July 22, 2021 • 18 mins
Shame, Shame: An Intro to Guilty Pleasure Reads
In this first episode of BBE Shorts, Jennifer spends some time musing over what “guilty pleasure reads” means to her, and even reveals some of her favs to fall back on when she’s feeling down. She also explores what our listeners think of as guilty pleasure reads and hints at future episodes that dig more into why we feel guilty about reading certain things rather than others.
Some of Jennifer’s fav guilty pleasure reads:
- Any Jane Austen books
- Mr. Darcy’s Diary
- Captain Wentworth’s Diary
- Anything by Eva Ibbotson
- Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith
- Radiance by Grace Draven and company
- Winternight Trilogy by Elizabeth Arden
- Then honestly probably some of my fav webtoons that I read and re-read over again, which I am already planning on mentioning those more in a later episode.
- Interested in any of these books? Some of them are available on our Bookshop store!
Questions Jennifer Asks
- What do I think of when I think of guilty pleasure reads?
- What other genres or specific books do people classify as ‘guilty pleasure’?
- Where does this guilt come from?
Support the Pod
- Find us on Instagram
- Find us on Twitter
- Don’t forget to leave us a review if you are enjoying the pod.
*Some of the links above are affiliate links and we will receive commission from any purchases made through them*
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jennifer (00:10):
Welcome to the first episode of BBE Shorts My name is
Jennifer and I will be your hostfor today.
Paige can't come to the phoneright now because she is being
overwhelmed by the feral catpopulation around her house.
But don't worry.
I'm here to keep serving you thebookish content that you desire.
(00:33):
If you are new to Big BookEnergy, welcome.
If you are returning, you arealso welcome.
We are two archivists andlibrarians talking about the
thing we love most, which isbooks, big surprise.
We get together every now andagain to chat about books based
around a theme.
Season four's theme is GuiltyPleasures.
(00:57):
In addition to BBE Shorts, wedrop full episodes once a month
for our amazing Patreonsupporters.
If you're not yet a Patreonsupporter, you can always unlock
our full library of content foras little as$5.
Without further ado, let's getinto the episode.
(01:18):
This has already been a mess anda half, let me tell you, and I
think this is what I get fortrying to podcast without Paige.
My original plan was that theseepisodes were going to be in
video and audio format.
So posted on our YouTube and onour regular podcasting apps.
But my technology has failed me.
(01:42):
My mic and my camera don't wantto play nice anymore.
I don't know.
I'm going to have to figure thatout somehow.
So until then, these are justgoing to be audio.
I'm sorry.
Or you're welcome.
One of the two.
At least this way I can continueto just look like a gremlin
while I'm recording.
Like I don't have to prettymyself up for you guys, which is
(02:02):
kinda nice, but ideally,eventually these will also be
available on our YouTube.
But anyway let's talk aboutguilty pleasure reads.
I honestly can't even rememberhow the theme guilty pleasures
came up.
It was in our little bank ofthemes that we brainstormed up
like ages ago, and we decided tothrow it into the mix for our
(02:24):
poll for this season.
Because every season we let ourlisteners vote from four
different theme options.
And I think neither of us wereexpecting this theme to be as
popular as it was, because itwas really popular.
It was pretty much a landslidein favor of the guilty pleasures
(02:45):
theme.
So what do I think of when Ithink of guilty pleasure reads?
I guess first thing I think ofwould be like romance books,
like books you might actuallyfeel a little guilty or really
embarrassed to be caughtreading.
Usually I think this has to dowith like the classic romance
(03:05):
covers, you know, it's a womanin a corset, tearing the shirt
off of a studly man.
I guess that's more periodromances.
So with contemporary romance, onthe cover the man usually isn't
wearing shirt at all.
I remember one time when I wasworking at the public library,
someone came in and checked outa supernatural romance where the
(03:29):
cover was literally a naked man,like full frontal naked man.
