Unfortunately Required Reading
By Unfortunately Required Reading
Unfortunately Required ReadingJun 02, 2019
A Whole New World (Brave New World)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, ethnobotany, drugs, and enough weird stuff to fill a 2-hour podcast.
Episode 104: Paper Folding Peace Signs (Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Sadako and the 1000 Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr, as well as the atomic bomb and the lasting effects on America and how it is viewed internationally.
Look Down (Les Miserables)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Victor Hugo's massive fan fiction, Les Misérables.
Is the Movie Better? (Breakfast at Tiffany's)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Truman Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's. Happy Pride!
Animal Harm (Animal Farm)
This month Amanda and Victoria discuss George Orwell's Animal Farm, and the historical events that inspired it.
F*** You, Mark Twain
By some miracle, we made it to 100 episodes. This week we discuss Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and wonder why we give this book to children.
I Dreamed I Went to Mandalay Bay Last Night (Rebecca)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca.
Death From Above (The War of the Worlds)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss HG Wells as The War of the Worlds.
The Ultimate KGB C*ck Block (Doctor Zhivago)
This is the reuploaded version of our episode on Doctor Zhivago. Some listeners advised the end had been cut off by our editing software. Thank you!
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss the drag that is Doctor Zhivago and why it was so scary to the USSR.
A Guide to Why Your Black Friends Are Exhausted (A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas.
The Return of Two Host One Mic (The Secret Garden)
Amanda and Victoria FINALLY get to record together in person for the first time in....almost three years? Welcome back with The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. We discuss ableism, rest cures, and the garden metaphor.
A Thinly Veiled Cult Metaphor? (Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
This week Amanda and Victoria read a book that managed to break Victoria, Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull.
Cottage Core White Girl Fantasies (The Witch of Blackbird Pond)
Amanda and Victoria discuss The Witch of Blackbird Pond and why Kit definitely would have been found guilty of witchcraft in Connecticut.
Being a Mermaid is Just One Giant Metaphor, Isn't It? (Hans Christian Andersen's The Little Mermaid)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss the uncomfortable dating history of Hans Christan Andersen...wait, we mean The Little Mermaid.
Do Androids Dream of Dick? (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep)
This week Amanda and Victoria read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Phillip K. Dick, the book that was adapted loosely into Blade Runner.
So You're Saying I Can Dodge? (Neuromancer)
Amanda, Victoria, and special guest Baron Von Cheeseplate discuss William Gibson's Neuromancer.
Trauma All the Way Down (The Haunting of Hill House)
This week Amanda and Victoria cover spooky season with Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House.
Episode 88: It Was a Monkey? (Murders in the Rue Morgue)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allan Poe for Spooky Season.
These are the MF Jokes (Oedipus Rex)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Sophocles' work Oedipus Rex (aka Oedipus the King) and make surprisingly few jokes about incest.
Sexting in the Time of Cholera (Love in the Time of Cholera)
This week Amanda and Victoria read Love in the Time of Cholera.
Encanto with Incest (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss the most beloved Latin American novel of all time, Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude.
Sartre Diem (No Exit)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Sartre's one-act play No Exit.
A Night with Uncle Tennessee (The Lady of Larkspur Lotion)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Tennesse Williams' one act play, The Lady of Larkspur Lotion.
Mimosas are Not the Only Brunch Beverage (Oranges are Not the Only Fruit)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Jeanette Winterson's Oranges are Not the Only Fruit.
Getting Dragged by Gods (the Iliad)
This week we discuss the Iliad for Pride month.
nolite te bastardes carborundorum (The Handmaid's Tale)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and despair.
Another Robbie Burns Inspired Book (Of Mice and Men)
This week Amanda and Victoria unpack Of Mice and Men, the exploitation of the American worker, and the utter exhaustion of existence.
Like Ducks on a Frozen Pond (Catcher in the Rye)
This week Amanda is drug kicking and screaming into a book they didn't have to read in school and Victoria has flashbacks to dating people who need therapy.
Being an Adult at 13 Sucks (Dicey's Song)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss the heartbreaking book Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voight.
Irish Catholic Childhoods are Hard (Angela's Ashes)
his week, Amanda and Victoria discuss the memoir Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt.
Unfortunately Apt War Allegory is a War Allegory
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Art Spiegelman's Maus and the Holocaust.
And Nothing Has Changed Since 1974
This week Amanda and Victoria are exhausted and discuss James Baldwin's If Beale Street Could Talk.
A thinly veiled excuse to talk about Cruel Intentions (Dangerous Liaisons)
This week Amanda and Victoria decide to discuss Cruel Intentions instead of Dangerous Liaisons.
Button-Induced Trauma (Coraline)
This week Amanda and Tori unpack Neil Gaiman's Coraline, and a lot of childhood trauma in the process. Oh god, those button eyes.
Bet You're Pronouncing It Wrong (Eugene Onegin)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Alexander Puskin's Eugene Onegin and celebrate a delayed birthday month.
A Different Goddess in Every Port or Group Projects are a Nightmare (The Odyssey)
This week Amanda and Victoria tackle the Odyssey and the audacity.
The Amount of Descriptors Tax My Wits
You've waited. You've watched. BARON VON CHEESEPLATE RIDES AGAIN! This week Amanda, Victoria, and the Baron (aka Jason) return to discuss Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Really Close Friends, Roommates, Just So Close (Carmilla)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Carmilla by J. Sheridan le Fanu.
Spooky Incel Sh*t (Sleepy Hollow)
This week Amanda and Victoria go through Washington Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. Did you know Washington Irving was a George Washington Fanboy?
The Very Worst Suicide Squad Film (A Separate Peace)
This week Amanda and Victoria continue pain month with John Knowles' novel A Separate Peace. It is not peaceful.
Only Legal in Washington State (Equus)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss the Peter Schaffer play Equus and question our life choices.
All Loud on the Eastern Back
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss World War 1 and The Erich Maria Remarque book All Quiet on the Western Front.
As mentioned in our content warning this week: https://www.veteranscrisisline.net/get-help/hotline
I Am Not Feeling Good (Things Fall Apart)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Chinua Achebe's novel Things Fall Apart.
Behold the Cathedral in Which I Grove My F***Bois (Hunchback of Notre Dame)
This week Amanda and Victoria go through the slog that is the Victor Hugo novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
Amanda and Victoria's Retirement Plan (Arsenic and Old Lace)
Amanda and Victoria discuss the Joseph Kesselring play 'Arsenic and Old Lace' as well as women who kill, and black comedies.
Falling Into the Well of Self Loathing
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Radclyffe Hall's The Well of Loneliness for Pride Month, and immediately regret it.
Don’t Call My Name, Orlando
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Orlando by Virginia Woolf.
The Worst Pepsi Challenge
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton and PTSD>
The House on Drama Street
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street.
Delusions of Grandeur are More Fun with a Friend (Don Quixote)
This week Amanda and Victoria discuss Don Quixote de La Mancha.