Our Patron BeastwiththeLeast requested that we read Rena Vale's Taurus Four from 1970. How could such a dusty, seemingly insignificant sci-fi paperback have roused so much ire? Get your spacesuits on for a journey through misogyny, weed fear-mongering, and communist hysteria on planets near and far! Thanks so much for your support, BeastwiththeLeast, and we hope you enjoy the episode. Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can...

Today's episode features a book that many folks have asked us to read, but it took our brave Patron Miles to finally force us to do it. At last, we've read the famous satirical Obama/Biden crime thriller from 2018 and, honestly, it could've been a lot worse. Thanks so much for your support, Miles, and we hope you like the episode! Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the...

Today's episode is Part 2 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Paris remembered reading several books in the Dear America series, so Chris chose Down the Rabbit Hole - The Diary of Pringle Rose for our second nostalgia adventure. We actually found ourselves really enjoying this one, so this week's episode is a completely different experience from last week with The Hardy Boys.    

Today's episode is Part 1 of our childhood nostalgia retrospective! We each chose a book for each other from a series we loved as kids. Chris remembered reading all of The Hardy Boys series, so Paris chose The Witchmaster's Key for our first return trip to childhood. Prepare yourselves for 1970s Satanic Panic absurdity in the UK, complete with evil dentists, rubber masks, the reddest of herrings, and a scene straight out of Misery! Join us next week for Part 2 where we discuss our experience...

We read Butch for today's episode at the request of listener Os who emailed us last year saying,"A while ago, I read a book that, while incredibly badly written, still somehow left me feeling for the protagonist, because all the other characters are (in every sense of the word) ridiculously homophobic. It's called "Butch" by Jay Rayn. It's a "life story thus far" type of book about a butch woman who constantly ights discrimination in the most cartoonish ways possible and romances just about...

This time, we read How it Unfolds (Far Reaches Book 1) by James S.A. Corey, published by Amazon Original Stories in 2023. Chris really enjoyed The Expanse by Corey, so he was looking through other works by them and found this short story. Unfortunately, though, it had a description that made him think it was more suitable for TBC than for his personal reading adventures. Today's episode includes our usual barnyard language along with some discussions of sex and relationship dynamics.

Paris & Chris dive back into children's literature and find that Dr. Block may have written some of the healthiest relationship dynamics in all of the books we've reviewed so far for the show.

We had so much to say about Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire that we needed two episodes and an extra person to do it! If you haven't listened to Part One, we recommend going back and listening to last week's episode before listening to this one. This was recommended to us by The Good Witch of the Northeast, who made time to float in on a bubble to be our special guest for this two-part episode. In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s...

We had so much to say about Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire that we needed two episodes and an extra person to do it! We'll finish up our discussion in Part Two which will be out next Tuesday. This was recommended to us by The Good Witch of the Northeast, who made time to float in on a bubble to be our special guest for this two-part episode. In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes discussion or mention of: ableism,...

We've got another Amazon Double Feature for you! Today, we tackle two more pieces of book-like debris that Chris found in the bowels of an Amazon search, the criteria of which has been lost to time: Rathew Love Story: A Love Story by Argus G. Curiosity: A Book for Curious Minds by Bookinsky* (yes, the asterisk is in the author name) Paris goes on a methodology queen adventure as she and Chris discuss whether both of these authors are actually just AI. They also ponder if Paris will live...

Ring in the new year with the Terrible Antique Book Freaks! The Antiques Freaks join us today to do a live read of The Getting Even of Tommy Dodd by William Hope Hodgson, a cross-dressing revenge fantasy on the high seas. We know it's not a Carnacki, and we know it's not even scary, but it's the best we can do having read all the 'nacks already. As usual, we're using Eye of Argon rules to read this and we encourage you to get out your Carnacki bingo cards and help us re-tool them for more...

It's winter holiday time again, so you all get a little gift from TBC! Please enjoy this special edition of Less Terrible Book Club. People often wonder what else we’re reading in a given year so we figured it was worth a brief discussion and rating of our Non-TBC reads from 2023. We wish you a lovely winter and/or holiday time if that's what you get up to at this time of year! See you soon for Season 9. Hail Terriblo. Chris’s 2023 Non-TBC Reading List: The Music Lesson by Victor...

Ken of Antiques Freaks suggested that we read this and the time is nigh. Come along with us to Atlantis and Lemuria while we try to figure out why all of sentient life in the cosmos is organized like your local Target. The return of LMJ. Additionally, we are baffled as to why authors never seem to be able to cite a quote from a famous person that's actually real. In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode contains: aliens, a touch of racism/eugenics, and dangerously high...

