I Don't Even Own a Television

Hi, all. Probably this won't come as a giant surprise, given our erratic schedule and limited output the past couple years, but the time has come to make it offical: We're ending the show. There's no beef, there's no stress, but there is some sadness, and we recorded an episode to announce the end of the show and talk through it a bit. The goal is to keep the archive available, but the Patreon will be shutting down by the end of April, 2023, so download anything from there that you want to hold on to. It's been a lot of fun making this show for you all, and we encourage you all to ride the crab, keep reading crap, and try to make the world a little better any time you can. Recommendations: Start your own fuckin' band! Music: "No Regrets" by Dramarama "History Lesson, Part II" by the Minutemen  

No, it's not a new made-up term for a sexual position—as far as we know!—it's the new Lucy Foley joint, The Paris Apartment! It's darker than a wine cellar, twistier than an alley in your favorite arrondissement, but, unfortunately, about as eventful as an afternoon sighing with ennui over a couple of Gauloises and a well-nursed café au lait in a Left Bank café. Pat your new Karen O. fringe into an appealing dishevelment, make your best face to express that you have the darkest of dark secrets and make sure you've got a skeleton key for all your neighbors' places, because it's time to take a trip into what some people are calling ... la'part-a-ment Parisienne, but what we know to call The Paris Apartment. Recommendations: Paul Tremblay, The Pallbearer's Club Jane Peck, The Verifiers Diane Duane, The Door into Fire plus The Worst Bestsellers Ep on it! Mood Music: "Heads Will Roll" by Yeah Yeah Yeahs "Bastille Day" by Rush

With tramps like these, hoo boy, do things get real and stay there in a hurry as your humble hosts pop their clutches and tell Mercedes Lackey and Larry Dixon's Born to Run: A Novel of the SERRAted Edge to eat their dust! It's another novel of the urban fantastique, with an Irish pub described as "straight-edge", a couple battle scenes where you can really see the graph paper underneath the characters, and some of the most improbable radio playlists imaginable, and, as a novel of (sigh) the urban fantastique, one of us slides right off it and the other digs his eldritch fangs right into it. But not like that, the other way. NOTE: This novel, while mostly lighthearted, does traffic in material related to child sexual abuse and exploitation, in way reminiscent of a particularly tawdry episode of SVU. NOTE 2: Clsn now realizes he missed a good opportunity to pronounce it "elfs" throughout the episode and regrets the error. Recommendations: Upright Women Wanted, by Sarah Gailey Everything Everywhere All at Once Death Among the Undead, by Masahiro Imamura Seinfeld Bass Riff Variations Music: "Guinnesses" by MF DOOM (feat. 4Ize & Angelika "Shamrocks and Shenanigans" by House of Pain "Jesus Built My Hotrod (Redline/Whiteline Version" by Ministry

Well, friends, it's surely time to put on your red shoes and dance the blues, this time along with us as we lace 'em up and see The Playmakers Series series of hockey romance novels, in this case Gauging the Player: A One-Night Stand Sorts Romance by G.K. Brady. Believe us, to see the Playmakers Series make a scoring rush, the bright colors of the prose flashing against the milky e-reader screen, is to see a work of art in motion. As one character's beloved grandmother says, this is "No chickenshit crap, now, you hear?" It's a ton of fun to watch the will-they (again) / won't they (again) after they do, bigtime, and we invite you to drop your gloves, pick up your earbuds, and skate a shift with us as we watch two crazy kids try to escape the penalty box of life—together. It's the only book you'll ever read that nudges the entrance!   Recommendations: Elden Ring Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner Music: "Fuck the Pain Away" by Peaches "So Into You" by Climax Blues Band "work hard, play hard" by Palace Music

No know Jack? No, know Jack! Jack Reacher, that is, as we for some reason decide to experiment with CBS-grade Reacher-adjacency with Diane Capri's series-starting Don't Know Jack. This is a gaiden, in which the titular Jack is most present in his absence, as a wise-cracking pair of FBI Human Resources Detectives are looking to reconstruct a series of events more or less clearly laid out in a book available at any airport bookstore. NOTE: this is probably not a gaiden, but either way, absolutely do not @ us. Anyway, if you want to hear some serious airport positivity, this is the episode for you! So grab your earbuds and make sure to leave early for your flight, because by the time this episode is over, you'll be saying "I Know 'Don't Know Jack'!".   Recommendations: "Nancy" comics by Olivia Jaimes "My Dark Vanessa" by Kate Elizabeth Russell Music: "Happy Jack" by The Who "jack shit" by Teen Angels "Atom Jack" by Drive Like Jehu

We're off the dang map here, folks, because we don't know where we are, but we do know that here? there be monsters! Just in time for spooky season, we're taking on one of the giants of the bad-book genre, Hannibal by Thomas Harris. This book is a big, corrosive bummer, with lots and lots of moments where the words on the page seem to rearrange themselves into concrete poetry of the author's middle finger extended, straight into the reader's face, and even more moments where the narrator is calling you "we" or being very, one might say scrupulously, careful to mention the race of every character (except the white ones) and the attractiveness levels of every lady-type character. Come for the shopping sprees, but STAY for the choppin—you know what, I don't even have the energy to finish this one. It's a direct sequel to Silence of the Lambs. You think you know what you're in for. You don't. That's why...you need us! Take our hands and join us through a whirlwind tour of hog farming and new love. Recommendations: "Ayoade on Top by Richard Ayoade Werewolf (2016) Music: "I Slammed my Penis in the Car Door" by Sol Scribbles "Jazz Fart" by The Best Show "Lookin' for Love" by Johnny Lee

Homefolks, we came to party, and your eyes were looking at ... Nöthin' but a Good Time: The Uncensored History of the '80s Hard Rock Explosion by Tom Beaujour and Richard Bienstock and it is well and truly time to push the opening acts off the stage and get ready for the *looks down at padded codpiece under spandex trousers* main event, if you know what our book's subjects are talking about AND I THINK THAT YOU DO. That's right: we're heading to the Sunset Strip of Los Angeles, California, USA, circa 1985, and we're just investigating the plain HECK out of the local flora and fauna. Or at least asking the local flora and fauna to tell us what was on their minds 'way back when. And when it gets boring we set off flash pots and / or whang the switch that makes the drum kit start chugging down a long set of railroad tracks it's attached to—it'll all make sense by the end, we promis, so please! put your lighters in the air and get ready for two hard-rocking slabs of hard-rocking rock, followed by one semi-explicably emotional slice of ballad action, because it's time for us ALL to tease our hairs and enjoy (?) the power and passion of rock and roll, '80s style! Recommendations: No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood Shit, who knows, read a classic or two, IDK, Wuthering Heights and My Antonia both ruled... Music Pairings: "Nothin'" by N.O.R.E. "I Wanna Rock" by Snoop Dogg

