Welcome To Booked.

In which we discuss reading goals, libraries, the final 2020 Stoker nominees, throwback reviews, the passing of a literary giant (and the ensuing poor media coverage), smart water bottles, state abbreviations varying based on the style guide you follow, and take a peek at what's up next episode.

We're back with our second Patreon pick of the year. This time, Misty Bennett has chosen another Blake Crouch book, Dark Matter! While matters of national security prevented Misty for joining us for the review, we still had a great chat about science, multiple universes, and collecting pee in jars. Head over to our Patreon and give just $1/month for Spoiler Talk for Dark Matter, which is almost half the length if this episode!

It's our first Patreon pick of 2020! Jesse Lawrence shares with us one of his favorite authors. It's a story about a group of small town school girls with a plan to go wild in the big city when they attend a choir competition. There's shenanigans aplenty, and a whole lot of fun. Very Scottish fun. Supporting us at the $10/month tier on Patreon gives you the chance to choose a book for us to review once a year (and you can choose to join us on the review!), so if you've got something you've been dying to talk about, now is your chance!

We're back with another book review. And this episode sees us again reading the latest from an author from the very beginning of the podcast. This time, we're tackling the new novella Slow Bear, by Anthony Neil Smith. Neil was on the podcast a couple time back in the day, and we reviewed a few of his novels as well. If you're into Noir stories, you'll probably want to check this out.

We're back with another book review! This time it's a book about a woman in Alaska who gets a clue about what happened to her sister that disappeared 20 years ago. This is our first book of 2020 that we're doing a spoiler talk for, so check out our Patreon for that. Also, we do a good amount of talk about what we've been watching, and some of the movie recommendations will be a surprise! Next week we're reviewing a new novella by Anthony Neil Smith.

We're back with an Interlude episode. In this one, we talk about buying used books, libraries, and why we don't have theme music. Coming next week: a book review. For sure.

We're back with our first review of 2020, and it's Bad People by long-time friend of the podcast, Craig Wallwork. We reveal what we thought of the book using our brand-new rating system. And if you want to learn more about our new rating system, check out our video on YouTube where we go into detail about what it is and how it works. Hope you enjoy!

You read that right. We review an entire decade. From Angry Birds to Vine, from Gangnam Style to Harambe, From fidget spinners to Pokemon Go, from Brexit to Pepe, we cover it all. Actually no, we only talked about things that happened on the podcast. Reviews and stuff. Because that's what you're here for. Thank you for almost a decade of support! We appreciate you more than we could ever express!

Through a series of math exercises and arcane rituals, the Booked. fellas discovered that Trust Exercise by Susan Choi is considered by a majority of people who make lists to be the best book of 2019. Well, we wanted to know for ourselves. Is this the best book we read in 2019? Tune in to find out. And stick around, there's certainly some spoiler talk for this baby.

Happy holidays from the Booked. team! We're back with a tradition as old as time. Our annual Christmas episode. What do we do in these Christmas episodes? We talk about a Christmas movie - this year it's Home Alone. Then we do some gift exchanges, and other holiday themed talk. It's a lot of fun, so grab some egg nog and check it out. And if you want to see the video version, head to our Facebook page to check it out there. Happy Holidays!

Hot on the heels of our review of the Gwendy books by Richard Chizmar and Stephen King, we were lucky enough to get some time to talk with Richard about writing the Gwendy books, collaborating with a literary legend (and other), running Cemetery Dance for THREE DECADES, and a lot more. We hope you enjoy this chat as much as we did!

We're back with an interlude episode. This time, we talk a little about mouth health, Twin Peaks, House of Leaves, and some books we're excited about for the coming year. I know it sounds like we're talking about the hot topics of the 90s and 2000s, but seriously this is some hot-off-the-press conversation.

Don't worry, Robb's back. Oh yeah, and we're reviewing not one, but TWO books this episode. The Stephen King/Richard Chizmar co-authored book Gwendy's Button Box and Chizmar's solo follow-up Gwendy's Magic Feather. It's great to be back in the saddle again, and we chose a couple great books for Robb to come back to.

The most important thing for you to know about this episode is that Robb is not in it at all. Not even for one second. Um. Yeah that's about it. Livius talks about a book I guess, with that dude from Bizzong.

We've been waiting for eight years to get our hands on a new book by this author. We read Erin's first novel The Night Circus in the first year of this podcast, and it was probably one of our first favorites. It's certainly a love that has endured over the years. Did we absolutely love the follow-up effort? YES. So have a listen to what we thought was so great about it, and if you support our Patreon, there's some spoiler talk as well. But I'll warn you, spoiler talk contains spoilers!

We finally got to give you our take on the latest by Fred Venturini! You may recall back in the day we talked about his book The Heart Does Not Grow Back, and we've been excited to get something new from him since. Check out our review, and stick around to hear us complain about TV series and movies.

We're back with yet another book review! This time, we're revisiting a name that we haven't mentioned in a minute. John Hornor Jacobs. He has a new book out which is a pair of novellas, both billed as cosmic horror. Is it cosmic? Is it horror? You'll have to listen to find out.

We've been going hard on the vague-casting for this one. That's right, in anticipation of his latest book release - The Little Blue Kite, Mark Z Danielewski came on to chat with us for a bit. Lots of talk about Kite and its origins, but also a very deep conversation about creating, narrative, perspective, and some stuff I think only Mark kept up with.   He is a joy to talk to, and endlessly interesting to hear speak on the topic of books (primarily) and anything (really). We hope you enjoy!

That's right. It's our first Interlude since May! Check out what we have to say about horror movies, library late fees, and a whole lot more.

Check it out! It's our second Patreon Pick of 2019 - Jesse Lawrence has served us up some tasty Stephen Graham Jones, the 2010 book It Came From Del Rio. It's an hour plus of discussion of a book that you're likely to never read. So yeah. enjoy! Interested in choosing a book for us to review? Check out our Patreon tiers!