Bookish University

All Atwood

Tue, 12 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda starts this episode discussing Margaret Atwood's recently published memoir, moving into four of her fictions works, all referenced throughout the memoir. Fiction works discussed include Cat's Eye, The Robber Bride, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Testaments.

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Reading for Community

Tue, 05 May 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda approaches community support and mutual aid starting with Omar El Akkad's One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This. Other books discussed include Whisper (Tal Bauer), The Nineties (Chuck Klosterman), Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Paulo Friere), Mutual Aid (Dean Spade), Let This Radicalize You (Kelly Hayes and Mariame Kaba), Across that Bridge: A Vision for Change and the Future (John Lewis), and Our History is the Future (Nick Estes).

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Ghostly Romance

Tue, 28 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda takes a lighter tone, talking about...ghost sex? Sort of. Sometimes. Once. These paranormal romances feature ghosts and their people. Books discussed include The Dead Romantics (Ashley Poston), The Love of My Afterlife (Kristy Greenwood), Cemetery Boys (Aiden Thomas), Seeing Other People (Emily Wibberley and Austin Siegemund-Broka), and The Gravedigger's Handbook (Jern Tonkoi).

Also that time Dr. Amanda got star struck and couldn't talk to Ashley Poston at a book convention authors attend literally to meet their readers. Anxiety is a bummer.

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Books with Big Feels

Tue, 21 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses books with big feels and deal with healing, and talks about how we experience grief differently. Books include A Man Called Ove (Fredrik Backman), The Guncle (Steven Rowley), The Little Paris Bookshop (Nina George), Remarkably Bright Creatures (Shelby Van Pelt), What My Bones Know (Stephanie Foo), and We Burned So Bright (TJ Klune).

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Cultivating Empathy through Memoir

Tue, 14 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda uses standpoint theory to advocate for reading memoirs from perspectives far different from your own as a means of learning more about the world we inhabit and an exercise in expanding our empathy. For fiction lovers, she also discusses why the fictional memoir and ghostwriter space is compelling. Books discussed include Gender Queer (Maia Kobabe), I am Evelyn Amony: Reclaiming My Life from the Lord's Resistance Army (Evelyn Amony, edited by Erin Baines), Soft as Bones (Chyana Marie Sage), Confessions of a Failed Southern Lady (Florence King), The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (Taylor Jenkins Reid), Great Big Beautiful Life (Emily Henry), and The Ghostwriter (Julia Clark).

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Rellings from Fairy Tale to True Crime

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses the role of retellings in books and film, and how they allow space to reimagine realities. Books discussed include How to Be Eaten (Maria Adelmann), Peter Darling (Austin Chant), The Silent Patient (Alex Michaelides), Bright Young Women (Jessica Knoll), and This Book Will Bury Me (Ashely Winstead).

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Parenting Takes

Tue, 31 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses a variety of books that speak to or around the role of parenthood in today's society. Books discussed include the Danish Secret to Happy Kids (Helen Russell), The Amazing Generation (Jonathan Haidt and Catherine Price), Sincerely your Autistic Child (Emily Paige et al., and Autistic Women and Nonbinary Network), Keepers of the Lost Cities series (Shannon Messenger), The Kodiaks Home Ice Advantage (David Robertson), and And Then She Fell (Alicia Elliott).

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Why Women Read Horror

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda hosts media scholar, Dr. Lydia, to discuss why women watch (and read) horror. They discuss discuss genre nuance and the gendered nature of horror consumption. Books discussed include Slewfoot (Bram), The Vegetarian (Han Kang), and Bunny (Mona Awad).

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The Haunted House

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses the value of the haunted house, or maybe just selfishly discusses her favorite haunted house books. Discussion includes Manor of Dreams (Christina Li), Harvest House (Cynthia Leitich Smith), The Reformatory (Tananarive Due), The Sentence (Louise Erdrich), and Hazelthorn (CG Drews).

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Those 70s Vibes

Tue, 10 Mar 2026 10:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda talks with Dr. Adam of the Sister Wives Professor about 1970s nostalgia, 1970s rock memoirs and aesthetics. Books discussed include Paul Stanley of Kiss's memoir (Face the Music: A Life Exposed), Lisa Marie Presley and Riley Keough's memoir of Lisa Marie's life (From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir), Daisy Jones and the Six (Taylor Jenkins Reid), and Mary Jane (Jessica Anya Blau).

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On Conflict and the Third-Act Breakup

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 11:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses conflict communication as exemplified through the third-act, highlighting examples from books with conflict resolution including a third-act breakup as well as a couple who post third-act conflict differently.

Books discussed are: Boyfriend Material (Alexis Hall), How to End a Love Story (Yulin Kuang), Stars in Your Eyes (Kacen Callender), You and Me (Tal Bauer), and Vampires of El Norte (Isabel Cañas).

Also, Vampires of El Norte takes place in the 1840s. I think I accidentally said 1940s.

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The Wonderful World of Satire

Tue, 24 Feb 2026 11:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses how satire opens up a space to critique social norms without some of the depressing tendencies that accompany emotional or rational appeals. She uses these books to discuss the misrepresentation of influencer realities, the evolution of branding and how it manifests in content creation, and cults as high control organizations. Books featured are Rouge (Mona Awad), Julie Chan is Dead (Liann Zhang), and Girl Dinner (Olivie Blake).

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Food and Books

Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda spends this episode talking about her two primary hobbies - food and books. Beginning with the role of food in culture and identity, Dr. Amanda moves into a discussion of food systems, covering nonfiction and fiction offerings on the subject.

Books appearing in this episode include The Love Elixir of Augusta Stern (Lynda Cohen Loigman), The Guncle 2 (Steven Rowley), Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver), In Defense of Food (Michae Pollan), The Mighty Red (Louise Erdrich), and The Seed Keeper (Diane Wilson). And, of course, a few other books - and cookbooks - scattered throughout.

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The Academy

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 14:00:00 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses the academy broadly, then talks about several academia-based books including The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, An Academic Affair by Jodi McAlister, Cut to the Feeling by M. A. Wardell and A. J. Truman, Vladamir by Julia May Jonas, Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon, and Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work by bell hooks.

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Reading Russia, sort of

Wed, 04 Feb 2026 02:28:05 GMT

Dr. Amanda hosts guest Dr. Natalia, an expert in Eastern European political and crisis communication and native of the region, to discuss books and histories coming out of the Soviet Union - with a bonus review of Ilya's Russian monologue in Heated Rivalry!

Primary discussion features Pioneer Summer by Kateryna Sylvanova and Elena Malisova, translated to English by Anne O. Fisher, and Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham.

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Reading through the Game Changers Series

Mon, 26 Jan 2026 20:56:55 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses the six published Game Changers books by Rachel Reid and offers insights about identity, organizational culture, and the agency to move within these structures.

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The Heated Rivalry Adaptation and All That Buzz

Fri, 23 Jan 2026 18:32:22 GMT

Dr. Amanda discusses the success of the TV adaptation of Heated Rivalry and why it matters.

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