Activity Overview
Episode publication activity over the past year
Episode 109: Babel-17
12 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We embark on a cosmic journey through Samuel Delany's 1966 sci-fi gem, Babel-17. This novel by ...
Episode 108: The Monk
22 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
For Halloween 2023, we bring you one of the craziest novels of all time (or certainly of the eightee...
Episode 107: Brave New World
08 Oct 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Hi again, nerds: we’re back after a long hiatus with more high school English class reads and some...
Episode 106: CROSSOVER SPECIAL: The Last of the Mohicans (the movie)
06 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
Friends, it's the crossover event of the century - we join our comrades at You're Tall but I'm Stand...
Episode 105: The Body
06 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
There is still plenty of spookiness left in the season! To celebrate, this week we are bringing you ...
Episode 104: The Stepford Wives
30 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Happy Halloween, book jerks! Starting our fourth annual spookfest, we’re reading The Stepford Wive...
Episode 103: The Man Who Lived Underground
09 Oct 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We couldn’t wait to read the new novel-length version of Richard Wright’s The Man Who Lived Unde...
Episode 102: The Last of the Mohicans
25 Sep 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We are back and bringing you The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper’s 1826 historical nov...
Episode 101: Middlemarch, Part 2
14 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We finish our conversation on George Eliot’s 1871-1872 behemoth Middlemarch with an in-depth discu...
Episode 100: Middlemarch, Part 1
07 Aug 2022
Contributed by Lukas
For our 100th episode (!!!), it’s only fitting we tackle a Big One. And George Eliot’s Middlemar...
Episode 99: The Mountain Lion
31 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a journey Out West with the book jerks–we’re reading Jean Stafford’s The Mountain Lion ...
Episode 98: Murder on the Orient Express
24 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
All aboard! This week we are bringing you a one way ticket...to murder! It's Agatha Christie's 1934 ...
Episode 97: Wuthering Heights
17 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
It has taken your favorite commie book jerks nearly 100 episodes to answer the much-debated question...
Episode 96: Naked Lunch
10 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You’ve been asking for it (and by “you” we mean “nobody”), so here’s Naked Lunch (1959)!...
Episode 95: Jews Without Money
03 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To kick off Season 6, we are joined by comrade, friend-of-the-pod, and Indiana University South Bend...
Episode 94: Season 5 Wrap-Up
06 Mar 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In our Season 5 wrap-up, we try to stir up a little controversy amongst Yr Worships’s favorite boo...
Episode 93: The Pilgrim's Progress
20 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
You all demanded it, so we delivered! Delivered you from evil. Today we have The Pilgrim’s Progres...
Episode 92: Inkle and Yarico
13 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today in “men are trash,” and enslaving, colonialist white men are the trashiest of trash, we br...
Episode 91: Lady Chatterley's Lover
06 Feb 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Even we, three very experienced Book Jerks, weren’t really prepared for the nightmare that was Lad...
Episode 90: Persuasion
30 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
If you like dunking on useless aristocrats, novels brimming with the psychological tension of unfulf...
Episode 89: Mrs. Dalloway
16 Jan 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Modernist grouch, Bloomsbury group member, Freud-to-tea-haver, and Great Novelist Virginia Woolf tak...
Episode 88: The Talented Mr. Ripley
19 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Friend, comrade, fellow podcaster, and University of Pennsylvania Ph.D. candidate Devin Daniels join...
Episode 87: Pierre, Part 2
12 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Wrapping up our two-parter on Herman Melville’s Pierre (1852), we talk about religion, the mind be...
Episode 86: Pierre, Part 1
05 Dec 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This week we are bringing you what the people want, and have always wanted, Herman Melville’s Pier...
Episode 85: Caleb Williams
21 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we bring you the OG ACAB novel, William Godwin’s Caleb Williams (1794). We very much st...
Episode 84: The Picture of Dorian Gray
14 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Closing out this year’s Halloween episodes, we have the much-requested Picture of Dorian Gray (189...
Episode 83: The Case of George Dedlow
07 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The next installment in our Halloween fright fest comes from the guy who brought us classics like “...
Episode 82: Carrie
31 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Friends, it’s our third annual Halloween series! We’re talking about Stephen King’s horror cla...
Episode 81: McTeague
24 Oct 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Hey comrades! We’re back with more swears, random Frankfurt School references, and messy book take...
Episode 80: Season 4 Wrap-Up
15 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We are capping off Season 4 with a tribute to next season’s two-parter, Herman Melville’s sister...
Episode 79: Wieland
08 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
This week we are thrilled to bring you Charles Brockden Brown’s 1798 novel Wieland. It’s about a...
Episode 78: Lucy
01 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
After devoting much of this podcast to the pressing topic of Dads Who Are A**holes (and have failson...
