Book Club for Masochists: a Readers' Advisory Podcast

In our first genre for 2017 we take on Coming-of-Age books! We discuss whether coming-of-age needs to be about teenagers, whether it needs to be fiction, and what happens if characters never age. Plus: Alliterative authors, our inability to pronounce the word bildungsroman (among other words…), and a brand new type of audio problem.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan E. Coyote
• The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
• Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota

Read

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Did Not Finish

• Ham on Rye by Charles Bukowski
• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
• Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

Other Books Mentioned

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides (the book we said Robert read)
• So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane
• The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and others
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)
• Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
• The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice (the little kid vampire was Claudia)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1 by Bryan Lee O'Malley
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Links and Other Things

• Article about Le Grand Meaulnes (the book Matthew told Anna to read) in The Guardian
• Bildungsroman (Wikipedia)
• Slash Fiction (Wikipedia)
• Fanon (Wikipedia)
• Supernatural: The Monster at the End of This Book
• Episode 004: Psychological Thrillers
• YouTube Star Sponsors The Fastest Rising Football Club in England (the John Green soccer video game thing)
• Jubilee (Wikipedia)

Bildungsroman sample from "Oxford Dictionaries" on YouTube

The magic sound is "fairy magic wand" by Robinhood76 from freesound.org

Questions

• Do you think coming-of-age books have to be about young people?
• Have you intentionally read a book because it featured a coming-of-age theme?
• What's your favourite book from this genre?
• Have you managed to come-of-age yet?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the Coming-of-Age books people in the club read (or tried to read), follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us on Tuesday, February 7th, when we discuss Reading Tracking and Challenges, then on Tuesday, February 21st for our next genre, Non-Fiction Romance/Relationships/Dating!

In our first genre for 2017 we take on Coming-of-Age books! We discuss whether coming-of-age needs to be about teenagers, whether it needs to be fiction, and what happens if characters never age. Plus: Alliterative authors, our inability to pronounce the word bildungsroman (among other words…), and a brand new type of audio problem.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran
• Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
• Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
• Tomboy Survival Guide by Ivan E. Coyote
• The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson
• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
• Lucky Penny by Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota

Read

• The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
• The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman
• Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

Did Not Finish

• Ham on Rye  by Charles Bukowski
• Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
• Wizard of Earthsea  by Ursula K. Le Guin

Other Books Mentioned

• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Middlesex  by Jeffrey Eugenides  (the book we said Robert read)
• So You Want to be a Wizard by Diane Duane
• The Sandman, Vol. 1: Preludes and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman, Sam Kieth, and others
• Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
• Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman
• The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)
• Ms. Marvel, Vol. 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
• The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice (the little kid vampire was Claudia)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao  by Junot Díaz
• Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
• Scott Pilgrim, Vol. 1 by Bryan Lee O’Malley
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell

Links and Other Things

• Article about Le Grand Meaulnes (the book Matthew told Anna to read) in The Guardian
• Bildungsroman (Wikipedia)
• Slash Fiction (Wikipedia)
• Fanon (Wikipedia)
• Supernatural: The Monster at the End of This Book
• Episode 004: Psychological Thrillers
• YouTube Star Sponsors The Fastest Rising Football Club in England (the John Green soccer video game thing)
• Jubilee (Wikipedia)

Bildungsroman sample from “Oxford Dictionaries” on YouTube

The magic sound is “fairy magic wand” by Robinhood76 from freesound.org

Questions

• Do you think coming-of-age books have to be about young people?
• Have you intentionally read a book because it featured a coming-of-age theme?
• What’s your favourite book from this genre?
• Have you managed to come-of-age yet?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the Coming-of-Age books people in the club read (or tried to read), follow us on Twitter,  and join our Facebook Group!

Join us on Tuesday, February 7th, when we discuss Reading Tracking and Challenges, then on Tuesday, February 21st for our next genre, Non-Fiction Romance/Relationships/Dating!

