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PODCAST

Cracked Spines

Cyrus Amelia Fisher and Sarah Palmer

Crack open a good book with two wise-cracking besties. Sarah and Cyrus are two queer English majors who use their degrees to commit crimes against literature.Support us on Patreon for bonus episodes and merch! https://www.patreon.com/crackedspinespodcast

comedy books

All Episodes

55:23

Animorphs Part 8: You Can't Keep Inventing Gods!

Cracked Spines ·

2025/09/22

Hello friends, it's that special time of year - Animorphs time! And also Wasteland Weekend, but you don't care about that, you care about Cyrus and Sarah dunking on these traumatized teens! This week, books 38-42 are up for discussion, and they're kind of a mixed bag: strong performances from Ax and Jake, and a subpar showing from Sarah's fav, Rachel. Also on the docket: the squirrels that live in our ceiling and Cyrus' murderous vendetta against them, mispronouncing words, and the fact Sarah...

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59:16

Heaven Official's Blessing (Part 3 and 4)

Cracked Spines ·

2025/09/08

This week, Cyrus and Sarah are back in the danmei mines, this time with books three and four of Heaven Official's Blessing by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu and if you thought the last two books were complicated and convoluted, get ready for more characters, more extended flashbacks, and more messy interpersonal drama! Listen in awe as our intrepid readers struggle with character names, timelines, and how much these books have in common with zeitgeist-y movie Saltburn. Support the show

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60:39

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin

Cracked Spines ·

2025/08/25

This week, Cyrus and Sarah dig into Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker-Martin, a horror novel that asks what if Invasion of the Body Snatchers was set at a conversion camp, and wouldn't that just be so super fucked up? Also on the table is a larger discussion of the extreme horror genre, the nightly abduction of our rooster Bubba, and PISS KINK (all caps). According to Cyrus, the only things a book really needs are the following: body horror, transgender stuff, and goo. Cuckoo has all three! Support t...

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53:38

Heaven Official's Blessing (Volumes 1 and 2)

Cracked Spines ·

2025/08/12

Welcome to our first episode covering the Heaven Official's Blessing series by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu! And also the Saw franchise. A media match made in heaven that definitely makes complete sense to pair in one episode, because isn't Xie Lian's life just one long Saw trap, in a way? As Cyrus is reading the series for the first time and Sarah for the second, delicious dramatic irony ensues. Sarah and Cyrus discuss the budding character relationships, the MXTX of it all, and speculate on the meanin...

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73:12

Chicken Book Extravaganza feat. Our Actual Chickens

Cracked Spines ·

2025/07/28

Greetings listeners, here it is - the chicken episode, featuring our five beautiful daughters. This week, Cyrus and Sarah dig into some books about chickens: their personalities, their care and keeping, and how to turn your beautiful backyard into a chicken paradise. If you're a patron, head on over to the Patreon to see our intrepid co-hosts desperately try to get these unruly birds to sit in their laps. It goes about as well as you'd expect. Support the show

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53:53

Animorphs Part 7: Put Him In The Horse Plinko

Cracked Spines ·

2025/07/14

Cyrus and Sarah are back at it again in the Animorphs mines, this time covering books thirty-four through thirty-seven, and things are getting....well, kind of mid, to be honest. Except for the torture. The torture is great. Dive in to hear our intrepid readers arguing about the Goo Goo Dolls for what seems like forever, a whole lot of talk about the SAW franchise, and, unfortunately, a load-bearing bit about Scurvy the cat's nether regions. Don't say I didn't warn you. Support the show

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60:38

Barbarian Beds: The Origin of the Chair in China by...

Cracked Spines ·

2025/06/30

This week on Cracked Spines, Cyrus and Sarah dive into Sarah's latest obsession with Chinese history, cracking open several books by...mostly white authors in the 60's-80's. Okay, so it may not be an scholastically accurate or ethical deep dive, but it is fascinating. Listen as Sarah infodumps on Cyrus about the perils of learning the Chinese language, poetry translation, and gendered nouns. Content warning: humorous mentions of suicide and absolute butchering of French, Spanish, and ...

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46:46

Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage by...

Cracked Spines ·

2025/06/16

Say "I do" to checking out this weeks episode on Marriage, A History by Stephanie Coontz! See, I did a wedding pun, this description writing stuff is easy. Cyrus and Sarah tackle nonfiction this episode, and have a rollicking discussion about marriage as a centrally organizing pillar of society, women's work, relationships as a capitalist construct, and the equitable division of labor in a platonic lifemate situation. Also how hot they are in Cyrus' bedroom, and how cute Scurvy's little snore...