Episode 77: No-No Boy
18 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a drizzly day in Seattle in John Okada’s No-No Boy (1957), and we’re feeling the mood. No...
Episode 76: Silas Marner
11 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
The Bible says something somewhere about children who are worth their weight in gold. Well, George E...
Episode 75: The Great Gatsby
04 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you’re one of those try-hards who read this for the AP Lit test (and we are), you’ll be pleas...
Episode 74: Dune
27 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
It is time to ride the worm and ask the eternal question “what’s in the box?” This week we hav...
Episode 73: The Man of Feeling
20 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you like feckless boobs who are also giant crysacks (Megan does not), do we have a book for you! ...
Episode 72: Lolita, Part 2
13 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We close up our discussion of Lolita and try not to reflect too much on what has brought us to this ...
Episode 71: Lolita, Part 1
06 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Our Season Four two-parter is on Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita (1955), and there’s some truly grueso...
Episode 70: Black No More
30 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Friend of the pod, cultural critic, and Northwestern University professor of African American litera...
Episode 69: Of One Blood
23 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Got a sister? Are you SURE you don’t have a sister? Pauline Hopkins's Of One Blood (1902-1903) exp...
Episode 68: The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test
16 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Are you on the bus or off it, man? The book commies, dear listener, are decidedly off it. Or rather,...
Episode 67: The Journalist and the Murderer
09 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Friend of the pod Sebastian Stockman joins us for the second episode in our three-part series on The...
Episode 66: The White Album
02 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
DID YOU MISS US? Reading with Reds returns for Season Four, and we’re talking about Joan Didion’...
Episode 65: Season 3 Wrap-Up
17 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Join us as we revisit some of our favorite fail-lords of the season and conduct a highly scientific ...
Episode 64: Absalom, Absalom!
10 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
If you’ve been listening to Better Read for a bit, you’re probably aware that Megan’s favorite...
Episode 63: The Wild Irish Girl
03 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In keeping with Better Read than Dead’s mission of bringing you literature’s greatest failsons -...
Episode 62: A Christmas Memory
27 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you need some salty tears in your fruitcake, have we got the one for you. We’re talking about T...
Episode 61: A Child's Christmas in Wales
20 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Ho ho ho! Or in Welsh, cywnwn cywnwn cywnwn! (Probably. Or definitely not, we don’t speak Welsh). ...
Episode 60: The Screwtape Letters
13 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week we descend into the bowels of hell to bring you C.S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters (1942...
Episode 59: Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
06 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever wondered how to take some pointless old rich men for a ride? Have you ever wanted to l...
Episode 58: Rappaccini's Daughter
29 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Under no circumstances should you stop and smell the flowers. We learned this lesson and had many mo...
Episode 57: A Passage to India
22 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
The book commies get into one of our favorite topics this week -- liberal imperialism (well, *dunkin...
Episode 56: A Clockwork Orange
15 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Wrench those eyeballs wide open for our discussion of Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (1962),...
Episode 55: Joseph Andrews
08 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Friend of the pod David Diamond visits us to talk about Henry Fielding’s Joseph Andrews (1742) and...
Episode 54: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
01 Nov 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We conclude our 2020 Halloween spectacular with the scariest one yet, Jonathan Edwards’s 1741 serm...
Episode 53: The Haunting of Hill House
25 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We continue Halloween 2020 with Shirley Jackson’s 1959 novel The Haunting of Hill House! We talk a...
Episode 52: The Monkey's Paw
18 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Welcome to our second annual Halloween spooktacular! We begin our frightfest with W. W. Jacobs’s 1...
Episode 51: The Call of the Wild
11 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We are talking about Jack London’s The Call of the Wild (1903), a book about a dog named Buck, his...
Episode 50: Tristram Shandy, Part 2
04 Oct 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Comrades! It’s our 50th episode!! And what better way to celebrate than wrapping up our discussion...
Episode 49: Tristram Shandy, Part 1
27 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
MADAM, today we have the first of two episodes on Tristan’s *favorite novel ever,* Laurence Sterne...
Episode 48: Go Tell It on the Mountain
20 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s taken us a while to get to James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain (1953), which is too ...
Episode 47: Ragged Dick
13 Sep 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Get ready to give those bootstraps a nice firm tug, because we are opening Season 3 with Horatio Alg...
Episode 46: Season 2 Wrap-Up
26 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
For our Season 2 finale, we do a round of roasts and toasts. Hear us dunk more on the readership of ...
Episode 45: The Dispossessed
19 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Our friend and comrade Hilary Strang joins us this week to discuss Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Disposs...
Episode 44: The Outsiders
12 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s a real weeper this week: we’re reading S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders (1967) and talking abo...
