We haven’t done any self-help lately, so Paris braved Oprah's Book Club list to pull the recently published Secrets of Adulthood straight from its maw. Though it attempted to take her, she fought her way out to bring you this episode about the science of happiness and the pop cultural grift which swirls around it.

References & Resources:

• Dr. Robert Waldinger: What makes a good life? Lessons from the longest study on happiness
• The Good Life by Robert Waldinger, MD & Marc Shulz, PhD

• Dr. Laurie's Happiness Lab Podcast

• The Science of Well-Being: Dr. Laurie's Yale course, free for adults and a teen version

• Martin Seligman's Authentic Happiness

• The Wiser Model

• University of New Hampshire - Positive Psychology
• The You You Are by Ricken Hale, PhD

Content Warnings: In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes discussion or mention of capitalism and eating the rich.

One dark day in the TBC Patreon chat dungeons, our Patron Austin scrawled the following message to us:

"...[D]uring the 80s there was a guy literally named Dick Wulf (Not to be confused with law and order producer and writer Dick Wolf) who made a Christian version of D&D called Dragonraid. There's very little documentation online about what the game system was like but it did exist and from what I can gather there was some sort of mechanic involving casting spells by reciting bible verses. Cut to like 2020, some forty years later, some Christian company approaches Dick Wulf to buy the intellectual rights to his fantasy world so they can rebrand as LightRaider the new Christian fantasy RPG sensation! For the low low price of 57.99! And to build hype as they were creating the actual system, they created LightRaider Academy, a trilogy of YA Novels."

Based on this information, Chris could have read a LightRaider Academy novel, but, no - he had to spread the suffering around. So, he recruited his friends Phoebe and Kami to support Paris on an adventure into the world of DragonRaid. Our party gets to roll a single die and encounter terrifying dangers such as orcs, wolves, racist charicatures, and fat shaming! Don't even think about eating pie - literally.

In addition to being our GM, Chris also did all of the scoring for today's episode. Remember that you can hire him at Oselka Sound for all of your composition, sound design, editing, music teaching, and session work needs.

If you enjoyed our guests, you can find Phoebe on Instagram @phoebe.danskin and Kami on Twitch @maniacalpillow

In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes discussion of Christianity, fatphobia, and anti-semitism.

Paris must conquer her fear and loathing to survive this gonzo, idiocratic adventure from the mind of Sean Penn (yes, the actor). Our Patron George submitted this as his Patron's request this season saying, “I've been listening to you guys for a long time and this is the first time I've ever found anything that you folks might be interested [in]. I present to you: Bob Honey Who Just Do Stuff, a book that is only 176 [pgs.] and was somehow still one of the most dreadful slogs I've ever read.”

Thank you so much for your support, George! We hope you enjoy this episode we made just for you.

In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes discussion or mention of action-movie violence, American politics, racism including antisemitism, & sexism. Please choose another of our 222 episodes from our back catalogue or some of our free Patreon content if these topics are not for you today!

In this second half of our accidental TBC of Ice & Fire recording session, Chris tackles a book left on his doorstep by a minion of Terriblo themselves with a note:

"Dear Paris and Chris,

I, the Dark God of horrid literature, appreciate your work in spreading the word of terrible books with your podcast. As such I've tasked one of my cultists, your listener Lucek, with delivering this book to your care. Please take this donation to the cause as an act of support and not a means of disencouragement, regardless of what the book does to your sanity. I hope to see many more years of great service for you two.

Eldritchly yours,

Terriblo"

Thank you for this special gift, Lucek! We very much appreciate your longtime dedication to the show (and the bit). Please enjoy this surprisingly pleasant episode of TBC.

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier (or leaving a physical book on our doorstep, I guess).

Today’s episode includes our usual barnyard language in addition to eating disorders and sex.

Paris is on the case again this week! Our Patron Patrick requested that we read and review Points of Origin saying, “This book was written as a fictional story about a fictional investigator trying to catch a serial arsonist who was terrorizing California in the 1980s. The author was a[n] actual fire investigator at the time and this [was] based off of real events. Literally real events! Because it turns out the author John Orr, the arson investigator, was [convicted of being] the real life arsonist…This book was even used during his trial. In the book he had knowledge about the crimes which weren't available to him and [he] wouldn't have known. At one point in the book the author slipped up and switched from 3rd person to first person when talking about one of [the] victims."

Thank you so much for supporting the show, Patrick! We hope you enjoy this very special true crime episode of TBC.

We owe some additional thanks to the rest of our patrons whose funding allowed us easier access to extra research material for this episode. All hail the patrons!

