Save Me From My Shelf

By Abigail Boucher and Daniel Jenkin-SmithComedy Arts Books

Save Me From My Shelf episodes

September 17, 2025 Episode 71 - The Catcher in the Rye
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventy-first episode, we look at a controversial text of teenage rebellion and grief-trauma that has attracted a LOT of weird loners over the years: J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951). In this episode, Daniel takes a big L over David Copperfield, we have Buckfast at Tiffany's, spend a long time discussing Howard Hughes's design of the perfect bra, and realise that this should have been our Christmas episode.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Larry Wagner, 'Autopsy on Schubert' (1937).
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 15 min
August 20, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 22: Fahrenheit 451
The twenty-second episode of SMFMS Bookends, the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf. Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, resuscitate the Bad Sex Awards™, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from our Fahrenheit 451 episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
36 min
August 13, 2025 Episode 70 - Fahrenheit 451
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our seventieth episode, Ray Bradbury's literary-based dystopia, Fahrenheit 451 (1953), we get one step closer to EGOT-ing, see more of Abby's French-Canadian Vermonter roots, process Daniel's early cinema trauma, and discuss some scholastic terms: fridging, Bowlderisation, and Futurismo.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Tchaikovsky, 'Valse Sentimental' by Clara Rockmore on theramin.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 12 min
July 23, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 21: Fanny Hill
The twenty-first episode of SMFMS Bookends, the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf. Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, resuscitate the Bad Sex Awards™, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from our Fanny Hill episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
33 min
July 16, 2025 Episode 69 - Fanny Hill
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-ninth episode (nice) we recap the first (?) known pornographic work to use the novel as its form: John Cleland's Fanny Hill, Or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (1748). We see a weaponised Measuringworth and learn the joys of giant maypoles, turtlebilling, and plenipontentary instruments.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: John Gay, 'Overture' in The Beggar's Opera (1728).
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 12 min
June 25, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 20: A Streetcar Named Desire
The twentieth episode of SMFMS Bookends, the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf. Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, resuscitate the Bad Sex Awards™, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from our Streetcar episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
29 min
June 18, 2025 Episode 68 - A Streetcar Named Desire
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-eighth episode, we recap Tennessee Williams's most famous work, A Streetcar Named Desire (1947). Abby stresses out after some massive audio equipment failure and Daniel reveals himself to be both the podcast's Brando AND a thriving gay man.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Daniel Jenkin-Smith, 'Trolley Problem'.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 12 min
May 28, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 19: Ulysses
The ninteenth episode of SMFMS Bookends, the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf. Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, resuscitate the Bad Sex Awards™, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from our Ulysses episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
36 min
May 21, 2025 Episode 67b - Ulysses, Part Two
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-seventh episode, we examine the second half of James Joyce's 800-page inscruitable Modernist Masterpiece, Ulysses. Here we recap the 'Nausicaa' chapter, which got the book banned in the first place, and speculate on if such an achievement in literature angered the gods.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: 'The Rocky Road to Dublin'.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 3 min
May 07, 2025 Episode 67a - Ulysses, Part One
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. This season, we are only looking at banned and controversial texts. In our sixty-seventh episode, we examine the first half of James Joyce's 800-page inscruitable Modernist Masterpiece, Ulysses. We make lots of connections to the Odyssey and wonder if Joyce--the filthy bugger--might have put his penis (or something worse, given his pecadillos) in a popcorn tub at Dublin's first cinema.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: 'The Rocky Road to Dublin'.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
58 min