Save Me From My Shelf

By Abigail Boucher and Daniel Jenkin-SmithComedy Arts Books

Save Me From My Shelf episodes

April 23, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 18: The Kite Runner
The eighteenth 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 Kite Runner episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
28 min
April 16, 2025 Episode 66 - The Kite Runner
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-sixth episode, we examine Khaled Hosseini's 2003 redemption-and-brotherhood melodrama, The Kite Runner. In this episode, Daniel feels seen, gives a shout out to his friends in the Taliban, and tells us what he'd do if ever gifted a copy of Hitler's biography. Abby, meanwhile, becomes the angriest she's been since the Pamela episode.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Ustad_Gada_Mohammad_-_Rababa

Episode Theme: Ustad Gada Mohammad, 'Rababa'.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 9 min
March 19, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 17: The Handmaid's Tale
The fifteenth 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 Handmaid's Tale episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
35 min
March 12, 2025 Episode 65 - The Handmaid's Tale
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-fifth episode (which coincides with International Women's Day), we examine Margaret Attwood's dystopia about far-right misogyny, The Handmaid's Tale (1985). Turkey basters and Orwell klaxons at the ready!

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Gabriel Faure, 'Pie Jesu', Requiem.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 13 min
February 19, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 16: Madame Bovary
The fifteenth 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 Duchess of Malfi episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
28 min
February 12, 2025 Episode 64 - Madame Bovary
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-fourth episode and Valentine's Day special, we spent some sexy time with Gustave Flaubert's adulteress, Madame Bovary (1856), which was immediately banned for offenses against morality under the conservative rule of Napoleon III. We also play 'Spot the "Big F*ck"', develop the hashtag #NotAllNuns, and watch a character go through a C19th French version of It's Always Sunny's 'The D.E.N.N.I.S. System'.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Charles Gounod, 'La nuit de Walpurgis' (Act V), Faust (1859), Performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 12 min
January 22, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 15: The Duchess of Malfi
The fifteenth 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 Duchess of Malfi episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
29 min
January 15, 2025 Episode 63 - The Duchess of Malfi
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our sixty-third episode, we open Season 6 with a look at banned and controversial books with John Webster's hyper-violent Jacobean revenge tragedy, The Duchess of Malfi (1614). This play gives us our first authentic himbo sting in a while, as well as an Oscars-worthy In Memoriam.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Carlo Gesualdo, Moro lasso al mio duolo (1611), Performed by the MIT Chamber Chorus.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 15 min
January 01, 2025 SMFMS Bookends 14: Little Women
The fourteenth 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 Little Women episode.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
39 min
December 25, 2024 Episode 62 - Little Women
Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our sixty-second episode and Christmas Special, we plunge through the ice into Louisa May Alcott's bildungsroman and first strong example of girls' YA fiction, Little Women (1869). We declare an ethno-feud on the Germans, figure out which March sister is the Wario, and discuss which is worse (in Alcott's universe): hitting or hitting on a minor.

Cover art © Catherine Wu.

Episode Theme: Émile Waldteufel, 'The Skaters' Waltz', Op. 183 (1882)
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
1 hr 19 min