Readers Digress

In What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, Aubrey Gordon (aka Your Fat Friend) confronts the cultural attitudes and social systems that deny fat people basic needs and civility. Each chapter takes up a different cultural bias or myth, from the obesity epidemic to the diet industry to concern over others’ health.

Summary of the book (7:58)

Our key takeaways (11:16)

Our favorite quotes (37:48)

What questions do we still have? (1:00:53)

References: Aidy Bryant’s interview with Terry Gross, Shrill, Mean Girls Scene, Obligatory 30 Rock reference about push-ups

What to check out next: Kate suggests Maintenance Phase (podcast) and Mollie suggests Fat yogi Living with Tiffany Croww (videos) and Jessamyn Stanley yoga videos

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This week we’re diving into Rednecks, Queers, & Country Music by Nadine Hubbs. Hubbs argues that the white middle class has villainized country music as a way of distancing themselves from the white working class and that while the middle class portrays sex and gender deviance as new social advances encouraged by the middle class, this sex-gender deviance has only recently moved out of a century-long period of forced allyship with the working class.

Summary of the book (4:35)

Our key takeaways (6:20)

Our favorite quotes (18:00)

What questions do we still have? (58:00)

References: Blake Shelton's Minimum Wage

What to check out next: Mollie and Kate's Anything, Including Country Spotify playlist.

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This week we’re talking about Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber by New York Times technology correspondent Mike Isaac. This book is the story of the tech start-up Uber and its founder, Travis Kalanick, but it’s also a case study of the tech bro culture and founder worship in Silicon Valley, the perils of over-ambition, and the incredible economics of venture capital investments.

Summary of the book (2:40)

Our key takeaways (5:13)

Our favorite quotes (33:14)

What questions do we still have? (44:18)

References: Parks & Rec Mona Lisa Meme, Matt Levine’s Bloomberg column

What to check out next: Chris suggests Bad Blood by John Carreyrou and Barbarians at the Gate by Bryan Burrough and John Helyar (nonfiction books); Mollie suggests Foundering (podcast); and Kate suggests Silicon Valley (HBO, Hulu)

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Who are these people and why did they start a podcast? Let's find out! This week we're mixing it up for a Q&A episode so you can get to know us more.

How we got here (1:56)

Where Mollie found comfort in 2020 (28:15)

Kate's relationship philosophy (33:58)

Mollie: An Emotional Engineer (45:01)

Our favorite books (56:36)

Itching for another book discussion episode? Not to worry! We're super pumped to discuss Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber next time.

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Welcome back to Reader’s Digress, the podcast where we read nonfiction books so you don’t have to (unless you want to). Join us, hosts Mollie Fox and Kate Kiriakou, as we use a nonfiction book as the springboard to discuss relevant themes and their relation to current events, pop culture, and our personal experiences.

This week we’re discussing You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by comedian and overall light in the world Amber Ruffin, and her sister Lacey Lamar.

Amber Ruffin is the host of The Amber Ruffin Show on Peacock and a writer for Late Night with Seth Meyers. She lives in New York City, and her sister, Lacey Lamar, lives and works in Omaha, NE where they were raised with their parents and other siblings. In this book, Amber and her sister Lacey trade commentary as they tell the stories of racism that Lacey, and other members of the Ruffin family, have survived.

Summary of the book (2:00)

Our key takeaways (19:30)

Our favorite quotes (36:40)

What questions do we still have? (56:58)

References: White Fragility, Robin DiAngelo: “Racism is inherently about power within society—wielded collectively by those who have it against those who don’t.”; Sundown Towns, James W. Loewen.

What to check out next: Kate suggests A Black Lady Sketch Show (HBO TV show) and Jokes Seth Can’t Tell (Late Night with Seth Myers clips). Mollie suggests Scam Goddess (podcast).

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Welcome back to Readers Digress, the podcast where we read nonfiction books so you don’t have to (unless you want to). Join us, hosts Mollie Fox and Kate Kiriakou, as we use a nonfiction book as the springboard to discuss relevant themes and their relation to current events, pop culture, and our personal experiences.

This week we’re discussing Jon Ronson’s The Psychopath Test, a journalistic investigation not into psychopaths, but into the industry that studies and profits from them, or “the madness industry.” 

Using psychologist Bob Hare’s Psychopath Test—a checklist of observable characteristics psychopaths share—Ronson begins the book by following a series of prisoners and business executives who have either been diagnosed as psychopaths or Ronson presumes to be psychopaths. In the latter part of the book, after visiting with one of these individuals and finding him unsatisfactorily “psychopathic enough,” Ronson ingeniously pivots his book to exploring the second question—why is it so important for us to diagnose others in ways that help us categorize them? And how helpful is this, really?

Summary of the book (4:00)

Our key takeaways (6:49)

Our favorite quotes (23:58)

What questions do we still have? (39:15)

References: 30 Rock reference (S03E19); The Ezra Klein Show, “Best Of: Robert Sapolsky on the toxic intersection of poverty and stress” (10/10/20); P.S. Homosexuality wasn’t removed from the DSM until 1973.

What to check out next: Kate suggests The Butterfly Effect and Last Days of August by Jon Ronson (podcast series) and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975 film). Mollie suggests MindHunter (Netflix TV series) and The Gift of Fear by Gavin De Becker (nonfiction book).

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Welcome to Readers Digress, the podcast where we read nonfiction books so you don’t have to (unless you want to). Join us, hosts Mollie Fox and Kate Kiriakou, as we use a nonfiction book as the springboard to discuss relevant themes and their relation to current events, pop culture, and our personal experiences.

Our first two episodes dissect Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (book description in Part 1, 2:10). Part 1 focuses on performative masculinity and the myth of victimhood in white patriarchal evangelical culture, while Part 2 analyzes how politics and capitalism propelled evangelicalism to its modern, near-omnipresent status in American culture.

In Part 2, learn how evangelicalism led us to the current political moment (2:10), hear a case study in the popular culture of evangelicalism (33:55), and the pervasiveness of evangelical culture (46:11).

Content Warning: Discussions of disordered eating appear in this episode (33:55 - 45:45).

References: 30 Rock pep talk; Ta-Nehisi Coates, “The First White President,” The Atlantic

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Hi friend! Welcome to Readers Digress, the podcast where we read nonfiction books so you don’t have to (unless you want to). We know, right? Finally! A book club for literature aficionados AND busy people who enjoy engaging conversations but don't want to get dirty looks from their co-worker Kassidy for showing up to the book club without finishing the book.. again.

Join us, hosts Mollie Fox and Kate Kiriakou, as we use a nonfiction book as the springboard to discuss relevant themes and their relation to current events, pop culture, and our personal experiences.

Our first two episodes dissect Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation by Kristin Kobes Du Mez (book description in Part 1, 2:10). Part 1 focuses on performative masculinity and the myth of victimhood in white patriarchal evangelical culture, while Part 2 analyzes how politics and capitalism propelled evangelicalism to its modern, near-omnipresent status in American culture.

In Part 1, hear why we texted each other so many puking emojis while reading this (17:15, 22:10), why whiteness is vital to this movement (48:45), and why factions of evangelicalism mimic cult behavior (1:02:39).

P.S. The audio in our first recording didn’t pan out how we wanted—stick with us, the next episode will be better!

References: Moral Convictions - Hidden Brain (10/19/20): Moral Combat

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