Podcast Favorites | Listening

I just finished back to back audiobooks, so of course now I have a huge podcast backlog. I’m going to share three podcasts that I currently have on rotation:

Alice Isn’t Dead

This just wrapped up Part One, so you have plenty of time to catch up before it resumes. It’s made by the people from Welcome to Night Vale, but where WTNV is jokey-horror, this is actually super creepy. Our unnamed narrator is on a cross-country truck drive, telling her wife Alice about her quest to find her.

For fans of: Welcome to Night Vale, Stranger Things, Twin Peaks

Call Your Girlfriend

CYG is a weekly talk show hosted by best friends Ann Friedman and Aminatou Sow. They talk about current events, pop culture, this week in menstruation and tackle topics like ethical shopping and long-distance bestie-hood. They’re super smart and their discussions always delve into the complexities of an issue — even if that issue is the economics of the Kardashians.

For fans of: Samantha Bee, Beyoncé, Shine Theory

Sunday School Dropouts

Sunday School Dropouts is hosted by a former Christian and a cultural Jew, both of whom are reading through the Christian Bible for the first time. They take a gently mocking, while still largely respectful tone, and provide a lot of interesting context on where the events and writers are placed historically. I’m learning all kinds of interesting things about wisdom literature, ancient faiths, and also that the Old Testament is little Game of Thrones-y.

 

Scribd | Review

**Not sponsored by Scribd**

I heard about Scribd about a year ago and decided to take the plunge this summer using a free month trial from the folks over at Book Riot. I am so glad I did because I freaking love Scribd and want to tell everyone I know how great it is.

Pros

• Unlimited books and comics, one audiobook credit per month
• Huge selection of books, but particularly genre fiction and literary fiction
• Many books come to Scribd close to their release date
• Beautiful design and reading experience
• Lots of bang for your buck. Even only reading one novel or one comic trade or one audiobook per month and your subscription has paid for itself
• Great library interface which lets you save books for later and organize them into lists

Cons

• They advertise themselves as monthly but the subscription hit my credit card in one lump sum — not crazy expensive but also not my favorite surprise
• Sneaky space hog. Scribd holds a “recently read” cache on your reading device, which can take up a lot of space if you don’t realize it. It’s really easy to clear, but something that builds up quickly
• The audiobook player can be buggy when listening for really long stretches of time

Overall, I couldn’t be more happy with my Scribd subscription. I’ve been reading way more audiobooks than I ever have before, including one of my now favorite books Beautiful Ruins. I read most of the Ruth Galloway series on Scribd, listened to Girl on the Train right after it came out, and am now reading Locke and Key. There’s a huge and diverse selection of books with a great reading experience. They also have curated lists of editors picks, top books, and new releases.

If you love audiobooks, ebooks, and comics, or even just want to cut down on your book budget a little, this is a great service. I find between it and the library, I can save my money (and space) for physical copies of books that I really love from my local indie.

Halloween | Read, listen, and watch

We have a fortnight until Halloween! Here in Michigan, it’s still light out until 7:30 or 8:00 at night until the middle of October, so it doesn’t feel Halloween-y until then. That really only leaves about two weeks for creating the spooky Halloween atmosphere, so my Halloween picks are not as extensive.

Reading

My book club is reading October County, a collection of Ray Bradbury short stories. It’s creepy and atmospheric, like everything Ray Bradbury writes.

I’m also binge-reading Fables, a noir-esque take on classic fairy tales. The whole series has the feeling of a cloud of smoke hanging over it.

Watching

The Munsters is currently on Netflix, so that’s where you’ll find me all month. Don’t ask me to choose between the Munster family and the Addams.

Listening

Welcome to Night Vale is a given around this time of the year. Somewhere, someone is making a haunted house based on the dog park.

“Danger and Dread” 8tracks playlist
I can always count on 8tracks to give me the exact feel I’m looking for and this Halloween I’ve been listening to a ton of the “southern gothic” playlists, but this one is the best.

Friday Listening

  
A live episode of Witch, Please! 

This podcast, y’all. Two Canadian academics, Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman, talk about the Harry Potter books and movies from many lenses, but particularly feminism. They talk about adaptation theory, books as objects, Jew Watch, JK Rowling retconning diversity, and of course Hermoine Granger and the Goddamn Patriarchy. It’s wonderful. 

Listen here.

