Terrible Book Club

In this second half of our accidental TBC of Ice & Fire recording session, Chris tackles a book left on his doorstep by a minion of Terriblo themselves with a note: " Dear Paris and Chris, I, the Dark God of horrid literature, appreciate your work in spreading the word of terrible books with your podcast. As such I've tasked one of my cultists, your listener Lucek, with delivering this book to you...

Paris is on the case again this week! Our Patron Patrick requested that we read and review  Points of Origin saying, " This book was written as a fictional story about a fictional investigator trying to catch a serial arsonist who was terrorizing California in the 1980s. The author was a[n] actual fire investigator at the time and this [was] based off of real events. Literally real events! Because...

Get out your corn kernels and hot oil, today, folks, 'cause we're goin' poppin'! Today's book comes to us from our longtime Patron Arrant who said, " I read [something] that might be fascinating for you guys rather than simple bad: "Just Call Me Orville" by Robert Topping, which is about the life and rise of Orville Redenbacher. Yes, the Popcorn guy. I quite enjoyed it and I was surprised by how f...

Chris was called away on a years-long shipping voyage by a conniving relative, so he can't be with us today. In his stead, Mary returns! You may remember her from such episodes as this past October's The Phantom of Manhattan , 2021's Die Hamletmachine , and our now beloved E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in His Adventure on Earth episode from 2023. We discuss our experience reading Fanny Hill by John C...

We revert to our previous format this week with both Chris and Paris reviewing today's book. The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You was published in the last week of January of 2025 by Apple Books and immediately caught our attention since Paris has been obsessed with Severance since it debuted and Chris was recruited into the madness this year. We thought it would be fun to check out a pro...

This week, Paris turns up the Perturbator records, dons some aviators and a trenchcoat, and heads out into the rainy nights of 1980s Milwaukee to help our Patron Fred. Fred wrote to us saying, " ...the sheer notion of a murder mystery with Happy Days characters that is apparently officially sanctioned by whoever owns the rights is enough to give me pause. I can't even find any information about wh...

Chris has to travel to another reality again today - this time, it's a Grecian fantasy world that isn't actually Greek! Speaking of Greece, thank you to The Metal Classicist Dr. Jeremy Swist for pronunciation help on today's episode. Our Patron Austin sent Chris on this voyage through the world of In the Ravenous Dark  by A.M. Strickland for his Patron's Choice this year saying this was, "...a boo...

Nearly 5 years ago to the day, we reviewed  The Horse of the Invisible  with our very best podfriends the Antiques Freaks . Years later, we realized that we had never actually read the story aloud as we had promised you, as we've done with all the other Carnacki stories. Once again, we were wrong - there is yet one more 'nack to Carn, so the Terrible Antique Book Freaks assembled anew! Dust off yo...

The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson has been floating around in the American pop cultural stew for the last 22 years. Paris had always been interested in reading it, so when it happened to be in a pile of books some friends were giving away, she heeded the call of our dark lord and tossed it on the schedule for 2025. Get on your f...

Chris had to go to space again this week. This time, he takes us to a galaxy kinda far away and sort of a while ago (or maybe now? or in the future?) because our Patron Miles requested  Black Moon Rising for his Patron's Choice this year. Miles wrote to us saying, "Since I requested two books in a row that were both deeply political, I figured I'd instead give you guys something lighter: published...

Somehow we ended up with another zombie romance around Valentine's Day for the second year in a row. Paris chose  Rabid Heart for this season after her partner randomly turned to her one day last year and said, " Hey did you realize Jeremy Wagner from Broken Hope is an author? " This piqued her interest since she fondly remembers being at Broken Hope's comeback show at Maryland Death Fest 13 years...

Our Patron Beastwiththeleast sent us  Lunar Justice  through the mail, presumably straight from his colony on the moon. This may be our favorite way of receiving Patron requests. Join us today for a very 1990s version of the future, including judicial malfeasance, musical patents, jurisdictional insanity, and guillotines - in space! We hope you enjoy the episode, Beastwiththeleast. Thank you for y...

Paris tackles today's selection, which was suggested by listener Deborah, self-proclaimed Unrepentant Sinner! She wrote in to us last summer saying, " Would you consider an episode on a book popular in another era but one that is actually currently being sold to indoctrinate the home school religious zealots? Elsie Dinsmore was popular after the Civil War. I first read a copy that was my mother's...

Happy (?) new year, listeners. We discuss Chris's journey through the latest Maradonia book that reboots the series entirely, proving that we are all caught in this loop together within the worst timeline. Although not strictly necessary, we recommend listening to the other Maradonia episodes in the following order: Maradonia and the Seven Bridges (Book 1 of the Maradonia Saga/Series) by Gloria Te...

It's the final episode of Season 9! Luna's Edge  was self-published in June of 2024 by author Roxana Macias. Just like our last episode, this author contacted us and asked us to read their book. While we normally don't take authors up on these offers, the book was described as a bilingual sci-fi novel which sounded like a new and potentially fun concept for us. While we thought the bilingual aspec...

Hail and well met, book friends! We're feeling pretty silly as we close in on the final episodes of Season 9. We travel back to 10th century Bohemia to learn the story behind the popular Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas". Join us for a very biblically-styled tale that taught us some things but failed to get us invested in the characters. The author emailed us about his book and, usually when w...

Chris found The Wife App  by Carolyn Mackler out in the wild at a bookstore in NH when he was on a trip earlier this year. Considering apps themselves are often terrible, a book  about  an app seemed like a good candidate for the show. Musings and derailments include: Chris gets really upset about the recurring stereotype of shitty musician boyfriends/husbands and we wonder about several things in...

This week we're discussing our experience reading Verity by Colleen Hoover. We selected this for today's episode because it has appeared fairly often in reddit posts regarding bad books. Plus, we like to try to touch on current, popular authors when we can amidst the sea of  deep weird terrible books we cover throughout the year. Off-topic musings and derailments include: Paris Uses Maps About It™...

We've released this as an alternate episode if today's regular episode is a bit too much for you on this particular day. Please enjoy the audio from a Patron-only video special from 2021 where Paris and The Mothman (Antiques Freaks Ken) play a guessing game that Chris created. You can find the original video version here   if you'd like to see us in all of our three-years-ago-physical-glory. We kn...

*The US general election is TODAY! Get out there and vote in person if you haven't yet voted early or by mail. Head to vote.org for all the information you need to help you cast your ballot.* We've released an alternate episode for you if today's regular episode is a bit too much to listen to on this particular day. Please enjoy  the Patron-only video special from 2021 where Paris and The Mothman...

This was recommended eons ago in the age of 2021 by Twitter user KirliaHookah who described this book as, "Hey what if we crossed Sabrina the Teenage Witch with Mean Girls poorly?" which turned out to be perfectly accurate. Musings and derailments in this episode include: Chris's DeathNote powers, George Michael Clooney, the Dance of Tables, the limits of school guidance counselors, Chris's crimin...

Happy Octoberween, dear listeners! In honor of the season, we bring you some spook-adjacent books for October's episodes. Today, our favorite guest Mary Parker is back with the sequel to The Phantom of the Opera musical - in book form! Although it was also turned into a musical, but remember this book is not the sequel to the original Phantom of the Opera book by Gaston Leroux...yeah. Musings and...

Julius the Nice Dragon offered us a true Patron's Choice: Return to The Dunks or choose a new path. We still had plenty of iced coffees to trade, so we made the only choice we could as Bostonians.  We rarely recommend prerequisites for episodes, but we think you should check out our review of the first book in this series before listening to today's episode because a) it's a good episode and b) we...

Chris read Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yaros on his own and retold the plot to Paris on this very special Twitch livestream to celebrate 200 episodes of Terrible Book Club. Afterwards, we bestow honors on the last 100 books over 11 categories in the 2nd edition of Terriblo's Choice Awards. Watch the video version of this episode for free on our Patreon ! *The general election is coming up fast! Head to...

We finally got around to checking out this 2023 BookTok phenomenon thanks to our Patron Austin, who described Legends & Lattes as, "a cozy and wholesome story about overcoming your past and settling down to...side with the mob threatening to burn down your establishment." Despite the nerdy theme, the focus today is more on the cozy than the fantastical. Our poisoned expectations are completely sub...