humanity & culture, science fiction Book Club with Julia & Victoria humanity & culture, science fiction Book Club with Julia & Victoria

V&O: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor — Octopus Novels of the Future

Julia and Victoria read The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Naylor, a book about an island that is possibly mountainous and may be either in or on the sea, TBD. There are also incredible octopuses and monk robots and workers revolts and lots of long, cynical speeches about the supposed nature of humanity.

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fiction, spooky / horror, feminism Book Club with Julia & Victoria fiction, spooky / horror, feminism Book Club with Julia & Victoria

V&O: The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix

Julia makes her case of why the creature in Grady Hendrix’s The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires is NOT really a vampire, and Victoria makes a counterargument that it is actually the MOST vampire. They are both generally infuriated with everyone in this novel except Mrs. Green.

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fiction, literary, sad girl vibes Book Club with Julia & Victoria fiction, literary, sad girl vibes Book Club with Julia & Victoria

V&O: The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller — The Octopus in Captivity

Julia and Victoria read a pandemic book called The Memory of Animals by Claire Fuller where the octopus is not the focus of the story, but is at the heart of the book’s major themes of captivity and embodiment. Victoria makes the ill-advised choice to revisit some of her early-pandemic journals.

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fiction, sad girl vibes, naturalists & tree huggers Book Club with Julia & Victoria fiction, sad girl vibes, naturalists & tree huggers Book Club with Julia & Victoria

V&O: Sea Change by Gina Chung — Loneliness & Adaptation

Julia and Victoria discuss Sea Change by Gina Chung and how authors use the octopus to contemplate loneliness and change. They discover that life really is about the friends we made along the way in this first book of The Vampire & the Octopus series.

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humanity & culture, gothic, spooky / horror, victoria's top picks Book Club with Julia & Victoria humanity & culture, gothic, spooky / horror, victoria's top picks Book Club with Julia & Victoria

V&O: The Vampire in Storytelling, a Bite-Sized History

Victoria teaches Julia all about the origins, tropes, and metaphors of vampire lore. They discuss the origins of vampire stories in Slavic folklore, the Great Vampire Epidemic of the 18th century, the blood-sucking breakup novel Lord Byron’s “travel companion” wrote about him, and lament the loss of a key source for Victoria’s vampire-as-justice analysis that she lost when she closed all her tabs.

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V&O: The Octopus in Literature, an Equal, Intelligent Other

Julia takes Victoria on a deep dive of octopus stories throughout time and space in this first episode of The Vampire & the Octopus series. We tackle questions like “Are octopus stories a form of colonizer horror?” and “What’s with all the octopus books coming out recently?” and “Why did the 19th century French think the octopus was the physical embodiment of hell?”

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