Friday Reads | Station Eleven

  
Today I’m reading/listening to Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. I waited a while to get to this one because I knew my enjoyment would be dampened by the hype but now I wish I hadn’t because this book has (so far) definitely lived up to its praise. 

So far, this book has been atmospheric, starting in present day and moving into the devastated future. It pushes so many of my buttons – culty self-appointed leaders, bands of misfits, literary fiction in unexpected places (aka apocalyptic fiction), and Shakespeare. It’s been slow moving, but in a way that feels much more like savoring than dragging. 

I have a feeling I’m going to hit a point in this one where I’ll be listening obsessively, so if you see me staring off into space with my headphones on in Trader Joe’s this weekend, you know whats to blame. 

Summer Audiobook Wrap-Up

This summer has been the summer of the audiobook for me. My experience with audiobooks until now has been largely confined to a set of cassettes from when they were called “books on tape.” I began with Disney readalong stories and eventually graduated to Harry Potter. When I moved out last summer, I found the box for my Harry Potter tapes, very battered but with all 12 tapes intact.

Today, obviously, audiobooks are much more sophisticated and are having a bit of a moment. I’ve jumped on the bandwagon with Scribd (more on that later/not sponsored). I listen when I walk to work, while I was moving, and when I’m just puttering around the house.

The first book I listened to this summer really spoiled me and left me with a crazy book hangover. Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter, narrated by Edoardo Ballerini was just captivating. There’s really no other word for how obsessed I was with this audiobook. Beautiful Ruins is a fantastic book in its own right. It switches between past and present, focusing on the  doomed-movie Cleopatra, a washed-up movie producer and his assistant, an aspiring writer, and a starving musician. The characterization is fantastic, the settings are amazing, and it’s the kind of multi-narrative that totally works. The audio version just took it to the next level. Ballerini does all the voices without ever veering into camp, his Italian pronunciation was gorgeous. By the end I had laughed and cried and never wanted to finish.

After a bit of a book hangover, I tried to recapture the beauty with another “beachy” read, The Vacationers by Emma Straub narrated by Kristen Sieh. It is also a multi-narrative novel, following a family whose parents may or may not be divorcing as they go to Mallorca, with the mother’s best friend and his husband in tow. There is family drama, happy tears, and complicated relationships. It was unfair to this book that it followed Beautiful Ruins, because it was a perfectly enjoyable book that just couldn’t keep up with my love for Beautiful Ruins. Luckily, the narrator was fantastic, which elevated this potentially-disappointing-read to a good palate cleanser.

Finally, I listened to this summer’s big blockbuster, The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins. This was really great to listen to because each narrator actually had a different voice actor. It was so easy to keep track of the different threads with the different voices. I’m not sure this one totally measured up to the hype, since I guessed the “twist” about halfway through, but it was tense and fast-paced.

The only DNF I have had so far with audiobooks was Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng. I’m really upset I didn’t like this one — I’ve heard fantastic things from reviewers I trust, I love her twitter feed, and she has her MFA from my alma mater. However, the narrator spoke really slowly which drove me crazy, and I just had a hard time getting into the book. I typically love character-driven stories, but something about this one never quite clicked for me.

Up next for me, are Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer and The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert. More on Scribd soon, since I’ve been using it a ton!

What have you been listening to this summer?

Gilmore Guys | Currently listening

  
As a longtime Gilmore Girls fan, I’m a little embarassed that it took me this long to get around to the Gilmore Guys. 

They’re analysis is (usually) spot-on, in particular I love their attentiveness to issues of representation of women and people of color, and Kevin’s love for Emily. They’re funny and have great guests, and I mean it’s Gilmore Girls. 

At first I was a little hesitant because I was afraid they were mocking the show or that they wouldn’t get it, but that fear was very much misplaced. They just so get this show and I really appreciate two men who talk so genuinely about the depth of female relationships, complicated female characters, and the like without being condescending or mocking. 

These guys are the real deal and their show is awesome. 

Follow them on Twitter @GilmoreGuysShow and their show is on iTunes here. 

Radiolab | Listening

Today, I’ve been marathoning RadioLab. This piece, “Mau Mau,” from last week is devastating.

This story covers the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya under British rule. The conflict took place from 1952-1960, and Kenya became an independent nation in 1963. The conflict saw widespread violence by the rebels and by the colonizing British.

The effects of western colonialism are still being felt today, and I’m so glad reporters, historians, and storytellers are talking to the people who lived through it and telling their stories.

The podcast episode can be downloaded here and there are further reading materials on their site here.