Cracked Spines

Y'all, y'all, we're real excited for this one. It's a sloppy lil episode where we discuss the first two books of Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Dao Zu Shi. The first book took us months to read. The second? A couple days. Shit picks up and gets pretty evil. Delicious. Sarah talks about the walking source of embarrassment that is Wei Wuxian. Cyrus loses their mind over one man psychologically torturing another. We both do our very best with pronunciations, and we plug the bonus episode on The Untamed maybe a little too much. We cannot WAIT to read more. 

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No spaceships, no magic systems this week, it's time for some straight up Literature. This week, we're reading Less and Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer. The first book is one of our favorites from 2020; the second is a sequel that dared us to ask the question, "wait what the hell could the sequel possibly be about?" We talk about the inherent romance of loving someone's flaws, the charming writing style of literary farce, and what we'll do to get out of social events. And also. America. A lot of America. If you love navel gazing about what America means, this episode might be up your alley. We only sing "Proud to be an American" a little bit and we promise it's 95% ironic. 

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It's a bird! It's a plane! It's an elfin asshole with a knife! It's Peter Pan! Or specifically, in this case, Peter Darling by Austin Chant, a delightful romance novel where Peter leaves his identity as Wendy Darling behind to go to Neverland and have a rivalmance with Captain Hook. Exquisite. We discuss the difficulty in adapting challenging (read: rancid) source material, how the original canon traps Wendy in hell, and our ideal casting for James Hook. Despite Cyrus's efforts to the contrary, about a quarter of this episode is dedicated to discussing the 2014 NBC live musical Peter Pan, somehow. Spoiler warning, it's not a good musical.

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This week, we're talking about the first two books of the Aubrey–Maturin series, Master and Commander and Post Captain, but really more specifically we're talking about:  1) how much boat talk is too much boat talk; 2)  is Jack a himbo or THE himbo; and 3) do we want to read 18 more of these. We're both pretty positive about the books while affirming that no, we're not gonna read 18 more. It's a lifestyle commitment we're just not ready to make. 

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This week we read uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh well it depends on who you ask. One of us read Delivered from Distraction. One of us read Driven to Distraction. This was. Not on purpose. See how long it takes us to realize. Other talking points include: why case studies are the best form of literature, the brand new eating disorder Sarah's been reading about, and Cyrus' inability to remain within the country.

Books discussed:

Driven to Distraction (Revised): Recognizing and Coping with Attention Deficit Disorder Paperback by Edward M. Hallowell M.D. and John J. Ratey M.D

Delivered from Distraction: Getting the Most out of Life with Attention Deficit Disorder by Edward M. Hallowell M.D. and John J. Ratey M.D

The Picky Eater's Recovery Book: Overcoming Avoidant/Restrictive Food Intake Disorder by Jennifer J. Thomas, Kendra R. Becker, and Kamryn T. Eddy 

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This week, we're digging into the graphic memoir Gender Queer by Maia Kobabe! We're talking gender, fandom, identity, pronouns, sexuality, and our own experiences with all of the above.  Based on our mutual experiences, gender is stored in the gruff old nautical man. Also featuring discussions of all five members of One Direction: Zayne, Harry, James, Brandon, and Ricki-tiki-tavi. Not included in this episode: the number of times we said "Gender Queer" in the Chucky from Chucky voice. 

A note: This episode contains discussions of transphobia.

A second note: Maia Kobabe uses spivak pronouns (e/em/eir). A couple times in this episode, we goof up and use the wrong nonbinary pronouns when referring to em. We're sorry for the slip ups, and we hope you'll find this episode to be entertaining and interesting nonetheless! 

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This week we're talking enemy time-spies, bee sting letters, and of course, the all-powerful influence of Trigun twitter. That's right, it's This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. We discuss the age-old label battle of speculative fiction vs literary fiction, Cyrus pitches a tragically unironic World of Warcraft AU, and Sarah stoically endures the criticism of her Until Dawn feelings. And yes, in case you were wondering, the new kitten situation is still destroying our audio. 

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This week, we're talking about The Hands of the Emperor by Victoria Goddard. Sarah is wildly enthusiastic about the prospect of exploring the complex functioning of a massive government for 900 pages. Cyrus was super busy this week but is extremely game to talk about intimate friendships. Like, weirdly intimate friendships. Like let's get to the central question of this text: should these old men kiss with tongue. Our answer may surprise you! This thick ole episode is half about the book and half about stuff that the asexual and aromatic community figured out a long time ago. 

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This week on Cracked Spines, it's time to dig into Cyrus' special interests: Ted Lasso and fungus. Mostly fungus. I'd say 90 percent fungus. Cyrus explains their fascination with the organisms that are like if plants had meat and their major gripe with the current state of fungal works out there. Sarah does not wish to join the fungal hivemind but did like some of the books this week. 

Works mentioned:

What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher
Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Spores by Joshua Barkman
"Lena" from Valuable Humans in Transit and Other Stories by qntm
Resident Evil 7 and 8
The Seep by Chana Porter. (Hi, Sarah here. I thought I said this during the episode and I never did and it's so important to mention: The Seep has a lot of tendrils in the ideas of fungus but is not specifically about fungus. It's technically about aliens, but it's also about most of the ideas with a fungal hivemind and I wanted to discuss it in that context, but failed to mention it's only metaphorically fungus. okay) 

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MIME STOPS FOR NO MAN. In this episode we primarily discuss Grady Hendrix's newest horror novel, "How to Sell a Haunted House." Of course, we quickly devolve into discussing the entire Hendrixverse and its delicious all you can eat buffet of sloppy nightmare women. Why is Grady Hendrix so good at writing female characters? And most importantly, why must the puppets always be creepy? We demand positive clown/puppet/doll representation in horror ("we" meaning, very firmly, Sarah). 

Media Mentions:

• How to Sell a Haunted House by Grady Hendrix
• The Final Girls Support Group by Grady Hendrix
• My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
• Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
• We Sold Our Souls by Grady Hendrix
• The Southern Bookclub's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

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