Our Patron Robin requested that we read and discuss VenCo for today's episode. Although they did not request the Antiques Freaks to be here, we felt we needed their support (and knowledge of antique spoons). Thanks so much for your longtime patronage, Robin, and we hope you enjoy our unhinged review with surprise guests!

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

Although this one wasn't to our taste, we encourage you to check out other books and stories by Cherie Dimaline (https://www.cheriedimaline.com/books) and to support indigenous and marginalized authors and creators generally!

Our Patron BeastwiththeLeast requested that we read Rena Vale's Taurus Four from 1970. How could such a dusty, seemingly insignificant sci-fi paperback have roused so much ire? Get your spacesuits on for a journey through misogyny, weed fear-mongering, and communist hysteria on planets near and far!

Thanks so much for your support, BeastwiththeLeast, and we hope you enjoy the episode.

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

References:

Thanks be to the gods of academia (and Mr. Deutsch) for preserving this thesis for us to use for background on the show today: Against the red tide: Rena M. Vale and the long red scare in California by Christopher Robert Deutsch

Today's episode features a book that many folks have asked us to read, but it took our brave Patron Miles to finally force us to do it. At last, we've read the famous satirical Obama/Biden crime thriller from 2018 and, honestly, it could've been a lot worse.

Thanks so much for your support, Miles, and we hope you like the episode!

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

Today's episode is Part 2 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Paris remembered reading several books in the Dear America series, so Chris chose Down the Rabbit Hole - The Diary of Pringle Rose for our second nostalgia adventure. We actually found ourselves really enjoying this one, so this week's episode is a completely different experience from last week with The Hardy Boys.

Today's episode is Part 1 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Chris remembered reading all of The Hardy Boys series, so Paris chose The Witchmaster's Key for our first return trip to childhood. Prepare yourselves for 1970s Satanic Panic absurdity in the UK, complete with evil dentists, rubber masks, the reddest of herrings, and a scene straight out of Misery!

Join us next week for Part 2 where we discuss our experience reading something from Paris's beloved childhood book series, Dear America.

We read Butch for today's episode at the request of listener Os who emailed us last year saying,"A while ago, I read a book that, while incredibly badly written, still somehow left me feeling for the protagonist, because all the other characters are (in every sense of the word) ridiculously homophobic. It's called "Butch" by Jay Rayn. It's a "life story thus far" type of book about a butch woman who constantly ights discrimination in the most cartoonish ways possible and romances just about every woman she meets. I'm 99% sure this is just a veiled attempt at rewriting her own biography by the author. Maybe this can be a fresh bad taste for your reading palate. Best, Os (a listener who bought that book thinking it was actually a big deal for butch culture, only to realize they had been tricked by the self-publishing author).”

References & Thanks:

• "G.I. Joes in Barbie Land": Recontextualizing Butch in Twentieth-Century Lesbian Culture by Sherrie A. Inness & Michele Lloyd
• https://www.ncsby.org/content/normative-sexual-behavior
• Thanks to Tris for consulting on this episode and helping us navigate Butch identity

In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes discussion or mention of: homophobia, racism, and sexual assault.

This time, we read How it Unfolds (Far Reaches Book 1) by James S.A. Corey, published by Amazon Original Stories in 2023. Chris really enjoyed The Expanse by Corey, so he was looking through other works by them and found this short story. Unfortunately, though, it had a description that made him think it was more suitable for TBC than for his personal reading adventures.

Today's episode includes our usual barnyard language along with some discussions of sex and relationship dynamics.

Paris & Chris dive back into children's literature and find that Dr. Block may have written some of the healthiest relationship dynamics in all of the books we've reviewed so far for the show.