Book Club for Masochists: a Readers' Advisory Podcast

It's episode 236 and time for our summer media update! Join us as we talk about books, games, and comics we've recently enjoyed.
You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.
In this episode
Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards
Things We Read (or tried to…)
Matthew Mister Invincible by Pascal Jousselin
The Jellyfish by Boum
How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America edited by Lee Child and Laurie R. King

Meghan Read Weird Open Wide by Jessica Gross
Devil House by John Darnielle
Pour un paquet de Player's by Daniel Grenier

Meghan Tries to Read a Series Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman
Terms of Enlistment (Frontlines series) by Marko Kloos
The Greatcoats by Sebastien de Castell

NonFiction standouts Monsters in the Archives: My Year of Fear with Stephan King by Caroline Bicks
Of Floating Isles: On Growing Pains and Video Games by Kawika Guillermo
A Truce is Not Peace by Miriam Toews


Jam A Small Change by Rae-Hyeon Kim
Cain Culto Chismosa (w Jarina De Marco)
BASTA YA (w Xiuhtezcatl and Snow Tha Product)
a plague, a pestilence
BIMBAMBAU

Jam's May/June/July playlist and spreadsheet
Cannon by Lee Lai

Anna Librarian: Tidy Up the Arcane Library!
Curious Archive The Most Powerful Type of Worldbuilding (Moldy Worldbuiding)

Coriander Noodles Spicy Beef Flavor Soup Base

Other Media We Mentioned
Miike Snow - Genghis Khan
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
Universal Harvester by John Darnielle
Mea Culpa - Dark Hours "About an hour later, once it became clear to me that the web app I had launched using Claude was strikingly similar to his open source project, even reproducing a bug he had later fixed, it was clear that there wasn't anything to do except to redirect the domain directly to him and kill any plans I had to launch an iOS app for the project."

The Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood
Mercy Thompson (series) by Patricia Briggs
Alpha and Omega (series) by Patricia Briggs
The "tandem read" books by Sarah J. Maas are Empire of Storms and Tower of Dawn. There are some horrifying reading guides to these. Apparently the author doesn't recommend doing this!
Gender Reveal podcast The Lee Lai episode is "bonus content" but you can download the trasncript

Links, Articles, and Things
Forest of (Multiple Nouns)
Episode 142 - Sequels and 2022: The Year of Book Two
Episode 167 - 2023 Reading Goals & 2022 Reading Report
Boiling point of water with elevation
15 Arts Non-Fiction Books by BIPOC Authors:
Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.
Black Paper: Writing in a Dark Time by Teju Cole
Imperfect Solidarities by Aruna D'Souza
Double Melancholy: Art, Beauty, and the Making of a Brown Queer Man by C.E. Gatchalian
Truly Tribal: Contemporary Indigenous Tattooing edited by Dion Kaszas
The Autobiography of H. Lan Thao Lam by Lana Lin
A Month in Siena by Hisham Matar
Graphic Design Rules: Hints and Tips to Improve Your Designs by Chen Meihuan
Arctic/Amazon: Networks of Global Indigeneity by Gerald McMaster
Poor Artists by Zarina Muhammad and Gabrielle de la Puente
Art of Protest: Creating, Discovering, and Activating Art for Your Revolution by De Nichols, illustration by Diana Dagadita, Olivia Twist, Molly Mendoza, Saddo, and Diego Becas
I Just Keep Talking: A Life in Essays by Nell Irvin Painter
Me Artsy edited by Drew Hayden Taylor
The Best of Roy Henry Vickers: 80 Selected Works by Roy Henry Vickers
1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows by Ai Weiwei
Van Gogh on Demand: China and the Readymade by Winnie Won Yin Wong

Give us feedback!
Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!
Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!
Join us again on  Tuesday, September 1st we'll be discussing Post Apocalyptic fiction! (As suggested by nikkinaboo.)
Then on Tuesday, October 6th we'll be talking about Cosmic horror! (As suggested by soitgoes4two.)

