Weird Girl Book Club

There is a rose in Spanish Harlem! And her name is Tish. 🌹❤️

This month the girlies are discussing James Baldwin’s 1974 novel If Beale Street Could Talk. Baldwin explores complex family ties, solidarity, and structural racism through a tender and wise love story set in 70s Harlem.

Join us as we discuss the strength of love, how fucked the prison system is, James Baldwin’s beautiful smile, and what makes us human in this week's episode of Weird girl book club.

Baldwin teaches us to show up for our communities and make the right choices in the face of fear and suffering. ❤️

Follow us on insta at weirdgirlbookclub_pod to keep up with the latest episodes xx 

It’s actually much harder for our dear friend Pierre Menard to publish this episode of weird girl book club and deep down we know he’s done it better 🙏😔

This month the girlies get a little metaphysical as we cover ‘The Garden of Forking Paths’, part 1 of Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges’ book of short stories ‘Ficciones’.

Join us as we discuss inception-like dreams, endless libraries, parallel timelines, fictional planets, the chance of life, materialism, our dear friend Pierre Menard, and John Green’s bladder failure.

If, like us, you also feel intelligence mogged by Borges, maybe this episode will help shine a little light.

What book would you like to rewrite yourself? Let us know @weirdgirlbookclub_pod on insta! x

To become a prophet, you have to burn your bush 🙏😔🔥🌳

In this month’s episode we discuss Flannery O’Connors southern gothic classic, ‘The Violent Bear It Away’!

Young Francis Tarwater was kidnapped and raised by his fanatical great uncle in rural isolation with the sole aim of becoming a prophet of the lord. After the death of his great uncle, will young tarwater keep his promise and baptise his cousin or will he listen to that charismatic, persuasive voice in his head that tells him to question everything?

True to the genre, this book feels uncomfortable, tense, oppressive and laden with symbolism. The literary equivalent of a lightning storm on a hot and humid summer night. In true southern gothic fashion we recorded this episode mid heatwave, so if we sound a little delirious, blame our slow cooked brains. 🫠

Are you also having a Summerween right now? Let us know @weirdgirlbookclub_pod on IG! xx

🌿🏝️🌞Only farmers and summer guests walk on the moss🌞🏝️🌿

Channeling the recent heatwave, this month the girlies are exploring Tove Jansson’s 1972 novel ‘The Summer Book’.

6 year old Sofia spends her summer on a small Finnish island with her dad and her grandma, and the summer is endless. Through little slice of life vignettes, the book details island life and the relationship between Sofia and her grandma. Both sharing the same warmth, curiosity, and stubbornness, the two are very similar.

Jansson presents us with life lessons, lamentations on death, silly arguments, and the beauty of nature.

Join us to discuss the agency of older women, nature writing, the joy in ageing, and our perfect summers. This week we are joined by Mia, cohost of the seedling podcast! 🌱

Follow us on instagram at weirdgirlbookclub_pod for book recs and to stay up to date with episodes! Xx

And check out the Seedling podcast!

Planting yourself in the ground as a tree is not actually a normal thing that you can do. 🌳🌿

This month, in light of the US and Israel's war of aggression in Iran, the girlies are diving into Iranian literature, with International Booker Prize Longlisted Women Without Men, Shahrnush Parsipur's 1989 novel. 

This book weaves a surreal and confronting tapestry of the lives of five different women in Tehran. Parsipur explores the constraints of sexuality, gender, bodies, and class through engaging with Islamic mystic tradition and challenging contemporary social values. 

Join us to discuss the magical realism genre, Western imperialism, and the feminine urge to turn into a tree. 🌱

Follow us on Instagram at weirdgirlbookclub_pod to stay up to date with episodes! xx 

These boys are so hard with each other!

In this month's episode, we cover 'Heated Rivalry' (2019) by Rachel Reid. Would you believe it, this is our first step into the world of gay sports romance!

Part 2 in Rachel Reid's Game Changers series, Heated Rivalry follows the story of Shane Hollander and Ilya Rozanov, 2 ice hockey legends who play for opposing teams. Despite their supposed public rivalry, the two cant resist each other and enter into a clandestine sexual relationship that spans over 7 years. But is this purely sexual or is loooooove the name of the game? ;)

Don't worry, we obviously cover the groundbreaking, dare we say, life changing TV show. We love these hockey boys and we think you will too!

Have you read the book series or watched the show? Let us know at @weirdgirlbookclub_pod on IG. xx

First name Heath, last name Cliff.

In this month’s episode we (sort of) discuss Emily Brontë’s Gothic masterpiece, ‘Wuthering Heights’ (1847)… but mostly we end up talking about the 2026 movie adaptation.

Lockwood, the new tenant at Thrushcross Grange, travels to Wuthering Heights to meet his hostile landlord Heathcliff; shaken by his encounter with the ghost of a girl named Catherine, Lockwood asks his housekeeper Nelly to tell him the story of the Heights’s curious inhabitants. What follows is a tale of revenge, violence and obsession that reverberates through two generations, intertwining the fates of its families.

Have you read the novel or seen the new film? Let us know at @weirdgirlbookclub_pod on IG. xx

Everything’s better in the Czech Republic.

In this episode the girls discuss ‘Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead’ (2009) by Olga Tokarczuk, translated from Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

The novel follows Janina Duszejko, a woman living in a remote Polish village near the Czech border; the sudden and violent death of her neighbour is the first in a string of mysterious murders, and Janina is convinced that only she knows the identity of the true culprit. ‘Drive Your Plow’ raises questions around humans’ relationship with animals and our place in the universe; the revolutionary poetry of William Blake and the complexities of translation; the mind-body divide and the nature of prisons, both literal and metaphorical.

Would you rather be mauled to death by a grizzly bear, or torn apart by a pack of wolves? Let us know over at @weirdgirlbookclub_pod on IG. x

The baby is the villain in this book.

In our final episode of 2025, Lina and Harmony are delving into ‘Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish’ (2011), the fourth instalment in the Windham series by Grace Burrowes.

Lady Sophie Windham is the “sensible” one in her family, but when she is stranded in the middle of a snowstorm with a baby who isn’t hers she realises she is in over her head. Enter Vim Charpentier, who has recently returned to England for the Christmas holidays and offers to help Sophie take care of little Kit. As their mutual feelings of desire and longing become impossible to ignore, will Sophie’s Christmas wish - to spend the holidays with the man she loves - finally come true?

Enjoy this fun, festive episode and see you all in the New Year!

Love from all at WGBC xx

We know Death personally, and he said he never said that!

This week the girls revisit The Book Thief (2005), Markus Zusak’s bestselling young adult novel following a young girl growing up in Nazi Germany. Narrated by Death, this is the story of Liesel, who is sent to the small town of Molching to live with her new foster parents, Hans and Rosa Hubermann.

Liesel quickly develops an appetite for reading and for stealing books, and strikes up a fragile friendship with the mayor’s wife, who lends Liesel the use of her library. The Hubermanns agree to hide a young Jewish fistfighter named Max in their basement, a secret Liesel vows to keep, even from her best friend Rudy. As the Second World War rages on, Liesel and her family strive to protect each other and survive in the face of impending destruction.

Follow us at @weirdgirlbookclub_pod on IG to keep up with what we will read next! x