Since it's been a while, and we're currently slogging through a very long book for the next episode, we decided to give ALL of our listeners a chance to hear the new episode we just released for our patreon donors. It's not about a book. Most of our bonuses episodes aren't, really. But it is a lot of fun! This isn't going to be a common occurrence, but we missed you. And we hope you missed us, so here it is -- We ease back into the podcasting game with the early-aughtsiest slice of cinema we could find, the unexpectedly successful film Resident Evil!  But is it merely a box-office success, or is there artistic success there as well?  MASH THAT PLAY BUTTON AND FIND OUT, WHY DO YOU NOT? A movie so early-2000s you expect it to have stories about Woodstock '99, Resident Evil is a serious-faced attempt to honor the, ah, let's call it a "mythos" of the games, with plenty of atmosphere, some not entirely expected pacing, and some brutal moments, some of which it turns out we've seen before. So hitch up your JNCOs and grab some nü-metal off of Limewire, because it's time to see what lies beneath the surface ... of human skin ... of that spooky mansion outside Raccoon City ... and, best of all ... of the business practices of the strangely popular Umbrella Corporation! (if you enjoyed this episode, and would like to hear an extra episode per month about books (rarely) and other media products (more frequently), check us out at http://patreon.com/ideovpod

It's time to get what an old boss of Clsn's used to call "choiceful" in these all-too-choice-free times, so we break format a little bit (and break out laughing a lot) with a "Which Way" book, in which we try and mostly fail to become the titular Champ of TV Wrestling. Do the elegant diversions of a more innocent age hold up in today's bustling, hugger-mugger world of screens and Tik-Tok and whatnot? We invite you and all your friends to choose to find out! Click on in and try your luck with the champs of ... The Champ The Champ of TV Wrestling, that is! Recommendations: The Murderbot Diaries, by Martha Wells Enjoy the things that make you happy! Music: "Theme to Greatest American Hero" by Mike Post "Theme to Rock and Wrestling" "Freewill" by Rush

We live in a world that has hippos, and those hippos have to be ridden by people with weapons. Who's gonna do it? You? These people have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom. You weep for victims of hippos, and you curse the hippo riders. You have that luxury. You have the luxury of not knowing what we know. That hippos eat people, but that probably saves lives. And our existence as a podcast, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves time. You don't want the truth, because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want us reading these books, you need us reading these books. We use segments like "High Points, Low Points", "Dramatic Readings", "What Would They Do". We use these segments as the backbone of lives spent reading stuff and talking about it. You use them as a way to kill some time between other activities, or during them. We have neither the time nor the inclination to explain ourselves to listeners who rise and grind under the blanket of the very entertainment that we provide, and then questions the manner in which we provide it. We would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, we suggest you hop up on top of your OWN hippopotamus and ride! Anyway, yeah: what we have here is an (apparently well-regarded!) alternate history answering the question "What if a Western but hippos not horses?" It also asks—and answers!—"What do we need a white boy for, anyway?" so you can probably tell already that it rules, and we definitely had a hell of a lot of fun reading it, so grab your traveling clothes and get ready to get seriously amphibious with us and our hippo pals. Recommendations: A Libertarian Walks into a Bear: The Utopian Plot to Liberate an American Town (and Some Bears) by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling Normal People by Sally Rooney Music: "Wide Wide River" by the Fugs "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac

For SO many reasons, it's time to get out of town, and so we're hitting the road to check out some of those hot Atlanta Nights we've been hearing so much about! Atlanta Nights is a truly bizarre artifact, so strange that it forces us to break our own rules and stretch our own format, as we take a deep dive into the churned-up waters of "bad on purpose" and find ... well, okay. Look. You know that one friend of yours, here, deep into 2020, who still thinks "my pants are suddenly tighter" is still a funny way to describe an erection? (In local podcast terms, we call that one friend "The Clsn".) This book has probably five of those jokes. Accompany us, won't you, as we step into restaurant after restaurant to indulge our ... appetites—but ONLY after dark, because this is not a daytime affair, friends, no, no, no. This is an affair of ... Atlanta Nights. Want to check out Atlanta Nights for yourself? You can do it so at HERE. We love you! Recommendations: Sun Don't Shine movie The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells Pen15 show Music: "Oh Atlanta" by Little Feat "Sex and Dying in High Society" by Japandroids "Warm Leatherette" by The Normal

It's a tradition like no other, as our friend Stef Gray joins us to discuss our second consecutive book entitled...Dachshund Through the Snow! This time through, we get substantially increased Dachshund quantities, more flashbacks than is probably reasonable, and an amiable lope of a story of a few women passing through some extremely family-friendly challenges. Regardless of the challenge, however, we're pretty sure these Dogmothers are down for anything and up to the task! If your dogs are barking, come on in and take a load off! Pound that download button, because it's time for Greek to meet Irish and this is the episode that will finally let you get your Yia-Yia's out! Recommendations: Swing Time by Zadie Smith Paper Mario Eating food in Astoria, Queens Listening to the Dogmother Music: "Jingle Bells" by Barking Dogs "Memories Can't Wait" by Living Color "Charity, Chastity, Prudence, and Hope" by Hüsker Dü EDITOR'S NOTE (JWF): Apologies for the audio quality, the late release, and the lack of a letters segment this time around, things got pretty out of sync and difficult and editing this episode became a real trial. So I salvaged what I could.

Here on IDEOTV, it's Christmas in ... okay, August, but still it's time for some wintry festivities as we read—and talk about!—Dachshund Through the Snow: An Andy Carpenter Mystery! It's a murder mystery, a searing portrait of small-down power, corruption, and lies, a thrilling tale of corporate malfeasance, and a legal procedural, but really what it is is a story about a guy who doesn't want to do anything except watch ESPN with his buddies, who similarly want only to watch ESPN. "Dudes rock", in book form! Grab a shovel and prepare yourself for the ultimate in tension and the premier in punny titles, because like a cake out in the rain or an actor out on loan, our minds are squirming like a toad because it's time for ... Dachshund Through the Snow. Recommendations: "Abracadabralifornia" by The Pepper Men (Jon Daly) You Must be New Here by Ganser Music: "By-Tor and the Snow Dog" by Rush "Child's Christmas in Wales" by John Cale "Rich Man's World" by Immortal Technique

