Booktails Podcast

📆BIRTH YEAR PICK 1: 1990 📆 Before we get into spooky season it’s time for a ✨Booktails Interlude! ✨ We are doing a two book series based on our years of birth! 🐣 First up Serena has chosen a book published in 1990, Rachel’s year of birth: The Game (first published as ‘Invitation to the Game’ by Monica Hughes. 🎲 We have just three words to sell it to you:  Dystopian. Game.  Survival.  ♟️ And if you’re now buzzing with excitement then get ready because it’s only going to get better. Join Rachel and Serena to discuss this young adult tale set in a world where jobs are scarce and artificial intelligence is taking over (no you’re feeling called out by a book written 35 years ago). 🤖 Including talk of interplanetary travel, planning who we would kidnap to start a new civilisation, the matrix, drinking another blue cocktail and trying to hypnotise each other (and maybe also you at home?!). 🌌 One thing’s for sure: the game is afoot. But will we ever wake up from it?  🎮

End of Days 4 🛘🔥☄️🌊 This series on Booktails Podcast we are using the enduring narrative of the four horsemen of the apocalypse as our inspiration to read four books based around War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. 🏇🏇🏇🏇 And now here we are at the end of the end. It’s time for possibly the bleakest of all: famine. 🌾 Our book for this topic is Kirstin Hannah’s ‘The Four Winds’: the heart wrenching tale of a mother forced to flee her barren farm with her two children for the chance at a new life across the country, meeting challenges at every turn and losing and finding love along the way! 🧳 Join Serena and Rachel as they discuss the meaning of strength, the mysterious fate of Elsa’s husband, some Dust Bowl history and the absolute terror of having nothing to eat. Today’s cocktail is a Dirty Famine Margarita and you will all be pleased to know that we will finally be able to answer the question “if you were a southern US state which would it be?” 🌎

End of Days 3 🛘🔥☄️🌊 This series on Booktails Podcast we are using the enduring narrative of the four horsemen of the apocalypse as our inspiration to read four books based around War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. 🏇🏇🏇🏇 Today, step up to the stage Pestilence! That’s right! We’re talking locusts, demons, disease and all things plague. 🦗 And we’re travelling back to medieval Black Death times and joining a knight, a young saint and a priest on a quest to vanquish the demons plaguing France and avoid catching the plague whilst they’re at it! 💀 Rachel and Serena will be deep diving into dream sequences, getting philosophical with the meaning of sin and evil, and most importantly, finding out which Keanu Reeves character would save us during the apocalypse! Grab your sweet and spicy Pestilence marg and let’s spread the word (not the germs)! 🦠

End of Days 2 🛘🔥☄️🌊 We know what everyone’s first thought is when they hear “four horsemen of the apocalypse”: sexy. 🏇🏇🏇🏇 When we found out about this Romantasy series you know we had to choose one for our end of days series. And yes before you ask, the idea of the mythical bringers of war, pestilence, famine and death as romantic heroes is DEFINITELY problematic. But maybe also camp and fun, right? ⚡️ Well, in this story Miriam’s village is ransacked and destroyed by War (yes that’s his name too) and naturally, murder, rape and pillage ensues. War claims Miriam as his prophesied “wife”, but feisty Miriam isn’t one to take that lying down… at first anyway… But can you really fall in love with a being whose purpose is to destroy everything in his path? 💀 Join Serena and Rachel as they get political (sorry, but we couldn’t ignore the monumental elephant in the room with this book!), find many of the funniest Romantasy tropes going (do I hear magical tattoos?), and of course, discuss the ongoing appeal of turning the worst beings imaginable into romantic heroes. Is anything excusable as long as he has a massive ****?! 🗡️

End of Days 🛘🔥☄️🌊 It’s the end of the world as we know it here at Booktails. 🌏 For the next few weeks we are using the enduring narrative of the four horsemen of the apocalypse as our inspiration to read four books based on War, Pestilence, Famine and Death. 🏇🏇🏇🏇 We are starting with the most brutal and mysterious of them all: Death. But what do we know of the big man with the scythe? 💀 Well, we have chosen a book with the Grim Reaper as the narrator: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. 📖 This story of a young girl in Nazi Germany is one of Serena’s all time faves! Does it still stand up after all this time? 📜 Join us for a black absinthe margarita as we delve into the experience of reading this book as an adult, ‘perfect’ characters and the framing devices provided by Death that hold this book together! ⚖️ You know what that means, Saumensch! It’s time to steal a book! 😈