Coming up on the one-year anniversary of the start of the podcast, an emotional Victoria and her emotional-support Jared revisit the books that they discussed in the unaired pilot episode: The Sea in Winter by Christine Day (2021) and The First Men in the Moon by H.G. Wells (1901).

In a slightly experimental format, Jared avoids spoilers while discussing Cixin Liu's The Three-Body Problem (2008), the first novel of the Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy, by talking about aliens. Victoria, on the other hand, spoils everything about Maggie Shen King's dystopian novel An Excess Male (2017) which delves into current issues arising from China's One-Child Policy and extrapolating the future of those issues playing out under constant government surveillance.

Happy New Year! After a couple months off to deal with the retail holiday rush, Jared and Victoria are back in a short episode to discuss what they read between Halloween and Christmas, as well as the books they're hoping to read in the coming year.Twitter: @VDBpodcastEmail: [email protected]

Content warning: sexual assault and child sexualization. See chapter info if you wish to skip past this content.In the first Halloween episode, Victoria struggles through Interview With the Vampire by Anne Rice (1976) and Jared takes us on a journey through Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (1962). A discussion also follows about the value of content and trigger warnings in books with mature themes.As always, we can be reached at @VDBpodcast on Twitter and at verydifferentbooks@...

Jared covers the roller coaster that is Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett and Victoria breaks down Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O'Brien.We forgot to record the social media handles (because we're smart little newbies over here, okay), so if you want to get in touch with us, we're at @VDBpodcast on Twitter and can be reached at [email protected].

After keeping this week's books a secret from each other, Jared and Victoria discuss books that they've been waiting to read for quite a long time: The Children of Men by P.D. James, and Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer.The video we mention at 10:54 is here.

For the first episode, Jared and Victoria introduce themselves and discuss their most recent reads: Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, and The Giver by Lois Lowry.