Julia and Victoria read the first book by one of their favorite comedians: Everyone You Hate Is Going to Die by Daniel Sloss. They ask themselves, why do celebrity memoirs get published? And why this one in particular? Then they give a poor imitation of their favorite jokes from the book for their own personal enjoyment.

Julia and Victoria (whose mic simply refused to cooperate this episode) dip their toes into the world of science fiction with “Story of Your Life” by Ted Chiang, and its film adaptation Arrival. This inspires them to think some big, timey-wimey thoughts about language and brains and the way our experience of time affects our views on life.

Julia is joined by fellow anthropology graduate student Katie to talk about the alien language of “Academic English” and how it has affected their own academic careers.

Julia and Victoria provide a little feedback sandwich on Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski, a book designed to help women cope with the unique burnout that results from dealing with the patriarchy.

Julia and Victoria get into their feels with A Thousand Mornings, a book of poetry written by Mary Oliver, and chosen by their special guest Samira Sakbay.

While discussing the 2015 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, Julia and Victoria ask the question on everyone’s mind: Are there too many World War II novels? Julia gets stuck on the fact that this story is sort of about a magical gemstone.

Julia and Victoria make a glorious return to Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson series with The Sea of Monsters, in which the heroes complete Odysseus’ ten-year journey in just four days. J & V revisit the “girl power” scenes with Circe as adults, and they have Feelings.

Victoria is one to set goals, make plans, collect data, and track progress. So why do reading goals feel so…difficult!? In this solo minisode, Victoria recounts her troubled past of setting reading goals, sings the praises of The StoryGraph (again), and shares questions to consider if you’re looking to set bookish goals (or anti-goals) for 2022.

Happy Holidays! Happy New Year! Nothing matters! Julia and Victoria reflect on the changes of 2021.

Julia and Victoria get very excited about their spur of the moment decision to talk about Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston, the queer royal romance the world was waiting for. Julia had some technical difficulties and recorded on a less-than-ideal microphone, but it couldn’t be postponed because they were too pumped.

Well over a year later, Julia and Victoria face their fears of long page counts and return to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan series with The Story of a New Name. They discuss the complexity and ingenuity of Ferrante’s depiction of womanhood, and how much they hate Nino Sarratorre.

Julia and Victoria (and project manager Rebecca) recorded the Q&A session from their first ever LIVE online Book Club members event. Some audio quality may be compromised, but the enthusiasm for reaching the two year mark of making Book Club is not!