Joel reviews a graphic novel called Below Ambition by Simon Hanselmann about Megg The Witch and Werewolf Jones who start a band called Horse Mania. He also digs through the finds of his latest book shop crawl.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What I'd Rather Not Think About is a novel about grieving a twin, captured in little vignettes over roughly 200 pages, but what does Joel and his new co-host Geordie Joel make of it? And is it time to stop writing 7 line chapters?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joel reads Middlesex, a swirling multi-generational novel that sees a Greek family migrate to Detroit and struggle with their middle class status. The basis of pretty good novel - and it won the Pulitzer - but does Joel rate it?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joel's broken two of his rules this time round by reading a book that is 1) a hardback, and 2) came out this year. It's Miranda July's All Fours, a book where the narrator is supposed to spend a load of money on a life-changing road trip, but ends up blowing all the cash on renovating a motel room just outside town to look like a Parisian hotel suite.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's the best writing snack? How important is it to plan your character arc? What do you make of The Hardest Geezer book announcement? Joel answers your questions!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, Joel's picked out another book that everyone seemed to read before he did. Jenny's Offill's Weather came out in 2020 and is set around the inauguration of Donald Trump's presidency and it's a book that feels like it's set in 2016, but does it hold up in 2024?

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joel watched a great TV show based on Benjamin Myers' 'The Gallows Pole' only to find out that everyone had been reading Benjamin Myers for years. This week, he's reading the 2014 novel set in idillic Northern English countryside, Beastings.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You asked for it, you got it. Joel's read a book that he hated and it's Jonathan Ames' collection of articles and short stories that have not dated well and probably weren't very good at the time either.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joel's got really into heading down to his local pond and counting the different types of flowers and fish he can see after reading a mind-altering set of essays on exploration, faith and nature by Anne Dillard. Good for him!

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joel's got the answers to all your questions on reading, writing and books in general.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.