwall by Brian Jacques
• Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
• The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
• The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold
• Empty Crown by Rosemary Edgehill 
• A Kiss of Shadows by Laurell K. Hamiton

Links, Articles, and Things

• RA in a Day
• Episode 057 - Nordic/Scandinavian Noir
• Episode 202 - A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking
• Let Them Eat Tropes: Why Romantasy Needs to Grow Beyond Trends
• Did a Best-Selling Romantasy Novelist Steal Another Writer’s Story?
• What is ‘romantasy,’ and why can’t readers get enough? (Interview with Christine Larson)

15 Romantasy books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• This Monster of Mine by Shalini Abeysekara
• A Broken Blade by Melissa Blair
• Sing Me to Sleep by Gabi Burton
• Once More Upon a Time by Roshani Chokshi 
• Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
• Immortal Longings by Chloe Gong
• The Hurricane Wars by Thea Guanzon
• The Maid and the Crocodile by Jordan Ifueko
• Sinner's Isle by Angela Montoya
• Witchmark by C.L. Polk
• Lore of the Wilds by Analeigh Sbrana
• Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri
• Trial of the Sun Queen by Nisha J. Tuli
• The Prince Without Sorrow by Maithree Wijesekara
• The Scorpion and the Night Blossom by Amélie Wen Zhao

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, April 15th for our Spring Media Update! We’ll let you know about the media we’ve been enjoying recently that we haven’t experienced for the podcast.

Then on Tuesday, May 6th we’ll be discussing the genre/topic of Linguistics and Language!

 It’s episode 209 and time for us to talk about the genre of Design! We discuss graphic design, interior design, the line between design and art, fonts, kerning, footnotes, and more! Plus: Anna talks about evidence synthesis and search design!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Make Your Own Pixel Art: Create Graphics for Games, Animations, and More! by Jennifer Dawe and Matthew Humphries
• The Wright Style: Re-Creating the Spirit of Frank Lloyd Wright by Carla Lind 
• The Design of Books: An Explainer for Authors, Editors, Agents, and Other Curious Readers by Debbie Berne
• Maker Comics: Design a Game! by Bree Wolf and Jesse Fuchs
• Patternalia: An Unconventional History of Polka Dots, Stripes, Plaid, Camouflage, & Other Graphic Patterns by Jude Stewart
• Design: The Definitive Visual Guide

Other Media We Mentioned

• Graphic Wit: The Art of Humor in Design by Steven Heller and Gail Anderson
• Bear and Breakfast
• Two Point Campus
• Cat Cafe Manager 2
• Soviet Bus Stops by Christopher Herwig
• The Man in the Glass House: Philip Johnson, Architect of the Modern Century by Mark Lamster
• The 99% Invisible City: A Field Guide to the Hidden World of Everyday Design by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt

Links, Articles, and Things

• Folio - 019 - immanence 01 - with jam edwards & garbageface aka gnostic front aka karol orzechowski
• Jam's Pokémon design 
• Kerning
• River (typography)
• Ampelmännchen (East German pedestrian walk signal)

16 Design Books by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• The Power of Style: How Fashion and Beauty Are Being Used to Reclaim Cultures by Christian Allaire
• More Than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech by Meredith Broussard
• Unmasking AI: My Mission to Protect What Is Human in a World of Machines by Joy Buolamwini
• The Layered Edible Garden: A Beginner's Guide to Creating A Productive Food Garden Layer by Layer by Christina Chung
• Exploring Game Mechanics: Principles and Techniques to Make Fun, Engaging Games by Maithili Dhule
• Salish Blankets: Robes of Protection and Transformation, Symbols of Wealth by  Janice George, Leslie H. Tepper, and Willard Joseph
• Extra Bold: A Feminist, Inclusive, Anti-Racist, Nonbinary Field Guide for Graphic Designers by Josh A. Halstead, Leslie Xia, Farah Kafei, Kaleena Sales, Ellen Lupton, Valentina Vergara, and Jennifer Tobias
• Mismatch: How Inclusion Shapes Design by Kat Holmes
• Reimagined Worlds: Narrative Placemaking for People, Play, and Purpose : A Designer's Manifesto by Margaret Chandra Kerrison
• The Creative Gene: How Books, Movies, and Music Inspired the Creator of Death Stranding and Metal Gear Solid by Hideo Kojima
• User Friendly: How the Hidden Rules of Design Are Changing the Way We Live, Work, and Play by Cliff Kuang and Robert Fabricant
• Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble
• Now You See Me! An Introduction to 100 Years of Black Design by Charlene Prempeh
• Just Enough Design: Reflections on the Japanese Philosophy of Hodo-Hodo by Taku Satoh
• Side Quest: A Visual History of Roleplaying Games by Steenz and Samuel Sattin
• Decolonizing Design: A Cultural Justice Guidebook by Elizabeth (Dori) Tunstall

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, April 1st we’ll be talking about the genre of  Romantasy!

