Cracking The Spine

Our listeners never fail to blow our minds. Listener TrendyMoron wrote to us about Aphantasia, a condition where you cannot voluntarily visualize imagery. Are any of you familiar with this condition? Do you have it yourself? How do you experience books? WE NEED TO KNOW. This topic inspired some great conversation for this episode, and for that, we owe you our gratitude, TrendyMoron.

We owe you a deep, sincere apology. The last few months have proven incredibly busy, and as such posting (and recording) hasn't happened the way you deserve. We're here to try to make it up to you, starting with finally posting a new episode.In the long-awaited one hundred and sixteenth episode, we discuss magazines. Do you still read print magazines? Do you think there's still a need for them? Do you think "zines" count? Listen the episode and sound off!

Have you ever been so excited for a book that the disappointment was inevitable? A listener asks us when the last time we were let down by our literary expectations, and you can imagine that we have THOUGHTS. Enjoy!

Listener John wonders how books have influenced your life - for instance, he felt braver wearing glasses as a child after reading Harry Potter. Have books ever inspired or influenced you to make changes in your own life? We cover lots of topics, but mostly we find that books make us hungry...

Zane and Sean luxuriate in a Josh-free week, and discuss the one topic Josh can't contribute to: reading! We talk about everything we love and don't love about the act of reading, and give Josh a hard time. Make sure to listen to the end when a special guest shows up!

Holy crap, this week has been long. Almost like it's taken....months? Who knows. As ever, I BLAME JOSH. This week we're discussing bad reading habits courtesy of an email by listener Luke. We also get pulled for copyright infringement and celebrate Sean's one hundred and eleventh birthday.

This week we're talking about everyone's favorite subject: Jake! I mean Josh! Did you know that Josh went to England recently? Well, somehow we found a way to turn that into an entire episode. Special shout out to reptile anatomy, which weirdly plays an important part in our discussion this week. Good times ahead, Crack Heads. Good. Times.

How do you organize your books? Turns out it's a pretty personal, and occasionally inexplicable thing. Thanks to listener Aimee (AGAIN!?) for this surprisingly complex topic. Check it out and let us know how you organize your books and thoughts.

Aaaaaand we're back! Blame Zane...But take this episode as our apology. Super Jesus comes through with a brilliant topic suggestion: what books would you NOT want to be adapted to film or television? This might shock you, but we have OPINIONS on this topic. Get ready to get all fired up with us, listeners. It's episode 108!

Sorry for the brief hiatus, listeners. But like always, we're back! We discuss an oft-submitted topic suggestion: audio books! Many of you have asked us to delve into this subject, and we graciously oblige. Make sure you listen all the way through because we're also bringing back the Special Reading!

Sorry for the delay, crackheads! Another week, another topic from Sean's brain. In this episode we put together our favorite authors and moviemakers...who would make the best adaptation of your favorite book? What author would be the best screenwriter for your favorite film? PLUS find out which of your favorite hosts is sick! All this and more in episode 105!

What's the best first line in a book? That's the brilliant topic that Sean came up with for this week, and...it gets heated, y'all. Readings, pedantry, and tangents galore. All this and more! in episode 105.

We've heard your prayers, and we're bringing back readings! Get introduced to Zane's new house (and frog), and listen to the gang read 3 different stories that remind them of Memorial Day, Americana, & the start of Summer.

As you can imagine, we're extremely fond of libraries here at Cracking The Spine. Listener Aimee once again gives us a great topic, and asks us how to make the most of our library cards. AND BOY HOWDY do we have some advice for her. Also, naturally, we delve into a big argument about The Crystal Skull. PART TIME.

Thanks to awesome listener Aimee for this week's great topic. We discuss merchandise for the things that we love, and our desperate need to own it. We just need it, okay? We can stop anytime we want. Quit judging us!

Sorry for the brief hiatus, dear readers! Life gets in the way, but we're here now. This week we get super topical, and discuss true crime. Inspired by Michelle McNamara's help in finding the Golden State Killer, we talk about true crime's influence in the real world.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! We made it to 100 episodes, and we couldn't have done it without your patronage and the help of a German economics podcast. For this very special episode we take a look back at our history, and reminisce about the good times and the butthurt. Thanks for sticking with us! We love you.

What would we do without our precious listeners? This week we discuss a topic submitted by Michael. (Thank you, dude, for giving us something to talk about!) We discuss experiencing physical sensations from well-written books, and Zane loses her mind thanks to a headache.

Sometimes when we need topic ideas, we take to googling. We're only human, after all. This week's googling unearthed a surprisingly deep topic of conversation. Do readers have the right to critique the work of a writer, even though they can't claim ownership over the work? Also we ate too much food before we recorded and...there's a lot of burping. Sorry.

Are you capable of multi-tasking while reading? Listener Nick comes through yet again with a great topic for us. He asks us if we can listen to music or podcasts while reading, and we talk about our abilities to juggle. PLUS we discover that somehow Sean has never seen Coneheads. WTF.