Another Book on the Shelf

In Episode 177, we're (finally!) talking about Human Rites, the third book in Juno Dawson's series, Her Majesty's Royal Coven. What a ride! We absolutely adore all these characters.  Show Notes We've covered this whole series (more or less) on the podcast now! It's been so much fun, but we're sad to say goodbye to these characters. Episode 142 covers the first book, Her Maj...

In Episode 176, we talk about Jette's book club pick, Scorched Grace by Margot Douaihy. It follows tattooed, queer, punk nun, Sister Holiday, as she investigates a string of arson fires at St. Sebastian School where she teaches. Show Notes This book was published under Gillian Flynn's imprint with Zando. The spelling of chequered temporarily broke our brains and Gen forgot how State abbrev...

Happy Pride! For this year's Pride episode we read How We End by LM Juniper, which follows a group of seven strangers as they navigate a zombie apocalypse.  Show Notes We fell in love with all of these characters and the little family they create for themselves! Don't worry, the dog lives. If you want more Frances (who wouldn't want more Frances?), you can read her short story, 'Ti...

In episode 174, we team up with one of our favourite local indie publishers, Coach House Books. This year we're reading the newly released novel, Born by Heather Birrell, which tells the story of a high school teacher going into labour during a lockdown, diving deep into character through multiple viewpoints. Show Notes The Coach House Books episode is truly one of our favourite episodes of th...

Episode 173 is another spring hangout episode! Yes, somehow spring has been the longest season and yet somehow May is already over?? Anyway, come hangout with us while we chat about our fun little trips and how we're both crushing our reading goals this year. Show Notes Snag some cute knitting notions, like button and stitch markers, from our talented friend Riley! She's @_soft.spoken on I...

Episode 172 is a book club book! This month we're talking about Gen's pick, Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler. The novel follows Lauren through her journal entries as she is forced from her home and navigates a hostile world ravaged by climate change and social inequality. Show Notes Gen has been putting off this book for a long time because it takes place largely in the mid-late 2...

Episode 171 is another instalment of our series #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt and this time we're reading Don't Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews. This one has all the things we love: dark academia vibes, queer representation, and creepy forests that start growing inside your body (literally!) Show Notes You might know C.G. Drews on Instagram as @paperfury! They always have funny writing memes and...

In Episode 170, Gen and Jette chat about Tillie Walden's graphic novel collection, Alone in Space. This collection includes Walden's first three books, as well as earlier comics from her younger years. Show Notes We love books like this that inspire us to make little stories in unexpected forms. Should we be keeping a journal with sketches? Lynda Berry has daily journal-style drawing exerc...

Episode 169 is another instalment of Page to Screen, where we read a book, watch the screen adaptation, and talk about both. This time we're discussing Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and the 2018 film adaptation of the same name, directed by Alex Garland. Show Notes The book and the movie are so different, but they're both so good in their own ways! We can't wait to read the rest of t...

Episode 168 is our first hangout episode of 2025! As always we chat about what we've been up to, what we've been reading, and what we've been (not) writing. Show Notes Shout out to all our library apps always (Libby and Hoopla, we're looking at you), and also LibroFM. It's the audiobook app that lets you support your favourite local bookstore at the same time. (This is not a pa...

In Episode 167, Gen and Jette discuss their latest book club pick, The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman. As children of the nineties ourselves, we loved revisiting this decade through Klosterman's pop culture lens. Show Notes One of our earliest episodes—episode 9!—was also a Chuck Klosterman book. We read his essay collection Eating the Dinosaur and absolutely loved it. This might be our longest...

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Yes, it's time for our annual James Baldwin episode. This year we're reading Baldwin's first novel, Go Tell It On the Mountain. Show Notes Thankfully, we're not close to running out of Baldwin books just yet, but we may have to do a retrospective at some point anyway. Really we just want an excuse to re-read Another Country. Go Tell It...