In our one hour and 22 minute long Best of 2016 episode we talk about our favourite reads from the past year, what it even means for a book to be "best", how we are not very good at tracking our reading, and what to read when you're on painkillers. [Our apologies for the sound quality (as usual), someday we'll get everything to work perfectly.]

[Also, we're now on Stitcher and Google Play!]

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Favourites from things we read for the Book Club

Fiction

• Anna: His Majesty's Dragon - Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik (Historical Fantasy)
• • Runner up: A Short History of Indians in Canada: Stories by Thomas King (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)
• Jessi: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (Historical Fantasy)
• Matthew: The Girl With Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson (Historical Fantasy)
• • And Ride a Mule the short story set after the novel
  • Runner up: The excerpt of Red Spider White Web by Misha Nogha from Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)
• Meghan: Your Republic is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Spies/Espionage)
• • Runner up: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Historical Fantasy)
  • Runner up: Godless but Loyal to Heaven by Richard Van Camp (Religious Fiction)

Non-Fiction

• Anna: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed (Self Help)
• Jessi: Ghosts: A Haunted History by Lisa Morton (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• • Runner up: National Geographic Ultimate Guide to Supernatural Places: Close Encounters, Haunted Houses, and Other Spooky Hot Spots Around the World by Sarah Bartlett (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• Matthew: Corporate Spies: the Pizza Plot (article) by Adam L. Penenberg and Marc Barry (Spies/Espionage)
• Meghan: Yurei: The Japanese Ghost by Zack Davisson (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• • Runner up: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)

Favourites from everything else

[We cheated so bad that we had to split Fiction favourites into Prose and Comics.]

Fiction (prose)

• Anna: Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop (and the entire The Others series)
• Jessi: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• Matthew: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
• Meghan: You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

Fiction (comics)

• Anna: Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch
• • The new series of Rat Queens comes out March 1st
  • Article about Roc Upchurch (the original artist on Rat Queens) being arrested for domestic violence
• Jessi: This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
• Matthew: Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
• Meghan: Yowamushi Pedal, Go! Vol. 1 by Wataru Watanabe

Non-Fiction

• Anna: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary by Alain de Botton (and a bunch of his other books)
• Jessi: On the Farm by Stevie Cameron
• Matthew: Adulthood Is a Myth (Sarah's Scribbles) by Sarah Andersen (an internet monster)
• Meghan: My Body Is Yours: A Memoir by Michael V. Smith

Other books mentioned

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Wikipedia)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Wikipedia)
• Sensuous Science Fiction from the Weird and Spicy Pulps edited by Sheldon Jaffery
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Recommended)
• The Birth of Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki
• Princeless, Vol. 1: Save Yourself by Jeremy Whitley and Mia Goodwin
• Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
• Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
• Runaways, Vol. 1: Pride and Joy by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
• Eyeshield 21, Vol. 1: The Boy With the Golden Legs by Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata (Canada is shown to have lost to Germany 63-0 at the beginning of chapter 313) (Recommended)
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
  • "Raina Telgemeier's 'Ghosts' has a 500,000 copy first printing"
• United States of Delirium: The Story of the Race Across America by David Houghton was the book about endurance cycling that Meghan mentioned.

Links and Other Things

• Reading 500 Graphic Novels in a year
• "DragonForce are a British power metal band" (Wikipedia)
• Ju-on: The Grudge (Wikipedia)
• The Ring (Wikipedia)
• Six-day bicycle racing (Wikipedia)
• Akihabara (the "otaku" district of Tokyo) (Wikipedia)
• The Best and Worst Manga panel Matthew went to at San Diego Comicon

Questions

• How do you define "best"?
• What were your favo(u)rite reads of 2016?
• What are your favo(u)rite "best of" lists?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all our favo(u)rite books we read in 2016, follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us again on Tuesday, January 17th, when we discuss Coming-of-Age books!

In our one hour and 22 minute long Best of 2016 episode we talk about our favourite reads from the past year, what it even means for a book to be “best”, how we are not very good at tracking our reading, and what to read when you’re on painkillers. [Our apologies for the sound quality (as usual), someday we’ll get everything to work perfectly.]