Lighters are clicking and flicking, wheels are rolling, and badasses are extremely American this time around as we climb into our *checks notes* LandMasters and take off across the blasted countryside of ... Damnation Alley. Tuff-guy posturing meets clouds of suspiciously sweetly scented smoke and maybe a few more descriptions of the sky than you were expecting, and the IDEOTV men have to have ANOTHER on-air strategy session to address WHY do all these books have damn' PLAGUES in them, anyway. We can't exactly give this book a ringing endorsement, we're not clappers in its audience, but we're not on Team Pull 'Er from the Shelves, either. If you'd like to know more about what we ding Damnation Alley on, press the button and maybe grab your bong! Recommendations: Blue Light Yokohama by Nicolás Obregón "Letterheads" by Sarah Jeong Music: "1,133 Rite of Spring Beats" by Various Artists "Undertaker Theme (12th) American Badass Uncensored Green Grass INtro" by Jesus, who CARES

Oh my goodness, this is gonna be a wild (broomstick) ride, as the all-time oldest friend of the show, Jeb "@mobute" Lund comes back to help us live deliciously and handle the weirdness of The Coven, by second-tier Watergate figure E. Howard Hunt, writing as "David St. John". And, in a way, aren't we all writing as David St. John? We should note that this is a pulp novel of the early 70s, and, as such, blasts casual slurs, offensive stereotypes, and wide-spectrum ignorance and hostility onto basically every page: We work hard to skirt this garbage, but it's there throughout. If you want to skip this ep, we'll understand, and we certainly suggest you skip this book. But if you're in a mood for a two-fisted, many-piped Washington lawyer with some controversial opinions about young, handsome senators and, eventually, witchcraft, then fire up some incense, polish your cauldron and iron your hair, because you've just been granted access to ... The Coven.   Recommendations: L.A. Quartet by James Ellroy Perry Mason, remake by HBO L.A. Noir by John Buntin Jennifer's Body movie The Hotel of the Three Roses by Augusto De Angelis Music: "Witch Hunting Memoirs" by Mountain High "Witch Hunt" by Rush

We can hear you already, you're saying "Oh, A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning, eh, what are you talking about, COLLISION'S LIFE haw haw haw", but the joke's on you, because ... he already knows. He knows. In any case, we picked this because we thought we'd try to keep on keeping things light, but ended up in one of our more contentious episodes, as Clsn kept holding things up and saying "This is a fun bit of mall goth writing for kids!" and J. kept saying "Sure fine whatever but also it's dumb and bad" and ... well ... it's not like J.'s wrong, so. Anyway, you're laughing at us because we're different, but we're laughing at YOU because you're all the same and you'll be laughing at this EPISODE because it's funny! This one is also a fantastic way to hear our direst schemes for bilking orphans, if that's your thing. NOTE: bilking orphans is NOT our thing. Allegedly. "Allegedy" is a word that here means "even if it turns out we do bilk an orphan or two, we can't be sued because we weren't planning it beforehand". Stay well, everybody, and don't forget to wear all black all summer long. And don't forget to wear your mask, either: we love you and want you to stay well. Recommendations: The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan by Daisy Ashford The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin Music: "The Legionnaire's Lament" by Decembrists "Communist Daughter" by Neutral Milk Hotel "Mad World" by Gary Jules

Sometimes we need to retreat to the porch with some kind vibes and mostly harmless advice, and that's why this time around, we reached into the past for All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It's a thick slice of I'm okay and you're okay so let's talk about dinosaurs and space with youth pastor slash weed dad Robert Fulghum. So grab a cold drink and some comfortable clothes, because we're going to go forth and jump in puddles! NOTE TO SELF: Check to see if jumping in puddles is actually fun. Seems kinda cold and wet. Also, Jay would like to see that chicken-fried steak is the best thing to write an essay about. Recommendations: "My Quarantine: Cozy Mysteries", by Sarah Manguso "Contradiction - The All-Video Murder Myserty Adventure" game. Music: "I Don't Wanna Grow Up" by Tom Waits "Kindergarten" by Faith No More

'E's a (hairy) wizard, is 'arry ... 'arry Dresden, that is, Chicago's only professional wizard and the protagonist of a book entitled Storm Front: Dresden Files Volume 1. On the plus side, a book called Storm Front featuring a dude named "Dresden" somehow manages not to go to objectionable places. On the minus side, this book is such a bland mess that even the climax explicitly having a wizard fight his foes by magically making a broom sweep those foes away, Sorcerer's Apprentice style, actually registers. Anyway, sub-Moonlighting flirting, a portrayal of lesbian vampires that would embarrass a Cinemax executive, and a narrator in a duster, cowboy boots ... and sweatpants. Yes, this book has "it" "all" for some very particular values of those terms, and it is our absolute pleasure to be able to escort you through the mean streets and magic-scorpion-ridden elevators of Harry Dresden's Chicago, so grab your slicker and get ready for some heavy weather, because what's moving in ... is a Storm Front! Recommendations: The Lady Killer by Masako Togawa It Felt Like Love Music Thots: "Magic" by Pilot "Eye of the Hurricane" "Miami Memory" by Alex Cameron

Because timing is the essence of success and entertainment, we're kicking off our latest huge crossover with Kait & Renata from Worst Bestsellers by taking on Resident Evil Volume II: Caliban Cove, an original novel about ... a horrible virus. We promise, however, that the episode is a lot of fun even if the book was a little too close to our current moment! Cool hangs with four of your bad-book buds: what more could you ask for? Oh! You want to ask for more? Okay, how about "sweaty ghosts"? Flight-preparation kibitzing? Subtle grenade foreshadowing that isn't very subtle? This one has everything up to and definitely including probably the most savage Karen-centric action in any book we've ever seen. If you're ready for a classic Resident Evil experience (prowling through an abandoned laboratory waiting for the monsters to show up), and a classic Worst Bestsellers / IDEOTVPod experience (cracking jokes while waiting for the monsters to show up) then this should be an infectious good time!   Recommendations: Dragon Hoops by Gene Luen Yang The Magnus Archives podcast Jewball by Neal Pollack River of Darkness: The First John Madden Mystery by Renny Airth Trust Exercise by Susan Choi The Surprising Return of Old-Ass Satellite High by Satellite High Music: Got nothing this time, sorry