Episode 165 is another instalment of #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt, and this time Gen and Jette are reading Book Lovers by Emily Henry. Show Notes The banter between Nora and Charlie is perfect and we need to know if this is true for all Emily Henry books. The town hall meeting was giving major Gilmore Girls vibes and we loved it. We love a Sarah MacLachlan reference. The next episode is our beloved annu...

In Episode 164, Gen and Jette talk about the graphic novel, Light Carries On, by Ray Nadine. The story follows Leon and the ghost of Cody, who is tethered to Leon's camera. Show Notes Is ghost romance it's own sub-genre? It should be. And if it is we would like to read all the rest of them please. So far in this theme we also have Rules for Ghosting by Shelly Jay Shore and Cemetery Boys by...

It's a new year and we're kicking it off, as always, with a book club episode. Gen's pick for the end of 2024 was Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It follows the narrator through his journal entries as he records his life amongst the statues and tides that occupy a series of labyrinthine halls that he calls home. Show Notes This one prompted a discussion about what counts as fantasy. Piranesi is only S...

It's the end of the year, which means it's time for Gen and Jette to see how they did on the reading and writing goals they set back in January. (Spoiler: We crushed the audiobook minutes.) Show Notes We recorded part of the episode and then had technical difficulties, so the first part of this is re-recorded. Since it's the first time we've lost any significant audio in 162 episodes, we think we'...

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It's Non-Fiction November and NaNoWriMo, so for Episode 160 we decided to read Novelist as a Vocation by Haruki Murakami. In this essay collection, Murakami talks about everything from his journey as a novelist to his writing routine to his thoughts on school and literary prizes. Show Notes As you can probably guess, we absolutely loved this one and we're thinking it's time to read a Murakami nove...

Episode 159 is a book club episode. Gen and Jette talk about Patti Smith's memoir Just Kids. The book chronicles her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their early days in New York City before they were the artists we know them as today. Show Notes This book. THIS BOOK! We just want to be artists doing all the things with our soulmate muses. We saw Patti Smith at Budweiser Stage last summer...

In Episode 158, we're talking about our official spooky season book pick: We Mostly Come Out at Night. This short story collection, edited by Rob Costello, features queer retellings and re-imaginings of classic monster stories and tropes. It was super fun and we had a great time reading it. Show Notes Rob Costello's book, The Dancing Bears: Queer Fables for the End Times, came out earlier this yea...

In Episode 157, we're celebrating our 6th anniversary of the podcast! It's been an amazing six and we can't wait for another six more. Show Notes A huge thank you to all of our regular listeners! We're just a little podcast and we appreciate each and every one of you. We're so glad you join us every episode to talk about books and writing. We're at more than 13,000 total listens, which may not sou...

In Episode 156, we've teamed up with one of our favourite indie publishers, House of Anansi Press, to read the short story collection Who Will Bury You? Written by Zimbabwean author Chido Muchemwa, the stories take place across generations, in Toronto and Zimbabwe, and grapple with loss, family, and the meaning of home. Show Notes We love working with House of Anansi! This is our seventh episo...

Episode 155 is a book club episode, and we're talking about Gen's summer pick, Summer Sons by Lee Mandelo. It offers up some spooky southern gothic vibes with a side of car races and a family curse. Show Notes After picking this book, Gen realized it was blurbed by the author of her last book club pick, Starling House by Alix E. Harrow. As Jette aptly pointed out, this is the most Gen book...

In Episode 154, it's time for another instalment of #BookstagramMadeMeDoIt with I Was a Teenage Slasher by Stephen Graham Jones. We just can't stay away from the spooky books this summer, but this one has a distinctly summer vibe with it's unique twist on the slasher genre. You'll want to read it with a bowl of popcorn handy! Show Notes If you like your horror with a dose of meta,...

In Episode 153, Gen and Jette talk about Reality Squall by J. Krawczyk. Space-time gets funky in this one, so you know we loved it! Show Notes One of Jason's other books, It Look Like Dad, was published by Little Ghosts Books , one of our favourite Toronto bookstores that is also a publisher! Jason Krawczyk is not just a writer of books, but a filmmaker too. His production company is called Al...