 [Also, we're now on Stitcher and Google Play!]

In this episode

 Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

 Favourites from things we read for the Book Club

 Fiction

• Anna: His Majesty’s Dragon - Temeraire Series by Naomi Novik (Historical Fantasy)
• • Runner up: A Short History of Indians in Canada: Stories by Thomas King (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)
• Jessi: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (Historical Fantasy)
• Matthew: The Girl With Ghost Eyes by M.H. Boroson (Historical Fantasy)
• • And Ride a Mule the short story set after the novel
  • Runner up: The excerpt of Red Spider White Web by Misha Nogha from Walking the Clouds: An Anthology of Indigenous Science Fiction (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)
• Meghan: Your Republic is Calling You by Young-Ha Kim, translated by Chi-Young Kim (Spies/Espionage)
• • Runner up: The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle (Historical Fantasy)
  • Runner up: Godless but Loyal to Heaven by Richard Van Camp (Religious Fiction)

Non-Fiction

• Anna: Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed (Self Help)
• Jessi: Ghosts: A Haunted History by Lisa Morton (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• • Runner up: National Geographic Ultimate Guide to Supernatural Places: Close Encounters, Haunted Houses, and Other Spooky Hot Spots Around the World by Sarah Bartlett (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• Matthew: Corporate Spies: the Pizza Plot (article) by Adam L. Penenberg and Marc Barry (Spies/Espionage)
• Meghan: Yurei: The Japanese Ghost by Zack Davisson (Paranormal/Supernatural Non-Fiction)
• • Runner up: Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer (Aboriginal/Indigenous/First Nations)

 Favourites from everything else

[We cheated so bad that we had to split Fiction favourites into Prose and Comics.]

Fiction (prose)

• Anna: Marked in Flesh by Anne Bishop (and the entire The Others series)
• Jessi: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz
• Matthew: Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher
• Meghan: You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman

Fiction (comics)

• Anna:  Rat Queens, Vol. 1: Sass & Sorcery by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch
• • The new series of Rat Queens comes out March 1st
  • Article about Roc Upchurch (the original artist on Rat Queens) being arrested for domestic violence
• Jessi: This One Summer by Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki
• Matthew: Paper Girls, Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang
• Meghan: Yowamushi Pedal, Go! Vol. 1 by Wataru Watanabe

 Non-Fiction

• Anna: A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary by Alain de Botton (and a bunch of his other books)
• Jessi: On the Farm by Stevie Cameron
• Matthew: Adulthood Is a Myth (Sarah's Scribbles) by Sarah Andersen (an internet monster)
• Meghan: My Body Is Yours: A Memoir by Michael V. Smith

 Other books mentioned

• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (Wikipedia)
• Moby Dick by Herman Melville (Wikipedia)
• Sensuous Science Fiction from the Weird and Spicy Pulps edited by Sheldon Jaffery
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik (Recommended)
• The Birth of Kitaro by Shigeru Mizuki
• Princeless, Vol. 1: Save Yourself by Jeremy Whitley and Mia Goodwin
• Saga, Volume 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
• Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
• Runaways, Vol. 1: Pride and Joy by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona
• Eyeshield 21, Vol. 1: The Boy With the Golden Legs by Riichiro Inagaki and Yusuke Murata (Canada is shown to have lost to Germany 63-0 at the beginning of chapter 313) (Recommended)
• The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins
• Ghosts by Raina Telgemeier
  • “Raina Telgemeier’s ‘Ghosts’ has a 500,000 copy first printing”
• United States of Delirium: The Story of the Race Across America by David Houghton was the book about endurance cycling that Meghan mentioned.

 Links and Other Things

• Reading 500 Graphic Novels in a year
• “DragonForce are a British power metal band” (Wikipedia)
• Ju-on: The Grudge (Wikipedia)
• The Ring (Wikipedia)
• Six-day bicycle racing  (Wikipedia)
• Akihabara (the “otaku” district of Tokyo) (Wikipedia)
• The Best and Worst Manga panel Matthew went to at San Diego Comicon

 Questions

• How do you define “best”?
• What were your favo(u)rite reads of 2016?
• What are your favo(u)rite “best of” lists?

 Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all our favo(u)rite books we read in 2016, follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us again on Tuesday, January 17th, when we discuss Coming-of-Age books!

 

In this 1 hour and 25 minute episode of our podcast/never-ending quest to become better library staff we talk about Weird and New Weird Fiction! We have a few audio problems this time out (blame Matthew), but we don't let that stop us discussing the difference between Weird and New Weird, how to make everything about ghost stories, whether you need elements of the fantastic to be considered "Weird", and existential dread. Plus: Our special guest Jon (who's getting his PhD in Weird Fiction) drops big words like Oneiric and talks about things like the paradox of aversion, so be ready for that.

You can download the podcast on Libsyn, or get it through iTunes or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
• 3 Strange Tales by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
• Uzumaki, vol. 1 by Junji Ito (graphic novel)
• A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates
• Age of Blight: Stories by Kristine Ong Muslim
• My Work is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror by Thomas Ligotti
• Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume One edited by Laird Barron
• Sensuous Science Fiction from the Weird and Spicy Pulps edited by Sheldon Jaffery (only recommended if you have very dubious taste like Matthew does…)
• Enigma at Amigara Fault by Junji Ito (illegal scan of the comic)

Did Not Finish

• The Big Book of Ghost Stories edited by Otto Penzler
• The Small Hand and Dolly by Susan Hill
• The Summer of the Ubume by Natsuhiko Kyogoku
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Recommended)
• Cogwheel and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
• Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
• The Scar by China Miéville (Recommended)
• Searchers After Horror: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic edited by S.T. Joshi

Other books mentioned

• At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
• Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez (the super racist bit Matthew mentioned)
• The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft
• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
• The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake (Recommended)
• Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
• City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
• Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (graphic novel)
• Superman: Red Son (graphic novel)
• The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville (Recommended)
• Solaris by Stanisław Lem
• The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture by Bernice M. Murphy
• Gyo by Junji Ito (graphic novel)
• The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (Recommended)

Links and Other Things

• Weird Fiction (Wikipedia)
• New Weird (Wikipedia)
• Lord Dunsany (Wikipedia)
• H.P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)
• Arthur Machen (Wikipedia)
• Call of Cthulhu RPG (Wikipedia)
• Speculative fiction (Wikipedia)
• Slipstream (Wikipedia)
• Cyberpunk (Wikipedia)
• Cyberpunk derivatives (Wikipedia)
• Fourteen Notable Women Writers of the Weird from Weird Fiction Review
• China Miéville's top 10 weird fiction books from The Guardian
• Matthew's list of Batman books and comics for every genre we cover (he can't find a Historical Romance one, any suggestions?)
• DC Elseworlds comics (Wikipedia)
• Akutagawa Prize the prize named after the early 20th century Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (Wikipedia)
• The Dungeon Dimensions from the Discworld books (Wikipedia)
• From Annihilation to Acceptance: A Writer's Surreal Journey article from The Atlantic that talks about the dental surgery origins of Jeff VanderMeer's novel Annihilation
• SCP Foundation: Secure, Contain, Protect
• We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five - The first of the SCP stories that caused Matthew to have crazy dreams
• SCP-087 - The one about the staircase
• SCP-093 - The one about the mirror
• SCP-914 - The one about the Rough/Coarse/Fine machine
• Brotherhood of Dada (Wikipedia)
• Solaris (1972 film) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (Wikipedia)
• Spicy Library Stories - Matthew's ridiculous zine
• Gormenghast TV show (Wikipedia)
• Neverwhere TV show (Wikipedia) (and its rather terrible "Beast of London")
• Alien Isolation video game (Wikipedia)
• Goosebumps series of books (Wikipedia)
• Rick and Morty TV show (Wikipedia)
• It Follows movie (Wikipedia)
• Arkham Horror the board game
• The weird map thing with rotating rooms Matthew made for an Achtung! Cthulhu game
• Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman (link to the actual story) (also a board game!)
• Welcome to Night Vale the humourous weird fiction podcast we completely failed to mention

This blog post about Masochistic Reading features our second mention on Book Riot! Also, check out Jon's blog where he writes up some of the Weird D&D adventures that he runs! And thanks to Sam and Aly from the SS Librarianship podcast for letting us use their recording space and equipment!