You've all hit the trifecta, because this episode your long shot has finally come in and we take on our first Dick Francis book, the slightly disappointingly not-horse-dense-enough sorta-thriller The Danger. (Still enough horses in the book that one paragraph in the book runs "Horses. So many horses.") What should be a cracking good adventure, with exciting locations (Italy! London! the English seaside! where/whatever the heck "Lambourn" is...Washington DC...hmm. Starting to see the problem) and interesting characters (erm) running around and doing fun work (preventing and resolving kidnappings) somehow collapses into a mostly forgettable affair with the occasional pleasant surprise and a whole lot of opportunities for a nice nap. But that's the bad book business for you: sometimes the books just aren't very good. The episode, however, is good cranky fun, with plenty of rosé flowing and the next digression never waiting for the starting gun. So strap on the feed bag of ... sound, and enjoy the hooves thrumming 'pon the turf as the punters in the stands go mad and the only things flying more gaily than the racing silks are the betting slips being torn up and thrown away, because it's time for the most exciting two gents in podcasts to get into ... The Danger. Stay safe, everybody.   Recommendations: Night Moves (2013, Kelly Reichardt) Gravity Falls Music: "Since You've Been Gone" by Rainbow "Beetlebaum" by Spike Jones "Kidnapped by Neptune" by Scout Niblett

Money, power, respect: Lenny Dykstra doesn't really have any of those things (allegedly, but he does have a passel of stories about rock star L I V I N and a World Series ring (and a couple felony convictions), and that's pretty much why we sought out the dubious charms of Mr. Dykstra's book House of Nails: A Memoir of Life on the Edge.  (We think.  We can't really remember, and after reading this, nothing makes sense anymore.) NOTE: This isn't really a baseball book, at least not the way we talk about it (the bulk of the book itself actually is pitch-by-pitch recountings of baseball games, but even we have our limits), so don't be afraid. NOTE 2: We hope this episode finds you well! These are tough times for all of us, so please keep your chin up the best you can. NOTE 3: This is our first-ever "social isolation" podcast so please bear with us through the occasionally rough sound quality. We'll get better at this. Recommendations: The Sentence Is Death by Anthony Horowitz Emma. I Love Dick Music: "Biting My Nails" by Renegade Soundwave "Love Gun" by KISS "Life's Been Good" by Joe Walsh "Livin' on the Edge" by Aerosmith

So it's come to this: at long last, we follow up on a long-buried tip and try to get to the bottom of men's adventure's most underwhelming series, The Penetrator # 15: The Quebec Connection. Folks, we got the shaft! Turns out, this book is less "fun insane romp through zesty prose and reactionary 70s politics" and more "bordering on hate speech" with brief interludes of incredibly detailed bus routes and descriptions of ... driving in Buffalo. Safe to say this book will neither grow on you nor show you anything you particularly want to see, but the episode finds some decent veins to work on. NOTE: because of Clsn's screw-up, we were NOT able to record with Iain McIntyre this time around, but you should still check out the book he and Andrew Nette edited, Sticking It to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular Fiction, 1950 to 1980. NOTE 2: We bought our copies used, and got the cover you see above. Apparently, and upsettingly, there are new copies available (Clsn was wrong AGAIN!), which you should absolutely avoid, but which do have a cover that really plays up the Quebec and really plays down anything having to do with the book.   Recommendations: "Captain Marvel" by Stan Getz The Films of Kelly Reichardt Music: "Radio Ga Ga" by Queen "John the Fisherman" by Primus "The Canadian Lumberjack" by Stompin' Tom Connors

Sick as two dogs, your pals take on the most bizarrely and possibly wonderfully gratuitous book to make the papers in a very long while, Gibby "Butthole Surfers vocalist" Haynes' Me & Mr. Cigar. It's a slow, shaggy, rambling tale of a young man getting weird, and we probably forgot to mention this, but: about 30 pages in, that young man gets slipped a large dose of mind-altering drugs, and is under their influence for the remainder of the book.   The kind of book that makes J. ask Clsn off-air, anxiously, "You...you didn't like this book, did you?", and the kind of writing that makes a reader shriek "IT IS ACTUALLY OKAY TO DROP A PERIOD IN THERE EVERY ONCE IN A WHILE", it's safe to say that this does NOT break the streak of books by rock stars that make us resent the fact of our own literacy. So slam a handful of whatever pills you have closest to you* and get ready to hit the road! *Note: don't do this. Recommendations: Master Key by Masako Togawa My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite Music: "P.S.Y." by Butthole Surfers "John E. Smoke" by Butthole Surfers "The Bong Song" by Butthole Surfers

Tick, tock, tick ... doot doot doo-doo ... time keeps on ticking ticking ticking ... into the future! And, luckily, in the future, nobody has to read any slightly-above-average Crichton-grade semi-thrillers with one science idea and zero character or plot ideas along the lines of Tim Tigner's The Price of Time. If you're ready for super-sharp insights about the nature of commodified time in a heavily ruined-by-capitalism world, try the movie In Time, but if you're ready for a frequently okay but very dumb book about What If Rich People But Immortal, try The Price of Time but if you're ready for The Only Podcast That Loves You to take on a Burn Notice-grade narrative that actually includes a sentence like "It hadn't occurred to him that the ex-CIA agent and the triathlete might have teamed up to take down the Immortals", then oh golly have we got an episode for you! Side note: the insights about the nature of commodified time in a world ruined by capitalism expressed in the film In Time are not in fact super-sharp. Clsn regrets the hyperbole. (All power to the people and ban the fucking bomb.) Recommendations: "I don't want to be the strong female lead" by Brit Marling Sound of My Voice The Tokyo Zodiac Murders by Soji Shimada Knives Out with commentary Music Pairings: "People Who Died" by Jim Carroll "Birth School Work Death" by The Godfathers "Time Is Money (Bastard)" by Swans

FINALLY a raisin that won't ruin your day, it's an echt cozy mystery by M.C. Beaton, first of a long series, Agatha Raisin and the Quiche of Death! The first thing to say here is "Yes, this book features a character named Agatha Raisin," and the second is "Yes, this book features a plot in which a person dies after eating a quiche." For other things, however, you'll have to listen to the episode! Recommendations: Agatha Raisin (tv series) Stranger in the Alps by Phoebe Bridgers Human Hours by Catherine Barnett ("Epistemology" available at the link!) Music Pairings: "Cosmic Drama" by Voivod "Technocratic Manipulators" by Voivod "Macrosolutions to Megaproblems" by Voivod

For our milestonest episode yet, big number hundo-fitty, we break significant quantities of new ground by ... first, taking on our first-ever work of urban fantasy, one Something from the Nightside by Simon R. Green! We also waited until Clsn was sick as a dog and incredibly exhausted (Editor's Note: Me too --JWF) and took on a book so deeply unengaging that it had us talking at length about Clsn's new wireless mouse, dongles in general, and more or less everything else under the sun. But that's not important. You know what is important? What's important is that one thing that ISN'T under the sun ... is ... the Nightside. Anyway, happy 150, everybody! We love you! (Seriously, it really is a cool new mouse.) Recommendations: Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia "Ted Leo's Life with Rush: Closer to the Heart" by Ted Leo Music Thoughts: "On the Dark Side" by Rush "House of Suffering" by Bad Brains "Private Eyes" by Hall & Oates

