Book Club for Masochists: a Readers' Advisory Podcast Podcast By Book Club for Masochists cover art

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers' Advisory Podcast

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers' Advisory Podcast

By: Book Club for Masochists
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A Readers' Advisory Podcast about becoming better library staff by reading every genre, whether we like them or not! Every month we read books from a new, randomly picked genre; then on the podcast we discuss our reading choices, experiences, opinions, appeal factors, and other related topics as friends and library workers.Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) Art Literary History & Criticism
Episodes
  • Episode 228 - Computers / Computer Science

    Episode 228 - Computers / Computer Science
    Mar 17 2026
    It's episode 228 and time for us to talk about Computers and Computer Science books! We discuss technology, digital humanities, coding, and more! You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system. In this episode Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards Things We Read (or tried to…) Track Changes: A Literary History of Word Processing by Matthew G. Kirschenbaum (2016)Floppy Disk Fever: The Curious Afterlives of a Flexible Medium (2022) I could not find a free version of this online Your Computer Is on Fire edited by Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks, and Kavita Philip (2021)The Computer Always Wins: A Playful Introduction to Algorithms through Puzzles and Strategy Games Paperback by Elliot Lichtman (2025)Must Know High School Computer Programming by Julie Sway (2020) In the Beginning... Was the Command Line by Neal Stephenson (1999)A Prehistory of the Cloud by Tung-Hui Hu (2016)Turing's Cathedral: The Origins of the Digital Universe by George Dyson (2012) Other Media We Mentioned The Soul of the New Machine by Tracy KidderClose to the Machine: Technophilia and its Discontents San Francisco by Ellen UllmanLife in Code: A Personal History of Technology by Ellen UllmanClickArt 65,000Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (1999)Some Remarks: Essays and Other Writing by Neal Stephenson Mother Earth Mother Board Links, Articles, and Things Separating the data from the CHAFF by Matthew Murray 🦇, Fernando Rios, and Seth Erickson9-track tape Academic Book About Emojis Can't Include The Emojis It Talks About Because Of CopyrightMedia Archaeology LabAlice Averlong (formerly Foone)READMEInstitute for Advanced Study 15 Computer Science Books by BIPOC Authors: Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here. Job Ready Java by Haythem Balti and Alan Galloway Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code by Ruha Benjamin Grokking Algorithms: An Illustrated Guide for Programmers and Other Curious People by Aditya Y. Bhargava More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech by Meredith Broussard Indigenous Digital Life: The Practice and Politics of Being Indigenous on Social Media by Bronwyn Carlson and Ryan Frazer Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI by Karen Hao Ethical and Social Issues in the Information Age by Joseph Migga Kizza Code for What? Computer Science for Storytelling and Social Justice by Clifford Lee & Elisabeth Soep AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference by Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism by Safiya Umoja Noble The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh Creative Coding in Python: 30+ Programming Projects in Art, Games, and More by Sheena Vaidyanathan A Digital Bundle: Protecting and Promoting Indigenous Knowledge Online by Jennifer Wemigwans System Design Interview: An Insider's Guide by Alex Xu Number Theory for Computing by Song Y. Yan Give us feedback! Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read! Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email! Join us again on Tuesday, April 7th we'll be talking about Media Criticism (as suggested by daftkifty) Then on Tuesday, April 21st it's time for our Spring Media Update!
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • Episode 227 - Utterly Unfamiliar and Downright Detestable

    Episode 227 - Utterly Unfamiliar and Downright Detestable
    Mar 3 2026

    It's episode 227 and time for an emergency backup episode! This episode is the audio version of "Utterly Unfamiliar and Downright Detestable" a presentation we gave for the 2022 Ontario Library Association's RA in a Day event. There's also a video version on our YouTube channel.

    You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

    In this episode

    Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

    Video version

    • https://youtu.be/hi_C_O_GLIA

    Slides

    • https://scholar.colorado.edu/concern/presentations/7s75df43s

    Give us feedback!

    • Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

    Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

    Join us again on Tuesday, March 17th when we'll be talking about Computer Science books (as suggested by Lea).

    Then on Tuesday, April 7th we'll be talking about Media Criticism (as suggested by daftkifty).
    Show more Show less
    53 mins
  • Episode 226 - Reading Resolutions

    Episode 226 - Reading Resolutions
    Feb 17 2026

    It's episode 226 and time for us to talk about our 2026 Reading Resolutions! We discuss reading books, not reading books, quitting reading books, throwing books in the garbage, and more! Plus: Oh no, the passage of time!

    You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts or your favourite podcast delivery system.

    In this episode

    Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

    2026 "resolutions"/intentions

    • Matthew
      • Read all the personal "book of the month" display books
      • Read all the fiction books owned
      • Read all of the non-comics non-fiction owned
      • Read all the graphic novels owned
      • Be on the internet less and read more
      • Get rid of books monthly
    • Anna
      • Read more fiction
      • Catch up on what fantasy's been up to in the last 15ish years
    • Meghan
      • Read books already owned (for the podcast when possible); rereads ok!
    • Jam
      • Read in tiny bursts if that's the time available
      • Quit books and move on to something else

    Give Us Suggestions!

    • Suggest puzzle books to Jam
    • Suggest fantasy novels from the last 15 years to Anna
    • Suggest sources for in-depth book reviews

    Other Media We Mentioned

    • Mercy Thompson series by Patricia Briggs
    • Blood Meridian and the reddit-ification of literature
    • Mapping the Interior by Stephen Graham Jones

    Links, Articles, and Things

    • Circulating Ideas 304: Passive Readers' Advisory, with Lila Denning
    • Tiled Words
    • Puzzmo
    • Minute Cryptic
    • Alto (high-speed rail)
    • Adhesive remover

    American Gothic books by BIPOC Authors:

    Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers' Advisory Podcast chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

    • Ruby by Cynthia Bond
    • House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
    • An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole
    • The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts
    • The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
    • Mayra by Nicky Gonzalez
    • Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
    • The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones
    • The House of Erzulie by Kirsten Imani Kasai
    • A Visitation of Spirits by Randall Kenan
    • When the Reckoning Comes by LaTanya McQueen
    • Beloved by Toni Morrison
    • Cane by Jean Toomer
    • Bitter in the Mouth by Monique Truong
    • Sing Unburied Sing by Jesmyn Ward
    • We Are a Haunting by Tyriek White

    Give us feedback!

    • Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

    Check out our Tumblr, join our Discord Server, or send us an email!

    Join us again on Tuesday, March 3rd when we'll be talking about Computer Science books (as suggested by Lea).

    Then on Tuesday, April 7th we'll be talking about Media Criticism (as suggested by daftkifty).
    Show more Show less
    44 mins
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