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The Terrible Reading Club

The Terrible Reading Club

Feelings & Co

The Terrible Reading Club is a podcast about great books for truly terrible times. Host Nora McInerny knows a thing or two about this kind of literature, because she's written several books herself about tough subjects like grief and loss and mental health (and moving forward in the face of it all). Each episode centers a book that deals with Hard Stuff and features an interview with the author about their work. And the best part about this reading club? You don't need to read the book ahead of time! For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free! https://terriblereadingclub.substack.com/ Got a book you want to recommend? Reach out to us at [email protected]. The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan. Our upcoming reading list can be found on our Substack: https://terriblereadingclub.substack.com/p/our-upcoming-book-selections.
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Top 10 The Terrible Reading Club Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Terrible Reading Club episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Terrible Reading Club for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Terrible Reading Club episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

The Terrible Reading Club - 1. "Dusk, Night, Dawn" With Anne Lamott
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06/27/23 • 51 min

When Nora lost her dad, her second pregnancy, and her husband in the fall of 2015, people gifted her a lot of books. Why? Because people want to say and do the right thing when times are hard ... want to make everything better as fast as possible. Many of those books ended up in the donation pile immediately, but one of the books Nora actually read was by Anne Lamott.

Since then, she’s read all of Anne’s books — including her latest, Dusk, Night, Dawn. So it only made sense to kick off this new show with Nora’s conversation with Anne.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free!

The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan.

Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at [email protected].

Our upcoming reading list can be found here.

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The transcript for this episode can be found here.

Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on October 12th, 2021

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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1 Listener

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The Terrible Reading Club - 18. "This Story Will Change" with Elizabeth Crane
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10/08/23 • 46 min

Elizabeth Crane didn’t want to get divorced, but her husband did. Thus, her memoir, This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After, was born — a book about the death of a marriage, the start of a new life and everything in between.

Elizabeth joins Nora to talk about how her views on marriage have changed, what propelled her to write through the sadness, anger and grief, and where her story stands today.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Nora’s new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items:

25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon.

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 13. “All The Gold Stars” With Rainesford Stauffer
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07/13/23 • 52 min

Journalist and writer Rainesford Stauffer has a complicated relationship with ambition, and it started when she was just a kid. She published a book, wrote for top publications and never stopped reaching for the next golden ring — until she was forced to.

Stauffer spent months interviewing teachers, parents, psychologists and organizers about how they define and practice ambition, all while trying to reconcile its impact on her own life. Her new book, All the Gold Stars: Reimagining Ambition and All the Ways We Strive, is about the societal expectations that keep us striving for more and the tenuous balance between achieving your goals and burning out entirely.

If you were crushed by a B+ on your report card, spent hours practicing a hobby or sport you weren’t particularly passionate about because that’s what you were “supposed” to do or stubbornly climbed the corporate ladder only to find yourself thinking “What now?” at the top, this episode is for you.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free!

Got a book recommendation? Send us a note at [email protected].

The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan.

Our upcoming reading list can be found here.

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The transcript for this episode can be found here or at the episode website link.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 23. "Slenderman" with Kathleen Hale

23. "Slenderman" with Kathleen Hale

The Terrible Reading Club

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01/07/24 • 58 min

In 2014, 12-year-old Payton "Bella" Leutner was stabbed 19 times by two other tween girls. The crime was well publicized as the Slenderman stabbings because the two girls who committed the stabbing said a fictional character named Slenderman told them to do it. The girls were tried as adults for attempted murder (Payton lived) and went to jail.

In her book Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls, journalist Kathleen Hale looks at this true crime story through a new lens: that the girls who stabbed Payton were dealing with severe mental illness that the justice system in Wisconsin ignored.

Nora and Kathleen discuss the legal realities of this case, how the media portrayed the story and how we can all think about true crime consumption differently.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 22. “Christmas Orphan Club” with Becca Freeman
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12/03/23 • 65 min

‘Tis the season for a holiday read, and Becca Freeman has written the coziest novel that ticks all the boxes: friendship, romance, and just a sprinkle of grief and trauma. Nora and Becca share all about their past holidays, favorite Christmas movies, and more.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 21. 2023 Gift Guide!

21. 2023 Gift Guide!

