Reading the End

Reading the End Bookcast, Ep. 86: How to Love Your Authors, Plus John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War

Published 12 Jul 2017 by Gin Jenny

What time is it? SHOW TIME. It’s Wednesday, and I double-posted but not because I don’t love you; just because it’s really important to me to give Milky Collins his due. This week, we were honored to be joined by the wonderful Renay of Fangirl Happy Hour and Lady Business. We updated her on our progress with her SF Starter Pack, chatted about what we do when we find an author we truly adore, and discussed John Scalzi’s SF classic Old Man’s War.

You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!

Episode 86

Here are the time signatures, if you want to skip around:

1:45 – What we’re reading
8:47 – SEA OR SPACE
10:24 – What comes next when we fall in love with an author
29:55 – SF starter pack update
35:23 – Old Man’s War, John Scalzi
47:35 – Choose Your Own Adventure
54:58 – What We’re Reading Next Time!

Books and Links

One Piece, Eiichiro Oda
Here’s Renay’s One Piece readalong!
Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America, Ari Berman
A Closed and Common Orbit, Becky Chambers
Wilkie Collins, Andrew Lycett
and watching Black Sails, the greatest show of our time
Here’s the Rec Center’s primer on Black Sails!
The Kairos Mechanism, Kate Milford (author of The Boneshaker and The Broken Lands)
The Thief, Megan Whalen Turner
Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie
The Ground Beneath Her Feet, Salman Rushdie
October Daye books, Seanan Maguire (the first one is Rosemary and Rue)
The Hunger Games series, Suzanne Collins
Daughter of Smoke and Bone, Laini Taylor
the Company series, Kage Baker (the first one is In the Garden of Iden)
Here’s the Neil Gaiman post about visiting Alabama!
White Tears, Hari Kunzru
Gods without Men, Hari Kunzru
The Inexplicable Logic of My Life, Benjamin Alire Saenz
Everything Begins and Ends at the Kentucky Club, Benjamin Alire Saenz
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, Benjamin Alire Saenz
Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters
The Little Stranger, Sarah Waters
Fingersmith, Sarah Waters
Affinity, Sarah Waters
Night Watch, Sarah Waters
Binti, Nnedi Okorafor
Binti: Home, Nnedi Okorafor
Larklight, Philip Reeve
Star Crossed, Philip Reeve
Mars Evacuees, Sophia McDougall
Karen Memory, Elizabeth Bear
White Is for Witching, Helen Oyeyemi
The Secret History, Donna Tartt
The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihara
Old Man’s War, John Scalzi

Should you wish to play Whiskey Jenny’s Choose Your Own Adventure game, you can do so here.

Get at me on Twitter, email the podcast, and friend me (Gin Jenny) and Whiskey Jenny on Goodreads, as well as Ashley. Or if you wish, you can find us on iTunes (and if you enjoy the podcast, give us a good rating! We appreciate it very very much).

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour

Transcript is available under the jump!

Rest in Peace, Wilkie Collins Readalong

Published 12 Jul 2017 by Gin Jenny

After two weeks of anxious waiting for my damn book to arrive and two weeks of enthusiastic readalong participation, the Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation has reached its close. It was a magical and sensational time in which we found that it is hard to write a biography of someone who sensibly avoids putting incriminating information in writing. The main surprise to me in this readalong is how together Wilkie Collins was. I always thought of him sort of the same way I think of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, high all the time, unworldly, and perpetually strapped for cash. This…

8 Comments

23 Things They Don’t Tell You about Capitalism, Ha-Joon Chang

Published 10 Jul 2017 by Gin Jenny

Okay, so y’all know how I am on a quest to one day know everything? What I have discovered on this quest is that it is possible to become interested in just about anything. Most things (maybe all things? I have not fully tested the hypothesis) are only boring until you know enough about them to get past the 101-level stuff, and then they quickly become very very interesting indeed. It’s like that thing where you’re never more than one really good story arc away from loving a certain superhero in comics? Seems weird now, but a few short years…