Questions

• What is your definition of weird fiction?
• Can you have weird non-fiction?
• Can you recommend some outer space weird fiction?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the books about Weird Fiction people in the club read (or tried to read), follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us again on Tuesday, January 3rd, for our Best of 2016 episode! Then come back on Tuesday, January 17th, when we discuss Coming-of-Age books!

In this 1 hour and 25 minute episode of our podcast/never-ending quest to become better library staff we talk about Weird and New Weird Fiction! We have a few audio problems this time out (blame Matthew), but we don’t let that stop us discussing the difference between Weird and New Weird, how to make everything about ghost stories, whether you need elements of the fantastic to be considered “Weird”, and existential dread. Plus: Our special guest Jon (who’s getting his PhD in Weird Fiction) drops big words like Oneiric and talks about things like the paradox of aversion, so be ready for that.

You can download the podcast on Libsyn, or get it through iTunes or your favourite podcast delivery system.  

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• Area X: The Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer
• 3 Strange Tales by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
• Uzumaki, vol. 1 by Junji Ito (graphic novel)
• A Fair Maiden by Joyce Carol Oates
• Age of Blight: Stories by Kristine Ong Muslim
• My Work is Not Yet Done: Three Tales of Corporate Horror by Thomas Ligotti
• Year's Best Weird Fiction, Volume One edited by Laird Barron
• Sensuous Science Fiction from the Weird and Spicy Pulps edited by Sheldon Jaffery (only recommended if you have very dubious taste like Matthew does…)
• Enigma at Amigara Fault by Junji Ito (illegal scan of the comic)

Did Not Finish

• The Big Book of Ghost Stories edited by Otto Penzler
• The Small Hand and Dolly by Susan Hill
• The Summer of the Ubume by Natsuhiko Kyogoku
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (Recommended)
• Cogwheel and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
• Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
• The Scar by China Miéville (Recommended)
• Searchers After Horror: New Tales of the Weird and Fantastic edited by S.T. Joshi

Other books mentioned

• At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft
• Planetary/The Authority: Ruling the World by Warren Ellis and Phil Jimenez (the super racist bit Matthew mentioned)
• The Horror at Red Hook by H.P. Lovecraft
• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle
• The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake (Recommended)
• Perdido Street Station by China Miéville
• City of Saints and Madmen by Jeff VanderMeer
• Batman: The Doom That Came to Gotham (graphic novel)
• Superman: Red Son (graphic novel)
• The Last Days of New Paris by China Miéville (Recommended)
• Solaris by Stanisław Lem
• The Rural Gothic in American Popular Culture by Bernice M. Murphy
• Gyo by Junji Ito (graphic novel)
• The Rook by Daniel O'Malley (Recommended)

