Episode 10: Strangely Beautiful - A Nice Book for Nice People?
Release Date: 05/22/2017
Episode 80: Hoodtown - Heels, Homicide, and Horny Times
Bad Books for Bad People
Christa Faust’s 2004 novel takes the reader to an alternate universe Los Angeles, where crime drama is brewing in an underground culture populated by masked wrestlers. Skulls will be cracked and butts will be fingered when Jack and Kate get in the ring with this pile-driving mix of murder mystery, romance, and action. Why is it important to be nice to your local exotico? Does everyone from New Jersey have a gym membership? Is an especially skanky carpet the ultimate heel? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast. BBfBP theme song by True Creature. ...
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Episode 79: The Shadow on the Glass - Lovecraftiana Meets Victoriana (and Gets Cheeky)
Bad Books for Bad People
Outside of your hosts’ beloved Warhammer 40k novels, can tie-in game fiction be good? Jack and Kate aim to find out by discussing , a 2024 novel that pairs podcast-favorite author Jonathan L. Howard with the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. Where are all of London’s fanciest spiritualists and psychics disappearing to? Can an A-team still be an A-team if the “a” stands for accountants and academics? Is there a bit of rugose cone inside all of us, really? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of the podcast. BBfBP theme song by True Creature. Find us at ,...
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Episode 78: Sudden Death - The Most Dangerous Game Is Tennis
Bad Books for Bad People
Sex. Sacrilege. Murder. Tennis. This podcast is all about three out of those four things. , a 1978 novel by Peter Brennan (creator of TV shows Judge Judy and A Current Affair), marks the first time Jack and Kate are venturing into the world of sports thriller fiction. Buckle up, because underneath those tennis whites there’s a seething underbelly of drama and corruption. What could go wrong with a little nun-flavored sex work? Why does every character in this book have the most outrageous backstory ever? Will Jack and Kate learn anything about the sport central to this book? All these...
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Episode 77: The Old House of Fear - Gothic Thrills for the Conservative Mind
Bad Books for Bad People
Russell Kirk is best known for his influential work of post-war political philosophy, The Conservative Mind. But his best-selling work–by far–was a 1961 gothic thriller . Jack and Kate wander through the mysterious isolated islands of Scotland on a hunt for Commie rabble-rousers, damsels in distress, and shaky real estate investments. Does getting shot during the Spanish civil war give you psychic powers? Are Teddy Boys really that dangerous? Do Maltese people talk like that? What even are women? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People....
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Episode 76: Joyland - Murder, Manhood and MILFery
Bad Books for Bad People
Stephen King’s 2013 novel is the author’s second effort for publisher Hard Case Crime. Jack and Kate are ready to track the clues in this story of murder, romance, and amusement park professionals. What happens when the King of Horror gets a chance to be the Crime Writer Guy? Can the main character of his book ever achieve full carny acceptance? Why doesn’t the magical child at the center of the mystery infuriate your hosts? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People. BBfBP theme song by True Creature. Find us at , on Twitter ,...
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Episode 75: Live Girls - Vampire Hookers vs. Ping Pong balls
Bad Books for Bad People
Ray Garton’s 1986 horror novel may have the perfect bad book pitch: vampire hookers in seedy vintage Times Square. Jack and Kate travel back to a golden age of sleaze and encounter smokeshow bloodsucking strippers, donut-inspired dirty talk, and dancefloor remixes of “The Old Rugged Cross.” What perverted compulsion makes a vampire turn the worst dudes in the world immortal? Why are nightclubs never, ever as cool as the ones in bad books? What do table tennis and the Anarchist’s Cookbook have in common? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad...
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Episode 74: Nightmare House and Airport 77
Bad Books for Bad People
Once again, Jack and Kate trade reviews of books from their archives. This time around, Jack explores the terrifying mystery and romance of Rae Foley’s Nightmare House (1968) and Kate plunges straight into disaster with Airport 77 (1977). Why is dealing marijuana a worse crime than murder? Does a nightmare dude make a nightmare house into a nightmare home? Whose dick will be compared to a tiny airline bottle of booze? Is Airport 77 the disco era counterpart to Moby Dick? All these questions and more will be explored in this episode of Bad Books for Bad People. BBfBP theme song by True...
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Episode 73: Best of 2023
Bad Books for Bad People
Jack and Kate look at what they've read and watched in the year that was 2023 and make some recommendations in the world of books and beyond. The rules of engagement are simple: the hosts each choose one movie, album, TV show, and book that was the best experience of its kind, regardless of when it was actually produced. A little bit new, a little bit old, and a whole lot of weirdness is in store! Join your hosts for a discussion that ranges from a sinister girls’ school to a rogue AI (a court-mandated topic in 2023) to gratuitous comedy penises. BBfBP theme song by True Creature. Find...
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Episode 72: Spawn - Welcome to 90s Hell
Bad Books for Bad People
Todd McFarlane’s is one of the great comics success stories of the 1990s, and yet… our hosts remain in semi-complete ignorance of this undead superhero. Jack and Kate decide to educate themselves by reading the first 18 issues of the series where they encounter a world of bedazzlement, from shape-shifting demons and mafia cyborgs to a controversial Neil Gaiman collab. Other than fighting, killing, and baseball, what exactly is Spawn good at? Can anyone possibly care about the Youngbloods? Could there be a shared Spawn / Jess Franco’s “Erotic Rites of Frankenstein” shared universe?...
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Episode 71: Vampira and Elvira - The Real Women Behind the Halloween Queens
Bad Books for Bad People
In a special, super-extended, spooky season episode, your hosts read a double feature of horror hostess biographies! by Sandra Niemi and by Cassandra Peterson recount the drama-filled careers of two of the most iconic, goth-adjacent TV figures of all time. Jack and Kate take a candid look at the trials and triumphs of two real-life Halloween queens. Does the appeal of late-night metaphysical diner talk span generations? How young is too young to launch your showgirl career? Why do the Red Hot Chili Peppers ruin everything? Is a decades-long goth girl beef even more odious than the Red Hot...
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Author Leanna Renee Hieber has created an alternative Victorian London that merges ghost-hunting, Jack the Ripper, capital-R Romantic love, and a healthy dose of post-Harry-Potter magic in her novel Strangely Beautiful. Originally published as two books in 2009 and 2010, Hieber's story features a beautiful, innocent young woman raised in a convent and dropped into a supernatural battle that will change the course of her life. The author describes this book as "Victorian Ghostbusters" and seeks to create a new brand of Gothic with a modern sensibility within its pages.
How will Jack and Kate react to this fanciful new spin on tried-and-true suspense tropes? Why does Kate loathe the male lead more than any other character from any other book they've read so far? When does a wish-fulfillment fantasy for a teenager become a horror story for a middle aged person? And how do Jesus, Snape, and Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS figure into all of this? Find out all this and more in this month's episode of Bad Books for Bad People.
Find us at BadBooksBadPeople.com, on Twitter @badbooksbadppl, Instagram @badbooksbadpeople and on Facebook. You can discover where to get all the books featured on Bad Books for Bad People on our reading list.