Book Club From Hell

Pretty Boys Are Poisonous (2023) is a poetry collection written by actress Megan Fox. Mostly focusing on her troubled relationship with professional machine-gun Colson Baker, the poems are surprisingly adolescent for a (currently) 39-year-old mother of four. To assist me in parsing these poems, Aaron Barry, aka Jasper Ceylon, joined me for this episode.Aaron/Jasper's work:Echolalia Review: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1738633926Poundflesh: https://mcbussypublishing.org/product/flesh-by-aaron-barry-print-pre-order/Femoid: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1738633942Jasper's Substack: https://jasperceylon.substack.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel! Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheet- The first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's substack: https://jackbc.substack.com/Levi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Officeparks is a wonderful poetry collection from Noam Hessler, and yet another winner published by Farthest Heaven. Romantic, funny, and shot through with an easy, natural experimentation, Officeparks is a real treat. I'm trying hard not to be too effusive in my praise, in case people think I'm being disingenuous, but these poems really are that good. Anyway, Noam and I got to talk about their approaches to poetry, how they manage to make experimentation feel so effortless, how one might write poems as songs versus films, the Russian language, and a whole lot more. Find Officeparks here: https://farthestheaven.com/products/officeparksNoam on X: @poetryaccnt1518Noam on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hesslerart_official/Farthest Heaven: https://farthestheaven.comFarthest Heaven on X:@FarthestHeavenFarthest Heaven Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/FarthestHeaven Noam's RecommendationsWallace Barker - https://wallacebarker.com/David C Porter - https://davidcporter.net/Hayden Church - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLR73Z3JDustin Cole - https://farthestheaven.com/products/after-sunstoneTom Will - https://many.bio/thomaswillBen Lerner - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_LernerAudrey Lee - https://audreymorganlee.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Quan Millz is a maestro of urban fiction. Since 2017, he has self-published over 70 books and (apparently) made more than $500,000 from titles such as Old THOT Next Door, Pastors Eat Pwussy Too, Pregnant by My Gay Stepdaddy, and, the subject of today's episode, This Hoe Got Roaches in Her Crib. It's a tale of characters who make remarkably poor decisions, and with a tone veering wildly between slapstick descriptions of triple OG cockroaches and depictions of rape and child abuse.Helping me out was Slater, aka Simpulacra! Stay tuned for his upcoming novel Becoming.Slater's Substack: https://simpulacra.substack.com/Quan Millz on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B073R9WZJSVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Like You Have a Choice is the first short story collection from Ivan Niccolai, the man behind the Notes from the Periphery Substack. We talk about Melbourne's inner-north, wogs, JG Ballard, Mark Fisher, Nick Land, bilingual writing, watering the driveway on Sunday morning (wogs), accelerationism, lemon trees in the back yard (wogs), illegal satellite dishes in the back yard (wogs), and a whole lot more.Get Like You Have a Choice: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FLTHP5MVIvan's Substack: https://minorobservations.substack.com/Ivan's RecommendationsJustin Isis - https://neopasseism.substack.com/Lewis Woolston -https://bequempublishing.com/authors/authors-w-z/lewis-woolston/ Gary Shipley - Stab Frenzy - https://www.apocalypse-party.com/stabfrenzy.html Audrey Szasz - https://audreyszasz.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Eumeswil (1977) is one of Jünger's final novels, and is bizarre, inscrutable, and wonderful. It is, in many ways, a glassy dramatisation of the second volume of Oswald Spengler's The Decline of the West, and also an introduction to Jünger's archetype of the anarch, a series of odd animal metaphors, a collection of fragmented musings by a survivor of two World Wars, and a whole lot more.Helping me decode this strange book is Brad Kelly of the Method and Madness podcast!Brad's website: https://www.bradkellyesque.com/Method and Madness: https://www.methodandmadnesspodcast.com/Brad on X: @bradkellyBrad on Substack: https://bradkellyesque.substack.com/Brad's novel: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08SLCHQCS/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Grendel VVept is a bizarre book that I can kind of describe as Joycean cosmic horror, but that doesn't cover everything. Traveling through time and prose styles, from today to Renaissance Italy to Sumer to ages even more distant, it's disorienting in a fascinating way. Playing God, the other book of Serret's that I read for this episode, is a tight novella set in 1969 America, with a lot of teenage lesbianism. CP Serret has range.Early on in recording (within the first five or six minutes), Serret's microphone started acting up. I ended up cutting a few minutes out, because the audio quality was so grating. Apologies to those desperate for every possible minute of Serret.Get CP Serret's books here: tempestandgayle.comCP Serret on X: @LeProjetSerretVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Gabe Sinclair and I talk about the 'Cities and Peoples' section of the second volume of Spengler's The Decline of the West. Cities versus nomads, Spengler's particular definition of race, language, landscape, The Elder Scrolls, and a whole lot more.Gabe on X: @ezrarunnaroundTooky's Mag on X: @tookysmagVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Sleep Capricorn is an absolutely fantastic short story collection by Jack Norman, to be published soon by Bonfire Books. Formally inventive with some of the best prose I've read in years, everyone should go get a copy from www.bonfirebooks.org.Jack on X: @Thingol2006Jack on Substack: thingol.substack.comVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Cyclomancy: The Secret of Psychic Power Control (1966) is a self-help book written to give readers access to their