Links and Other Things

• Weird Fiction (Wikipedia)
• New Weird  (Wikipedia)
• Lord Dunsany (Wikipedia)
• H.P. Lovecraft (Wikipedia)
• Arthur Machen (Wikipedia)
• Call of Cthulhu RPG (Wikipedia)
• Speculative fiction (Wikipedia)
• Slipstream (Wikipedia)
• Cyberpunk (Wikipedia)
• Cyberpunk derivatives (Wikipedia)
• Fourteen Notable Women Writers of the Weird from Weird Fiction Review
• China Miéville's top 10 weird fiction books from The Guardian
• Matthew’s list of Batman books and comics for every genre we cover (he can’t find a Historical Romance one, any suggestions?)
• DC Elseworlds comics (Wikipedia)
• Akutagawa Prize the prize named after the early 20th century Japanese writer Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (Wikipedia)
• The Dungeon Dimensions from the Discworld books (Wikipedia)
• From Annihilation to Acceptance: A Writer’s Surreal Journey article from The Atlantic that talks about the dental surgery origins of Jeff VanderMeer’s novel Annihilation
• SCP Foundation: Secure, Contain, Protect
• We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five - The first of the SCP stories that caused Matthew to have crazy dreams
• SCP-087 - The one about the staircase
• SCP-093 - The one about the mirror
• SCP-914 - The one about the Rough/Coarse/Fine machine
• Brotherhood of Dada (Wikipedia)
• Solaris (1972 film) directed by Andrei Tarkovsky (Wikipedia)
• Spicy Library Stories - Matthew’s ridiculous zine
• Gormenghast TV show (Wikipedia)
• Neverwhere TV show (Wikipedia) (and its rather terrible “Beast of London”)
• Alien Isolation video game (Wikipedia)
• Goosebumps series of books (Wikipedia)
• Rick and Morty TV show (Wikipedia)
• It Follows movie (Wikipedia)
• Arkham Horror the board game
• The weird map thing with rotating rooms Matthew made for an Achtung! Cthulhu game
• Study in Emerald by Neil Gaiman (link to the actual story) (also a board game!)
• Welcome to Night Vale the humourous weird fiction podcast we completely failed to mention

This blog post about Masochistic Reading features our second mention on Book Riot! Also, check out Jon’s blog where he writes up some of the Weird D&D adventures that he runs! And thanks to Sam and Aly from the SS Librarianship podcast for letting us use their recording space and equipment!

Questions

• What is your definition of weird fiction?
• Can you have weird non-fiction?
• Can you recommend some outer space weird fiction?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the books about Weird Fiction people in the club read (or tried to read), follow us on Twitter, and join our Facebook Group!

Join us again on Tuesday, January 3rd, for our Best of 2016 episode! Then come back on Tuesday, January 17th, when we discuss Coming-of-Age books!

 

In the newest episode of our podcast/never-ending quest to become better library staff we talk about Philosophy books! Who are we? Why are we here? Why do we podcast? Plus: Dead white men we find boring, Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers, and books we didn't finish reading (as usual).

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray

Recommended

• The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy by Michael Patton and Kevin Cannon
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
• Supervillains and Philosophy edited by Ben Dyer

Read

• Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics by Margreet de Heer

Did Not Finish

• Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
• African Philosophy: The Essential Readings by Tsenay Serequeberhan
• Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin (Recommended)

Other Books Mentioned

• The Fall of Sleep by Jean-Luc Nancy (Recommended to us)
• Some Lessons in Metaphysics by José Ortega y Gasset (Recommended to us)
• Action Philosophers by Fred Van Lente and Ryan DunlaveyThe Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
• Logicomix: An epic search for truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie Di Donna (Recommended)
• Dune and Philosophy: Weirding Way of the Mentat edited by Jeffery Nicholas
• Manga and Philosophy: Fullmetal Metaphysician edited by Josef Steiff and Adam Barkman
• Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder edited by Josef Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin
• Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (Recommended, fiction)
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Links/Other

• CEGEP: What is it? Wikipedia's got your back.
• Lich(e)s: The D&D creature
• Slavoj Žižek
• Photo of Slavoj Žižek bedroom photoshopped to include a Hello Kitty and a t.A.T.u. poster
• The first Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers comic on Existential Comics. There's at least six of these.
• Dungeons & Discourse and Advanced Dungeons & Discourse comics on Dresden Codak
• Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind by Blake Ross: Essay by someone who can't creature mental images
• Why Isn't the Sky Blue? Radiolab episode about colour

Questions

Does anyone have any recommendations for Matthew concerning the philosophy of consciousness in regards to artificial intelligence and aliens? Will someone please make the "Jodorowsky and Philosophy" book we mentioned?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the books about Philosophy people in the club read (or tried to read), and follow us on Twitter!