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

Today’s episode includes our usual barnyard language in addition to arson, fires and their fetishization, infidelity, murder, sexual assault, and other sexual themes.

Links & References:

• Firebug podcast by Kary Antholis and his team from truth.media
• Burned by Frank C. Girardot, Jr. and Lori Kovach Orr

Get out your corn kernels and hot oil, today, folks, 'cause we're goin' poppin'!

Today's book comes to us from our longtime Patron Arrant who said, "I read [something] that might be fascinating for you guys rather than simple bad: "Just Call Me Orville" by Robert Topping, which is about the life and rise of Orville Redenbacher. Yes, the Popcorn guy. I quite enjoyed it and I was surprised by how fascinating and genuine he was as a person. And if anything, it fits into the weird food universe since he's so synonymous with the popcorn brand that people didn't even realize he was a real man and that was his real name."

Chris tries to tell Paris all about Orville in this surprisingly laugh-a-minute episode about farming, business, and food marketing in the early-mid 20th century United States. Still, we must beware the Butter People as they are afoot once more. Legend has it that to banish them, you must chant, "Baby, is it anymore popcorn?" three times into the nearest popcorn machine or, failing that, the last pan you used to pop corns.

Chris was called away on a years-long shipping voyage by a conniving relative, so he can’t be with us today. In his stead, Mary returns! You may remember her from such episodes as this past October’s The Phantom of Manhattan, 2021's Die Hamletmachine, and our now beloved E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in His Adventure on Earth episode from 2023.

We discuss our experience reading Fanny Hill by John Cleland, originally published in 1748 and since routinely banned as the first known published English-language erotica. Mary found a copy of this in a little free library years ago and since then, it has taken up permanent residence in her mind and she has talked about it off and on. I figured it’d be a fun one for the show since we, somehow, have yet to feature 18th century erotica on TBC.

In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes coerced/trafficked sex work, graphic sex, and sexual assaults as this book is mid-18th century pornography.

Links & References:

• Fanny Hill in Bombay: The Making & Unmaking of John Cleland by Hal Gladfelder
• Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson
• Joseph Andrews and Shamela by Henry Fielding
• Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
• The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
• Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue by Marquis de Sade
• Juliette by Marquis de Sade

We revert to our previous format this week with both Chris and Paris reviewing today's book. The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You was published in the last week of January of 2025 by Apple Books and immediately caught our attention since Paris has been obsessed with Severance since it debuted and Chris was recruited into the madness this year. We thought it would be fun to check out a prop from a TV show that had become a real book. Listen as we do Ricken's self-help exercises and become severed in real-time!

If you are trying to keep yourself completely pure before watching Severance, there are some mild Severance spoilers from early in Season 1 between 1:12:00 - 1:15:45 

Links & References

• The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You by Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD
• Dr. Dolly Chugh: How to let go of being a "good" person — and become a better person

This week, Paris turns up the Perturbator records, dons some aviators and a trenchcoat, and heads out into the rainy nights of 1980s Milwaukee to help our Patron Fred.

Fred wrote to us saying, “...the sheer notion of a murder mystery with Happy Days characters that is apparently officially sanctioned by whoever owns the rights is enough to give me pause. I can’t even find any information about why th[is] book was made and I just end up asking myself, “Who is this for?” because while I don’t doubt that Happy Days still has a large fan base, I don’t think many people would want to read a book about how one of the best characters on the show gets murdered.”

We hope you enjoy this episode, Fred! Thank you so much for supporting TBC.

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

Today’s episode includes our usual barnyard language in addition to infidelity, kidnapping, murder, and one brief moment of drug use.

Additional Links:

• Interview with James Boice (2011)

• Interview with James Boice about his writing of Who Killed the Fonz? (2019)

Chris has to travel to another reality again today - this time, it's a Grecian fantasy world that isn't actually Greek! Speaking of Greece, thank you to The Metal Classicist Dr. Jeremy Swist for pronunciation help on today's episode.

Our Patron Austin sent Chris on this voyage through the world of In the Ravenous Dark by A.M. Strickland for his Patron's Choice this year saying this was, "...a book about a girlfailure who ends up step-cousins to the royal family, all of which become inexplicably interested in either becoming her friend, fucking her, or both. Some highlights includ[e] a first chapter that involves fucking on top of a two story gazeebo, an island of vaguely celtic wizards who all have anime hair and eyes, a love interest who does that scene with JOI and the prostitute in Blade Runner 2049, and distracting your ghost bodyguard by almost flashing your tits at him."

We hope you enjoy the episode, Austin! Thank you for your longtime support of TBC.

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

Today’s episode includes our usual barnyard language in addition to discussion or mention of blood, corpses, death/dying, necromancy, and sex.