Terrible Book Club

It's October, so this episode is the first in our series of spooky books in honor of the season.

After a long day of stocking up on fun size candy bars, putting together a cool costume, and decorating your yard with fake spiderwebs, you're just dying to curl up with a Halloween-themed mystery that stars a living skeleton, right?...right?...sure.

This book was recommended by friend-of-the-show, Kristina! Thanks so much for recommending this and patiently waiting for us to read it for 2 years.

The book itself is pretty wholesome, but we've got some Content Warnings for you anyhow. In addition to our classic TBC barnyard language, we'll be discussing bones, murder, skeletons, and online bullying and we'll briefly touch upon (1) a statement involving racial prejudice, (2) the use of the word 'handicap', & (3) suicide.

Another week, another screenplay disguised as a book. This one is a real Russian nesting doll of poor choices.

Thanks to Bob from Books, Beards, & Booze for recommending this one to us!

Content Warnings: blood, death, fights between women, gore, injury, & misogyny.

Our Patron Jensina chose this book as their once-per-year reward! Check out our Patreon here to get this and other rewards for yourself.

In addition to our usual barnyard language, Content Warnings this week include: generalized violence, guns, military stuff, murder, and some brief jokes with sexual themes.

Chris and Paris become Blind Date and Merlot to fight a terrible book from another galaxy! This one made us feel like we were reading a knock-off G.I. Joe novel at a foreign airport bookstore. Our ultimate judgment is that this should've been pitched to The Asylum rather than being published in book form.

We've also got some falafel talk, unsettling questions about eagles, and we announce potential options for the next book.

Someone cast Meteor on Chris's computer and this episode and the associated bonus Patreon content was almost lost.

Luckily, his back-up Lifestream kicked in and saved the files, but not without sacrificing the computer itself to do so.

Chris's brother Adam joins us as a guest today.

Oops! When Paris says "Steel Magnolias" she actually means the movie "Magnolia".

GET YOUR PINKLE JINXXXXXXED!!!

This book came to our attention through an anonymous recommendation. Thank you, anonymous person, and we hope you enjoy this episode.

Although not strictly necessary, we recommend listening to this episode along with the other Maradonia episodes in the following order:

• Episode 11 - Maradonia and the Seven Bridges
• Episode 62 - Maradonia and the Escape from the Underworld
• Episode 63 - Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir
• Episode 86 - The Secret of Moon Lake
• Episode 87 - Maradonia and the Law of Blood

This book was chosen by our patron Dari as part of her Patreon reward. If you, too, would like to force us to read a book, head over to our Patreon and select either the $5 or $10/month tier.

Our commentary on the Maradonia movie is available on our Patreon at those tiers as well if you need even more Maradonia content.

• terriblebookclub.com
• Terrible Book Club Patreon

Although not strictly necessary, we recommend listening to this episode along with the other Maradonia episodes in the following order:

• Episode 11 - Maradonia and the Seven Bridges
• Episode 62 - Maradonia and the Escape from the Underworld
• Episode 63 - Maradonia and the Gold of Ophir
• Episode 86 - The Secret of Moon Lake
• Episode 87 - Maradonia and the Law of Blood

This episode is for Robert (Bobby) Kennedy, who rescued Episode 11 when we lost most of our first season of episodes. We know he wanted us to read the second book in the series, so here it is, at long last.

Our commentary on the Maradonia movie is already available for patrons Patreon this month.

We're roasting ourselves again! We decided that it was time to review past missteps and things we were wrong about on air. We try to keep this show conversational and familiar, but the consequence of that at times is that one of us will say something that isn't quite right, downright false, or kinda cringe-y. It's only fair that we re-evaluate ourselves on a show that centers on criticism.

This is Part 2 of the retrospective and covers Episodes 31-59.

Relevant links:

• TedEd's Brief History of Goths
• Minnesota's Beef Industry Profile, 2017
• Behavior Babe
• Jessica Minahan

This time, we're roasting ourselves! We decided that it was time to review past missteps and things we were wrong about on air. We try to keep this show conversational and familiar, but the consequence of that at times is that one of us will say something that isn't quite right, downright false, or kinda cringe-y. It's only fair that we re-evaluate ourselves on a show that centers on criticism.

This is Part 1 of the retrospective and covers Episodes 1-30 (though of course it doesn't include the lost episodes).

We also play another guessing game where Chris has made up some book titles and Paris has to guess which are real or fake, similar to the Two Truths and a Lie game that we played in Episode 30.

The editor for this series posted about how bad the writing was in a Facebook group called Men Failing at Erotica. We happened to see the post and another TBC episode was born. Thanks to Preston for bringing this one to our attention!

Content Warning! In addition to our usual barnyard language, this week we've got: drug trafficking/drug use, forced prostitution, guns, kidnapping, murder, sex, and torture.

Drug trafficking, a Chicago crime syndicate, dirty cops, murder, and torture sure seem like topics that could make for an exciting book. When the author includes an introduction informing you that he is, "a new breed of thriller writer," with a, "raw and sexy ability to place you in the box seat," then surely this book will deliver! ...right?