STACK with Jake and Ella
Weird Little Books: Zombies, Word Soup and Falling In Love With A Printer
09 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hello and welcome to Stack, the books podcast that is here to cut through the noise and share with you curated lists of the books we know are worth your time. I'm Ella and I work in book publishing.
My name is Jake. I'm a writer and a podcast producer. In every episode, we'll be building a themed stack of books we love. This week's theme is weird little books. Before that, Ella, this week, reading, not reading, what have you been up to?
Reading a bit, I read The Binding.
Did you enjoy it? My little present.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Definitely had a misinterpretation of what it was going to be about. I think the queer romance strand of it was such a nice surprise. So I really loved it. But actually what has been obsessing me this week is the BBC Sounds podcast, Anatomy of a Cancellation.
I heard of that. I haven't listened yet.
Were you familiar with the debacle? Yeah, I was. So if you are not aware, it was it is about the quote unquote cancellation of Kate Clancy, who wrote a book a few years ago. Some kids I taught and some kids who taught me.
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Chapter 2: What are weird little books and why are they unique?
The podcast kind of unpicks this cancellation or kind of disappearing of Kate Clancy from Her life as a writer, she was subject to criticism about the language used in the book to describe some children that she'd taught. Things escalated online and offline for her. She's ended up cutting ties with her publisher and the podcast series, only six episodes, half an hour each.
And each episode is from a different perspective, kind of talking about, is there such a thing as being cancelled? Was Kate Clancy cancelled? Was she right to be cancelled? And what I loved about it was that each episode changed slightly how I felt about it. So I loved it. I stormed through it. I think I listened to it in maybe just a day.
Oh, wow. I know that's quite a bit.
Yeah.
I've also got a podcast recommendation.
Great.
Are you a fan of Jenny Slate? She is an actor, writer, comedian. She was in Parks and Rec. She's got some stand-up specials. She also, you might know her as the voice of Marcel the Shell with shoes on. Oh my God, I love Marcel the Shell with shoes on. There we go. I knew that. I knew you would have that as your reference point.
Did you know that? I know that.
I just thought that if Ella has met Jenny Slater, it's going to have been through jail.
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Chapter 3: How does 'Hard Copy' by Fien Veldman explore obsession?
And then you wake up and you are like so relieved that that isn't what happened. So this book follows Leonard, who is on a summer holiday in the south of France. He goes for a walk late at night and he sees a boy hanging to his death and he watches it happen.
Gosh. Then... God, that is so dark.
It's so dark. And that is so early on.
Okay.
So it's heavy for me.
So that doesn't sound fun to you as a reader?
If that's not for you, don't read it. Don't read it. Not even in a panic, just in a calm, collected way, he decides he needs to bury that body. So he then buries that body.
Oh, what a decision.
Wakes up the next day, goes about his life with knowing that he's done that. As people start to wonder where the boy is, as the police start to get involved, it gives you a really horrible, intense... How do you do that? You don't really ever understand why. I think you... It just gives you that intense, horrible feeling of you've made a huge mistake and... Okay, maybe now you could just own up.
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Chapter 4: What makes 'This Is How You Lose The Time War' a cult favorite?
Martin Hill is 10 years old. He gets down to the final two to play Harry Potter.
Amazing.
He doesn't get it. And then it follows his life as he adjusts to having to live with the inescapable juggernaut of Harry Potter in his life as a constant reminder of like his failures.
What a fantastic set up.
It's a really weird, surreal setup. I would say weird, 7 out of 10 weird.
Okay.
Maybe 6 out of 10 short. I think this comes in at, again, about 200. It's by David Owen Kinos, translated by Megan Jones from the French. I really recommend it. It's strange. It is strange.
Okay.
I can't believe you didn't wonder about being Hermione.
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