And he was supposed to have beenlike a werewolf who had just
transformed back into his humanform because it was a
supernatural werewolf romance.
And the only thing preservingthe briefest bit of his modesty
was this little tendril of mistcoming up from the forest floor
(03:52):
that just so happened to coverhis manhood, you know?
So I have to give props to thispatron because I don't know if I
could have checked that out in apublic library.
Like they didn't even go throughthe self-checkout machine.
They came to a person and with astraight face, checked out this
book with like this ridiculouscover on it.
But I don't know, maybe I'm justlike less mature than I thought,
(04:15):
but I was like really impressedthat they were totally
comfortable checking out thisbook.
There's also this really funnytrend on instagram reels and
probably also Tik Toks as well,but I haven't succumbed to the
time sink that is Tik Tok yetwhere people pretend they get
caught right in the middle of aspicy scene of a romance book.
(04:39):
So yeah, there's this sense ofguiltiness, a sense of like
forbidden pleasure maybe withromance books?
But thinking about it, that'snot the only thing that comes to
mind when I think of feelingguilty while reading, because in
actuality, I almost never feelguilty over reading the content
(05:01):
of what I'm reading.
Like when I really think aboutit, I'm like, what am I actually
guilty about?
If I'm guilty while reading,like I, I'm not ashamed of the
content of what I'm reading.
So I usually feel guilty becauseI feel like I should be reading
something else.
There's some sense in my mind ofwhat I should and should not be
(05:21):
reading.
So when I was in grad school,that was easy enough to figure
out because if I was readinganything that was not my
assigned reading for classes,that meant I was procrastinating
on my work and I was creating ahuge, horrible, stressful mess
for future Jennifer.
And yes, I did that every weekof every semester of my entire
(05:45):
four years of grad schoolexperience.
Although, to be honest, I wasusually watching Netflix instead
of reading for fun at the time.
But definitely any time I didpick up a book that wasn't like
The Making of Europe or Autumnof The Middle Ages or something,
I definitely felt the guilt.
So I'm not in grad schoolanymore.
(06:07):
I should definitely not havethat feeling anymore, right?
So wrong.
I am great at being hard onmyself 1000% of the time, I am a
Virgo to my core in that way.
Now podcast reading is often thething I'm procrastinating on,
which literally as I recordthis, I am procrastinating on
(06:27):
what I'm supposed to be readingfor our next podcast episode.
So any reading I do outside ofpodcast reading brings on that
same guilty feeling that I'msupposed to be reading something
else.
I often feel guilty over readingYA or fantasy as well.
If you didn't know already, I'vebeen supposedly working on this
read- my- shelf challenge allyear.
(06:50):
Yeah.
That thing that I was supposedto be doing, I haven't finished
a single book sitting on myshelf that I didn't read in
2020, like not a single one.
And when the YA or fantasy bookthat has been making the rounds
through Bookstagram, and I'vebeen waiting for my hold to come
in for months pops up in myLibby app.
(07:13):
Yeah, I feel guilty checkingthat out over the very lonely
books on my shelf, which whileamazing, tend to also be much
denser nonfiction or academictexts.
So I'll admit they're not asexciting as Blood and Ash or
These Violent Delights orsomething like that.
In fact, I'm still technicallyon a Libby- Scribd- Libro FM
(07:39):
ban, while I try and forcemyself to break my reading slump
and get back into readingregularly, which for some reason
has been a struggle for meprobably since about January I
think.
Maybe actually now that I thinkabout it, reading some of my
guilty pleasure reads mightactually bring back some of that
joy for me?
I know I often recommend that topeople who are in reading
slumps, like going back andreading some of your all-time
(08:02):
favorite books can be reallytherapeutic in that way.
Kind of breaking that block thatyou've developed about reading.
I should probably take my ownadvice in that.
I guess I just am really wantingto complete this read- my- shelf
challenge.
At least one book, you know, ormaybe like 10 out of the 30 that
(08:25):
I have to read would be nice bythe end of the year, maybe.