For today's episode, we read The Energy Conspiracy by David C Seman, vanity published in 1981. This was requested by our patron beastwiththeleast, who had this to say: "Here's to another year of Terriblo's blessings and curses. I hereby submit my patron book request for you guys to read at some point next year...I haven't read the book in full, but I skim-read a few of the extremely short chapters. It looks like the sort of thing Ted Cruz would badger his wife into reading to him as a...

We read Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw this week at the request of our Patron Of the Void (The Taco-Eating Unicorn). We bring you a gray goo apocalypse dyed red atop a bland satire about how lame both terminally online and terminally corporate people are. The Taco-Eating Unicorn from the Void would like to dedicate today's episode to his sister, Jade B., for being amazing through everything he's gone through recently, despite being in a different state. Yay Jade! Today’s show includes out usual...

Beginnings: A Christian Fantasy Short Story Collection by M.H. Elrich was self-published earlier this year. Chris found it while on an Amazon Short Reads dive and we figured a Christian fantasy collection was worth a review since we haven't read anything from this genre for the show before. Each of the 5 stories features a human-animal friendship with elements of magic and seem to be geared towards young readers or parents reading to young children.  Today's episode just includes our usual...

This time we read The Golden Basement by David Norman Lewis, self-published in March of 2023. This was recommended by long-time listener, first-time caller Max who sent us a wonderful email recommending that we read this saying, "A few months ago you might have noticed a poem titled "$Reward$If$Found$" stapled up all over Cambridge, there were a couple reddit threads about it. On going back to my hometown of Seattle, WA I found out the poem is from a local self-published book...The author has...

Get your flannels, ciders, and s'mores ready for this week's discussion of Campfire Stories of Western Canada by Barbara Smith! Paris’s friend Kristina recommended this for the show 6 years ago and we finally found a nice spot for it on the schedule. Thanks for sending us on this silly autumnal adventure, Kristina! Today’s show includes our usual barnyard language plus cartoon-level “spooky” stuff like a beheaded ghost, sasquatch, and spectral french fries.

One Hundred Proofs that the Earth is Not a Globe was written and self-published by William M. Carpenter in 1885. However, Chris found this on a homeschooler’s Twitter page where it was recommended for teaching children in 2023, so we figured it was worth a review. Folding Ideas: In Search of a Flat Earth Science of Our Spherical Earth: Neil deGrasse Tyson Demonstrates Absurdity of Flat Earth Dave Explains: The Earth is Definitely Not Flat Dave Explains: The 10 Things That All...

The 9th Colony by Colin Curtis was vanity published through AuthorHouse UK in February of 2023. We received an email from a podcast PR rep asking us to have the author on the show as a guest. We don't have authors on the show, but we get a lot of these emails because some PR companies just send blanket form emails without actually having any idea what the podcasts or other entities they’re contacting actually do. Normally we just skim and delete, but this one caught our eye because it...

If you're interested in our take on a WWII popcorn spy thriller, it's here! It's hard for us to say no to reviewing a book when you mail it to us. We got a copy of His Majesty's Hope through the magnificence of the US postal system from our Patron EasternSwiss. They asked us to read it for their Patron’s Choice episode this year, telling us that this book is about, "a British tutor [who] becomes a spy to fight Nazis, but neglects her duties, gets her partner killed over dumb shit, and never...

We've got another reddit find for you this week! Paris found this when perusing the latest "What's the worst book you've ever read?" post that surfaces a few times each year in various literary subreddits. In one response, redditor u/lydiardbell explained that Interview with the Devil (Part 1 - Victor's Account) was indeed the worst book they've ever read. What made it really memorable was that the author threatened to burn their house down for the review they wrote for the book. In addition...

This week, we discuss our experience reading Golden (The Golden Wolf Series Book 1) by Shannon Mayer at the request of our Patron Robin. Robin said, “It looks truly abysmal. I can't wait to hear your summary.” Golden is a shifter romance where a wolf is cursed to be a golden retriever and gets wrapped up in the events of Ragnarök (the end of the Norse cycle of renewal) and everything's got a little nü-metal flavor. Paris goes full red-strings-on-corkboard to try to figure out how the elements...

The Man Without Qualities by Morris Berman was recommended by listener (and author!) O.F. Cieri back in December of 2020. It was recommended to them by a friend who said this book "would change America" and that "we were all going to look at each other differently "- "a new culture would emerge from this book!" Although this book is supposedly intended as satire, it left us wondering how much of it or what elements were supposed to be funny. Check out O.F. Cieri's urban fantasy, Lord of...