Episodes

  • SMFMS Bookends 34: The Crying of Lot 49
    Sep 23 2026

    The thirty-fourth episode of SMFMS Bookends, the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf. Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, resuscitate the Bad Sex Awards™, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from our Crying of Lot 49 episode.


    We are also happy to promote our fan's Etsy shop: VintageriebyJJ.com!

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    37 mins
  • Episode 86 - The Crying of Lot 49
    Sep 16 2026

    Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eighty-sixth episode, we cover a postmodernist masterpiece and one of the first 'anti-detective' novels, Thomas Pynchon's The Crying of Lot 49 (1966). We become increasingly paranoid, read a truly bizarre sex scene, and discuss the benefits and detriments of Jameson's.


    Cover art © Catherine Wu.


    Episode Theme: 'Scroach', courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. .

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • Episode 85 - Goblin Market
    Aug 26 2026

    Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eighty-fifth episode, we finish our month-long miniseries on short narrative poems with Christina Rossetti's frustratingly UNambiguous and yet multi-layered sexual assault poem, 'Goblin Market' (1862). THIS is truly Abby's favourite poem, Daniel learns what a Labubu is, and we both get turned on by fruit.


    Cover art © Catherine Wu.


    Episode Theme: 'The Goblin and the Mosquito' by Florence Price.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    40 mins
  • Episode 84 - The Lady of Shalott
    Aug 19 2026

    Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eighty-fourth episode, we continue our month-long miniseries on short narrative poems with Alfred Lord Tennyson's Arthurian retelling, 'The Lady of Shalott'. Abby thinks it's a banger, Daniel is generally unimpressed and concerned with toilet issues, and we get some very thinly-veiled sexual awakenings.


    Cover art © Catherine Wu.


    Episode Theme: Wagner, Parsifal, Act I - 'Transformation Music'.


    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    25 mins
  • Episode 83 - Rime of the Ancient Mariner
    Aug 12 2026

    Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eighty-third episode, we continue a weekly, month-long miniseries on short narrative poems. Today we cover Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 1798 Gothic-Romantic-philosophical epic sea yarn, 'Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. We get amused by a bassoon and confused by the gloss, just as Coleridge intended. Probably.


    Cover art © Catherine Wu.


    Episode Theme: Mendelssohn, 'Hebrides Overture'.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    38 mins
  • Episode 82 - The Rape of the Lock
    Aug 5 2026

    Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eighty-second episode, we start a weekly, month-long miniseries on short narrative poems, beginning with Alexander Pope's 1714 mock-epic, 'The Rape of the Lock'. Daniel is determined to not have wig-face, both our hosts share childhood hair-cutting trauma, and we learn that this is where fairies with wings comes from!


    Cover art © Catherine Wu.


    Episode Theme: Vivaldi, Concerto in D Major 1. 'Allegro'.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    39 mins
  • SMFMS Bookends 33: The Woman in White
    Jul 22 2026
    The thirty-third episode of SMFMS Bookends, the satellite show for Save Me From My Shelf. Here we read emails, answer listener questions, talk about what we're currently reading, watching, and playing, resuscitate the Bad Sex Awards™, and provide further outtakes and analysis cut from our Woman in White episode.

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    33 mins
  • Episode 81 - The Woman in White
    Jul 15 2026

    Two friends and academics recap classic literature and take it off its pedestal. In our eighty-first episode, we cover our first (and THE first) sensation novel, Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White (1860). Daniel gets pissed off at the narrative structure and the lack of concertinas, while Abby basks in the glow of some real bad biddies.


    Cover art © Catherine Wu.


    Episode Theme: 'Figaro' performed on the concertina by Daniel Jenkin-Smith

    Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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    1 hr and 23 mins