Pick Me a Book Podcast

No books, just babbling. That's right, it's a SIDESHOW ladies and germs, so strap in for some silliness. It's also our first Sideshow since Ash got back from Iceland, and we're trying to remember how to podcast. Our word-talkin' ain't so great in this one, but tune in for an Ash story about getting haunted by pissy American tourists in Greenland, and a Candace story about a dickwad guy getting Real, Real Mad about $50.

give it a'listen

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find the latest book we discussed here, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

In Rudolph, New York, it’s Christmastime all year long. But this December, while the snow-lined streets seem merry and bright, a murder is about to ruin everyone’s holiday cheer…

As the owner of Mrs. Claus’s Treasures, Merry Wilkinson knows how to decorate homes for the holidays. That’s why she thinks her float in the semi-annual Santa Claus parade is a shoo-in for best in show. But when the tractor pulling Merry’s float is sabotaged, she has to face facts: there’s a Scrooge in Christmas Town.

Merry isn’t ready to point fingers, especially with a journalist in town writing a puff piece about Rudolph’s Christmas spirit. But when she stumbles upon the reporter’s body on a late night dog walk—and police suspect he was poisoned by a gingerbread cookie crafted by her best friend, Vicky—Merry will have to put down the jingle bells and figure out who’s really been grinching about town, before Vicky ends up on Santa’s naughty list…

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Do you like to be cozy? Do you love Christmas-related mysteries? If so, great! Check out this episode and you won't be disappointed. On the other hand, if you're a grinch and hate Christmas and feeling cozy, then come to the episode for conversations about unexpected things that make us horny, the child-eating Icelandic Christmas cat, and how dirty dog's mouths really are.

Mentioned Links

Oooo ASMR sandcutting--so satisfying. Check out this compilation from Sand Tagious.While in Iceland, Ash went to Christmas Garden, an amazing Christmas shop/wonderland/Belgian waffle paradise. Here's a lil' article about it if you wanna know more.Wanna hear Björk sing about the Icelandic Yule Cat? Of course you do.

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book: Rest Ye Murdered Gentlemen by Vicki Delany over there, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

At birth, Ella is inadvertently cursed by an imprudent young fairy named Lucinda, who bestows on her the "gift" of obedience. Anything anyone tells her to do, Ella must obey. Another girl might have been cowed by this affliction, but not feisty Ella: "Instead of making me docile, Lucinda's curse made a rebel of me. Or perhaps I was that way naturally." When her beloved mother dies, leaving her in the care of a mostly absent and avaricious father, and later, a loathsome stepmother and two treacherous stepsisters, Ella's life and well-being seem to be in grave peril. But her intelligence and saucy nature keep her in good stead as she sets out on a quest for freedom and self-discovery as she tries to track down Lucinda to undo the curse, fending off ogres, befriending elves, and falling in love with a prince along the way. Yes, there is a pumpkin coach, a glass slipper, and a happily ever after, but this is the most remarkable, delightful, and profound version of Cinderella you'll ever read.

give it a'listen

We're adding in an extra book each month to make sure you've got a weekly episode for your listening pleasure - and first up, fresh out of the hat is Ella Enchanted. Obedience is not a gift, trust us.

Music Credits

Candy-Coloured Sky by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphrReleased by Paper Crane CollectiveMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

The first and most terrifying monster in English literature, from the great early epic Beowulf, tells his side of the story in a book William Gass called "one of the finest of our contemporary fictions."

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Ash is leading up to something... first there was Beowulf, then there was Grendel. Candace is not happy. But it's ok, because there's plenty to talk about this week.

Music Credits

Candy-Coloured Sky by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphrReleased by Paper Crane CollectiveMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book: Grendel by John Gardner and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

featured image courtesy of medievalists.net

It's June! We're celebrating our one year anniversary annnd making some big announcements! Tune in to find out what 6 books are coming up next... and our super secret new.... oh, you'll just have to listen! We're super stoked! Join us!

give it a'listen

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

On February 4, 1974, members of the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped nineteen-year-old newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst from her Berkeley, California apartment. Desperate to find her, the police called physicist Russell Targ and Pat Price, a psychic retired police commissioner. As Price turned the pages of the police mug book filled with hundreds of photos, suddenly he pointed to one of them and announced, "That's the ringleader." The man was Donald DeFreeze, who was indeed subsequently so identified. Price also described the type and location of the kidnap car, enabling the police to find it within minutes. That remarkable event is one reason Targ believes in ESP. Another occurred when his group made $120,000 by forecasting for nine weeks in a row the changes in the silver-commodity futures market.As a scientist, Targ demands proof. His experience is based on two decades of investigations at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), which he cofounded with physicist Harold Puthoff in 1972. This twenty-million dollar program launched during the Cold War was supported by the CIA, NASA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Army and Air Force Intelligence. The experiments they conducted routinely presented results could have happened by chance less than once in a million.

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Mentioned Links

Wanna hear from Russell? He's featured in boatloads of YouTube videos, and Candace has curated a shortlist for you here.Russell Targ's WebsiteRussell's TEDTalk that got quashed

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book: The Reality of ESP: A Physicist's Proof of Psychic Abilities by Russell Targ and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

Candy-Coloured Sky by Catmosphere | https://soundcloud.com/ctmsphrReleased by Paper Crane CollectiveMusic promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.comCreative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US

This is our shittiest episode yet! Literally, we talk a lot about poop at the top of the episode, but eventually we find our way to police dogs named after serial killers (really), real estate quandaries, and Candace learns that staring at warts helps Ash sleep.

P.S. We heard your feedback about our volume levels, so hopefully now you'll be able to hear us! I mean, that's the whole point of this thing, right?