Join us again on Tuesday, December 20th, when we discuss Weird Fiction!

In the newest episode of our podcast/never-ending quest to become better library staff we talk about Philosophy books! Who are we? Why are we here? Why do we podcast? Plus: Dead white men we find boring, Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers, and books we didn’t finish reading (as usual).

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray

Recommended

• The Cartoon Introduction to Philosophy by Michael Patton and Kevin Cannon
• Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
• The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain de Botton
• Supervillains and Philosophy edited by Ben Dyer  

Read

• Philosophy: A Discovery in Comics by Margreet de Heer

Did Not Finish

• Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart and Daniel Klein
• African Philosophy: The Essential Readings by Tsenay Serequeberha
• Illuminations: Essays and Reflections by Walter Benjamin (Recommended)

Other Books Mentioned

• The Fall of Sleep by Jean-Luc Nancy (Recommended to us)
• Some Lessons in Metaphysics by José Ortega y Gasset (Recommended to us)
• Action Philosophers by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey
  The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
• Logicomix: An epic search for truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos, and Annie Di Donna (Recommended)
• Dune and Philosophy: Weirding Way of the Mentat edited by Jeffery Nicholas
• Manga and Philosophy: Fullmetal Metaphysician edited by Josef Steiff and Adam Barkman
• Anime and Philosophy: Wide Eyed Wonder edited by Josef Steiff and Tristan D. Tamplin
• Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (Recommended, fiction)
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter

Links/Other

• CEGEP: What is it? Wikipedia’s got your back.
• Lich(e)s: The D&D creature
• Slavoj Žižek
• Photo of Slavoj Žižek bedroom photoshopped to include a Hello Kitty and a t.A.T.u. poster
• The first Dungeons & Dragons & Philosophers comic on Existential Comics. There’s at least six of these.
• Dungeons & Discourse and Advanced Dungeons & Discourse comics on Dresden Codak
• Aphantasia: How It Feels To Be Blind In Your Mind by Blake Ross: Essay by someone who can’t creature mental images
• Why Isn't the Sky Blue? Radiolab episode about colour

Questions

Does anyone have any recommendations for Matthew concerning the philosophy of consciousness in regards to artificial intelligence and aliens? Will someone please make the “Jodorowsky and Philosophy” book we mentioned?

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the books about Philosophy people in the club read (or tried to read), and follow us on Twitter!  

Join us again on Tuesday, December 20th, when we discuss Weird Fiction!

In this very "insider-baseball" episode we discuss Metafiction! What is it? Who is it for? Why should you read it? Plus: Children's books that help kids figure out what's real and what isn't, comic books with a lot of bondage, and marginalia written by library patrons.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• No Bears by Meg McKinlay, illustrated by Leila Rudge
• This is My Book by Mick Inkpen
• We're in the Wrong Book by Richard Byrne
• Logicomix: An epic search for truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou,illustrated by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna
• Opus by Satoshi Kon
• Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour, translated by Sara Khalili
• Gen13: Magical Drama Queen Roxy by Adam Warren
• Empowered by Adam Warren

Read

• Redshirts by John Scalzi
• The End (almost) by Jim Benton
• Multiversity by Grant Morrison and various artists

Did Not Finish

• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
• If On a Winter's Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver (Recommended)

Other Books Mentioned

• Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (Recommended)
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Recommended)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Recommended)
• There's a Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone, illustrated by Michael J. Smollin
• Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed (Recommended)
• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (Anna meant to say that she was saving A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara for a quiet time in her life to read. But Life After Life counts too as she owns a copy she has yet to open. Nothing metafictional (maybe) here - just books Anna wants to read)
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
• Inkheart (Inkworld #1) by Cornelia Funke, translated by Anthea Bell
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (Recommended)
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
• Kitten Clone: The History of the Future at Bell Labs by Douglas Coupland
• The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
• Animal Man Omnibus by Grant Morrison and various artists
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Links/Other

