Save Me From My Shelf Podcast

Just finished recording an interview with the super smart @dcjenkin-smith.bsky.social of @smfmspodcast.bsky.social fame on the relationship between bureaucracy and utopia/dystopia! Lots of great insight and a really fun chat. Looking forward to the episode making its appearance.

Cover for Fahrenheit 451, showing a very shiny full-face fireman's helmet, reflecting the image of a burning book

Loads of people guessed correctly! Our next very banned (and, ironically, often burned) book is Ray Bradbury's 1953 dystopia about the perils of anti-intellectualism, 'Fahrenheit 451'.

Tune in on 13 August for a lot of histrionics about technology!

It sure could be!

Image of a thermometer showing 100 degrees fahrenheit and 38 degrees celsius.

It's time to guess the clue to our next episode in our season on banned books--and this might be the most obvious clue we've ever given.

Our summer texts have been getting increasingly hot. But what could possibly be hotter than our last episode, 'Fanny Hill'?

Eraserhead and Baby

Today's episode of SMFMS Bookends is a wild ride.

We reveal the podcast's best-kept secret (three years and we said nothing!), in addition to our plans to destroy every other podcast that might vie with us for your affections.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

Your wife, yes, but not your servants.

So does Fanny half the time. Canonical bisexual!

You love it.

ATTENTION ALL PERVS: our 69th episode, covering John Cleland's 1749 erotic novel 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' (AKA 'Fanny Hill'), is out now!

Expect strapping footmen, polite applause during orgies, and plenty of red-hot turtlebilling!

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...

Join us on Wednesday for our episode on John Cleland's seminal (heh) erotic work, 'Fanny Hill' (1748).
In addition to lots of strange euphemisms for body parts, be prepared to learn about some bizarre sex acts, like (the maybe less dirty than originally thought) 'turtlebilling'.

We've gotten shit for never having done a work from Australia (nor ever including one in our polls), so thought we'd at least see what the demand was! It is currently polling in last place, lol

There will probably be some polls where we end up choosing both--we have a bit of space on the roster. Depends which ones people are most fierce about!

And finally: Where my gays at????
-The Iliad (Homer, 8th century BC)
-Carmilla (Le Fanu, 1872)

take.supersurvey.com/poll5532572x...

Which story about an ugly French guy NOT getting the girl is the most appealing?
-Phantom of the Opera (Leroux, 1910)
-Hunchback of Notre Dame (Hugo, 1831)
take.supersurvey.com/poll5532571x...

Are you ready for more S7 polls?
Which dysfunctional community in world literature should we look in on?

-Like Water for Chocolate (Esquivel, 1989, Mexico)
-Picnic at Hanging Rock (Lindsay, 1967, Australia)
-100 Years of Solitude (García Márquez, 1967, Colombia)
take.supersurvey.com/poll5532569x...

More polls to come later--stay tuned!

Which bit of children's lit would be the most hilarious?
-Peter Pan
-The Hobbit
-The Secret Garden
-Anne of Green Gables

take.supersurvey.com/poll5532018x...

Which classic murder mystery would you like to hear recapped?
-The Hound of the Baskervilles
-Murder on the Orient Express
take.supersurvey.com/poll5532008x...

Which Wilkie Collins novel deserves our attention the most?
-The Woman in White
-The Moonstone

take.supersurvey.com/poll5532004x...

Have your say: Which Shakespearean play should we cover? Voice your opinion on the poll: Which Shakespearean play should we cover?

Which Shakespearean play should we cover?
-Much Ado About Nothing
-Romeo and Juliet
take.supersurvey.com/poll5532006x...

What texts would you like us to cover in Season 7 (a lighter season on fan favourites)? Give your answer in our thread of polls below!
And don't worry if you don't see the text you really want: we have a handful that have been requested so many times that they're already on the official S7 list!

Cover of Fanny Hill, showing a C18th man on his knees in what looks like a kitchen, pulling a lower-class woman in an apron toward him.

Cover of Fanny Hill, showing an illustration of a C18th man and woman passionately kissing. The woman is wearing a cool hat.

Cover of Fanny Hill, showing an illustration of what is clearly a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century woman in her undergarments in her boudoir, smilingly standing against an ajar door through which a man is trying to get in. She doesn't look too bothered, but I am very bothered by the anachronistic cover.

Cover of Fanny Hill, showing a 1960s style pulp illustration of a C18th woman lounging on her bed on top of a man, with her dress up around her knees and her stocking showing.

We've had some feverish guessing of our next text and only one person got it right!
For our 69th episode (nice), we'll recap what is debatably the very first pornographic work to use the novel as its form: John Cleland's 'Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' (1748).
Genitals at the ready!

We did Chatterley a few seasons back! And the text we're reading for our next episode has WAY more sex than Chatterley.

We generally lean very heavily on classics taught in high school, but thought we'd go a bit edgier with this one on celebration of Abby's birthday

It isn't either of those suggestions, but it IS a text that 1.) was indeed banned in a whole country (the UK!) for centuries and 2.) Now frequently appears on at least university reading lists

Illustrated image of a woman reading a book and sexily biting her fingernail. Oooer! Steamy!

Time to guess the clue to our next episode!
We're labelling our run of summer episodes: 'Hot, Hotter, and Hottest'.
Our next episode (Hotter) covers an erotic text that is also a literary classic and a very, very banned book.
What are we reading?

(it is NOT 'Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life')

Never read any before, so we should at least add it to the long list.

I had to look up that acronym (as I'm sure Daniel will, too) and I laughed so hard I think I pulled a muscle in my back.

We will be changing the name of the podcast to SMFMCFNMS

A pair of mildly worn black boots with laces, set on a paving stone outside.

The same pair of mildly worn black boots on a paving stone outside, but now turned over so we can see the luscious new soles, stronger and heartier than ever.

Join us today for our Bookends episode on 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. We've gotten a request to show Daniel's famous boots (the ones by which he was diddled by a dodgy cobbler), so here you go.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...

We need your reccs!
After this season on banned books, in S7 we are only covering fan favs--the (hopefully) fun, campy works of classic lit that you've been asking for.
Tournament bracket poll coming later; let us know now what you want to see on it!
(YES Lysistrata & Wilkie Collins are on the list)