Mentioned Links

Ash is also known as The Bookish Bitch, you can find her here!Candace has a website where she talks about nature, health, and wellness. Find her here!

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes us up different playlists for our episodes so, you can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them.

This mystery thriller reunites Vice President Joe Biden and President Barack Obama for a political mashup full of suspense, intrigue, and laugh out loud bromance.Vice President Joe Biden is fresh out of the Obama White House and feeling adrift when his favorite railroad conductor dies in a suspicious accident, leaving behind an ailing wife and a trail of clues. To unravel the mystery, “Amtrak Joe” re-teams with the only man he’s ever fully trusted—the 44th president of the United States. Together they’ll plumb the darkest corners of Delaware, traveling from cheap motels to biker bars and beyond, as they uncover the sinister forces advancing America’s opioid epidemic.Part noir thriller and part bromance novel, Hope Never Dies s essentially the first published work of Obama/Biden fanfiction—and a cathartic read for anyone distressed by the current state of affairs.

Ash picked this book as a fun, light read to be a palate cleanser for Candace after Oryx and Crake from last month. Despite this probably being the most comedic book Ash has chosen yet, it's the only book that's made Candace cry. Whamp whamp. The book's about Barack Obama and Joe Biden just bein' bros and solving a mystery involving an Amtrak train conductor, opioids, and a lot of hi-jinks. So settle in and give those getaway sticks a rest while you listen to the gals argue about a train conductor's job duties, try to figure out what a tickler is (again), and cry over sad old men.

Show Notes

Wanna know more about the author, Andrew Shaffer? Check out his site here!Hey guess what? There's a sequel to Hope Never Dies that's going to be released in July 2019. More info here if you're interested (you should probs be interested).We mentioned The Onion's many ridiculous articles about Uncle Joe Biden, there's a shitload of them to be seen so maybe give them a peep?

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book here: Hope Never Dies by Andrew Shaffer and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes us up different playlists for our episodes so, you can check out this week's below or check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them.

Can you make sense out of press releases and TV programs that attempt to explain the newest astronomical ‘discoveries’ – things like invisible dark energy, warped 11-dimensional spaces, and black holes that spit out matter If not, you have lots of company. 

The time to search for some realistic, intelligent, scientific answers has arrived. And those sensible answers are out there for those who are ready to listen - explanations of those answers are in this book. 

Astronomers have been ignoring electrical activity in space for years. Their inability to generate sensible explanations for many observations made by state-of-the-art astronomical instruments demonstrates they need to study the properties of electrical plasma in the cosmos. 

If, as we will claim, the causes of most of the observed phenomena of modern astronomy are electrical in nature, do you need a degree in electrical engineering before you can understand them? Indeed not. The average informed person can understand and make rational judgments about these ideas. All it requires is the time and patience to read and to think logically and critically about the issues. Some basic facts and a few new concepts will suffice. The main goal of this book is to convince you, the reader, that you really do have both the capability and responsibility to make informed, critical judgments about the pronouncements of establishment science. A careful reading of these pages will enable you to make an informed assessment of this new, simpler, plasma-based alternative cosmology. 

give it a'listen

In case it isn't obvious, this book was a Candace Pick. Despite that, the gals had pretty much the same opinion of the book: meh. Who knew that a book about outer space being full of electricity and terror (Ash's editorializing) the book wasn't very palatable for us laywomen. Tune in for us imagining Billy Mays hawking a book about alternate cosmology, a brief visit from Matthew McConaughey, and a teeny Best Friend Fight (BFF) about whether or not Breatharianism is bullshit.

Mentioned Links

In this book Donald E. Scott said they didn't exist, buuuuuuuuuuuut there's brand new photographic proof of their existence here. Neat stuff!Breatharianism. We talked about it, Candace is interested in it and Ash is not having it at all. Wanna know what the hell we're talking about? Point: Ray Maor is a famous breatharian who has a lot of info on that lifestyle. Counterpoint: How Stuff Works has a nice article that sums up criticisms of the lifestyle. Have thoughts? Let us know!

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book here: The Electric Sky by Donald E. Scott, and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists (Candace is dipping her toes in...) for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.

Interstellar Plasma image courtesy of iter.org

Oryx and Crake is at once an unforgettable love story and a compelling vision of the future. Snowman, known as Jimmy before mankind was overwhelmed by a plague, is struggling to survive in a world where he may be the last human, and mourning the loss of his best friend, Crake, and the beautiful and elusive Oryx whom they both loved. In search of answers, Snowman embarks on a journey–with the help of the green-eyed Children of Crake–through the lush wilderness that was so recently a great city, until powerful corporations took mankind on an uncontrolled genetic engineering ride. Margaret Atwood projects us into a near future that is both all too familiar and beyond our imagining.

give it a'listen

This week the gals feel pretty sorry for Jimmy (aka Snowman) who's real dumb, real sad, and under way too much pressure. Other takeaways from this episode: house cats are a problem for birds, Margaret Atwood is a BAMF, and rakunks sound super cute. Neat stuff!

Mentioned Links

Find more info about Margaret Atwood and her goings-on here.

We lightly touch on Book #2 of the MaddAdam trilogy, The Year of the Flood, and its website. If you're not scared of potential spoilers, you can check it out here!

Do you like books? Do you like funny stuff? Well then find Ash and her book nonsense here.Candace is a rolling stone, check out where and what she's up to here!

Goodreads

We'd love to have you join us in opining over on Goodreads. You can find this book here: Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood and of course join our discussion group here.

Spotify Playlist

Ash mixes up playlists (Candace is dipping her toes in...) for our books - here's a sample for this week. You can check out our Spotify profile for like, all of them if you want to see more.