Book Club From Hell

Limits to Medicine (1975) describes how and why industrialised medicine contributes to an 'iatrogenic society', in which all political grievances are converted into demands for more industrial commodities. Helping me out with this easy and straightforward topic is Lucas Smith, ruling theocrat of Bonfire Books, an excellent small publisher who will be releasing my next novel, Audience Capture, in October of this year.Apologies if the audio in a few sections is a bit scratchy, we had recording issues and I've tried my best to surgically (in a holistic, Illichian sense, one preserving an art of suffering) reconstruct our conversation. Furthermore, I realise that I have done two episodes on similar topics recently. I apologise profusely for this, and can guarantee that upcoming episodes will have absolutely nothing to do with medicine or Ivan Illich.Spare Us Yet: https://www.amazon.com/dp/195131994xBonfire Books website: bonfirebooks.orgBonfire Books on X: @BooksBonfireBonfire Books on Substack: https://substack.com/@bonfirebooksVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Fedbook is a good book about feds. Less glibly, it's a ton of fun, a gothic espionage thriller about an informant placed in a terror cell, one planning a mass-casualty attack on a university. It's formally inventive, surprising, and, despite the whole mass-shooter thing, it's also very funny. John and I talked about Fedbook, his upcoming book ('Pierce', to be released by Farthest Heaven), Christian justifications for violence, /lit/, framing carpentry, and a lot more. Buy Fedbook: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/B0BRC7Z2Q9John's Substack: https://johnjaystancliff.substack.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Prison psychologist Jerry Marzinsky and civil engineer, quantum expert, computer programmer and occasional voice-hearer Sherry Swiney have developed a new theory of schizophrenia. As it happens, the voices one hears are not hallucinations, but instead thoughts inserted by cosmic predators, who feed off the negative energy produced by humans in a state of misery. How did Jerry and Sherry find this out? By interviewing the voices heard by psychotic prisoners (I am not exaggerating).Jerry Marzinsky's website: https://www.jerrymarzinsky.com/Buy An Amazing Journey: https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1716919541Capitalisimo on X: @thecapitalisimoVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Morning Glory Milking Farm (2022) is an extremely successful self-published work of 'monster-bait' romantasy. In short, it details the budding relationship between Violet, a human female, and Rourke, a minotaur male, who met at Morning Glory Milking Farm, where Violet is working as a minotaur milking technician. There's a point at which a euphemism becomes more descriptive than that which it seeks to soften. The verb 'to milk' has comfortably reached such a point.Given that I have no experience at all with romantasy or monster-bait, Leigh Cuen joined me to navigate the intricacies of clit-lit.Leigh on Substack: https://substack.com/@acjrLeigh's website: https://leighcuen.com/Buy Morning Glory Milking Farm: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BSKNYD2NCM Nascosta's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Monster_BaitVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Emshen joins me this episode to talk about Sacred Heart of the Purple Dawn, a bizarre choose-your-own-adventure novel (kind of) written by a man Emshen once got a Tarot reading from. Starring lesbian vampires, 90s action film comic relief black men, and (most horrifyingly) the Québécois, it was both a much more exhausting and much funnier experience than I was expecting.Sun Cross Publications: https://www.suncrosspublications.com/Get Sacred Heart of the Purple Dawn: https://www.suncrosspublications.com/product-page/sacred-heart-of-the-purple-dawnVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Phil Rot is back! After winning the Nobel Prize in Physics for his micronovel The Raft, Phil is gearing up for another Nobel with his newly-released The Moon Is Gay. Besides having maybe the best book title of all time, it is also a brave, timely, elegiac, lyrical, epochal, and moving account of camgirl diplomacy in a fast-paced, competitive, ultra-convenient, AI-enabled Amazon future. It also features gay moon werewolves. Phil and I got to talk about mole people, tunnels, Phil's writing process, why the poor can't produce great art, Phil's real name (Philip Roth), and a whole lot more.Buy The Moon Is Gay: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0G6Y2L3WK/Phil Rot on Substack: https://philrot.substack.com/VERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

I tend to think of phrenology as a 19th-century phenomenon. In 1902, LA Vaught, late to the party, published 'Vaught's Practical Character Reader', a work seeking to (re)popularise phrenology. Mostly charming drawings and advertisements for phrenology ('it's plain to see!' is a commonly used phrase), it's a fun read, albeit one that is so chaotically set out that it's kinda hard to follow.Capitalisimo joined me for this episode, helping me to phrenologically and physiognomically analyse various world leaders and luminaries.NB: This episode is probably best watched as a video, as we examine Vaught's illustrations and carry out phrenological case studies using Google image search.Capitalisimo on X: @thecapitalisimoTooky's Mag Sidebar: https://www.youtube.com/@tookysmag/podcastsDrive Time Movie Night: https://rumble.com/c/c-6180416/livestreamsVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Brad Kelly, of the Method and Madness podcast, returns to talk about his new book, The Earthen Dark. It's a work of weird fiction set in a sewer. Turns out, this is the perfect place to set such a tale. We talked about why subterranean places are so spooky, the near and far alien of weird fiction, the Glass Bead Game and LLMs, the effect of having children on one's writing, the provenance of imagination, Brad's writing process, and a whole lot more.Get The Earthen Dark here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GF67226LBrad's website: https://www.bradkellyesque.com/Brad on Substack: https://bradkellyesque.substack.com/Brad on X: @bradkellyVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Utter Goodness is an upcoming short story collection written by Audrey Lee and published by Farthest Heaven. Its thirteen stories are lovely character studies, various faces of that peculiarly American form of cultural maximalism, and each rendered in very lithe prose. There's a kinda extemporising quality to the writing here, if one could extemporise in full paragraphs with foreshadowing and multiple layers of meaning, etc, etc, ect. It's good! We spent a lot of time talking about how Audrey comes up with these characters, and how her return to faith influenced the writing of Utter Goodness, both consciously and unconsciously. This will be the last episode this year. We'll start releasing things again early 2026. Get Utter Goodness here: https://farthestheaven.com/products/utter-goodnessAudrey's website: https://audreymorganlee.com/Audrey on X: @tinndfishmonger Audrey on Substack: https://jawndidion.substack.com/We mentioned Anna Krivolapova's work here, and you (you!) should also check it out: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCW2HGMXVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack has an upcoming novel called 'Audience Capture', out October 2016 through Bonfire Books!Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/bookclubfromhellOur Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheBookClubfromHellJack's Substack: jackbc.substack.comLevi's website: www.levioutloud.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

Chapters VIII, VIII and IX, titled 'Problems of the Arabian Culture', are some of the most fun in all of Spengler's work. In order to properly illuminate Spenglerian concepts like pseudomorphosis, the Pagan Church, the second religiousness, Islam as Magian Civilisation, and more, Gabe and I did what we do best: talk about gaming in Spenglerian terms. Turns out, Croteam's Serious Sam franchise is the perfect artefact of the coming Slavic soul, the endless flat plane, the erased z-axis of aiming, Siberian Mayhem...Gabe on X: @ezrarunnaroundTooky's Mag on X: @tookysmagVERY IMPORTANT INFORMATIONContact: jack.bcfh@gmail.comJack 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.comJoin our Discord (the best place to interact with us): https://discord.gg/nbRkVeztEQWatch us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0n7r1ZTpsUw5exoYxb4aKA/featuredX: @bookclubhell666Jack on X: @supersquat1Levi on X: @optimismlevi