We finally had to do it, so we skipped a couple showers, got real, real mad at our parents (and, probably, yours) and went out on the road to discover (how much we hated) America, and to do all of that, we had to start with one simple step: We had to Get in the Van. Henry Rollins' van! It's two men confronting formative influences and finding them ... hoo boy. Everybody's got to come from somewhere, anyway, and if you look back and DON'T think you've grown some, well, that's just a damn' bummer and a shame. As are a lot of the sentiments expressed in this book, a bunch of journal entries from a young man far from home and thoroughly convinced that what the world needs from him is, like, TOTAL AGGRESSION or something (as though the world needs more young white men delivering aggression). Anyway. The style? is run-ons; the content? is Being Real Mad; the effect? is mostly extremely tiring. However, the episode is lots of fun, so grab your journal and your angst and make sure your safety belt is low and snug across your hips, because it's time to ... get in the van.     Recommendations: Agatha Christie's Marple Salt Fat Acid Heat by Samin Nosrat Music Thoughts: "Pigs" by Aesop Rock "Venom Live at City Gardens, New Jersey" by Venom "Roast Beef's Workout Tape" by Achewood

  Because YOU demanded it (several years ago), and because this is our annual special rule-breaking holiday episode, we finally whip out our wands and make appear an episode about one-time YA teapot tempest Handbook for Mortals! Rock and roll, hair dye, motorcycle rides, dads, moms, tarot, magic, magik, and ... typos, cliches, and what may well be literature's first-ever love octagon. Probably the worst prose since Eye of Argon, the most all-italics pages since Wild Animus, and the overall harshest toke we've taken in a long, long time. Recommendations: Our Band Could Be Your Life by Michael Azerrad The Future Is Here and Everything Must Be Destroyed by Colette Arrand Music Thoughts: "Red Vines" by Aimee Mann "The Final Countdown" by some kids "Black Magic Woman" by Santana

A more elegant fiction from a more civilized age is John Boorman and Bill Stair's novelization of John Boorman's film script (for) Zardoz. It's a truly crazypants vision of a post-apocalyptic (and mostly pantsless) future, crafted by a couple men so laser-focused on breasts that you could well call them set adrift on mammary bliss. NOTE: this was brought to us by the F Plus' inimitable Lemon, who couldn't join us for this recording session because life is a savage wasteland patrolled by brutes, beset by beasts, and plagued by ... plagues. We hope all's well on his end and that his lack won't won't reduce your zest for the episode. So if you're ready to delve within and achieve enlightenment the Zardoz / IDEOTV way, snug up your singlet, prepare yourself for skin-to-skin knowledge transmission (not really), and mash that DOWNLOAD button to access the far-off and mustachioed lands ... of Zardoz (really). Supplemental hate reading: Gary Shteyngart on Zardoz. Thanks as always to our new sponsor, American Slide Whistle, Inc.!

If you ever watched Riverdale and wished that the events of the pilot were explained in greater (?) detail, then you, my friend, are in for a treat in Micol Ostow's The Day Before: A Prequel Novel! Fizzier and frothier than a freshly shaken bottle of Topo Chico, this book lets you spend time with all your favorite Riverdale characters from Archie's gang: Jughead, Veronica, Dilton Doiley ... Archie's dad ... Betty in full Nancy Drew mode ... Also Archie is in this book. Possibly our most digressive episode ever, we go deep (again) on "Steal My Sunshine" but by the end you and Andrea True will BOTH be calling for "More, more, more!" We guarantee it.   Recommendations: Play More Pokémon Be Friends with People in the Party Pit! The Plot Against Common Sense, by Future of the Left Sorry, everybody: Clsn is a dummy and lost his notes while recording: what he had MEANT to recommend was the incredible, and incredibly intense, new Azar Swan record The Hissing of a Paper Crane, which will annihilate you and goes surprisingly well with Riverdale and that is NOT a diss.  He'll talk about this next ep. Music Pairings: "Fourth of July" by Galaxie 500 "Down by the River" by Neil Young and Crazy Horse "Rich Girl" by Hall & Oates "Breakfast at Tiffany's" by Deep Blue Something

Grisly, gory, gruesome, and far, far too long, it's Robert Galbraith's Career of Evil, a five-hundred-page career unto itself, even if it's little more than a footnote to the career of JK Rowling, who we mention for ... some reason. (The reason is that Galbraith is a Rowling pseudonym.) It's the episode that airs Clsn's eighth-greatest shame, as this is a book with more than one reference to Blue Őyster Cult in literally every single chapter, which he had to be physically restrained from explaining, at some length, in lieu of having anything else to say about this tremendously turgid tome. (Fun roundup of one way to read the connection between the two can be found here if you're so inclined. And tune in next episode to hear us talk, and talk at length, about why Patti Smith gets credited by name when Michael Moorcock and John Shirley (and others!) do not.) (NOTE: we will not be talking about this.) A real monkey's paw: we wanted to read a thriller with some connetions to music, and, for our sins, we got a sub-Patterson doorstop where every character's regional dialect is carefully presented on the page (and, lamentably, in the audiobook, particularly lamentably when it comes to the Thai runner of a massage parlor) and every single negative stereotype about poverty and mental illness is given a couple of chapters (of BŐC references). Enjoy! because we sure didn't.   Recommendations: The Gone World by Tom Sweterlitsch Desperately Seeking Susan movie Music Thoughts: "Rollin'" by Rush "Career of Evil" by Blue Őyster Cult "Stanky Legg" by GS Boyz

A story, nay, a tale so big we had to have help to handle it, Pokémon: Detective Pikachu: Story of the Movie is a novelization slash transcript of the recent film, which Kotaku's Gita Jackson (@xoxogossipgita on Twitter) was kind enough to join us to discuss! Roughly ninety minutes of giggling then ensued. The book's very first page includes the phrases "secret science lab", "dark minds at work" and "Legendary Pokémon", so you know what you're in for right from the beginning: Pokéaction, and plenty of it. The episode is ... basically the same thing, what's-on-offer-wise.  Whether you're the kind of person who's long felt they "have to" "catch all of them" or are more on ol' Chris Collision's level of Pokéknowlege (Pokéfamiliarity?), this is one downloadable that will make you the very best, like no one ever was!     Recommendations: Dirk Gently TV Show (2010, BBC) The Outer Worlds video game (Gita Jackson's review of The Outer Worlds is here) On the Clock by Emily Guendelsberger Music Pairings: "Basket of Masks" by DTCV "Dose of Thunder" by The Replacements "Big Balls" by AC/DC