So that's been, that's been astruggle.
But if you had to pin me down tolike specific guilty pleasure
reads, like specific books,which really, I just interpret
guilty pleasure reads as booksthat kind of make me like squee
(08:45):
with excitement when I get tosit down on a weekend and read
them in bed all day.
You know, it's just like thatreally excited feeling you have
when you were like, oh my gosh,I just get to sit down and read
this amazing book that I love somuch.
So I guess really guiltypleasure reads for me would kind
of translate into like comfortreads.
(09:05):
They're usually reads that Ihave gone through before.
So I'm already familiar withthem and the stories just make
me really happy.
And it usually is alsoassociated with having like a
full day to dedicate to readingthem.
So like plenty of time, it feelsvery luxurious to spend a full
day on reading since I typicallydon't get to do that.
But yeah, specific, guiltypleasure reads.
(09:27):
This is going to be probablyvery, very cliche.
Any Jane Austen book.
Any Jane Austen.
100% guilty pleasure read, loveit.
Love to read it.
It's very comforting for me toread Jane Austen.
Also in the same vein any JaneAusten diary by Amanda Grange.
She does a lot of Jane Austeninterpretations, but the ones
(09:49):
that I love the most are shedoes diaries from the
perspective of the leading maleroles in each Jane Austen book.
So my faves are Mr.
Darcy's Diary and CaptainWentworth's Diary because those
are my favorite Austen leads,male leads, I should say.
Anything by Eva Ibbotson, whichis again, more kind of period
(10:14):
romance.
Although they're not spicyromance there They're not spicy
at all, but they're just verylike sweet romantic stories.
Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith,which is a really good- I, I
love this book and I don't knowwhy people don't talk about this
book, but I fucking love CrownDuel by Sherwood Smith.
I've read this book so manytimes and I would 100% recommend
(10:38):
it.
It is, I wouldn't say it's afantasy, there are a couple of
fantastical elements, but thefantasy, the, the magical
elements are not really thefocus of the story.
So I guess kind of it's afantasy because there's some
magical elements, but for themost part, it's kind of almost
like a political intrigue typebook.
(11:00):
It's set in kind of like ageneric middle ages or later
middle ages, kind of earlymodern European setting.
And it's all about a girl'smission to take down a corrupt
and evil king and place herselfor her brother on the throne
instead.
It's just so good.
(11:20):
I love the main character.
She is amazing.
And the romance in this book isprobably one of my favorite
romance stories ever.
So yeah, if you haven't read itCrown Duel by Sherwood Smith yet
you 100% should.
Next up we have Radiance byGrace Draven and company.
(11:41):
I think there's a couple ofother authors involved with this
one as well.
And this is 100% a spicy fantasyromance.
Love this story.
It's total like friends tolovers type romance story, and
it's amazing and the other likefantasy plot surrounding it
doesn't actually take away forme.
(12:02):
Cause that happens sometimes inromance.
I'm just like, I don't need thisextraneous plot.
But it's not like that in thisbook for me.
I haven't read the sequel to it,but I really, really did enjoy
Radiance.
Next up we have the Winter Nighttrilogy we already know from
season three that I love thistrilogy.
I loved The Bear and theNightingale.
(12:23):
We did a whole episode on that,which is the first book in the
Winter Night trilogy byElizabeth Arden.
And it's just amazing and I loveit and it's a comfort read,
which again, guilty pleasure...
If you pin me down to specificsto me, seems to translate more
into like comfort or nostalgiareads.
And lastly, honestly, probablysome of my favorite Webtoons
(12:45):
that I read and reread over andover again, there are some
Webtoons that I'm absolutelyobsessed with and I'm actually
planning on probably breakingthose down a little bit more in
a separate BBE Shorts episode.
So definitely keep an eye outfor that.
I'll be giving you my favoriteWebtoon recommendations.
My favorite guilty pleasure,spicy romance Webtoon
(13:06):
recommendations.
