Category: Should You Read It

July 31, 2023

Some Final Thoughts Regarding Hunt for the Skinwalker…

We needed a filler episode on the podcast, and I thought it would be fun to cover Hunt for the Skinwalker. It was fun, but little did I know how perfectly timed the episode would be (or did I? How deep does this go?). One short week after the episode came out the “news” was filled with headlines like the...

More Words/Nonfiction/Should You Read It/Thoughts Comments: 0

December 19, 2022

Should You Read: The Satanic Bible by Anton LaVey

Short answer: No. Long answer: What is Satanism? Anton LaVey founded The Church of Satan on Walpurgisnacht (which we all know is April 30th) 1966. Perhaps the most important thing to note right off the bat is that The Church of Satan does not worship a literal Satan. LaVeyan Satanists are essentially theatrical atheists who have adopted demonic imagery from...

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October 13, 2022

Should You Read: I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

I’ve been aware of Jennette McCurdy since her appearance on a Nickelodeon children’s show called iCarly. I was a freshman in college when iCarly first aired, but I have a sister who is 10-years younger than me. Through her, I came to see a few episodes of iCarly and Victorious. For kids’ shows, I thought they were pretty good. I...

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March 16, 2022

Book Review: Legends and Lattes by Travis Baldree

This book is, as the kids say, “a mood.” It is a book about an orc warrior who has decided to retire from adventuring and open a coffee shop. Along the way she will gather friends, co-workers, loyal customers, and all the other simple things that make life worth living. The story isn’t without conflict, but the stakes are more...

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March 4, 2022

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Manga Spoiler Review

First and foremost, as the title suggests, there will be spoilers for the entirety of the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba series. This is a review about the manga, not the anime adaptation. The manga has been finished for almost 2-years at this point, but I know there are people who may stumble upon this only having watched the anime...

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January 24, 2022

Ben’s 2021 Nonfiction Reviews

A long time ago when we started Words About Books we had a simple goal: read more books. We thought that doing a podcast would make us more accountable and force us to make time for an activity that was too easy to shove aside. Also, we wanted to be better writers. We knew that we needed to read well...

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Ben's books

The President Is Missing

by Bill Clinton

Where to start with this book? Should I talk about how I don't believe that either James Patterson or Bill Clinton actually did much of the writing? Should I talk about how Bill Clinton is spending his retirement creating Bill Clinton fa...

A Court of Mist and Fury

by Sarah J. Maas

I thought this was pretty ok. I'm team Night Court. I really enjoy that Feyre is getting to have a hipster phase with the cool kids in a fancy Bohemian city. I dont even mind that she has all the super powers, I thought that would bug me...

The Infernal City

by Greg Keyes

I don't often do this, but I'm going to engage in a controversial DNF review. I'm fairly confident that being forced to read every word of the rest of it would only lower my score. I made it about half way through Part 1 of the audio boo...

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

Beowulf: A New Translation for Oral Delivery (Hackett Classics) by Dick Ringler (1-Oct-2007) Paperback

by Unknown Author

I've read a few translations of Beowulf, and the only thing that's really missing from this one is the original language text. Ringler does a pretty good job of the translation itself. He includes very solid explanation and context as well.

Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood

by Rebecca Wells

I'm neither a mother nor a daughter so take this with a grain of salt, I guess. Siddalee is a famous stage director who stages a hit play. She's interviewed for a New York Times article. When asked about her childhood she accidentally pr...

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