Cue the music and lift your voices in song with us, because it's the mo-st won-der-ful time ... of the year: it's time to get back on the Guy N. Smith train with an absolute banger entitled Killer Crabs. You know how last time we took on a Smith-crab joint, we thought "Wow, this one has EVERYTHING"? Well, it turns out that that one had a lot less than this one, because this one has everything. Everything is what this one has, at least if by the word "everything" you understand "just a whole LOT of sex and a briefcase-full-of-cash ménage à trois subplot that just screams "late '70s made-for-TV movie" and, of course, extremely invulnerable giant crabs eviscerating humans all over the beach. Is there any defense against this scuttling menace? Have the crabs developed military tactics? Will any of our major characters have enough sex to say "You know what, that's about enough sex I've had right there"? Friends, allies against the crabs, secret lovers, there's only one viable path to an answer, and that path runs straight through the pages of ... Killer Crabs. Up Guy N. Smith, up the Irons, up IDEOTVPod and up the giant crabs!   Recommendations: A Human Algorithm by Flynn Coleman Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Tremblay Music: "Shellburn" by The Spinanes "Sideways" by Dinosaur Jr. "Dead Meat on the Beach" by Sonny and the Sunsets

Ever want to hear what we get up to in our extra-special episodes over on Patreon dot com slash IDEOTVPod? Often, it's rad stuff like this, where we go deep into and thickly through a magazine aimed* at ... well, it's complicated, but the magazine is called Skillset and it's about being a hecka T U F F dude one hundred percent of the time. Which, full disclosure, includes an interest in collecting vintage video games, and has way less information about knives than you might expect. :( If you want to learn about how to fix a blown-out tire, this episode will teach you how NOT to handle the situation. If you want to know more about things you can buy that will make everybody say "WOW WHAT A MAN", then this episode is absolutely for you. So please enjoy this special break from format while you find some ways to expand your ... skillset. *You'll get that one on the way home. IMPORTANT: Here's a giant pdf with a bunch of hi-res scans of various pages from this magazine so you can follow along. It's a MULTI-MEDIA EXPERIENCE. http://www.idontevenownatelevision.com/media/Best%20of%20Skillset.pdf     Music Pairings: "Guns (Now)" by Negativland I Can Make You a Man, from Rocky Horror Picture Show

When you're scouring the shelves for some hot new Jack, sometimes you reach, er, farther, and thus might you happen upon L.T. Ryan's Noble Beginnings: A Jack Noble Thriller (Jack Noble #1). Anyway, that's pretty much what happened to us! This semi-taut sorta-thrill quasi-ride introduces us to Jack Noble, a man who one-punch breaks jaws at least two separate times and gets caught up in a conspiracy to ... it's not clear. We think the conspiracy is to perpetuate and expand the war in Iraq after 9/11, and a lot of the conspirators seem Ripped From the Headlines (we see you, homage to Paul Wolfowitz!), but, again: it's not super clear. It's probably fine. If your idea of fun is a taciturn Jack Reacher drinking coffee and punching evil all silent but deadly, this series may tickle your fancy, even if the chatty/sassy Jack Noble gasses on now and again. Squad up and get ready to drive up and down I-95, because it's time for ... beginnings ... noble beginnings.   Recommendations: "Take the Way Home That Leads Back to Sullivan Street" by Chavisa Woods A Wind in the Door by Madeleine l'Engle Music Recs: "Jawbreaker" by Judas Priest "Noble Stabbings!!!" by Dillinger 4

No Regrets by Ace Frehley? More like "No, Regrets"!! For the first time in a LONG time we hop back on the rock bio train, and find that it treats us ... well, this isn't really the first one we'd recommend you read, let's just say that. Basically a guy throwing in his perspective on stuff he expects you to be incredibly familiar with and interested in, long after the shouting has ended and the confetti has all been swept up (and away), this book is an essentially narrative-free pile of anecdotes about fast cars and ... mostly it's just about fast cars, honestly. So, you know: VROOM! Pop the clutch and tell the world you wanted the best and you GOT ... well, this episode! Side note: both of us spend a LOT of time shrieking about "cold gin" and "owl ka haul" and at some point Clsn mutters "We'll explain this later", but we never did: what that's about is this legendary collection of Paul Stanley stage banter, commonly known as "People, Let Me Get This Off My Chest". Side note two: no-one alive knows more about Kiss than Jon Wurster, and everything I (Clsn) personally know about Gene Simmons comes from this call he made to the Best Show some years back. Highly recommended. Recommendations: Telling Lies game by Sam Barlow "The Adults in the Room" by Megan Greenwell Music Thoughts: "Shut Up 'N Play Yer Guitar" by Frank Zappa "Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives" by Aesop Rock

Bouncing off the walls with at least one too many cups of coffee, it's the IDEOTV squad (-ron) chasing after Ricochet Joe! This is a prime blast of classic Dean Koontz, which means it's literally impossible to dislike or have a bad time with. We hope you'll enjoy our dogged efforts hereby unleashed! So fix your collar and keep your eye open for evil grandmothers, chambers of commerce, and Corvettes.   Recommendations: "Solidarity and the Labor of Writing" by Toni Morrison "The Work You Do, the Person You Are" by Toni Morrison A Goddamn Impossible Way of Life by The Paranoid Style They Live Frankenstein's Monster's Monster, Frankenstein Music Recs: "Little Joe" by Soundgarden "Don't Turn Your Back" by Blue Őyster Cult "Ordinary Average Guy" by Joe Walsh

Coming at you faster than a stretchy missile off of a young boy's outstretched finger(s), it's Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe's The Rubber Band! What is it? Why, it's a classic mystery of the old school, with armchair detection aplenty, two-fisted shoe-leather gumshoeing (?), gals, dames, dudes, orchids, bankers, and crime cases no cop could ever crack! There's also no shortage of sizeist and sexist horseshit, straight out of the 30s and glued onto the page, so it's not all fun and games. But where else are you going to get a narrator who drinks maybe six glasses of milk and eats a dish of lamb kidneys and green peppers? Probably nowhere. Or anyway, possibly nowhere else. No magnifying glasses needed for this caper, but we warn you: this plot MAY require a flow chart (or two). You need not fear, though, because we promise that we'll be able to hold it all together—with the help of The Rubber Band, anyway!   Recommendations: "Proust's Madeleine, But for People Who Grew Up With a Single Dad" by the great Mara Wilson Alita: Battle Angel American Truck Simulator (game) Music Recs: "Stretchin' Out (In a Rubber Band)" by Bootsy Collins "I Wanna Be a Cowboy" by Boys Don't Cry "Friggin in the Riggin" by Sex Pistols

