Book Club with Julia and Victoria

Julia and Victoria share the final episode of Book Club discussing the Jane Austen novel about home (and the moral bankruptcy of the upper classes) that started their friendship: Mansfield Park . Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Disclosure: This...

Content warning: this episode includes discussions of suicide and homophobia. Julia and Victoria reminisce about their 20s comparing the novel Love in the Big City by Sang Young Park, translated by Anton Hur, and its recent TV adaptation. It involves a lot of pointing out red flags and crying about friendship. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely t...

Julia and Victoria try to find the line between history and fantasy in The Poppy War by R. F. Kuang. They use their incredible communication skills to meet in the middle of their opposing opinions. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Disclosure: Th...

The Book Club takes a big bite of all the genres and references in Casey McQuiston’s fourth romance novel, The Pairing . Julia invents a new branch of theory entirely based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Victoria calculates her Saturn Return. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clie...

Julia and Victoria marvel over the masterful point of view shifts and scream about the ending of Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir. Victoria buys some lemonade. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links tha...

This discussion of Index, a History of the by Dennis Duncan is a big day for Victoria because it’s an episode all about her favorite thing ever: sorting things into categories. Julia is there to help translate the Middle English quotes. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, gu...

“Excuse me, sir, there’s some magic in this romance”:  Julia and Victoria unpack Casey McQuiston’s sophomore novel, One Last Stop. This episode was recorded on September 2, 2024. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Become a Member ! Shop with...

Julia and Victoria discuss the last vampire book of The Vampire & the Octopus series and then get very excited about two questions: Are there any ethical choices under vampirism? And, if so, are ethical vampires even interesting? Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guest...

Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang out with Victoria on The StoryGraph . Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that give us a commission if you d...

Julia makes her case of why the creature in Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is NOT really a vampire, and Victoria makes a counterargument that it is actually the MOST vampire. They are both generally infuriated with everyone in this novel except Mrs. Green. Content Warning: mentions of sexual violence. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and book...

Julia and Victoria read a pandemic book called The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller where the octopus is not the focus of the story, but is at the heart of the book’s major themes of captivity and embodiment. Victoria makes the ill-advised choice to revisit some of her early-pandemic journals. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hos...

Julia and Victoria get very hungry talking about the trope-flipping, contemporary vampire novel Woman, Eating by Claire Kohda. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links that give us a commission if you de...

Julia and Victoria discuss Sea Change by Gina Chung and how authors use the octopus to contemplate loneliness and change. They discover that life really is about the friends we made along the way in this first book of The Vampire & the Octopus series. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their emp...

Victoria teaches Julia all about the origins, tropes, and metaphors of vampire lore that create the undead monster we read about today. They discuss the origins of vampire stories in Slavic folklore, the Great Vampire Epidemic of the 18th century, the blood-sucking breakup novel Lord Byron’s “travel companion” wrote about him, and lament the loss of a key source for Victoria’s vampire-as-justice a...

Julia takes Victoria on a deep dive of octopus stories throughout time and space in this first episode of The Vampire & the Octopus series. We tackle questions like “Are octopus stories a form of colonizer horror?” and “What’s with all the octopus books coming out recently?” and “Why did the 19th century French think the octopus was the physical embodiment of hell?” Views expressed on Book Clu...

Julia discusses disability, comedy, creativity, and treating people like people with Steven Verdile, the founder of the disability satire publication The Squeaky Wheel. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients, guests, and collaborators. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop....

Julia and Victoria learn what the word “flannel” means in British English and formulate their own theories about what happened to a stranded deep-sea researcher in the devastatingly beautiful novel Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield. Views expressed on Book Club with Julia and Victoria and bookclubwithjv.com are solely those of the hosts and not necessarily those of their employers, clients...

Julia and Victoria conclude that How High We Go in the Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu is a very good book–Julia is just sad. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang out with Victoria on The StoryGraph : Book Club with Julia & Victoria (Episodes 1-100) Reading Challenge Book Club with Julia & Victoria (Episodes 101+) Reading Challenge Disclosure:...

Julia and Victoria grapple with the grotesque narrative choices in Whale by Cheon Myeong-Kwan, translated by Chi-young Kim. Julia incorrectly uses the word “epigraph” when she means “epitaph” approximately 25 times. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang out with Victoria on The StoryGraph : Book Club with Julia & Victoria (Episodes 1-100) Rea...

Julia and Victoria try to decipher the rules of Eight Billion Genies , the newest comic book series from Charles Soule and Ryan Browne, because Julia likes rules. They also learn about how one random French guy playing fast and loose with a One Thousand and One Nights translation made up most of what the “Western” world “knows” about “genies.” Tale as old as time. Become a Member ! Shop with us on...

Julia and Victoria are surprised to find hope and belonging in a new story of humanity with The Dawn of Everything by “the Davids” (Graeber and Wengrow), the anthropological clapback to Sapiens by Harrari. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang out with Victoria on The StoryGraph : Book Club with Julia & Victoria (Episodes 1-100) Reading Chall...

Julia is truly bamboozled, Victoria embraces that she is a vampire girlie, and they both dig into the context of Joseph Sheridan LeFanu’s Carmilla, edited with commentary by the absolute legend Carmen Maria Machado. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang out with Victoria on The StoryGraph : Book Club with Julia & Victoria (Episodes 1-100) Rea...

A Suga bias (Julia), a Jungkook bias (special guest RJ), a V bias (special guest Adam), and a person who knows almost nothing about K-pop (Victoria) have a spirited conversation about the style and silences of Beyond the Story: A 10-Year Record of BTS by Kang Myeong-seok and translated by Anton Hur, Clare Richards, and Slin Jung. There are… emotions. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org...

Julia and Victoria get into the weeds of cultivating a creative life while also having to pay bills with Nate Ragolia—writer, podcaster, and publisher at Spaceboy Books. They also decide which zoo animals they would be. Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang out with Victoria on The StoryGraph : Book Club with Julia & Victoria (Episodes 1-100)...

Exploring anarchism, feminism, and the Cold War, Julia and Victoria unpack the context of The Dispossessed by the brilliant and sassy Ursula K. Le Guin. Join for the sci-fi, stay for Barbenheimer, alien Jesus, and a confusion of Ursulas. Also Julia has minor microphone problems. (She sincerely apologizes). Become a Member ! Shop with us on Bookshop.org ! Follow the podcast on Instagram and hang ou...