Episode 43: The Masque of the Red Death
05 Jul 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Have you ever tried to ride out a plague by welding yourself and 1,000 of your closest friends in a ...
Episode 42: Journal of the Plague Year
28 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Not sure why we wanted to talk about Daniel Defoe’s Journal of the Plague Year (1722) in the middl...
Episode 41: Of Mice and Men
21 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
It’s everyone’s favorite book from freshman English, John Steinbeck’s novella-play Of Mice and...
Episode 40: Parable of the Sower
14 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
On this episode, we talk environmental catastrophe, economic collapse, and racism in the 2020s. If a...
Episode 39: Things Fall Apart
07 Jun 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We recorded this episode before the police murder of George Floyd and before the nationwide protests...
Episode 38: The Most Dangerous Game
31 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We have made--and stand by--the claim that the whale is the most dangerous game of all. Well, appare...
Episode 37: On the Road
24 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Once upon a time, Jack Kerouac got very drunk, taped a 120-foot roll of paper together, and started ...
Episode 36: Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (Fanny Hill)
17 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you thought porn originated in 1972 or 2017 or with the invention of the pizza delivery man, good...
Episode 35: Moby-Dick, Part 2
10 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Regrettably, we bring our discussion of this whale of a tale to a close today. That's right, we are ...
Episode 34: Moby-Dick, Part 1
03 May 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Continuing our Melville spectacular, we bring you the first of two episodes on Moby-Dick (1851). Yes...
Episode 33: Benito Cereno
26 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
This week, we begin our three-part Melville spectacular with our friend, comrade, and very first gue...
Episode 32: Native Son
19 Apr 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We can’t believe that we occasionally get to read books by real-deal leftists on this podcast, giv...
Episode 31: The Turn of the Screw
15 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Here at Better Read than Dead we are here to tell you that work sucks and we should seize the means ...
Episode 30: Rob Roy
08 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
If you were to write an historical novel about the Scottish hero-outlaw Rob Roy MacGregor, you’d p...
Episode 29: The Lottery
01 Mar 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Megan is back to lead our discussion of Shirley Jackson’s most famous work, “The Lottery” (194...
Episode 28: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
23 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) allows us to take up a crucial question -- ...
Episode 27: Fantomina
16 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Eliza Haywood doesn’t get read much today outside of eighteenth-century lit classes, which is a sh...
Episode 26: The Hound of the Baskervilles
09 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Calling all gumshoes! Get ready to hear how Sherlock Holmes cracks the case of a magical glow-in-the...
Episode 25: Great Expectations
02 Feb 2020
Contributed by Lukas
As previously noted on the classic Better Read than Dead Christmas Carol show, Katie and Tristan are...
Episode 24: The Time Machine
26 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
In 1985, Doc Brown and Marty McFly traveled into the distant future of 2015, where we all had flying...
Episode 23: I, Claudius
19 Jan 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We here at Better Read than Dead do not care for fascists. So when we had the chance to kick off our...
Episode 22: A Christmas Carol
01 Dec 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Katie says, “bah humbug,” but Tristan says, “oi guv, Bob’s your uncle an’ bless us all, ev...
Episode 21: Hamlet
24 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Our apologies to Stephen Dedalus. Previously, we referred to him as King F*ckboy, but that’s gross...
Episode 20: Ulysses, Part 2
17 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Welp, friends, we made it through all eleventy billion pages of Ulysses and are the better for it. (...
Episode 19: Ulysses, Part 1
10 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
After these next two episodes, will Megan manage to convince Katie and Tristan that our novel in que...
Episode 18: The Castle of Otranto
03 Nov 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Was Horace Walpole a second-grader when he wrote The Castle of Otranto (1764)? “And then a big hel...
Episode 17: Rosemary's Baby
27 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We’re back to one of our usual themes this week--creepy babies! We take on Ira Levin’s 1967 genr...
Episode 16: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
20 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
There are few things Better Read than Dead enjoys more than owning dipsh*ts/watching dipsh*ts get ow...
Episode 15: Little Women
13 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Put your crying pants on, because it’s time for Little Women (1868)! We talk about why Jo is so co...
Episode 14: Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
06 Oct 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We’re such goths (apparently), we didn’t even realize we were doing a Halloween month when we re...
Episode 13: Heart of Darkness
29 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
We follow one of literature’s least-impressive boats up the Belgian Congo in our discussion of Jos...
Episode 12: The Fall of the House of Usher
22 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
If you're trying to decide whether to reconnect with your creepy old childhood friend who lives in a...
Episode 11: Gulliver's Travels
15 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Gulliver’s Travels (1726) may indeed be the “goofiest book that was ever written,” which is wh...
Episode 10: The Awakening
08 Sep 2019
Contributed by Lukas
This week we read Kate Chopin’s novella The Awakening (1899). Chopin’s short work is about a tal...