But these are just my thoughtson guilty pleasure reads.
What do other people think aboutthem?
I decided to reach out on oursocial media accounts to see
what other people considered tobe their guilty pleasure reads
and I found myself reallysurprised with the variety of
(13:27):
responses that I got.
Some of the responses included: make your own adventure books; (13:28):
undefined
books you didn't finish- which Itotally get that; psychology of
serial killers or true crimebooks; horror or thriller books,
so like anything by Stephen Kingor Robert B.
Parker; fantasy, because ittakes time away from keeping up
(13:51):
with professional literature-which I also understand; Tamora
Pierce because her books arecomforting or nostalgic; murder
mysteries; pleasure readingthat's done solely for yourself;
and finally fanfiction.
So in my opinion, there's lotsof different types of guilt in
this list.
(14:11):
The guilt of a lonely stack ofbooks that stare at you from
your bookshelf, silently waitingfor you to pick them up again.
I feel this all the time becausethat's basically all of my
physical books, right?
I'm failing in my unread shelfchallenge.
They're all just waiting to beread.
There's also similar guilt towhat I described before with my
own reading (14:30):
feeling like I should be reading something
else, right?
There's like other readingthat's more important or should
be prioritized higher than whatI've chosen to read.
I think fanfiction also bringsup some really interesting
questions for me.
So is this worthy of guiltbecause it is building a story
within another author's world?
(14:50):
Are the stories not canon andthat's why you should feel
guilty about them?
Or is it because they haven'tbeen traditionally published so
perhaps they seem less worthy ofbeing read.
Another thing that reallyinterested me is that some of
the respondents just answeredwith genres of books.
What makes murder mysteries orthrillers a guilty pleasure?
(15:15):
Maybe this satisfies aparticular obsession on the part
of the reader, making thereading itself more pleasurable
and decadent feeling.
But I wonder too if everyone ismaking their own unconscious
judgments on what books are moreor less valuable, like more or
less valid to spend their timeon.
(15:37):
It was refreshing though thatseveral people also commented on
how they don't like to viewthese books as a guilty
pleasure, but rather justpleasure reading.
In truth, I think they've landedon a very healthy view of
reading.
Despite our theme title, Paigeand I firmly believe that
reading is reading is readingand we're actually hoping to
(16:00):
dispel some of that guilt youmay feel over the course of this
season.
It's all valid.
You shouldn't feel guilty forreading something as opposed to
something else.
I would love to hear some moreof your guilty pleasure reads.
So make sure to reach out onInstagram or Twitter and who
knows, I may even end upreviewing your guilty pleasure
fav in one of my BBE Shortsepisodes.
(16:22):
Yes.
The last question that I hadthinking about introducing this
theme of guilty pleasures forseason four: where does this
feeling of guilt come from?
Scarlet! Good Lord.
Okay, let me let the dog inhere.
(16:43):
I'll just leave this dog ASMR inthe episode.
Oh, my God.
She's so thirsty.
Now that we've gotten past ourdog interruption, our weekly dog
interruption- not weekly, it'sjust every time I am recording
an episode, Scarlet wants to getin here, which to be fair, her
water and her food bowl are inhere.
But most of the time it'sbecause she just wants to check
(17:04):
in and see what I'm doing andthen she wants to leave.
Anyway where does this feelingof guilt come from and why do we
seem to automatically deem somebooks as being more valid than
others?
Or at the very least there arebooks we don't have to feel as
guilty about reading.
That at least in Westernculture, which I'm most familiar
(17:25):
with, there's actually a longhistory of guilt in reading that
perhaps we have inherited.
Whether it was preferencingreligious works over other types
of quote, unquote, frivolousliterature or deeming the great
works of Rome and ancient Greeceto be foundational texts of an
education in the humanities,these attitudes towards valuing
(17:48):
some written words more thanothers has extended into modern
day, even within the attitudesof institutions like public
libraries, which we are stillworking to dispel today.