12 Comments

The Future of Football: A Links Round-Up

Published 7 Jul 2017 by Gin Jenny

IT IS FRIDAY. Every week is a thousand years long, and I have a weird SF video thing to share with you first: What will football look like in the future (the far, far future)? SB Nation has a go at figuring it out. Following the death of Otto Wambier, journalist and Korea expert Suki Kim argues that tourism to North Korea serves no legitimate purpose. Some people get very mad when JK Rowling says stuff about Harry Potter. My pal Ben Lindbergh argues at The Ringer that there’s no point being mad about it. This movie review is magical.…

16 Comments

Parachuting in to the Wilkie Collins Readalong

Published 5 Jul 2017 by Gin Jenny

I DID NOT FORGET ABOUT WILKIE COLLINS. Wilkie Collins has been perpetually on my mind since last we spoke of him. Though I said the words “chillest Wilkie Collins readalong ever,” I did not intend for that to mean that I would altogether fail to participate in the readalong until it was halfway over. It’s just that I ordered a used copy of the book because it maybe wasn’t published in the US? and then it took a really long time for it to reach me. First up, I’d like to apologize for making a small joke at Alice’s expense…

5 Comments

Review: Jubilee, Margaret Walker

Published 3 Jul 2017 by Gin Jenny

I’d like a show of hands who’s heard of Margaret Walker’s book Jubilee, a 50th-anniversary edition of which was just recently released. Because I hadn’t, and I’m mostly angry with myself about that, but largely angry with America. There’s honestly no reason we should still be talking all the time about Gone with the Wind and I’ve never heard of Margaret Walker’s book Jubilee. Seriously. (A note: You don’t need to defend Gone with the Wind to me in the comments. It has plenty of defenders already and it is doing absolutely fine even now that I have mildly criticized…

9 Comments

Review: Strong Female Protagonist, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag

Published 29 Jun 2017 by Gin Jenny

Who here follows webcomics on the regular? I need to know so you can tell me your secret, because I am always poking my head into webcomics and then forgetting to keep track of them. Even ones I really love, like Check Please! I just checked Check Please right now and guess the hell what, she’s updated since I last checked in, and I didn’t even know about it. Shit. (WordPress’s SEO analysis feature right now is like WHY ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT SOME OTHER COMIC IN THIS POST ABOUT STRONG FEMALE PROTAGONIST yes yes good point WordPress, I’ll get…

8 Comments

Reading the End Bookcast, Ep.85: Problematic Authors and Josephine Tey’s Miss Pym Disposes

Published 28 Jun 2017 by Gin Jenny

Happy Wednesday! It’s podcast time! This week, me and Whiskey Jenny chatted about how we engage with books and authors that are problematic(tm), then reviewed a problematic(tm) book from the golden age of mystery. You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!

Episode 85

Here are the time signatures, if you want to skip around:

1:38 – What We’re Reading
6:06 – Serial Box Book Club
17:59 – Problematic Faves and How to Engage with Them
31:01 – Miss Pym Disposes, Josephine Tey
44:40 – What We’re Reading Next Time!

Here’s where you can get Old Man’s War as a free ebook! Act now to avoid disappointment (the offer ends at the end of June)!

Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour

Transcript is available under the jump!

1 Comment

Review: Spoonbenders, Daryl Gregory

Published 26 Jun 2017 by Gin Jenny

Note: I received a copy of Spoonbenders from the publisher for review consideration. Frabjous day! Daryl Gregory — one of my favorite new(ish) SF authors — has a new book out! Spoonbenders follows the adventures of the Telemachuses, who long ago achieved fame and fortune as the Amazing Telemachus Family, performing feats of telepathy, clairvoyance, and telekinesis for secret CIA projects and live television audiences. But that is all twenty years in the past, and matriach Maureen Telemachus is long dead. Then Matty, the only son of human lie detector Irene Telemachus, discovers suddenly that he can astral project. The…

8 Comments

Justice for Kenny: A Links Round-Up

Published 23 Jun 2017 by Gin Jenny

Okay, I don’t actually have a link about Kenny, my favorite contestant on this season of The Bachelorette, but I will tell you that there is some racist shit going down on this season, and it is not fun to watch, it’s upsetting. ABC is a tire fire. What else is new. Roxane Gay’s series “World of Wakanda” was canceled — as usual, because Marvel calculates sales in the stupidest way possible and doesn’t give its new series and new authors the support they need and enough time to find their audience. Swapna Krishna discusses this nonsense. I still haven’t…

18 Comments

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