Save Me From My Shelf

Abby and Daniel launch their first episode of SMFMS Bookends , the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf . Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from the Scarlet Letter episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our Season 5 opener and fifty-first episode, we return to Puritanical, repressed New England with Nathaniel Hawthorne's experimental, philosophical musing about adultery, guilt, religion, and haute couture, The Scarlet Letter (1850). Daniel debuts some strange accents and discusses his previous theatrical career. W...

In Save Me From My Shelf 's end-of-year wrap up for 2023, Abby and Daniel read listener letters, respond to audience questions, correct any Season 4 mistakes, and have a general retrospective on the past year on the podcast. Abby also reveals her tradition of Dark Christmas, Daniel is an unprepared boring bastard, and wee Donalbain makes a guest appearance. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy f...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our fiftieth episode and (anti-)Christmas special, we go into John Milton's Puritanical vision of the Fall of Man, Paradise Lost (1667) ... where Milton may just be of Satan's party. It's a world where God is both a mall security guard and the leader of a sex cult, and neither role explains his mysterious ways. Dan...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-ninth episode, we cover Edith Wharton's wintry New England romantic tragedy, Ethan Frome (1911). Abby goes to therapy live on the show, while Daniel obsesses over pickles and learns all about New England traditions (how maple syrup is made, sugar on snow, apple cider doughnuts). The hosts also both reveal...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-eighth episode, we tell the tale of ambition, revenge, murder, Irn-Bru, bad accents, respeck, balls, breastmilk, and other people's awesome tweets in William Shakespeare's 'Macbeth' (1606). Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode Themes: 'I Vow to Thee, My Country' (Wikimedia Commons); 'Moorland' (Kevin MacLeod...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In the second part of our forty-seventh episode, we continue our recap of the short works of Edgar Allan Poe (1830s-40s): 'The Pit and the Pendulum', 'The Cask of Amontillado', 'The Black Cat', and 'The Raven'. Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode Theme: Camille Saint-Saëns, 'Danse Macabre' Hosted on Acast. See acast.com...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-seven and big Halloween episode, we host our first anthology: the short works of Edgar Allan Poe (1830s-40s). In the first half of this anthology, we cover 'The Tell-Tale Heart', 'The Fall of the House of Usher', and 'The Masque of the Red Death'. We also hear a lot about our hosts' Halloween costumes, lo...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-sixth episode--Ira Levin's The Stepford Wives (1972)--we move to the suburbs, eat a lot of Lobster Newburg, and watch nothing but Air Bud. Daniel also reveals his secret feminist tattoo, Abby puts out a dating advert, and we get a quick look-in from a legendary feminist: Grendel's Mother. Cover art © Cath...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-fifth episode, we delve into a world of cartoon references, James Bond-level panty dropping, questions for the BDSM community, and beards. Too many beards. It's Franz Kafka's 1925 paranoid, sadomasochistic dystopia, The Trial ! Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode Theme: Alban Berg, '4 Stucke, Op. 5', perfor...

Daniel and Abby answer listener questions about how they make the podcast, the best literary decades, overrated authors, giant ducks, and when to throw a drink in your mother-in-law's face (always). Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode themes: Mozart's 'Overture' to Don Giovanni . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-fourth episode, we look at Mark Twain's satire on systematic racism and childhood trauma, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). It's full of bad southern accents, men painted weird colours, identity theft, and bounty (both financial and chocolate). We also learn that Abby is from Grade-A dirtbag stoc...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-third episode, we go back to ancient epics and probably the earliest text we can cover on this show: the Epic of Gilgamesh (circa 2100-1200 BC). In this episode, Daniel finds religion, Abby repents her punning ways, we see a glorious return of MeasuringWorth, and our hosts make way for the real star of th...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our forty-second episode, we get dark and dirty with Matthew Lewis's 1796 'Male Gothic' masterpiece, The Monk . Abby shows off her Bible learnin', Daniel speaks (and slurps) in tongues, and both of them scream forever into the void. Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode Theme: Hector Berlioz, Symphonie Fantastique, op....

Daniel's homework on the blind prophet Tiresias got cut from our episode on Homer's The Odyssey, Part One. Please find the segment resuscitated here, for all your Greek mythology needs. Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode themes: Mozart's 'Overture' to Don Giovanni . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In the second half of our forty-first episode, we cover the last twelve books of Homer's The Odyssey (circa 800 BC). It's a delicious world, full of roast goat stomach, pig spine, and onion-peel cloaks. It's a sexy world, with plenty of Groundskeeper Willy nudity. It's an emotional world, full of crying naps and rage...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. Sing, O Muse!, of our forty-first episode, the first twelve books of Homer's The Odyssey (circa 800 BC). Sing, of oil baths and endless sobbing! Sing, of sex and monsters and sex-monsters! Sing, of potty-humour and MILF Manor ! Sing, of two exhausted academics who pinball from Olympus to Hades and all around the Aegea...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our fortieth episode, we make our first foray across la Manche in order to recap Voltaire's satirical picaresque, Candide, ou l'Optimisme (1759). In this episode, Daniel trots out his feeble/ faible Franglais, Abby discerns a preoccupation with derrières lying at the bottom of an otherwise highly varied narrative,...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In out thirty-ninth episode, our Audience Pick from Season Three, and Queer Con 2023, we recap our first Decadent text, Oscar Wilde's The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). In this episode, we throw a hate party for Lord Alfred Douglas, discover that Abby is both already a queer icon AND knows what music is, and see if Os...

Following on from our coverage of Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993), we have a bit of a roundtable chat with local hellscape expert, Liam Knight (AKA 'DystopiaJunkie'). In this bonus episode we discuss the differences and interactions between dystopian and postapocalyptic literature, explore these genres' preoccupations and their history, and explain why no budding survivalist should be...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In out thirty-eighth episode, we recap our first apocalyptic novel, Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (1994). In this episode, Daniel redefines male fashion (monocles, Keith-core) and Abby traces real-world allegories, and both of them end the text shaking and traumatised under one of those tinfoil blankets. Cover...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In out thirty-seventh episode, we look at a candidate for first-ever English language novel: Daniel Defoe's shipwreck narrative, Robinson Crusoe (1719). In this episode, Daniel creates a TikTok challenge, witness G.O.A.T. husbandry, and learn to see the Face of God (by watching barley grow or getting violent, turtle-i...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In out thirty-sixth episode, we journey back to Revolutionary France with Charles Dickens's A Tale of Two Cities (1859). We learn all about the historical novel, but are less certain about gay iconography, what constitutes clinical depression, and precisely what Dr Manette was up to with all those shoes. Cover art © C...

Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our Season Four opener, Valentine's Day special, and thirty-fifth episode, we recap D.H. Lawrence's controversial, court case-launching novel full of weird sex and four-letter words, Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). The episode teaches us many things: the difference between the normal West and exotic East Midlands,...

Yet another sequence of brief clips that have been rescued from oblivion. Thematically we're getting a bit thin on the ground here, and dressing it up as a hodgepodge, salmagundi, macédoine , zibaldone - or any other pompous way of describing a mishmash - would be to everyone's discredit. Cover art © Catherine Wu. Episode themes: Cliff Carlisle, 'Columbus Stockade Blues' (1930), and Anton Bruckner...