Primal Autoconscious. Why would someone want access to their Primal Autoconscious? Because they want to have psychic powers. And why would anyone want psychic powers? If the examples given in this book are anything to go by, to make sure your wife isn't cheating on you. I reckon about half the suggested uses of the dimension-bending and physics-breaking psychic powers described in this book are to spy on your wife. How can one achieve the psychic reserves to perform these feats? By conceptualising juicy steaks. Beautiful stuff.Joining me on my quest to fire photons at 109 times the speed of light out of my brain horns (retinas) was powerful warlock Capitalisimo of the Tooky's Mag Sidebar podcast, Library of Mass Destruction, and Drive Time Movie Night.Capitalisimo on X: @thecapitalisimoTooky's Mag Sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/@tookysmag/podcastsDrive Time Movie Night: https://rumble.com/c/c-6180416/livestreamsVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

I (Jack) am joined by Gabe of Tooky's Mag to talk about the first three chapters of Spengler's best book: The Decline of the West, volume II. This will hopefully be a semi-regular series where we talk about a few chapters of this book in-depth. Prepare for levels of autism never seen before or since the German Conservative Revolution.Apologies for some choppiness with the audio--my microphone kept disconnecting. There's also no video for this episode, because my internet was misbehaving and kept cutting out. This is what it feels like to live in the senile winter of Civilisation.Gabe on X: @ezrarunnaroundTooky's Mag: @tookysmagVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Welcome to the Desert of the Real (2002) is Slavoj Žižek talking about 9/11 from a Lacanian, Hegelian, Ljubljana-slobber-in-a-stained-Lenin-T-shirt perspective. For this episode, the wonderful Stephen G Adubato of Cracks in Postmodernity helped me navigate Žižek's discursive 'It feels like I'm reading five books at once' style.Cracks in Postmodernity: https://cracksinpomo.substack.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Tom Will is a poet who has, among other things, written Pale Townie (Apocalypse Confidential, 2023), a 999-line poem which keeps the heroic couplet end rhymes from Pale Fire (Nabokov/Shade) intact, while transforming the story into something quite different, very Tom Will. He's also recently published American Cats Are in a Big Country (2024, Farthest Heaven), a collection of 73 poems, all of which are very much worth your time and love.We got to talk about the process of writing Pale Townie, why limericks are so funny, prose poems, clunk, Tom's future projects, and a lot more.Tom tends to pace while talking. I decided to keep these parts and leave them unedited, because the full Tom Will experience involves periods of muffled audio and sudden clear exclamations. To deny these parts would be to deny the fullness of communication.Find Tom's books here: https://many.bio/thomaswillTom's RecommendationsFarthest Heaven - https://farthestheaven.com/Apocalypse Confidential - https://apocalypse-confidential.com/Wallace Barker - https://wallacebarker.com/Hayden Church - So What - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FG1Y6P29Dustin Cole - Find After Sunstone on the Farthest Heaven website (https://farthestheaven.com/)Anna Krivalopova - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCW2HGMXSoft Union magazine - https://softunion.online/Adam Johnson - Cialis, Verdi, Gin, Jag - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B86SK97YOFFICEPARKS - Noam Hessler - Coming out soon with Farthest Heaven (https://farthestheaven.com/)!VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Written in prison in 2002, The System's Neatest Trick is an essay from Kaczynski's Technological Slavery. In it, Kaczynski describes how 'the System' - more or less a technological society - redirects the popular frustration caused by its intrusions into human life, and its subversion of the power process. Where does it redirect this frustration? Into 'activist' causes, both as a pressure-release valve on popular discontent, and as a way to expedite the social changes required for an expansion of technological slavery.Read The System's Neatest Trick here: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ted-kaczynski-the-system-s-neatest-trickVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Spare Us Yet is a short-story collection from Lucas Smith, the Editor-in-chief of Bonfire Books. Each story is a new examination of Christian faith, human fallibility and our ways of finding meaning, and are all well worth your time.Bonfire Books: www.bonfirebooks.orgWiseblood Books: www.wisebloodbooks.com/Lucas' Substack: https://lucassmith.substack.com/Bonfire Books' Substack: https://bonfirebooks.substack.com/Lucas' RecommendationsCaleb Caudell: https://middleamericanliterature.substack.com/Jamie Grant: https://publishing.hardiegrant.com/en-au/authors/jamie-grantJoshua Wren: www.joshuahren.com/#/Stephen Edgar: www.stephenedgar.com.au/newsite/Philip Traylen: https://oldoldoldoldnew.substack.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Otto Weininger, at the age of 23, published Sex and Character, an idealist justification for not trusting the cosmic Woman, as well as an extended rumination on genius, sexual compatibility, Judaism, memory, ethics, and logic, all upon the background of his sexual fears. Shortly after the book's tepid critical reception, including accusations of plagiarism, Weininger rented a room in the building where Beethoven died. Here, he shot himself in the chest, gaining himself a number of posthumous admirers, including August Strindberg and Ludwig Wittgenstein.Joining me for this episode is the woman of many talents (but no Genius), Nina Power.Nina's Substack: https://substack.com/@ninapowerNina on X: https://x.com/Nina_Power_VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONJack has published a novel called Tower!Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tower-Jack-BC-ebook/dp/B0CM5P9N9M/ref=monarch_sidesheetThe first nine chapters of Tower are available for free here: jackbc.substack.comOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.comwww.thebookclubfromhell.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi