It's time for a speed round on the modern books getting banned by America's Censor Squad. From newly banned books like MAUS to a few oldies but goodies, we're taking a rapid fire look at as many books as we can squeeze into this episode. And here's quote from our hometown hero, Mark Twain, just for good measure: "Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.”

If you don't already have a copy of these books but want to stick it to America's Censorship Squad, head over to our bookshop to get a copy. You'll support local bookstores and our podcast.

We've finally found a reason to talk about the G.O.A.T... Toni Morrison. Thank you to everyone who has ever banned a Morrison book, giving us a reason to talk about America's greatest author on a show about mid lit. We're going to dive into the surreal worlds of "Beloved" and "The Bluest Eye" to get more insight into the fragile psyches of people who ban books, and unearth America's sins with Morrison's perfect prose and deep, psychological understanding of humans as our guide. And if you don't already have a copy of these masterworks on your shelf, head over to our bookshop to support local bookstores and our podcast!

If you've been wondering whether the American Dream was ever real, John Steinbeck has the answer for you. Everyone's favorite critic of the American lie has been railing against the 1% since long before you were born. And nearly a century later, we've learned nothing. Walk through to Salinas Valley with us as we watch big business and wealthy landowners crush the little guy through Steinbeck's eyes and find out why we aren't entirely buying the "bad language" and "vulgarity" claims that the book banners level at Steinbeck. And if you aren't angry enough at the end of this episode, let Rage Against the Machine and Tom Joad help you out. 

Help out a small bookstore by buying your copies of Steinbeck's masterpieces at Bookshop.org.

America is once again on a book-banning spree – and we're so mad about it, we decided to record a special season of MID LIT honoring some of the most frequent targets of book bans. Round up your barnyard pals and your sketchiest office crush, because we're kicking things off with a rousing conversation about George Orwell's seminal classics, Animal Farm and 1984. Come for the wildly ironic reasons these books were banned, stay for Theresa's genius targeted-ad hack. And remember, Little Brother is Watching! 

Need a copy of your own? Head to Bookshop.org to support local bookstores and our podcast!

Forget Jonathan Franzen, we've got Seth Corwin from W.A.S.T.E. Mailing List on this episode! Rebecca is talking one-on-one with our Instagram pal about "Crossroads." Here's the moral of the story: If you only read two Franzen books, let them be "Crossroads" and "The Corrections." Let's dig in and talk about Mister Difficult himself. 

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Ya'll love you some Franzen... or at least love to listen to us talk about him! So, we're covering Jonathan Franzen's latest work "Crossroads." We're kicking it off with a big, ol' roundtable of guests new and old. In part one, we're joined by Colin McEnroe, Irene Papoulis, and Bill Yousman to talk about 70s youth groups, faith, and whether or not you can smoke enough 70s weed to hallucinate. 

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We're popping in with a mini-episode to bid a fond farewell to Joan Didion, a magical thinker who depressed the hell out of us and lived an amazing life. Didion was, in a lot of ways, an inheritor of ol' Ginny Woolf's legacy, and we're paying homage by talking about the books we (sorta) read, the essays we're planning on revisiting, and why you should check her out even if high brow literature isn't your thing. 

And as long as we have your attention, check out "The Center Will Not Hold," the Netflix documentary about Didion.

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We're talking about John Irving again, but it's a bittersweet victory for Theresa. Why? We're diving into "The Cider House Rules," John Irving's pro-choice opus because several states are actively trying to strip women of their reproductive rights. We won't get into it right now, but the tale of an American hero, Wilbur Larch, and reluctant abortion provider, Homer Wells, seemed like the right book to be talking about at this moment in time. We discuss our feminist AF grandmas and their pro-choice rhetoric and take some detours into "If These Walls Could Talk," "Friday Night Lights" and other abortion-related media. (Poor Becky Sproles would be SOL in Texas today.) And Theresa tells us about the time some kid huffed ether a la Wilbur Larch and then tossed his cookies on her car. 

Goodnight, you princes of Maine, you kings of New England.

Please consider supporting The Yellow Hammer Fund, a 501(c)3 abortion fund and reproductive justice organization serving Alabama and the Deep South.

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We're wrapping up our thoughts on the twisted mind, the compelling work of Gillian Flynn, and a bunch of feminist AF protagonists who are fighting for our right to be just as gross, and mysanthropic as male characters. We rank our deeply flawed heroines by how much we want to hang out with each of them (spoiler alert: Rebecca's status as a possible psychopath remains in tact), somehow American psycho Patrick Bateman makes an appearance, and Rebecca gets truly icked out by Theresa's latest description of annoying male angst. 

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The movie adaptation of "Dark Places" shouldn't be as bad as it is. There's a good cast -- with Charlize Theron and Christina Hendricks carrying the drama -- and Gillian Flynn co-wrote the screenplay. But something went wrong somewhere, because this book we loved was practically unwatchable in movie form. Is it the lack of Velveeta sandwiches? You tell us. Carolyn Paine stops by to talk about why she actually had to get up and pace around the house just to finish the movie. 

Shop our reading list at Bookshop.org to support independent bookstores and our podcast.