Then on Tuesday, April 15th it’s time for our Spring Media Update, as we talk about books and other things we haven’t read for the podcast.

It’s episode 208 and time for us to talk about our Reading Resolutions for 2025! We discuss our love of spreadsheets, the churn of books in public libraries, literacy, unschooling, and more! 

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

2025 Goals/Intentions/Etc.

• Jam
  • Theme of the year: “Cultivation”
  • Use Storygraph instead of Goodreads
    • Jam on Storygraph
  • Maybe put a book on the nightstand so I’ll read it before bed
• Meghan
  • Subscribe to print reading material
• Anna
  • Track favourite reads of the year in the spreadsheet
  • Try to figure out why she reads less fiction than she used to
• Matthew
  • Read every book on fiction to-read list published before the year 2000
  • Record the “why” when adding books to TBR

Other Media We Mentioned

• Folio podcast
  • Jam’s episode isn’t out yet
  • Immanence
• British Library Tales of the Weird
• The Year of the Locust by Terry Hayes
• The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, translated by Yuri Machkasov
• X-Men Classic Omnibus by Chris Claremont and others
• Role Models by John Waters
• Radical Unschooling: We NEED to Talk About This! 
• Sold a Story podcast

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 190 - Reading Resolutions and Rants
• r/AmItheAsshole (Wikipedia)
• If Books Could Kill (Wikipedia)

50 Recent Short Story Collections by BIPOC Authors:

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

For this list of short story collections, we’ve focused on titles published within the past four years.

• Ghostroots by ‘Pemi Aguda (2024)
• Coexistence: Stories by Billy-Ray Belcourt (2024)
• Death by a Thousand Cuts by Shashi Bhat (2024)
• Your Utopia by Bora Chung, translated by Anton Hur (2024)
• Green Frog by Gina Chung (2024)
• Weird Black Girls by Elwin Cotman (2024)
• Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil by Ananda Lima (2024)
• Peacocks of Instagram by Deepa Rajagopalan (2024)
• Convergence Problems by Wole Talabi (2024)
• Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (2024)
• A Kind of Madness by Uche Okonkwo (2024)
• Tomb Sweeping by Alexandra Chang (2023)
• Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology edited by Shane Hawk and Theodore C. Van Alst Jr. (2023)
• Every Drop Is A Man's Nightmare by Megan Kamalei Kakimoto (2023)
• No One Will Come Back for Us: And Other Stories by Premee Mohamed (2023)
• Drinking From Graveyard Wells by Yvette Lisa Ndlovu (2023)
• Jackal, Jackal by Tobi Ogundiran (2023)
• Tiger Work by Ben Okri (2023)
• Skin Thief by Suzan Palumbo (2023)
• Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele (2023)
• Let’s Go Let’s Go Let’s Go by Cleo Qian (2023)
• New Suns 2: More Original Speculative Fiction by People of Color edited by Nisi Shawl (2023)
• The Goth House Experiment by SJ Sindu (2023)
• Chrysali by Anuja Varghese (2023)
• Tell Me Pleasant Things About Immortality by Lindsay Wong (2023)
• The Hive and the Honey by Paul Yoon (2023)
• Girlfriends by Emily Zhou (2023)
• Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang (2022)
• Fiona and Jane by Jean Chen Ho (2022)
• God's Children Are Little Broken Things by Arinze Ifeakandu (2022)
• Self-Portrait with Ghost by Meng Jin (2022)
• The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories by Jamil Jan Kochai (2022)
• Bliss Montage by Ling Ma (2022)
• Uncertain Kin by Janice Lynn Mather (2022)
• The Memory Librarian by Janelle Monae  (2022)
• The Consequences by Manuel Muñoz (2022)
• Man Made Monsters by Andrea Rogers (2022)
• Night of the Living Rez by Morgan Talty (2022)
• Her First Palestinian by Saeed Teebi (2022)
• Africa Risen: A New Era of Speculative Fiction by Sheree Renée Thomas, Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki, and Zelda Knight (2022)
• Buffalo is the New Buffalo by Chelsea Vowel (2022)
• Home of the Floating Lily by Silmy Abdullah (2021)
• Skinship by Yoon Choi (2021)
• Tainna: The Unseen Ones by Norma Dunning (2021)
• Eat The Mouth That Feeds You by Carribean Fragoza (2021)
• My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (2021)
• The Rock Eaters by Brenda Peynado (2021)
• 100 Boyfriends by Brontez Purnell (2021)
• Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So (2021)
• Never Have I Ever by Isabel Yap (2021)

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, March 4th when we’ll be talking about the genre of Design!

Then on Tuesday, April 1st we’ll be talking about the genre of  Romantasy!