Cracked Spines

This week, Sarah and Amelia meet at different ends of the sleepiness spectrum to discuss the fantastic worldbuilding and historical resource that is The Victorian City by Judith Flanders. We talk about sewage seepage, watercress sellers, the infernal din of the city, and a couple of kinky Victorians who left detailed diaries behind. Amelia picks a fight with Victorian street sellers and accurately remembers all the members of the British royal family. Sarah has traumatic flashbacks to reading Bleak House and immediately forgets basic facts from her history degree. We both are very tasteful and respectful and not at all ghoulish about Queen Elizabeth's death.

Media discussed:

The Victorian City: Everyday Life in Dickens' London by Judith Flanders

"Stuff vs Theory" by Judith Flanders

"Class and Gender in Victorian England: The Diaries of Arthur J. Munby and Hannah Cullwick" by Leonore Davidoff, originally published in Feminist Studies: Spring, 1979, Vol. 5, Issue 1. 

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This week, we're talking political marriages! Icy locales! Disco Elysium! Magical political intrigue! Fictional soccer coaches! Mirror travel! And of course, more Disco Elysium! Technically this episode is about A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos, but as usual, we get a bit off topic. We discuss our thoughts on YA vs adult fiction, intellectual elitism, whether or  not Disco Elysium is the great masterpiece of our age, and our grim predictions for season three of Ted Lasso.  

Also, our deepest apologies for managing to mess up some aspect of the author's name in literally every instance we cite it. 

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This week on Cracked Spines, we are revisiting all our big dreams we had in January and inadvertently have the exact same conversations as we did then. Amelia is riding high on her book list. Sarah is forcibly humbled. And I'll be honest, then we talk about Trent Crimm from Ted Lasso for about ten minutes. No, we don't provided context on who that man is. You just need to know that he's definitely definitely exactly what the two of us have imagined him to be. 

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This week, Amelia and Sarah are talking about short story collections by a single author that bodied us and kicked us while we were down. In a good way! We discuss three books that are strong contenders for our faves of the year, while every plane in the PNW circles overhead. I know you can't hear the planes that much in this final version. That's because I'm a hero and I have sheltered your ears with the feeble powers of Audacity. Amelia encounters a horror story that genuinely chills her frozen heart. Sarah gushes about Gwen Kirby's work so effusively that in editing, we had to cut a lot of it out because it was just incoherent love. Scurvy meows pitifully and we make fun of her. You know. The usual.

Media discussed:
Shit Cassandra Saw  by Gwen E. Kirby
Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K. Jarboe
Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung, trans. by Anton Hur 

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If you love something, let it go: or at least maybe stop giving it your money and putting it in your tumblr blog description. This episode, Sarah discusses two of her favorite childhood series--Ender's Game and Harry Potter--and the frustration of still liking a piece of media when the creator is an active sewage volcano. Is is possible to separate the creator from their creation, and is that a task we should even try to undertake? Also Amelia is there, sitting pretty on the fact that they never really got into Harry Potter as a kid and are really just above the whole thing. (She got out of World of Warcraft early, that's why she gets to be smug.) 

Media discussed: 

• Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling
• Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card 
• The Scholomance series by Naomi  Novik  
• The Cater Street Hangman Anne Perry

Spoilers for all the above, and also Buffy the Vampire Slayer but also come on it's been ten years now, ya'll. 

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WHEW WE HAD A LOT TO SAY. This week, we're discussing lesbian romance novels and, unfortunately, why we just don't like a lot of the ones we've read. Amelia discusses gender exploration and lesbian relationships with gay men. Sarah laments the lack of butches and why Regency era women should be allowed to do rampant infidelity. We both spend a long, long time trying to figure out why the sex is so boring.  Afterwards when Sarah was editing the episode, Amelia asked her to try to make us not sound like evil dark sex perverts. This feat that proved to be absolutely impossible. 

Media discussed: 

Olivia Waite's Feminine Pursuits series which includes

• The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics
• The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows
• The Hellion's Waltz

The Perks of Loving a Wallflower by Erica Ridley
A Proper English by KJ Charles
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet by Becky Chambers
Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir
The Unspoken Name by A.K. Larkwood
The Thousand Names by Django Wexler
A Little Light Mischief by Cat Sebastian
How to Find a Princess by Alyssa Cole*

(non-ff media)
Think of England by KJ Charles
The Simple Art of Fortune Hunting by KJ Charles
Any Old Diamonds by KJ Charles

*Note from Sarah: I mentioned at the beginning of this episode that I read this book, and then proceeded to say nothing about it. Since I spoke pretty disparagingly of contemporary lesbian romance in this, I wanted to clarify that while I still didn't connect with the central romance of this book, I enjoyed reading the story overall and would recommend it to people looking for a modern twist on a princess-bodyguard story starring two Black woman, a fictional country, a critique of the idea of monarchy while still enjoying some of the trappings, and a fun cast of main and side characters. 

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That's right, we're back on poetry again! We finished the Odyssey and, hungry for more punishment, dove into Mary Oliver's work. Amelia humorously mistakes two vastly different modern poets; Sarah humorously botches an 20th century poet's name (wow). We discuss religion, medicine, nature, DOGS, cats, prose, and more religion. 

Media Discussed
Mary Oliver: Dog Songs, Evidence, "The Summer Day," "Wild Geese"
Billy Collins: "Sonnet," "Introduction to Poetry"
John Milton: "On His Blindness"
E. E. Cumings: "anyone lived in a pretty how town" 
Claudia Emerson: "Frame, An Epistle"

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This week, we're discussing In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick, the real life story of the shipwreck that inspired Moby Dick, a book we PROMISE that at SOME POINT we will read. Amelia gushes with frankly alarming intensity about how metal whaling culture and Nantucket Quakers were. Sarah offers some Monday morning quarterbacking about nautical survival techniques. We both feel extremely sad about people, whales, and Galapagos turtles while our cat in the background tries to destroy our recording area. Sorry about some of the audio and flow on this one. Everything I cut out in editing was our wild, frenzied cat attempting to eat the microphone. 

Media discussed:
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex, by Nathaniel Philbrick
In the Heart of the Sea, the movie neither of us watched but nevertheless discuss a weird amount
Moby Dick, by Hermann Melville, the book neither of us read but WE'RE GONNA SOMEDAY WE PROMISE 

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This week on Cracked Spines your hosts read a whole slew of words centering around the Trojan War, from The Song of Achilles by Madeleine Miller to Homer's Illiad, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, and The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker. From across the millennia, one single sentiment rings true: Agamemnon is the wooooooooooooooorst.  In other news, Sarah had a great time reading the Illiad and doesn't complain about it at all, Achilles is the original jock, and some (war) crimes can never be forgiven, but like, really though, we're not going to. 

Content warning for discussions of slavery and sexual abuse. 

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We read The Odyssey! We actually did it!! And we only whined a little for weeks on end. Amelia lets her love of milfs fatally blind her to the will of the gods. Sarah overestimates how much Odysseus is naked and murdering people but maintains that just doing it once is enough to make it His Thing. Discussion points include: is this book good? Do we like Odysseus as a character and as a person? Is free will even a thing in this world of gods? And how can Sarah make all of this about her favorite poem from high school? 

Media Discussed:

The Odyssey, by Homer, translated by Emily Wilson
The Terror (tv show)
Ulysses, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson (read it here)
The Song of Achilles, by Madeleine Miller
Circe,  by Madeleine Miller 

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