Book Club From Hell

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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

The Everlasting is an excellent short story collection by Australia's favourite son, Lewis Woolston. Many of these stories are inspired by his upbringing among Jehovah's Witnesses in Western Australia, addiction, working bad jobs to stave off poverty, and, despite everything, having the fortitude to find a place of stability. This is Lewis' second time on the show - if you want to hear more from him, we did a previous episode where we talked about another of his short story collections, Remembering the Dead.Find Lewis' books here (including The Everlasting): https://bequempublishing.com/authors/authors-w-z/lewis-woolston/Lewis' Substack: https://substack.com/@lewiswoolstonI'm Perfect, You're Doomed: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1416556869William Trevor's short stories: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/0140232451VERY 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

Wake in Fright (1961) is an Australian novel about a pushover Sydney city boy's experiences in Broken Hill-inspired Bundanyabba. Here, he loses all of his money gambling, is constantly drunk, knife fights kangaroos, tries to shoot himself, and much more. To help me gush over this sinister and very funny book, I enlisted the help of Matthew Sini and Matthew Fresta of the lovely Getting Lit podcast. For the second part of this conversation, where we talk about the 1971 film adaptation of Wake in Fright, check out the Getting Lit podcast.Getting Lit on X: @getting_lit_podSini on X: @teo_essFresta on X:@newfacenhell Getting Lit Patreon: patreon.com/GettingLitCoward Punch (Fresta's Rango Tango zino and some music): https://cowardpunchrecords.bandcamp.com/Sini's various projects: https://linktr.ee/matthewsiniVERY 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

Financed by her husband as a 10th wedding anniversary present and published in 1897, Irene Iddesleigh is a romance story featuring extremely mercurial characters, bizarre pacing, and the most insane purple prose in existence. Really, The Eye of Argon reads like a physics textbook in comparison.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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Transmaxxing is when natal males make themselves into women in order to live a materially better life. The Transmaxxing Manifesto lays out why men would (that is, should) want to become women, why an essential gender identity doesn't exist, how to 'girl-mode', why men are useless, and how to bring about a global authoritarian transmaxxing state in which 5% of the population are breeding males, 50% are natal females, and the 45% of men insufficiently masculine to breed are forced to take oestradiol and live as women.Link to the manifesto: https://www.scribd.com/document/720824358/Transmaxxing14The transmaxxing website: www.transmaxxing.euVERY 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

On High at Red Tide is a rough, scruffy, lovely, unsettling, surf-noir novel written by Gabriel Hart, a novelist, poet, musician, and reporter (among many things). We got to talk about petrifying trazedone hallucinations, the parallels between alcoholism and possession, meth, why it's always wrong to kill someone, LA subcultures, and a whole lot more. Get On High at Red Tide: https://pigroastpublishing.com/product/on-high-at-red-tide/Get On High at Red Tide on Amazon, if that's your thing: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCYZR5L9/Jail Weddings: https://jailweddings.bandcamp.com/album/ego-jinglesThe Starvations: https://thestarvations.bandcamp.com/album/get-well-soon Hotel Mercy: https://hotelmercy.bandcamp.com/Gabriel's RecommendationsChandler Morrison - American Narcissus - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CTF7NF3NJillian Luft - Scumbag Summer - https://www.jillianluft.com/buy-scumbag-summerDanielle Chelosky - https://www.daniellechelosky.com/Omar King - https://newritualpress.com/books/Lisa Carver - Lover of Leaving - https://pigroastpublishing.com/product/loverofleaving/John Tottenham - Service - https://www.amazon.com/dp/1635902495/David Kuhnlein - Bloodletter - https://amphetaminesulphate.bigcartel.com/product/bloodletter-david-kuhnlein (NB: I said 'Daniel Kuhnlein' in the episode, because I'm really smart. His name is actually 'David'. David, if you're reading this, I'm sorry and repent of my actions).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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Published in 1899, The Interpretation of Dreams is one of Sigmund Freud's most significant works and, by extension, one of the most significant works in psychoanalysis, psychology, and the Western conception of the mind. In it, Freud begins with a collection of questions: what are dreams? What can we learn from them? In trying to answer, he ends up describing a structure of energetic flows between the conscious, preconscious and unconscious portions of the psyche.Turns out, there's more to Freud than penises, cocaine and wanting to have sex with your mum.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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Dustin Cole is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and short story writer, whose latest chapbook After Sunstone is a lovely examination of seeing, times and places. I actually ended up buying this book on the basis of its cover: it's a great edition, put out by Farthest Heaven. We talked about the link between poetry and time, poetry as a way to say the unsaid, why Dustin no longer writes novels, SE Hinton's novel Rumble Fish, Robin Blaser's essay The Fire, dissatisfaction, and much more. Buy After Sunstone herehttps://farthestheaven.com/products/after-sunstoneFarthest Heavenhttps://farthestheaven.comDustin's interview with Brad Kellyhttps://www.madmethodpod.com/podcast/melee4Some current writers whom Dustin likesTom Will (https://many.bio/thomaswill)Eric Racher (https://socratesonthebeach.com/eric-racher)Hayden Church (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BLR73Z3J)Wallace Barker (https://farthestheaven.com/products/gypsy-romance) Adam Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adam_Day)Calvin Atwood (https://xraylitmag.com/contributor/calvin-atwood/)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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

This article, published in 2015 in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, offers a description of how the experience of piloting hunter-killer UAVs could 'queer' the battlefield and offer possible lines of flight out of heteronormative hierarchies. Poststructuralism meets mainlining hours of war footage on the internet (not really) (yes really).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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi

Matthew Gasda is a director, novelist, playwright, essayist and Memphis horrorcore rapper, who has a novel, The Sleepers, coming out on the 6th of May, 2025. Tightly stage-managed and reading like a thickened play, The Sleepers explores millennial listlessness. This episode doubles as a New York soundscape, Matthew calling in from a cafe and crunching lemonade ice cubes tenderly into his microphone (your ear).Buy The Sleepers here: https://www.amazon.com/Sleepers-Novel-Matthew-Gasda/dp/1648211259Matthew's Substack: https://matthewgasda.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): discord.gg/ZMtDJ9HscrWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi