Your Words Against Mine

May old podcast formats be forgot! We're back after a brief hiatus with a new vision for YWAM going forward. We hope you'll enjoy this return to our roots as much as we enjoyed recording it. As always, we've got reading updates to share, as well as some book-haul chronicles and a bit of general media deliberating for the more reading averse of our listeners. Thank you all for seeing us through to...

Life, uhhh... finds a way... to delay our recording this podcast. We're back now, however briefly, to discuss Samanta Schweblin's NBA winning short story collection Seven Empty Houses, as well as lay out our plans for the rest of this year's reading! We're entering the final stretch!

This week's episode concerns discussions of mass illness; if that sounds too heavy, just be glad we didn't go with our first plan. Join us as we go over Veronique Tadjo's In the Company of Men, as well as our own recent reading achievements and some programing changes for the near future.

Cooler weather, a new job, and a school year in full swing shouldn't cause us to lose sight of the spookiness of the Halloween season! We got a bit more of that than we bargained for with this week's reading challenge, Thomas Olde Heuvelt's Hex.

Read up, me hearties! This week we're going in depth on Eiichiro Oda's pirate adventure phenomenon One Piece. And yes, one of your hosts has a new job, but he just wants you to know that he still loves this podcast very much.

There's plenty of stuff going on in your hosts lives right now, not to mention our scheduled discussion of Shruti Swamy's acclaimed short story collection 'A House is a Body.' Any of that would have sustained an episode on its own. And yet, something tells me this will go down as "the one about the pillow romance."

As hurricane winds assail the southeast, Elizabeth and Thomas have shouldered once again through illness and technical difficulties to bring you a discussion of Miya Kazuki's hit light novel, Ascendance of a Bookworm.

YWAM heads to Sweden for a discussion of Let the Right One In, John Lindqvist's hit vampire novel and film. We too will be staying out of the sunlight during this oppressive heat-wave, opting instead to catch up on our respective fantasy romance and pirate series.

Work is rearing it's head back into the lives of your hosts, with a return of students for one and some interesting prospects for the other. Meanwhile, on the reading front, Virginia Woolf's modernist classic Mrs. Dalloway poses some surprising challenges.

The heat is on, in a very real sense, with the latter half of 2023 getting underway. The two hosts had themselves some vacation goings-on to get into, before diving into all the books they have, and have not, finished.

The dew point is rising, and life has some curve balls for your hosts, but the books get read regardless. This week we discuss Hank Green's debut novel, 'An Absolutely Remarkable Thing.' Come for the giant robots, stay for the nuanced yet entertaining ruminations on fame and power in the internet age.

On the first day of Summer, your podcast brings to thee: a contrived premise for an overdue episode. Would like to say the wait was worth it for an in-depth discussion of Hilary Mantel's award winning novel 'Wolf Hall,' but nope! Instead you'll have to make due with more general ruminations on the historical fiction genre, some recommendations in the manga and sci-fi romance categories, and an eag...

Summertime is upon us! This week sees your hosts beating the heat with Ian F Martin's comprehensive journalistic chronicle of Tokyo's various music scenes in Quit Your Band!

YWAM has always been a war against time: time enough to read. All too appropriate that we should have to compete with end-of-year work and hit videogames to get in a discussion about the recent viral sensation, Amal El-Mohtar & Max Gladstone's 'This is How You Lose the Time War.'

In light of John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces' notorious unadaptability, this week's conversation winds its way around to other literary adaptations, from Bridgerton to Nimona. IRL, the last couple weeks have been particularly hectic for her, but Elizabeth powered through with a triumphant return to the world of genre romances.

Samanta Schweblin's phantasmagoric debut novel Fever Dream has your hosts asking a lot of questions, some of which they (re: Thomas) may feel a little embarrassed to have on record. Meanwhile, the competition hits a surprise milestone!

Today's episode about Jason Reynold's acclaimed young adult novel Long Way Down provides us with a jumping off point for a broader discussion on the topic of banned books.

Looks like that bonus episode was just what we needed to kick this reading competition back into high gear. Both hosts rebound nicely this week with stronger book and word totals, as well as a burgeoning interest in the history of airships.

Here's a special episode that even managed to surprise us a few times. Thomas and Elizabeth make their way through North Carolina, from Carrboro to Durham, hitting up every bookstore in their path! Will we ever financially recover from this latest book haul? Well that's kind of up to you, if you think about it.

When it comes to interrupting our recording schedule, life - uh... finds a way. And speaking of movie references, the intervening weeks have afforded both your hosts rare opportunities to get back out to theaters. Enjoy the movie talk as we build up steam to discuss Gabrielle Zevin's Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow.

As seasonal illness continues to weigh on our competitors, we look to nature for answers in this week's reading challenge, Hope Jahren's vibrant autobiography 'Lab Girl.'

This week, YWAM is tackling The Cabin at the End of the World, the basis for the new M Night Shyamalan film! You'll also hear about our recent trip to Columbia, and thrill to a surprising upset in the reading challenge totals.

The first reading challenge of 2023 takes us through Sylvain Neuvel's The Themis Files, a sci-fi series whose iron giants are anything but gentle. Before that, we share our pursuits of various accreditations by way of online and i.r.l. seminars.

The race for wordcount is officially underway in 2023! Elizabeth is back from the Kindle Unlimited mines with a fresh crop of romance series, and Thomas has his first reading challenge of the year to issue, as well as some books you'll just have to wait until next episode to hear about.

The curtain closes on another season of Your Words Against Mine. Elizabeth and Thomas recall their favorite reads of 2022, share holiday stories, and finally reveal whose wordcount came out on top. Furthermore, with the new year dawning, your hosts are setting their next round of goals even higher! Join in the fun with a fresh new seasons of YWAM!