CodEX Machina Podcast

A picture of a black and white card featuring a linocut printed image of a polar bear with a santa hat, cape, and scarf, with the word “MERRY” at the top and “HAPPY” “JOLLY” at the bottom, along with a snowflake upper left and one lower right.

As we slide towards the New Year, the Codex Machina team wish everyone the very best in 2026. We still have a couple of episodes in the can, but releasing at a slower pace over the next couple of months so we can catch our breath.

making #bookhistory

Blue background, white text Tell us your favorite book-to-movie adaptations below. Listen to Codex Machina podcast on a platform of your choice.

To Kill A Mockingbird Gregory Peck and Mary Badham continued to call each other “Atticus” and “Scout” for as long as Peck lived. The film perfectly captures the tension and atmosphere of the novel.

Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory There have been other Willie Wonkas, but none did it better than Gene Wilder in this 1971 fever dream with lush, colorful sets and sometimes eerie musical interludes. Accept no substitutes.

The Shawshank Redemption Everyone knows this classic film starring Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman, but did you know it’s adapted from a novella by Stephen King? In fact, three of the four stories in King’s Different Seasons collection have been made into films.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Largely considered one of the greatest films ever made, it won Jack Nicholson his first Academy Award for Best Actor. The book has also received critical acclaim, and was grounded in the author’s own experiences working at a psychiatric facility.

American Fiction The novel, Erasure, does some interesting metatexual work in the process of examining biases in the publishing industry, and the movie delivers by quietly questioning Hollywood’s own tendency to uphold racial stereotypes throughout the film.

Cloud Atlas A difficult, complex book, the adaptation was handled brilliantly by the Wachowskis and Tom Twyker, who excel at juggling ensemble casts and interwoven genre storylines. Twyker was also one of the composers of the acclaimed film score, with the “Cloud Atlas Sextet” especially receiving praise.

Love it or hate it, no one can deny that Guillermo Del Toro’s recent adaptation of Frankenstein for the screen was thoughtful, sumptuous, and from the heart. Both the film and the classic book have a lot to say, and they both say it beautifully.

Some of our favorite book-to-movie adaptations. Don’t forget the popcorn! 🍿 🎬

A wonderful page from a Parisian Book of Hours (Horae Beatae Mariae Virgine, 1490-1510) with and unusual floral border in the style of Bruges-Ghent. I love it!

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#bookhistory

Bookstores on Edge as Kremlin Sets Sights on Policing Books

Gift link: Ivan Nechepurenko with visuals by Nanna Heitmann, "Bookstores on Edge as Kremlin Sets Sights on Policing Books" (New York Times; #bookhistory) www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/w...

Yea, sometimes it’s simply idiocy.

Something else for us to talk about on the podcast!

I think I’m in love.

This is a panel on “Book History with Internet Data”, with 8 panelists from different IMLS/iSchools, funded by SHARP. Over the past two decades, a variety of internet-based datasets have emerged related to books, reading habits, and reader communities—ranging from crowd-sourced genre tags and online reviews to platforms like BookTok. These datasets are increasingly valuable for research in reading and readership, often complementing traditional book history approaches. However, they also raise new questions and challenges. To explore these opportunities and foster interdisciplinary collaboration, this panel will bring together eight panelists from diverse fields to discuss questions, such as: How can we critically understand the relationship between Internet-based “book” data and traditional research materials? What are the methodological challenges and potential pitfalls of using digital data in book history research? How can interdisciplinary approaches enrich the analysis of Internet book and reader datasets? Here are our amazing panelists: - Micah Bateman, Assistant Professor, School of Library and Information Science, The University of Iowa - Melanie Walsh, Assistant Professor, an Assistant Professor in the Information School and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the English Department, University of Washington - Wenyi Shang, Assistant Professor, School of Information Science & Learning Technologies, University of Missouri - Cici Ling, Assistant Professor, Department of Informatics, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington - Kai Li, Assistant Professor, School of Information Sciences, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville - Andrew Zalot, Assistant Professor, College of Education, East Carolina University - Alex Wingate, PhD Candidate, Department of Information and Library Science, Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University Bloomington

Hi DH friends, join us on Nov 10, 10-11 am CT, for “New Book History Research with Internet Data”, a hybrid panel sponsored by SHAR, to explore challenges and opportunities of using Internet data and digital methods for book history research. More info in the poster attached and comments :)

YouTube video by CodEX Machina The Dream Hotel - Strange Land Book Club 7

YouTube: youtu.be/ONWm8PpR0us?...

The Dream Hotel - Strange Land Book Club 7

Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/6sqG...

The Dream Hotel - Strange Land Book Club 7 Podcast Episode · CodEX Machina · 11/01/2025 · 1h 11m

Apple podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/c...

A picture of the book The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami. Pictured is an orange outlined rectangular void, with a very small woman standing before it in the lower right corner. The title of the book is at the top, author’s name at the bottom and underneath it says “Pulitzer Prize finalist”. Reading top down on the right side it says “A Novel”

🎙️ New episode! We discuss The Dream Hotel by Laila Lalami, and boy, what a discussion. Like Piranesi, it’s a book that keeps you thinking. 📖

My British Abolition Literature students made zines for the Castellani Dignity exhibit

Somehow this makes me a little sick but at least it’s not hair from human skin binding.

One blurb to rule them all.

Woot, woot! The interview with Dr. Gouck is super interesting. 💜 Fight evil, read banned books! #BannedBooksWeek #bookhistory

These books were discussed by Banned Books Network in Münster, Germany. Two flyers with red backgrounds: the top one is for Universität Münster "Banned Books in Conversation: Book Talk and Workshop" Thursdays 18-20 Uhr SpecOps Gesellschaftzimmer 22 May And Tango Makes Three by Peter Parnell, Justin richardson and Henry Cole, Prof. Silvia Schultermandl 03 July The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas Dr. Jennifer Gouck 23 Oct Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden Dr. Sara Pyke 11 Dec Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume Prof. Corinna Norrick-Rühl The second is Universität Münster Banned Book(s) Club. Bold books. Brave conversations. Join our monthly club to read, reflect and resist together. Just scan below to register. Oct 16 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Nov 6 All Boys Arent Blue by George M. Johnson Dec 4 Forever by Judy Blume Jan 8 The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky Thursdays 4-5 pm at SpecOps sponsored by Book Studies (in a book) living.knowledge and am studies

On our latest episode, we interview Dr. Jennifer Gouck, University of Münster, about her research on banned and challenged books and her participation in the Banned Books Network Münster, where she gave a lecture on The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas.

youtu.be/FZnko-mPeek?...

YouTube video by CodEX Machina Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume | Strange Land Book Club 6 #bannedbooks

First, we discuss Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret by Judy Blume.

youtu.be/YHqNZgfQvQU?...

A slide saying "read banned books" "swipe to find out" Codex Machina

#60 of the 100 most frequently challenged books of the 1990s according to the ALA young adult literature, coming-of-age story 1970 beside a recent cover of Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. The cover is bright pink and has Judy Blume in large letters at the bottom, with what looks like a text message saying Are You There God? It's me, Margaret followed by "God" with the three dots that show a message is being written.

The most challenged book of 2006, 2007, and 2008 according to the ALA. children's book, 2005 next to the cover of the book "and tango makes three" by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell with illustrations by Henry Cole. The cover art features two adult penguins and a baby penguin on an iceberg. There is a medallion for the ASPCA Henry Bergh Children's Book Award

One of the ten most-challenged books of 2017, 2018, 2020 and 2021, according to the ALA novel, urban fiction, 2017 next to the cover of "The Hate U Give" by Angie Thomas with a medallion for the Deutscher Jugendliteratur Preis (the German young adult literature prize). The cover features a Black teenaged woman holding the title of the book.

It's Banned Books Week! And we are so happy to hear that @georgetakei.bsky.social is the honorary chair this year! We'll have to read his book for Strange Land Book Club! The Codex Machina team has a couple of episodes out right now that focus on banned books and scholarship of banned books.

Today is a day when arts degrees are worthless, but the product of those degrees is so valuable it would kill an entire industry if they were made to pay for it.

Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in 1959 – Photo by John Cohen

On This Day in History: October 7, 1955
Allen Ginsberg gave the first public reading of “Howl” at the Six Gallery in San Francisco. Kenneth Rexroth emceed while Jack Kerouac worked the crowd with a wine jug and shouts of encouragement. The reading helped ignite the Beat scene.

🎙️Coming soon, just in time for Banned Books Week (October 5-11) we have a series of episodes about book bans/challenges and censorship. Our next episode will be a Strange Land Book Club episode about Are You There God? It’s Me Margaret by Judy Blume. 💪