It's episode 235 and time for us to talk about Celebrity Memoirs! We discuss who counts as a celebrity, non-celebrity memoirs, creative non-fiction, memory, success, survivorship bias, and more!
You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.
In this episode
Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇
Things We Read (or tried to…)
I'm Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy
You with the Sad Eyes by Christina Applegate
Elsa Lanchester, Herself by Elsa Lanchester
Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
My Wonderful World Of Slapstick by Buster Keaton and Charles Samuels
Finding Me by Viola Davis
Other Media We Mentioned
Lessons from a Lifetime: 90 Years of Imagination and Activism by David Suzuki
Girl in a Band by Kim Gordon
Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A '90s Rock Memoir by Melissa Auf der Maur
Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
Bossypants by Tina Fey
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
iCarly
Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
Married... with Children
Bride of Frankenstein
Pandora's Box
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang by Mordecai Richler
Sherlock Jr.
Yours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark by Cassandra Peterson
Awake by Jen Hatmaker
A Truce That is not Peace by Miriam Toews
The Harder I Fight, the More I Love You by Neko Case
That's a Great Question, I'd Love to Tell You by Elyse Myers
Links, Articles, and Things
Department Store
Hudson's Bay (department store)
Hypermarket
MeToo movement
Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang Book Trailer 
Gilean Douglas Fonds Collection of digitized photos including ones from the sets of One Stolen Night, The Fortieth Door, Rupert of Hentzau, Quincy Adams Sawyer, Oliver Twist, Robin Hood, and this specific Hall Room Boys film. 

Charlie Chaplin
Tom Mix
Laurel and Hardy
Abbott and Costello
Groucho Glasses
Hays Code

33 Celebrity Memoirs by BIPOC Authors:
Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.
Loud: Accept Nothing Less Than the Life You Deserve by Drew Afualo
Courage to Soar: A Body in Motion, a Life in Balance by Simone Biles
She Memes Well by Quinta Brunson
A Thousand Threads by Nehneh Cherry
Unfinished by Priyanka Chopra Jonas
Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu
Connie: A Memoir by Connie Chung
Let Love Have the Last Word by Common
Transcendent by Laverne Cox
Simply More by Cynthia Erivo
Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me by Whoopi Goldberg
In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero
Lady Sings the Blues by Billie Holiday
Accidentally on Purpose by Kristen Kish
We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story by Simu Liu
Unreliable Narrator: Me, Myself, and Impostor Syndrome by Aparna Nancherla
Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood by Trevor Noah
Unprotected by Billy Porter
Some New Kind of Kick by Kid Congo Powers
Truly by Lionel Richie
The Universal Tone: My Life by Carlos Santana
The Race to Be Myself by Caster Semenya
A Tale of Two Omars: A Memoir of Family, Revolution, and Coming Out During the Arab Spring by Omar Sharif Jr.
The Chiffon Trenches by André Leon Talley
All the Way: My Life on Ice by Jordin Tootoo
Trejo: My Life of Crime, Redemption, and Hollywood by Danny Trejo
I, Tina by Tina Turner
Just as I Am by Cicely Tyson
Sidesplitter: How to Be From Two Worlds at Once by Phil Wang
Great Falls, MT: Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again by Reggie Watts
Scenes from My Life by Michael K. Williams
Cack-Handed by Gina Yashere
Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
Give us feedback!
Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!
Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!
Join us again on  Tuesday, August 18th when we'll be giving our summer media update!
Then on September 1st we'll be discussing Post Apocalyptic fiction!

What Book Should We Read? (Click to vote by July 31st!)
Anna's Pick - Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic (2025)
Matthew's Pick - Starter Villain by John Scalzi (2023)
Jam's Pick - Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (2025)
Meghan's Pick - The Forest of a Thousand Eyes by Frances Hardinge (2025)
Listen to Episode 233 - Battle of the Books 2026 to hear what we had to say about each of the books!

It's episode 234 and time for us to talk about Novels in Verse! We discuss rhyme, meter, interiority, whether any of us understand poetry and more!
You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.
In this episode
Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards
What Book Should We Read? (Click to vote by July 31st!)
Listen to Episode 233 - Battle of the Books 2026
Things We Read (or tried to…)
Goodlord: An Email by Ella Frears
Dreaming of You: A Novel in Verse by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
Dear Mothman by Robin Gow
Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds
The Call-out: A Novel in Rhyme by Cat Fitzpatrick
Here Is the Beehive by Sarah Crossan
The Perfect Nine: The Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo
Calypso by Oliver K. Langmead
Other Media We Mentioned
The Bronze Horseman by Alexander Pushkin
Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin
Nineteen Ways of Looking at Wang Wei: How a Chinese Poem Is Translated by Eliot Weinberger
We Computers: A Ghazal Novel by Hamid Ismailov
Meanwhile, Elsewhere: Science Fiction and Fantasy from Transgender Writers
Finding Baba Yaga: A Short Novel in Verse by Jane Yolen
Beowulf
Project Hail Mary (film)
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Aniara (film)
Aniara: A Revue of Man in Time and Space by Harry Martinson There are two different English translations!