The history of guilty pleasurereading is definitely something
else I will be exploring thisseason, so stay tuned for more.
(18:09):
And with that, thank you forlistening to the first episode
of BBE Shorts.
As always, you can keep up withthe podcast on social media.
You can also see more bookreviews by heading over to
bigbookenergy.com.
Finally, if you'd like tosupport the podcast, you can
visit our bookshop store to getawesome books and support us and
independent booksellers at thesame time.
(18:30):
Or if you'd like access to ourbonus full length episodes and
other exclusive content, head onover to our Patreon.
All of these things will belinked in the show notes.
Thank you for listening and I'llsee you here next time.
Bye.
Welcome to the first episode of BBE Shorts My name is
Jennifer and I will be your hostfor today.
Paige can't come to the phoneright now because she is being
overwhelmed by the feral catpopulation around her house.
But don't worry.
I'm here to keep serving you thebookish content that you desire.
(00:33):
If you are new to Big BookEnergy, welcome.
If you are returning, you arealso welcome.
We are two archivists andlibrarians talking about the
thing we love most, which isbooks, big surprise.
We get together every now andagain to chat about books based
around a theme.
Season four's theme is GuiltyPleasures.
(00:57):
In addition to BBE Shorts, wedrop full episodes once a month
for our amazing Patreonsupporters.
If you're not yet a Patreonsupporter, you can always unlock
our full library of content foras little as$5.
Without further ado, let's getinto the episode.
(01:18):
This has already been a mess anda half, let me tell you, and I
think this is what I get fortrying to podcast without Paige.
My original plan was that theseepisodes were going to be in
video and audio format.
So posted on our YouTube and onour regular podcasting apps.
But my technology has failed me.
(01:42):
My mic and my camera don't wantto play nice anymore.
I don't know.
I'm going to have to figure thatout somehow.
So until then, these are justgoing to be audio.
I'm sorry.
Or you're welcome.
One of the two.
At least this way I can continueto just look like a gremlin
while I'm recording.
Like I don't have to prettymyself up for you guys, which is
(02:02):
kinda nice, but ideally,eventually these will also be
available on our YouTube.
But anyway let's talk aboutguilty pleasure reads.
I honestly can't even rememberhow the theme guilty pleasures
came up.
It was in our little bank ofthemes that we brainstormed up
like ages ago, and we decided tothrow it into the mix for our
(02:24):
poll for this season.
Because every season we let ourlisteners vote from four
different theme options.
And I think neither of us wereexpecting this theme to be as
popular as it was, because itwas really popular.
It was pretty much a landslidein favor of the guilty pleasures
(02:45):
theme.
So what do I think of when Ithink of guilty pleasure reads?
I guess first thing I think ofwould be like romance books,
like books you might actuallyfeel a little guilty or really
embarrassed to be caughtreading.
Usually I think this has to dowith like the classic romance
(03:05):
covers, you know, it's a womanin a corset, tearing the shirt
off of a studly man.
I guess that's more periodromances.
So with contemporary romance, onthe cover the man usually isn't
wearing shirt at all.
I remember one time when I wasworking at the public library,
someone came in and checked outa supernatural romance where the
(03:29):
cover was literally a naked man,like full frontal naked man.
And he was supposed to have beenlike a werewolf who had just
transformed back into his humanform because it was a
supernatural werewolf romance.
And the only thing preservingthe briefest bit of his modesty
was this little tendril of mistcoming up from the forest floor
(03:52):
that just so happened to coverhis manhood, you know?
So I have to give props to thispatron because I don't know if I
could have checked that out in apublic library.
Like they didn't even go throughthe self-checkout machine.
They came to a person and with astraight face, checked out this
book with like this ridiculouscover on it.
But I don't know, maybe I'm justlike less mature than I thought,
(04:15):
but I was like really impressedthat they were totally
comfortable checking out thisbook.
