I read a biography of Cicero and it has caused me to be a huge nerd. You can leave now if you don’t want to see me at my absolute nerdiest. My first-ever teacher of Latin, in middle school, would stand at the front of the class and make incomprehensible remarks like “If you just remember amo amas amat amamus amatis amant, you will be all right” and “Here I have a postcard from my friend Cicero,” which it turned out was not an alive human but a very long-dead Roman of whom my Latin teacher was a great admirer.…
22 CommentsReading the End Posts
This is a day late because I will not abide by putting out a tardy podcast!1 But the beautiful and brilliant Alice of Reading Rambo is hosting an excellent A+ readalong in which we all will learn all the facts of Wilkie Collins’s life. And I am doing the thing! Stay tuned for WILKIE COLLINS FACTS every Wednesday/Thursday through mid-July. 1. Where are you located! Louisiana! Hurricane season has begun, which I’m trying not to think about. Meanwhile we are in the midst of summer weather, which is sunny mornings and thunderstorm afternoons, i.e., the best weather if you are…
6 CommentsWhat a damn Wednesday we are having (said Jenny every podcast Wednesday until the world ended). If you need a break from World Events, of which there are just way too many frankly, we’ve got an especially excellent podcast for you today. We welcomed Zan Romanoff, author of the new YA novel Grace and the Fever, to the podcast, and talked to her about fandom, teenage girls, and how Christopher Nolan is trolling her personally. We had minor technical difficulties when recording, so occasionally you’ll hear a small echo or tiny delay — apologies! My fault! You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
For the spoiler-shy, I am happy to report that we do not spoil Grace and the Fever, which is about a girl who’s obsessed with boy band Fever Dream, and a conspiracy theorist that two of the band members are in luuuuuurv; and then she meets! one of! the band members! It is fantastic, and you can listen to this podcast without fear that you will be spoiled.
Here is Trash Mouse Louis at an Arby’s (in his socks, reports Zan). And here, for those unfamiliar with One Direction, is Zan’s extensive explainer of the One Direction phenomenon, over at One Week One Band.
You can find Zan on Twitter at @zanopticon, and the book, Grace and the Fever, is out now from Random Penguin!
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
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry
Transcript is available below the cut!
2 CommentsWhat a genuinely great, fun book. Six Wakes was one of my most anticipated books for spring, and with good reason! In this future, humans have perfected cloning: with regular backups (called mindmaps) and a fresh computer, a clone can die as many times as it likes and wake up again in a brand new body. If you haven’t backed up your mind lately with a new mindmap, and you die, your clone will be missing some time. Space janitor and chef Maria Elena wakes up in a new clone body to find that her last body is dead. The…
14 CommentsHappy Friday! There are no more good weeks in our barren world; there are only weeks where the world falls apart. Eat cheese and chocolate accordingly, and plan to call your senators a whole lot next week. The always-marvelous Angelica Jade Bastien unpacks the debate about black American and British actors. This isn’t new, but I hadn’t seen it before: An interactive self-care guide that is legit pretty great. If you’ve read The Thief and The Queen of Attolia, may I direct your attention to this Tor.com appreciation of Eugenides? It contains significant spoilers for two eminently spoilable books, so…
6 CommentsMy concerns going into The Watchmaker of Filigree Street were, one, that it would be too twee, and two, that I didn’t care much about solving a mysterious bombing at Victorian Scotland Yard by Irish freedom fighters. Happily for my peace of mind, though it starts off seeming like a rather twee mystery about a bombing at Victorian Scotland yard by Irish freedom fighters, that really isn’t what the book is at all. Our hero, Thaniel Steepleton, comes home from a difficult day at the telegraph office (bomb threat, something something) to find that his flat has been broken into,…
14 CommentsMy God, Laini Taylor has a lot of ideas. Have we talked about how many ideas Laini Taylor has got? The inside of her brain must be an absolutely wild place to be. Strange the Dreamer is the first in a new series (her earlier one having finished up with Dreams of Gods and Monsters in 2014), and it’s a hell of a ride. Lazlo Strange has always been a dreamer, and what he’s dreamt of is the lost city across the desert. For many centuries, travelers came to Lazlo’s country on camels, bringing stories of a city of domes…
10 CommentsHappy Wednesday, friends! This podcast is late because I tried to go to my senator’s town hall meeting, which was hella full before I even got there, so I just drove a kind of long way for no reason. At least there are lots of engaged citizens doing their thing though, right? Take this as inspiration to call your electeds today! Tell them pulling out of the Paris Accords is hot bullshit. And then when you come back, you can listen to our latest podcast! You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
Here are the time signatures for the different segments, if you want to skip around:
1:01 – What we’re reading
7:31 – Serial Box Book Club (The Witch Who Came in from the Cold)
17:02 – Literary Travel
30:24– The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas
42:15 – What We’re Reading Next Time
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!
Leave a CommentIt’s time for another romance novels round-up! I have read some pretty m.f. great ones in the last month, and I bring them all to you for your delectation and delight. I frequently recommend Alyssa Cole’s Off the Grid series to romance newbies, particularly ones who are coming to romance from SFF. Her latest book, An Extraordinary Union, maintains everything I love about her earlier work, but this time with spies! Elle Burns is a former slave, former staple of the abolitionist circuit, and current spy for the Union. Her eidetic memory makes her a unique asset, and she’s posing…
14 Comments