Links, Articles, and Things
Metre (poetry)
Episode 182 - Lyric Poetry
Concrete poetry
Iambic pentameter
We should be excited that spoken word is reinventing literature
Selena
Tejano music
Epistolary novel
List of countries by tertiary education attainment
Stacey Kade (S. A. Barnes)
Tommy Pico
17 Novels in Verse by BIPOC Authors:
Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.
Clap When You Land by Elizabeth Acevedo
The Crossover by Kwame Alexander
The Fragments That Remain by MacKenzie Angeconeb
Eureka by Victoria Chang
The Last One by Fatima Daas, translated by Lara Vergnaud
The Emperor's Babe by Bernardine Evaristo
Syncopation by Whitney French
King of the Neuro Verse by Idris Goodwin
Beaver Hills Forever by Conor Kerr
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhhà Lại
Dreaming of You by Melissa Lozada-Oliva
Here Comes the Dogs by Omar Musa
The Perfect Nine: the Epic of Gĩkũyũ and Mũmbi by Ngũgĩ wa Thiongʼo
Ain't Burned All the Bright by Jason Reynolds with artwork by Jason Griffin
Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler
Death's Country by R. M. Romero
Saints of the Household by Ari Tison
Give us feedback!
Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!
Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!
Join us again on  Tuesday, August 4th when we'll be talking about the genre of Celebrity Memoirs as suggested by Kjs4658
Then on August 18th, we'll be giving our summer media update.

It's episode 233 and time for Battle of the Books 2026! Which book will we all read and discuss? You decide!
You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.
In this episode
Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards
What Book Should We Read? (Click to vote by July 31st!)
Algospeak: How Social Media Is Transforming the Future of Language by Adam Aleksic (2025)
Starter Villain by John Scalzi (2023)
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (2025)
The Forest of a Thousand Eyes by Frances Hardinge (2025)
Runners Up
Hags: The Demonisation of Middle-Aged Women by Victoria Smith (2024)
How to Tell When We Will Die: On Pain, Disability, and Doom by Johanna Hedva (2024)
The 7½ Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton (2018)
Cascade Failure by L.M. Sagas (2024)
How to Lose a Goblin in Ten Days by Jessie Sylva (2026)
Cannon by Lee Lai (2025)
Boys Weekend by Mattie Lubchansky (2023)
I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated by Ros Schwartz (1995/1998)
Stoner by John Williams (1965)
Other Media We Mentioned
Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age by Vauhini Vara
Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Cost of the Perfect Playlist by Liz Pelly
How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo
How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures by Sabrina Imbler
Floating Hotel by Grace Curtis
How to Write a Mystery: A Handbook from Mystery Writers of America edited by Lee Child and Laurie R. King
Miike Snow - Genghis Khan 
007 First Light
You Only Live Twice
Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots
Redshirts by John Scalzi
The Kaiju Preservation Society by John Scalzi
Old Man's War by John Scalzi
When the Moon Hits Your Eye by John Scalzi
Autonomous by Annalee Newitz
Links, Articles, and Things
Episode 215 - Battle of the Books 2025
Episode 220 - How Far the Light Reaches
Volcano Lair (TVTropes)
Vancouver SkyTrain
Matthew's favourite Vancouver SkyTrain update YouTube channel
15 Adventure Fiction Books by BIPOC Authors:
Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.
So Wild a Dream by Win Blevins
The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
God's Country by Percival Everett
Valiant Ladies by Melissa Grey
Call Me Ishmaelle by Xiaolu Guo
Escape from Baghdad by Saad Z. Hossain
A Million to One by Adiba Jaigirdar
The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin
Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky by Kwame Mbalia
Bones of Ruin by Sarah Raughley
Will's Race for Home by Jewell Parker Rhodes
The Barren Grounds by David Robertson
Travelers Along the Way: a Robin Hood Remix by Aminah Mae Safi
Stranded by Nikki Shannon Smith
The Jellyfish Problem by Tessa Yang
Give us feedback!
Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!
Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!
Join us again on  Tuesday, July 7th when we'll be talking about Novels in Verse!
Then on Tuesday, August 4th we're discussing Celebrity Memoirs! (As suggested by Kjs4658.)