Book Rant Book Rant

We've resurfaced! 

Even though we haven't exactly been super busy reading behind the scenes, we figured we'd bring everyone back to speed with a recap of what we've been reading and doing for the past year. Our favourite reads, most surprising books of 2023, DNFs, reading goals for 2024... you know the drill. 

Also, if anyone asks what we got each other for our 2023 Book Box, the answer is we don't know; we're late and have bad memories. 

So, uh, it's been a while.

We figured we should release something to let you know where we've been and what we've been reading. And to give some life updates and let you know where this podcast is going.

We're not officially back from our hiatus (although we never really announced that we were on a hiatus... so were we ever officially on one?). But we felt like chatting about books! So here we are.

We hope your reading is going well, too :)

cw: pet loss, talk of mental illness

Listen,  I think we just needed to have a chill episode. 

So, here it is.  A chill episode. 

Vee talks about an old favourite, Travel Light by Naomi Mitchison, and thinks about how books change over time and reveal new secrets with age. 

Jess discusses the importance and heartbreaking reality of This Place: 150 Years Retold, a graphic novel exploring the last 150 years of so-called Canada through the lens of Indigenous voices and experiences. 

cw: rape

In this month's role reversal, Jess reads a book of essays and Vee reads (really awful) alien smut!

Trick Mirror by Jia Tolentino is highly recommended book of personal essays exploring the ways that capitalism has ruined everything. Guest appearance by Foucault.

Ice Planet Barbarians: A Scifi Alien Romance by Ruby Dixon (not her real name) is... not recommended. In fact, it's atrocious and I suggest you forget it ever existed. It's a book about heteronormative assumptions and giving excuses for rape because it feels good. 

Look, consent is sexy. That's it, that's all. 

Sometimes you just need to get up at 5AM and beautifully read, ya know?

Vee recounts her experiences reading This Is How You Lose The Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, a wonderfully crafted sapphic romance about post-human time travelling agents... need I say more?

And Jess gushes about the book that actually broke her reading slump: Beach Read by Emily Henry, a contemporary romance/romantic comedy (somebody tell me what the difference is) with quick banter and uncomfortably timed animal excretions. 

It was bound to happen. Jess is finally out of her reading slump and dove straight into Piranesi by Susanna Clarke - which of course meant that we needed to sit down with some drinks and a pipe and chat about what we thought about this book.

We by no means covered even half of the theories or ideas that this book brings up, so if you have anything to add, hit us up on Twitter or Instagram! If you haven't even read this book, what are you doing? Go read it!


mouth noises sponsored by THC and olives