• An article about the glossary doodles/annotations in The Kingdoms of God by N. K. Jemisin.
• Recent Writings (not) by Walter Benjamin (but some libraries suggest that it is)
• Your home library may also use BiblioCommons
• British Columbia Library Association - Readers' Advisory Interest Group
• A short story by Jorge Luis Borges that is a review of a non-existent book
• The list of "50" (111) metafiction books Anna mentioned
• Two-Fisted Library Stories just released Issue 6!
• Image of the meta-metafiction handwritten conversations Jessi found in If On a Winter's Night a Traveler
• Duck Amuck - go (find &) watch it!
• Felix the Cat
• Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice in Community
• Supernatural has a few metafictional aspects and episodes such as the episode we mention. Seriously someone has (of course) written a paper about it.
• The SCP Foundation story about the monster that kidnaps you if you write about it
• The SCP Foundation story about the thing that can't be described
• We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five - The first of a series of SCP Foundation stories about the Anti-Memetics division that affected Matthew's dreams

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the books about Metafiction people in the club read (or tried to read), and follow us on Twitter!

Join us again on Tuesday, December 6th, when we discuss Philosophy!

In this very “insider-baseball” episode we discuss Metafiction! What is it? Who is it for? Why should you read it? Plus: Children’s books that help kids figure out what’s real and what isn’t, comic books with a lot of bondage, and marginalia written by library patrons.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jessi

Recommended

• No Bears by Meg McKinlay, illustrated by Leila Rudge
• This is My Book by Mick Inkpen
• We’re in the Wrong Book by Richard Byrne
• Logicomix: An epic search for truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou,illustrated by Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna
• Opus by Satoshi Kon
• Censoring an Iranian Love Story by Shahriar Mandanipour, translated by Sara Khalili
• Gen13: Magical Drama Queen Roxy by Adam Warren
• Empowered by Adam Warren

Read

• Redshirts by John Scalzi
• The End (almost) by Jim Benton
• Multiversity by Grant Morrison and various artists

Did Not Finish

• The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
• If On a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino, translated by William Weaver (Recommended)

Other Books Mentioned

• Mason and Dixon by Thomas Pynchon (Recommended)
• Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (Recommended)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Recommended)
• There’s a Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone, illustrated by Michael J. Smollin
• Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed (Recommended)
• The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall
• Life After Life by Kate Atkinson (Anna meant to say that she was saving A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara for a quiet time in her life to read. But Life After Life counts too as she owns a copy she has yet to open. Nothing metafictional (maybe) here - just books Anna wants to read)
• How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu
• Inkheart (Inkworld #1) by Cornelia Funke, translated by Anthea Bell
• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud (Recommended)
• Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
• Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas R. Hofstadter
• Kitten Clone: The History of the Future at Bell Labs by Douglas Coupland
• The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage by Sydney Padua
• Animal Man Omnibus by Grant Morrison and various artists
• Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Links/Other

• An article about the glossary doodles/annotations in The Kingdoms of God by N. K. Jemisin.
• Recent Writings (not) by Walter Benjamin (but some libraries suggest that it is)
• Your home library may also use BiblioCommons
• British Columbia Library Association - Readers’ Advisory Interest Group
• A short story by Jorge Luis Borges that is a review of a non-existent book
• The list of “50” (111) metafiction books Anna mentioned
• Two-Fisted Library Stories just released Issue 6!
• Image of the meta-metafiction handwritten conversations Jessi found in If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler
• Duck Amuck - go (find &) watch it!
• Felix the Cat
• Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice in Community
• Supernatural has a few metafictional aspects and episodes such as the episode we mention. Seriously someone has (of course) written a paper about it.
• The SCP Foundation story about the monster that kidnaps you if you write about it
• The SCP Foundation story about the thing that can’t be described
• We Need To Talk About Fifty-Five - The first of a series of SCP Foundation stories about the Anti-Memetics division that affected Matthew’s dreams

Check out our Pinterest board and Tumblr posts for all the books about Metafiction people in the club read (or tried to read), and follow us on Twitter!

Join us again on Tuesday, December 6th, when we discuss Philosophy!