The Terrible Reading Club

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11/19/23 • 43 min

Happyish Holidays and welcome to our first ever TRC gift guide! Nora and Kara (and our awesome TRC community) have compiled book recs for everyone on your gift list — from the youngest of picture book readers to the father in law who you can only talk to about the weather.

Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide children’s and YA book recs here.

Find all of our 2023 Holiday Gift Guide adult book recs here.

Every time you purchase through our Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 2. "The Anthropocene Reviewed" With John Green
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06/27/23 • 67 min

John Green is one of Nora’s favorite observers of humanity, in part because of how gentle he is with even the most maddening parts of human existence: illness (both mental and physical), human foibles and failures. And maybe most impressively, he’s a creator who has existed on the Internet without letting it completely destroy him and his opinions of humanity. In today’s episode, Nora talks with John about his book The Anthropocene Reviewed.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

For book discussion guides and a community of Terrible bookworms just like you, join The Terrible Reading Club on Substack! It's free!

Got a book you want to recommend? Send us a note at [email protected].

The Terrible Reading Club team is Nora McInerny, Claire McInerny, Megan Palmer, Marcel Malekebu, Kara Nesvig, Jordan Turgeon, and Michelle Plantan.

Our upcoming reading list can be found here.

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The transcript for this episode can be found here.

Originally published on “Terrible, Thanks for Asking” on September 23, 2021

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 20. "This Time Tomorrow" with Emma Straub
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11/05/23 • 61 min

When author Emma Straub’s dad got sick, he told her one night in the hospital, “You should write a book about a daughter visiting her father in the hospital.” So that’s what she did, and that book became This Time Tomorrow. Emma and Nora talk about Emma’s latest novel and the realities of grief after losing a parent.

Read Emma’s GQ essay, My Father’s Rolex.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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The Terrible Reading Club - 19. I Read That: "The Woman in Me" by Britney Spears
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10/29/23 • 117 min

Everyone knows who Britney Spears is ... or do we? For many people, Britney is frozen in time circa 2002. For others, she faded away after 2008 until her gut-wrenching testimony about her 13-year conservatorship in 2021. Much of Britney’s life story has been told to us by others: Us Weekly, Perez Hilton, her father, the speculating crowds of the internet. But for the first time in a very, very long time, Britney is telling her own story in her new memoir, The Woman in Me.

Today on Terrible Reading Club’s first-ever EMERGENCY EPISODE, Nora and fellow Britney superfan Kara Nesvig (who also created The Britney Spears Oracle Deck) do a deep dive on The Woman in Me, Britney’s legacy and the many, MANY people who owe Britney a public apology.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

bookmark
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The Terrible Reading Club - 16. "How To Stay Married" with Harrison Scott Key
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09/10/23 • 61 min

When Harrison Scott Key discovered his wife was cheating on him, he wasn’t about to break his wedding vows. He was going to save his marriage, and that quest involved taking a good hard look at how he’d failed his wife too. The result? A happily ever after — well, sort of — and the memoir How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told.

Harrison joins Nora to talk about the extremely wild ride called marriage and why he decided to let his wife write the (second to) last chapter in their not-quite divorce story.

Wanna read the book? When you purchase from Apple Books or Bookshop.org, you help support our show!

Got a book recommendation? Send it our way by emailing us at [email protected].

Nora’s new Happyish journal and affirmation deck based on her own journaling practices launches today! We have a special deal for you on these new items:

25% discount for the Em & Friends website. Coupon code: HAPPYISH25. This will only work on the Em & Friends website, not on Amazon.

Find all our shows and our store at feelingsand.co.

The episode transcript can be found here.

Find The Terrible Reading Club on Instagram.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

bookmark
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FAQ

How many episodes does The Terrible Reading Club have?

The Terrible Reading Club currently has 23 episodes available.

What topics does The Terrible Reading Club cover?

The podcast is about Podcasts, Books and Arts.

What is the most popular episode on The Terrible Reading Club?

The episode title '1. "Dusk, Night, Dawn" With Anne Lamott' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on The Terrible Reading Club?

The average episode length on The Terrible Reading Club is 55 minutes.

How often are episodes of The Terrible Reading Club released?

Episodes of The Terrible Reading Club are typically released every 7 days, 2 hours.

When was the first episode of The Terrible Reading Club?

The first episode of The Terrible Reading Club was released on Jun 27, 2023.

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