There's also this really funnytrend on instagram reels and
probably also Tik Toks as well,but I haven't succumbed to the
time sink that is Tik Tok yetwhere people pretend they get
caught right in the middle of aspicy scene of a romance book.
(04:39):
So yeah, there's this sense ofguiltiness, a sense of like
forbidden pleasure maybe withromance books?
But thinking about it, that'snot the only thing that comes to
mind when I think of feelingguilty while reading, because in
actuality, I almost never feelguilty over reading the content
(05:01):
of what I'm reading.
Like when I really think aboutit, I'm like, what am I actually
guilty about?
If I'm guilty while reading,like I, I'm not ashamed of the
content of what I'm reading.
So I usually feel guilty becauseI feel like I should be reading
something else.
There's some sense in my mind ofwhat I should and should not be
(05:21):
reading.
So when I was in grad school,that was easy enough to figure
out because if I was readinganything that was not my
assigned reading for classes,that meant I was procrastinating
on my work and I was creating ahuge, horrible, stressful mess
for future Jennifer.
And yes, I did that every weekof every semester of my entire
(05:45):
four years of grad schoolexperience.
Although, to be honest, I wasusually watching Netflix instead
of reading for fun at the time.
But definitely any time I didpick up a book that wasn't like
The Making of Europe or Autumnof The Middle Ages or something,
I definitely felt the guilt.
So I'm not in grad schoolanymore.
(06:07):
I should definitely not havethat feeling anymore, right?
So wrong.
I am great at being hard onmyself 1000% of the time, I am a
Virgo to my core in that way.
Now podcast reading is often thething I'm procrastinating on,
which literally as I recordthis, I am procrastinating on
(06:27):
what I'm supposed to be readingfor our next podcast episode.
So any reading I do outside ofpodcast reading brings on that
same guilty feeling that I'msupposed to be reading something
else.
I often feel guilty over readingYA or fantasy as well.
If you didn't know already, I'vebeen supposedly working on this
read- my- shelf challenge allyear.
(06:50):
Yeah.
That thing that I was supposedto be doing, I haven't finished
a single book sitting on myshelf that I didn't read in
2020, like not a single one.
And when the YA or fantasy bookthat has been making the rounds
through Bookstagram, and I'vebeen waiting for my hold to come
in for months pops up in myLibby app.
(07:13):
Yeah, I feel guilty checkingthat out over the very lonely
books on my shelf, which whileamazing, tend to also be much
denser nonfiction or academictexts.
So I'll admit they're not asexciting as Blood and Ash or
These Violent Delights orsomething like that.
In fact, I'm still technicallyon a Libby- Scribd- Libro FM
(07:39):
ban, while I try and forcemyself to break my reading slump
and get back into readingregularly, which for some reason
has been a struggle for meprobably since about January I
think.
Maybe actually now that I thinkabout it, reading some of my
guilty pleasure reads mightactually bring back some of that
joy for me?
I know I often recommend that topeople who are in reading
slumps, like going back andreading some of your all-time
(08:02):
favorite books can be reallytherapeutic in that way.
Kind of breaking that block thatyou've developed about reading.
I should probably take my ownadvice in that.
I guess I just am really wantingto complete this read- my- shelf
challenge.
At least one book, you know, ormaybe like 10 out of the 30 that
(08:25):
I have to read would be nice bythe end of the year, maybe.
So that's been, that's been astruggle.
But if you had to pin me down tolike specific guilty pleasure
reads, like specific books,which really, I just interpret
guilty pleasure reads as booksthat kind of make me like squee
(08:45):
with excitement when I get tosit down on a weekend and read
them in bed all day.
You know, it's just like thatreally excited feeling you have
when you were like, oh my gosh,I just get to sit down and read
this amazing book that I love somuch.
So I guess really guiltypleasure reads for me would kind
of translate into like comfortreads.
(09:05):
They're usually reads that Ihave gone through before.
So I'm already familiar withthem and the stories just make
me really happy.
And it usually is alsoassociated with having like a
full day to dedicate to readingthem.
So like plenty of time, it feelsvery luxurious to spend a full
day on reading since I typicallydon't get to do that.
But yeah, specific, guiltypleasure reads.
(09:27):
This is going to be probablyvery, very cliche.
Any Jane Austen book.
Any Jane Austen.
100% guilty pleasure read, loveit.
Love to read it.
It's very comforting for me toread Jane Austen.
Also in the same vein any JaneAusten diary by Amanda Grange.
She does a lot of Jane Austeninterpretations, but the ones
(09:49):
that I love the most are shedoes diaries from the
perspective of the leading maleroles in each Jane Austen book.
So my faves are Mr.
Darcy's Diary and CaptainWentworth's Diary because those
are my favorite Austen leads,male leads, I should say.
Anything by Eva Ibbotson, whichis again, more kind of period
(10:14):
romance.
Although they're not spicyromance there They're not spicy
at all, but they're just verylike sweet romantic stories.
Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith,which is a really good- I, I
love this book and I don't knowwhy people don't talk about this
book, but I fucking love CrownDuel by Sherwood Smith.
I've read this book so manytimes and I would 100% recommend
(10:38):
it.
It is, I wouldn't say it's afantasy, there are a couple of
fantastical elements, but thefantasy, the, the magical
elements are not really thefocus of the story.
So I guess kind of it's afantasy because there's some
magical elements, but for themost part, it's kind of almost
like a political intrigue typebook.
(11:00):
It's set in kind of like ageneric middle ages or later
middle ages, kind of earlymodern European setting.
And it's all about a girl'smission to take down a corrupt
and evil king and place herselfor her brother on the throne
instead.
It's just so good.
(11:20):
I love the main character.
She is amazing.
And the romance in this book isprobably one of my favorite
romance stories ever.
So yeah, if you haven't read itCrown Duel by Sherwood Smith yet
you 100% should.
Next up we have Radiance byGrace Draven and company.
(11:41):
I think there's a couple ofother authors involved with this
one as well.
And this is 100% a spicy fantasyromance.
Love this story.
It's total like friends tolovers type romance story, and
it's amazing and the other likefantasy plot surrounding it
doesn't actually take away forme.
(12:02):
Cause that happens sometimes inromance.
I'm just like, I don't need thisextraneous plot.
But it's not like that in thisbook for me.
I haven't read the sequel to it,but I really, really did enjoy
Radiance.
Next up we have the Winter Nighttrilogy we already know from
season three that I love thistrilogy.
I loved The Bear and theNightingale.
(12:23):
We did a whole episode on that,which is the first book in the
Winter Night trilogy byElizabeth Arden.
And it's just amazing and I loveit and it's a comfort read,
which again, guilty pleasure...
If you pin me down to specificsto me, seems to translate more
into like comfort or nostalgiareads.
And lastly, honestly, probablysome of my favorite Webtoons
(12:45):
that I read and reread over andover again, there are some
Webtoons that I'm absolutelyobsessed with and I'm actually
planning on probably breakingthose down a little bit more in
a separate BBE Shorts episode.
So definitely keep an eye outfor that.
I'll be giving you my favoriteWebtoon recommendations.
My favorite guilty pleasure,spicy romance Webtoon
(13:06):
recommendations.
But these are just my thoughtson guilty pleasure reads.
What do other people think aboutthem?
I decided to reach out on oursocial media accounts to see
what other people considered tobe their guilty pleasure reads
and I found myself reallysurprised with the variety of
(13:27):
responses that I got.
Some of the responses included: make your own adventure books; (13:28):
undefined
books you didn't finish- which Itotally get that; psychology of
serial killers or true crimebooks; horror or thriller books,
so like anything by Stephen Kingor Robert B.
Parker; fantasy, because ittakes time away from keeping up
(13:51):
with professional literature-which I also understand; Tamora
Pierce because her books arecomforting or nostalgic; murder
mysteries; pleasure readingthat's done solely for yourself;
and finally fanfiction.
So in my opinion, there's lotsof different types of guilt in
this list.
(14:11):
The guilt of a lonely stack ofbooks that stare at you from
your bookshelf, silently waitingfor you to pick them up again.
I feel this all the time becausethat's basically all of my
physical books, right?
I'm failing in my unread shelfchallenge.
They're all just waiting to beread.
There's also similar guilt towhat I described before with my
own reading (14:30):
feeling like I should be reading something
else, right?
There's like other readingthat's more important or should
be prioritized higher than whatI've chosen to read.
I think fanfiction also bringsup some really interesting
questions for me.
So is this worthy of guiltbecause it is building a story
within another author's world?
(14:50):
Are the stories not canon andthat's why you should feel
guilty about them?
Or is it because they haven'tbeen traditionally published so
perhaps they seem less worthy ofbeing read.
Another thing that reallyinterested me is that some of
the respondents just answeredwith genres of books.
What makes murder mysteries orthrillers a guilty pleasure?
(15:15):
Maybe this satisfies aparticular obsession on the part
of the reader, making thereading itself more pleasurable
and decadent feeling.
But I wonder too if everyone ismaking their own unconscious
judgments on what books are moreor less valuable, like more or
less valid to spend their timeon.
(15:37):
It was refreshing though thatseveral people also commented on
how they don't like to viewthese books as a guilty
pleasure, but rather justpleasure reading.
In truth, I think they've landedon a very healthy view of
reading.
Despite our theme title, Paigeand I firmly believe that
reading is reading is readingand we're actually hoping to
(16:00):
dispel some of that guilt youmay feel over the course of this
season.
It's all valid.
You shouldn't feel guilty forreading something as opposed to
something else.
I would love to hear some moreof your guilty pleasure reads.
So make sure to reach out onInstagram or Twitter and who
knows, I may even end upreviewing your guilty pleasure
fav in one of my BBE Shortsepisodes.
(16:22):
Yes.
The last question that I hadthinking about introducing this
theme of guilty pleasures forseason four: where does this
feeling of guilt come from?
Scarlet! Good Lord.
Okay, let me let the dog inhere.
(16:43):
I'll just leave this dog ASMR inthe episode.
Oh, my God.
She's so thirsty.
Now that we've gotten past ourdog interruption, our weekly dog
interruption- not weekly, it'sjust every time I am recording
an episode, Scarlet wants to getin here, which to be fair, her
water and her food bowl are inhere.
But most of the time it'sbecause she just wants to check
(17:04):
in and see what I'm doing andthen she wants to leave.
Anyway where does this feelingof guilt come from and why do we
seem to automatically deem somebooks as being more valid than
others?
Or at the very least there arebooks we don't have to feel as
guilty about reading.
That at least in Westernculture, which I'm most familiar
(17:25):
with, there's actually a longhistory of guilt in reading that
perhaps we have inherited.
Whether it was preferencingreligious works over other types
of quote, unquote, frivolousliterature or deeming the great
works of Rome and ancient Greeceto be foundational texts of an
education in the humanities,these attitudes towards valuing
(17:48):
some written words more thanothers has extended into modern
day, even within the attitudesof institutions like public
libraries, which we are stillworking to dispel today.
The history of guilty pleasurereading is definitely something
else I will be exploring thisseason, so stay tuned for more.
(18:09):
And with that, thank you forlistening to the first episode
of BBE Shorts.
As always, you can keep up withthe podcast on social media.
You can also see more bookreviews by heading over to
bigbookenergy.com.
Finally, if you'd like tosupport the podcast, you can
visit our bookshop store to getawesome books and support us and
independent booksellers at thesame time.
(18:30):
Or if you'd like access to ourbonus full length episodes and
other exclusive content, head onover to our Patreon.
All of these things will belinked in the show notes.
Thank you for listening and I'llsee you here next time.
Bye.
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