Not Now, I'm Reading

Welcome back, y'all, and buckle in because we're coming together this episode to lose our collective minds over Headliners, the fifth London Celebrities book by Lucy Parker. We're BIG TIME Lucy fans around here, and we dig into this absolute dream-boat of an enemies to lovers book after talking public domain audiobooks, Shameless fic, and the world's briefest Oscars 2020 roundup (spoiler alert: we mostly don't give a shit, go check out Overinvested instead) MEDIA MENTIONS FROM TODAY’S EPISODE: Headliners by Lucy Parker The Austen Playbook by Lucky Parker And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, narrated by Dan Stevens Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott, narrated by CM Hebert Ourselves and Immortality by ETraytin Gentle-Sharp and Strange by Lisztful Temptation by out_there Looking Two-World Collided by storieswelove You’re So Fine You Blow My Mind (Hey Mickey) by kyloskummies Pot O’ Gold by ahurston just a little while by olivebranchesandredwine

Hello friends and welcome to our favorite type of episode here at NNIR headquarters -- a true grab bag of a media rec episode! We've got movies, we've got musics, we've got The Karate Kid fic?! Oh yes, this time we've truly got a bit of something for everyone, so join us as we give you guys 10 recs apiece and get somewhat caught up on our winter break reading!

Welcome to 2020, friends! We're starting the year off with a bookish bang, the impeccable Love Lettering by Kate Clayborn! This is Chelsea's first Clayborn, and she absolutely adored it -- we both did! Also in this episode: Schitt's Creek fic, Downton Abbey fic, and a discussion of things we want to see more of in our romance books (spoiler alert:: it's causal diversity!)

It's our last episode of 2019, and it is BY FAR one of the best episodes we've ever had. As you'll hear, Chelsea just about loses her complete damn mind, because today we are talking to podcast professional and fanfic legend Pru (also occasionally known as rageprufrock). We've talked about Pru's fics in a number of different fandoms, and today we sat down to chat all about long fic -- why we love it, why people write it, and some of our absolute favorites across a number of fandoms. There's hundred of thousands of words here, friends, to take you into 2020 reading something that makes all your heart parts feel good. Along the way, we also have strong opinions on: hockey player faces, Adam Driver's chest, and why Roy Mustang is the literal best.  In closing out the year, I (Chelsea) wanted to take a minute to say thank you to all of you. We know this year has not been the smoothest, in terms of our production schedule, and there have been more mishaps and miscommunications than we'd love, but through it all y

It's a Boxing Day treat, y'all! Was this episode supposed to go up Monday? YES. Is it all my (Chelsea's) fault? YES. Are we giving y'all almost 2 hours of horror recs to get you through the post-Christmas lull? YOU BETCHA! We were so thrilled to have our horror correspondany, Ashley Wells, come to talk all things horror movies, books, and TV. We talk The White Worm, we talk Interview with a Vampire, we talk CATS! It's everything we wanted and more (so much more in fact, that these show notes are a work in progress. Check back for more links, but we didn't want to hold the episode back in the meantime!)

Well, friends, we have got a MILESTONE for you today! In the two-and-a-half years we've been doing this podcast, Chelsea has never had to miss a recording. But, because life in the last few weeks has been the worst, Kay and Josie carried on steadfastly and brought you guys one hell of an amazing interview/Star Wars chat!  If you or someone you love is hurting during this holiday season, we are so sorry y'all. You have our love and our compassion and, hopefully with this episode, a little bit of our joy (yes, that was in last week's show notes, and it's still true, and don't be surprised if you see it every week for the rest of the month). This week we've got Josie, also known as Eisoj5 on AO3, Tumblr, and Twitter (also basically everywhere else). She and Kay talk about The Mandalorian, "The Discourse", and what it's like to write a fic that's over 350K. They're smart, and insightful, and this is seriously not an episode to be missed. AND FOR FELLOW "READ THE END FIRST" MONSTERS/MASOCHISTS, ALL REDACTED PORT

Well, friends, we are officially in the final stretch of 2019 and the decade seems determined to go out on the biggest, shittiest bang possible. If you or someone you love is hurting during this holiday season, we are so sorry y'all. You have our love and our compassion and, hopefully with this episode, a little bit of our joy. We've got best friend of the pod Di with us again (who you can also find over at AO3 as kerrykhat), to wrap-up  our media favorites of the year and it is a grab-bag in the truest sense. Hopefully there is something here that will make you smile, even if only on the inside

Join us once more, friends, for more recs than we know what to do with! Hopefully there will be something in this treasure trove of recommendations to get you through the holiday with a deep breath and a smile (or close to it, anyway). We've got IT fic, novels on novels, Schitt's Creek talk, and even a movie recommendation. And make sure you listen through to the end credits - we've got my (Chelsea's) favorite outtake of the year so far!   TIME STAMPS: 00:00-01:03:25 -- Current Reads/Recs 01:03:25-01:06:28 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes

This week, y'all, we are back with babies, buzzing, and enough IT recs to keep you situated well past spooky month and into the holiday season! We hope you're all managing to hang in there as best you can, as technical glitches and angry tech gods continue to conspire against us. Luckily, this book was beyond worth the hardship, and we were thrilled to get to talk about Not the Girl You Marry by Andie J. Christopher, the How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days update none of us knew we needed oh so badly. Sit back and enjoy as we talk spiky heroines, the pitfalls of toxic masculinity, and romcoms that don't skimp on the 'com'! TIME STAMPS: 00:00-37:12 -- Current Reads 37:12-50:20 -- Not the Girl You Marry by Andie J. Christopher 50:20-52:46 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes

Hello, listeners! Did y'all miss us?! Chelsea accidentally got too caught up in the debut excitement of our last episode, and jumped the gun a week early. So we're back today, despite the Internet Gods doing their best to throw alllll the wrenches at us (don't believe us? check the episode!) But we persevered in good faith to talk about today's book, one of our hands down favorite reads of the year so far, American Love Story by Adriana Herrera! So grab a snack, maybe a beverage or two, and listen to us natter about Ryan Murphy, the danger of balancing multiple story arcs, and just how lucky we are to be living in the current age of romance writing!  TIME STAMPS: 00:00-47:47 -- Current Reads 47:47-01:02:57 -- American Love Story by Adriana Herrera 01:02:57-01:05:25 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes  

Friends, we are both so incredibly excited to be sitting down to talk about our book of the fortnight today, an absolute treat of an id-scratcher, The Write Escape by Charish Reid! This book gave us all the warmest fuzzies about writing, the power of books, and the refreshing gutsiness of an author who will start with her heroine married - and not to the hero! TIME STAMPS: 00:00-18:47 -- Current Reads 18:47-42:48 -- The Write Escape by Charish Reid 42:48-45:09 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes

We're back, and for the second episode in a row we are awash with media recs for you! So tune in for another stuffed-to-the-gills episode in which we discuss Veronica Mars, , and  - and, of course, rec you all the fanfic (PS: remember when the Archive won a Hugo?! Us too, we just like to re-remember every now and then!)  Read this episode's transcript here! TIME STAMPS: 00:00-55:23 -- What We Read On Our Maternity/Summer Break 55:23-57:05 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes  

Buckle in, friends, because this is only the first of our huge, mega, jam-packed two part catch-up episode covering so many (but still not all) of the media we read/watched/listened to over the course of our maternity leave/summer break! So tune in for diatribes and reflections on: the bad wigs of Downton Abbey, Chelsea's obsession with Bravo-leberty memoirs, and all of the fic. All of it. Just so, so much fic. TIME STAMPS: 00:00-54:48 -- What We Read On Our Maternity/Summer Break 54:48-56:15 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes

We're officially half-way though our maternity madness episodes, y'all, in which we feature some of our favorite older episodes from the vault while Chelsea recovers from baby-having and Kay kicks it with her wonderful family. This week, because Chelsea is holding the reigns and just finished up yet another rewatch of this beloved (and admittedly dark) series, we're bringing you our Hannibal-centric thoughts, everything from horror musings to fic recommendations! The time has finally come for our most fangirly of episodes: Hannibal. This darkly beautiful show is about a cannibalistic serial killer and the team that works with and will eventually catch him, and we seriously have no idea how this show ever aired on NBC. But we’re glad it did. We talk the show, the lovely fandom, and our favorite fics. As always, we also talk about what we’re currently reading and what we have coming up next.   TIME STAMPS: 00:00-00:48 – Intro 00:42-13:30 – Current Reads 13:30-45:01– Hannibal Discussion 45:01-46:03– Outro

Welcome, friends, to the second installment of Maternity Madness, our miniseries of flashback episodes while Chelsea recovers from bringing a human into the world and Kay cavorts on a series of low-key summer adventures. Today, we're bringing y'all our deep-dive episode into Archive of our Own (AO3), a fanfiction repository and creative fanworks safe haven that we both love and use regularly, and that for the FIRST TIME EVER is eligible for a Hugo Award! So sit back, relax, and get ready to find out all our tips, tricks, and favorite finds on the Archive.  ***** This week we’re doing something a little different. We’ll be discussing our current favorite reads, as per usual, but we’re also going to give you an introduction to AO3/Archive of Our Own, our favorite fanfiction/fanworks archive. We’ll share our tips and tricks for finding the perfect fics for you and how to get the most out of the user interface. It’s a lot more fun that it sounds! TIME STAMPS: 00:00-01:30 – Intro 01:30-14:40 – Current Reads 1

Hello, friends, and welcome to the first installment of what Chelsea is lovingly calling Maternity Madness — a series of vault episodes flashing back on some of our favorite moments from the first three years of podcast! Today we’re going back in time to our first ever guest episode, talking with longtime friend of the pod (and return guest) Di, who is not only a badass librarian but is our resident Star Wars expert! This episode originally aired in December of 2017, during what we lovingly called our Star Wars December, and as such covers not just Phasma but a lot of our general fandom feelings! So without further ado… *** Today we are talking about Phasma by Delilah S Dawson with one of our lovely friends, librarian-in-training Di! You can find her tweeting about a wide variety of nerdy and wonderful things @bookishdi and her AO3 account is kerrykhat. We talk about our deep love of Star Wars, the loveliness of The Last Jedi’s cast, and why Brendol Hux is the absolute worst. We also share our current reads

In finishing out Pride month here at NNIR headquarters, and as our VERY LAST EPISODE until Chelsea comes back from maternity leave, we're bringing you guys a discussion of Avon's first major f/f historical, The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite. We both enjoyed the book, though perhaps not as much as we wanted, and we have a very great conversation about the dangers of story scarcity and the unfair burden it places on exigent stories! Enjoy, friends, and we'll see you in about six weeks with new content! In the meantime, enjoy the summer and some of our greatest vault episodes!   TIME STAMPS: 00:00:00-00:20:27 -- Current Reads 00:20:27-00:42:10 -- The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics by Olivia Waite 00:42:10-00:44:50 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes  

Today, we're kicking off NNIR Pride month by diving back in with one of our favorite authors, who has taken a bit of a detour into a genre we don't read very often here at podcast HQ - a golden era mystery! Mysteries are not some of Chelsea's favorites, and only the queer love story and the beauty of Cat Sebastian's writing managed to save this one from a similar fate. Tune in as we talk about defining genre-crossing books, the hilarity of the small-village British mystery, and just how long Downton Abbey has really been.  Also, in her excitement to talk about Birthday by Meredith Russo, Chelsea left out content warnings for hate speech, depression, misgendering, suicide and suicidal ideation -- please remember to take care of yourself, friends.  TIME STAMPS: 00:00:00-00:23:22 -- Current Reads 00:23:22-00:52:32 -- Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian 00:52:32-00:55:14 -- Outro, Upcoming, and Outtakes  

We are so sorry for leaving you guys hanging yesterday, our normal posting Monday, but we hope you'll forgive us - we needed the extra time to collect all our thoughts about Game of Thrones and the series finale that aired Sunday night! We go through some of our peaks and pits, wrapping up thoughts on the series as a whole before throwing 10+ mostly novel-length fics your way, just in case you still need to wash the taste of the finale out of your mouth.  TIME STAMPS: 00:00:00-00:19:23 -- Current Reads 00:19:23-01:00:56 -- Game of Thrones reactions 01:00:56-01:21:08 -- Game of Thrones fic rec list 01:21:08-01:23:50 -- Upcoming, Outro, and Outtakes

Just like every other pop-culture aware outlet on the internet, it's finally our turn to talk about the recent glut of pure nerd media hitting the big and small screens! Between reaching the end of the first era of the MCU and squinting desperately through the Battle of Winterfell, we've got all sorts of opinions on Endgame, Game of Thrones, Star Trek: Discovery, and the new reboot of The Twilight Zone. It's a bit of a long one, so buckle in friends, and as per usual: note the timestamps if you're avoiding spoilers!  TIME STAMPS: 00:00:00-00:20:52 -- Intro and Current Reads 00:21:11-00:30:10 -- Star Trek: Discovery 00:30:10-00:35:39 -- Twilight Zone Reboot 00:35:39-00:48:02 -- Game of Thrones (through S08E03) 00:48:02-01:09:19 -- Avengers: Endgame 01:09:19-01:12:25 -- Upcoming, Outro, and Outtakes