Episode 103 - Battle of the Books 2020

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

Battle of the Books 2020! It’s the one time a year that we all read the same book! We each pitch a title and our listeners vote and decide on which it will be. Our possibilities include Pet by Akwaeke Emezi, Best of all Possible Worlds by Karen Lord, My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet, and An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon.

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In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | RJ Edwards

Which book should we all read?

• Pet by Akwaeke Emezi (RJ’s pick)
• Best of all Possible Worlds by Karen Lord (Meghan’s pick)
• My Time Among the Whites: Notes from an Unfinished Education by Jennine Capó Crucet (Anna’s pick)
• An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon (Matthew’s pick)

• Vote for which book we all read! (deadline is July 1st)

Our Shortlists

• RJ
• • Upright Women Wanted by Sarah Gailey
  • Circe by Madeline Miller
  • The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa
• Anna
• • Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman
  • Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men by Caroline Criado Perez
  • Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor by Virginia Eubanks
• Matthew
• • Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
  • Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language by Gretchen McCulloch
• Meghan
• • Normal People by Sally Rooney
  • The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
  • Disappearing Earth by Julia Phillips
  • Burnaby Rudge by Charles Dickens
  • The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead
  • Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor
  • Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler

Other Media we Mentioned

• Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellmann (the 1000 page, one sentence book)
• Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
• Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor
• The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
• The Murderbot Diaries: All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 079 - Which Book Should We Read? (our “book pitch” episode from last year, includes shortlists)
• Episode 083 - The Fifth Season (our “we all read the same book” episode from last year)
• Domestic Fiction (encylopedia.com)
• A writer chronicles her “time among the whites” (Vox)
• Another Thing the Book Burning at Georgia Southern Reveals (Inside Higher Ed)
• Jennine Capó Crucet and Post-Trump Latinx Literature (Los Angeles Review of Books)
• Hark! (RJ’s winter holiday music podcast)

Bingo sheets!

• The bingo sheets we made for episode 50.
• What should we add to updated bingo sheet?

Suggest new genres or titles!

• Fill out the form to suggest genres!

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Join us again on Tuesday, July 7th we’ll be talking about the genre of Entertainment (Non-Fiction)!

Then on Tuesday, July 21st we’ll be discussing Summer Reading/Challenges!