The Worst Bestsellers Worst Bestsellers

I only listen to books I’ve read so I treat this podcast as my own personal book club. I love going through the archives and have listened to all the Twilight episodes. My one issue is the editing: there are ways to adjust the sound so one person isn’t exceptionally louder than the rest. Kait and Renata are rarely at the same volume and the guests are always off. I understand quality won’t always be equal but volume can be normalized in most editing softwares.

Highly recommending "If Books Could Kill" to anyone who, like me, was looking for an interesting book analysis pod. This just seems to be a hunt for the most surface-level reactionary takes possible. Their episode on Nora Sakavic's The Foxhole Court is an awful example on that front - actually the one that made me give up trying it! - with just the most blatantly bad-faith readings of content, out-of-context pulls for shock value, and overall shallow analysis. What's most upsetting is that they're not wrong about some points, there is some interesting stuff to unpack and some real criticism to be made, but what's happening here is not criticism; it's clowning and clickbait. No thanks.

I love the content of this pod, and I often find the hosts funny. I’d love to be in their book club! But the mics are often completely blown out, among other audio issues. I assume they don’t check/test levels before recording - if they did even the laziest check they’d notice someone is often way too loud and/or close to the mic, it sounds loud and obnoxious.

I’m one of those people with very picky/irritable ears, if I find a voice or speaking style annoying, sometimes I can’t get past it enough to enjoy what I’m listening to. Both hosts drag out the last word to most sentencehhhhhssssss to the most annoying degreeeeeee. Like, do they not hear themselves? They both do it. A LOT. Like *strangely* frequentlyyyyyyyyyyyyy. I can’t.

But if you’re luckier to have less irritable ears, and you enjoy a fun discussion of well-known books, this will prob be a great pod for you! Just turn your volume down; their complete lack of audio editing is more tolerable at the lowest volume you can handle.