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows! And so does Doc Savage. This is just one of the things that makes the two of them rivals, tentative opponents, uneasy collaborators, and, the reader continuously hopes, cautious lovers in Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow! (Alas, this may be an "all-new WILD" adventure, but it's not quite wild enough for that last development, so calm down.) This is a super-enjoyable team-up in the old style, as our two favorite pulp heroes team up to take off a very thoroughly self-branded villain who's been blackmailing criminals (uhh, Season 3 Jessica Jones?) but makes a mistake and makes it a big one when he runs afoul of New York honestly, basically just Manhattan and occasionally upstate or parts of New Jersey's most two-fisted and twin-.45'd (Doc & Shadow, respectively) bad-punishers. Anyway, this one was a lot of fun, so set your hearts and minds on a course for adventure and settle down with ... Doc Savage: The Sinister Shadow! Side note: these lil' toys are incredible.     Recommendations: Stranger Things Season 3 America by Garrett Bradley Music Recs: "Dark Shadows" by EMA "No Face" by Savages "Together Again (live)" by Linda Thompson & Richard Thompson

Picked out and up at a literal airport bookstore, it's the greatest fight we've ever had: J.A. Jance's Duel to the Death: An Ali Reynolds Mystery. Will this supposed thriller bring the techno-chills, delivering A.I.-derived Bitcoin by Bluetooth? Or will we spend most of our time at the DMV? (Sorry for the short notes this time around: time pressure!)     Recommendations: "World Without Men: The Wisdom and Weirdness of Feminist Utopian Novels" by Lyta Gold "Love Poem to Oakland" by Leila Mottley Music Recs: "Pure Energy" by Information Society "http://mmouse.albndy.coolio.myass.dot.com" by Donuts N' Glory "Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford

One journal you won't want to take a bullet for, it's Nicholas Sparks' rain-drenched kayak epic The Notebook! The gothic tale of a war veteran alone in his ancient house, yearning for the rekindling of a long-gone love affair, crossed with an empowering journey of a young woman fighting to make her own choices and investigate her artistic talents ... would have been better than what we read, probably. Big themes, big feelings, big-time sincerity and a bigger commitment to sex scenes than we were expecting, all packed into a most slim form factor, so is this one gonna force us to replace "Ride the Crab!" with "Jot THAT Down in Your Notebook"? There's only one way to find out, and that way is to mash that download button NOTE: Clsn badly misquoted the great Mara Wilson during this episode, for which he apologizes. What she really said was 'way funnier than what he remembered. Recommendations: The Great Successor: The Divinely Perfect Destiny of Brilliant comrade Kim Jong Un by Anna Fifield Washington Journal: Reporting Watergate and Richard Nixon's Downfall by Elizabeth Drew Music Recs: "Photograph" by Nickleback "Turn the Page" by Metallica (WILDLY NSFW)

Swords? More than a couple. Sorcery? Some, but not so much that you'd get upset about it. Sandals? Probably not, but we can't swear that weren't any in ... The Wurms of Blearmouth. Probably the highest quantity (and quality!) of funny voices in any episode ever, and DEFINITELY the longest list of purportedly funny names we've ever endured (and subsequently shared with you). Anyway, this is evidently what passes for high fantasy with comic elements and it doesn't even have a map at the front so there's absolutely nothing right with this brief document except that it got J. all fired up and inspired an episode that will deffo tickle your fancy! Brush the road dust from your fanciest cloak, tuck away your coin purse, and keep a weather eye out for brigands, for we set out this day 'pon the teeming mountain path that will lead us (all) to the village where dwell the golems, sheriffs, lizard cats, walking dead and ... uh ... also the wurms. Of Blearmouth.   Recommendations: Deadwood finale Fleabag season 2 Music Recs: "Brave Sir Robin" by Monty Python "The Wizard" by Black Sabbath "I'm Dead" by Würm

Just in time for J.W.'s birthday, we crack the spine on Tamra Baumann's Plotting for Murder. Full disclosure: this breaks a few of our rules, in that we (a) mainly focus on bad books and (2) rarely read anything that wasn't published by a major house, but sometimes we just want to read something we know we're going to enjoy, and this was one of those times. So hop in the car with us and take a trip down south—45 minutes south of San Francisco, that is!—and browse the groaning shelves of a mystery-themed bookstore that serves up hot, flavored coffee, fresh, flaky croissants, and, if you're a member of its book club, the occasional MURDER. The heroine? Plucky. Coffee drinker (bigtime). Puppy recipient! The sheriff: hunky; devoted to the heroine; willing to use her to accomplish extra-legal surveillance; possibly going to run for mayor down the road (check back!). Her mom: big heart, a little flaky. Her best friend? Does a lot of dating. The murder victim? Did a little TOO MUCH dating, possibly! But let's not uncover the mystery too quickly, eh? NOTE: J. would like everybody to know he thought he was a little less "vocally enthusiastic" than usual, but that's only because he had been helping our pals over to the F Plus help raise SEVENTEEN THOUSAND FRIGGING DOLLARS for abortion rights all night before we recorded. Clsn would like everybody to know he feels really bad for not mentioning one of the best things about this book, which is that it has an expansive, enjoyable sense of family, with adult children coming to respect their parents in new ways and inviting people into new networks of care, and he doesn't even have an excuse, he just forget to bring it up.     Recommendations: Killing Eve TV series Destroyer movie (Karyn Kusama, director) Music Recs: "Murder" by Monster Magnet "Admiral of the Sea" by Nova Mob "Mystery" by Wipers

This episode, we ask you all to take us down to Raccoon City, where the herbs are green and the ammo's scanty -- Take. Us. Home. We sneak into a supposedly disused mansion to investigate a branded spinoff and read Resident Evil: The Umbrella Conspiracy, by S.D. Perry, a (completely rad) novelization of the first Resident Evil video game. If you haven't had the pleasure, or if you've only seen one or five of the recent movies, never fear, for we're part of a crack task force and we'd never leave one of our own behind. Check your pockets, and keep your eyes peeled for shiny things -- and always, always, watch out for snakes! Because this book has E V E R Y T H I N G: zombie mutants of several different kinds; traps; puzzles; betrayal; blackmail; claws; indoor sharks and skinless dogs; unattended boiler rooms; switches Barry definitely shouldn't have touched; full bladders needing attention. Leave your flashlights behind for some reason and come with us to hydroplane into fame, and see if we can find any safety, living under ... the Umbrella ella ella (Corporation). Extra Special Bonus "Paradise City" Lyrics Rewritten to Be About Raccoon City: I'm just a hell beast tearing up all the street Got a long tongue, looking for some faces to eat Sorry, kind of ran out of steam at that point.     Recommendations: Resident Evil 7 game High Life movie (Claire Denis, director) Music Recs: "I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement" by The Ramones "Zombie" by The Cranberries "Umbrella" by Rihanna

Just in time for Mother's Day, or maybe early for Halloween, it's just flat-out time to get extremely spooky, so we're bringing you the PG-est horror out there, slithering like a fat white worm and jutting upsettingly from a long-dug grave, Eric Morse's epoch-defining Friday the 13th: Mother's Day. Grab your backpack and get ready for a road trip with all your most stereotypical high school pals: the brain, the athlete, the basket case, the princess, and the criminal, but keep your eyes open and your running (-away) shoes laced up, because THIS Mother's Day, Camp Crystal Lake is being plagued by more than just the Voorhees family. Canoe even believe it!? there's more than one killer on the loose!   Recommendations: "To Keep a Sluttish House" by Katie Prout "Ghost in the Cloud" by Meghan O'Gieblyn "Glenn Danzig Gets Knocked the Fuck Out" by Some Beefy Dude Danny Marianino Music Recs: "Bring Me the Head" by Operators "Let's Go Down to the Woods" by Screaming Blue Messiahs "Blow Ya Mind" by Nicki Minaj

A book that will leave you sleepy, but a podcast episode that will leave you ... in stitches, it's Robin Cook's quasi-classic Coma, a medical thriller more frightening than anything except a hospital bill. A thick slice of 70s anxiety, where women in the workplace crash up against the commodification of, uh, organ "donations" and the frustrations of laws presuming to encroach upon the sure natural rights of innovators to innovate, this little tome is yet another data point illustrating Clsn's thesis that It Is Never Not the Seventies. There's even a hacking scene! And probably the best last line we have ever seen a protagonist have in one of our books—and if you want to hear about those two things, keep an eye on our public Patreon feed, because we didn't talk about them on the main episode, but there may well be some extras coming down the pike for you, absolutely free. Laughter is the best medicine, so no matter how you're feeling, you owe it to your future to just wail on that DOWNLOAD button and get healthy the old-fashioned way: by laughing at Coma.   Recommendations: The After Party by Jana Prikryl Sekiro game Music: "Home Surgery" by Trotsky Icepick "Styles" by Casual "Love in an Elevator" by Aerosmith

Just poppin' in your feed with an advertisement for our extremely free live show that is happening, here in San Francisco, in just a matter of days. Tickets are free, but you do need to reserve them in advance. Here's a link: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/betabrand-podcast-theatre-i-dont-even-own-a-television-tickets-59068469382 And for those of you who can't make it, please enjoy this incredibly smooth west coast g-funk beat in the background. Okay, later!

It's the greatest crossover of all time—again!!—as the delightful Kait & Renata from Worst Bestsellers repay our James Patterson guest spot with one of their own, joining us for James Patterson & Gabrielle Charbonnet's Witch & Wizard. Yes, it's dude magic and lady magic together again for the very first time, in a Frankensteined-up teen-centered dystopia slash ... record scratch noise Holocaust metaphor? And the blandest title ever committed to print, with a prophecy naming the brother-and-sister team who will save the world after second-tier Disney semi-hit The Rescuers? Look, we're just as confused as you are, and we do this all the time. Anyway, this is a book (probably?) for modern-day teens (we think?) that includes an incredibly up-to-date reference to (racist caricature) Ming the Merciless on like page two, so it's safe to say that it's real James Patterson hours around here, folks. Anyways, Renata & Kait are great, this book is definitely not, and this episode is more fun than anybody can have without an heirloom drumstick and a leather-bound book.   Recommendations: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor Gravity Falls on Hulu Into the Spider-Verse Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins Bluets by Maggie Nelson Music: "Everything Is Not What It Seems (Wizard of the Waverly Soundtrack)" by Selena Gomez "Your Body Is a Wonderland" by John Mayer "Kids in America ('93)" by Lawnmower Deth (or the De la Deth mix)

Is that a parrot on your shoulder or are you just glad to see ... Pirate Latitudes, a supposed novel supposedly found in Michael Crichton's files, complete and entire, after his death? Slow-moving nautical action, a slow-motion rock-climbing heist with a basically super-powered team of what are over and over again described as not pirates, some of the most boring witchcraft scenes ever written, and probably the worst sex scenes we've ever read: whoever was responsible for these pages should probably be forced to walk the plank. But since we're all about the booty here at IDEOTVPod, we hoisted the sails, made fast our lines, tucked our shiny-ass cutlasses into our finest sashes and set sail for fresh latitudes. Sassy latitudes. Pirate latitudes. Recommendations: Six Months, Three Days, and Five Others by Charlie Jane Anders The Seven and One-Half Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton Music: "I was born on a pirate ship (holdyourtongue)" by Dillinger 4 "Golden Years" by David Bowie "Frigging in the Rigging" by the Sex Pistols

Helmet, jumpsuit, maybe a catheter: these are the things we needed to hop behind the wheel of Alistair MacLean's The Way to Dusty Death, and it's at the very least possible that they are the things you'll need to have in place before you pop your clutch and try to slip behind the fastest cats on the track (that's us) as they (we) set track records, lap after lap. The big bells are ringing and the tight pants are clinging, because this tale of speedy intrigue on and around the tracks of Formula 1 Grand Prix racing is probably the 70s-est artifact that ever slid through Europe's hotels. A few pit stops may be in order, so that you don't get too tired. Anyway, if you're like Racer X Johnny Racecar Harlow's accelerator, then you're ready for this episode, because you're ready to get ... floored. Recommendations: Moe Bowstern of the Fisher Poets Gathering Watching Columbo The Trauma Floor by Casey Newton, photos by Jessica Chou "Which One of My Garbage Sons Are You?" on Clickhole Music: "Jesus Built My Hotrod" by Ministry "Racer-X" by Big Black

Throw us a bone, here, people, and don't unleash a pack of "IDEOTVPod has gone to the dogs" jokes, just because we've finally managed to collar a couple copies of Spencer Quinn's entirely endearing, even fetching novel Dog On It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery. You'd have to be one sick puppy to be mean about this good-natured book about a moderately hard-boiled desert detective and his loyal pooch, who serves as our narrator, and trust us: if you come to say bad stuff about Spencer Quinn, you're barking up the wrong tree and will definitely end up in our doghouse.   Recommendations: Russian Doll, Netflix Stick It "Lost in the Woods with James Brown's Ghost" by Thomas Lake Music: "Baby Ice Dog" by Blue Őyster Cult "Get at Me Dog" by DMX "Talking to the Dog" by Obits