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50:40

The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson

Cracked Spines ·

2025/06/03

It's finally happening - Cyrus and Sarah have finally read The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson! Turns out they loved it, but isn't that always the way with books you've been putting off? Baru Cormorant is a twisty turny hard fantasy novel about the devastation of empire, with fabulous worldbuilding, fantastic characters, and also it's kinda gay. We love to see it. Topics of discussion include the belief structures behind imperialism, the joy of an unreliable narrator, and what the fu...

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44:47

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee

Cracked Spines ·

2025/05/20

Did you know it's really hard to write jokes about books with central themes of racism? Cyrus and Sarah find this out while covering Pachinko by Min Jin Lee, an epic historical fiction novel about the the 20th century Korean experience of Japan. Our intrepid readers, who were sooo sleepy this week, cover personal experiences with identity, the Korean horror movie Exhuma (which totally whips), dead relatives, and the mythologizing of the family narrative. Did I mention they're sooo sleepy? Sup...

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58:22

Sunrise on the Reaping/The Ballad of Songbirds and...

Cracked Spines ·

2025/05/06

Are we in the cultural zeitgeist yet? This week, Cyrus and Sarah cover Sunrise on the Reaping AND The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins, the two latest Hunger Games novels, both of which are prequels to the original trilogy. Did our intrepid readers kind of forget how brutal these books can get? Yeah a little bit. But if we've learned anything from the Animorphs episodes, Cyrus and Sarah love it when teenagers experience inconceivable horrors. Also discussed are the comings an...

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55:46

READING DEATH PACT THUNDERDOME ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN

Cracked Spines ·

2025/04/22

RESULTS ARE IN, FOLKS. In the past month, Sarah and Cyrus made a bet to see who could read the most books out of their combined TBR piles. Sarah is a super fast reader with one day a week to functionally dedicate to churning through books; Cyrus is an absolute competitive maniac who would rather destroy their body and mind rather than lose. The stakes: either financial ruin for Cyrus, or automotive ruin for Sarah. Two men enter; one man leaves (with their dignity, at least). Support the...

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58:34

Animorphs Part 6: The Bright, Clear Line

Cracked Spines ·

2025/04/07

Back at it again in the Animorphs mines. This time, we're reading books 28 through 32, a group that contains vitally important plot, thoughtful and moving character moments, and also whatever is happening in book 28. Cyrus professes their undying love for Marco's self-aware ruthlessness. Sarah understands the world better through children's literature. We both get increasingly nervous about our upcoming reading death pact. Support the show

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65:48

TBR Pile Death Pact

Cracked Spines ·

2025/03/24

Okay, maybe it's not a death pact. More of a "financially ruinous" pact for Cyrus specifically. But with the stakes on the table, they're more than willing to dive in. And with how annoying Cyrus is in this episode, Sarah is happy to crush them beneath capitalism's bootheel. But this is mostly, theoretically, not an episode about engaging in potentially friendship-ending contests of reading might. Mostly it's about the cool books we've read, the cool books we want to read, and the fact ...

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62:26

Animorphs Part 5: The Weekend is Cancelled

Cracked Spines ·

2025/03/11

This week on Cracked Spines, we are discussing Animorphs books 23 through 27, a chunk that includes one of the best books of the series so far and also Cassie lying to strangers about androids while inside a Spencer's Gifts. The series contains multitude and, as we get into this middle stretch, filler. Join us as we watch young teens grapple with intergalactic war, cross-species dating, and the Space Devil. Support the show

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68:22

Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix

Cracked Spines ·

2025/02/25

Our favorite horror writer is back at it again! This week we read Witchcraft for Wayward Girls by Grady Hendrix, a truly harrowing mixture of pregnancy horror, social horror, and eels. In this episode, as you can probably imagine, we talk a lot about abortion rights, fucked up pregnancy stuff, and infanticide. Like honestly probably way too much discussion of infanticide, oopsie, sorry about that. Proceed with caution accordingly. More pregnancy/motherhood/baby horror recs: Nestli...

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58:48

Sarah's Bummer of an Extended Vacation: The 2025...

Cracked Spines ·

2025/02/19

Hey, everyone! Sarah is one of the thousands of unionized healthcare workers on strike in Oregon. At their last job, Cyrus saw how hard a company will work to destroy a union. Let's do some labor chatting. This is a different episode than usual. We've been thinking about doing some extra episodes on our off weeks about stuff, and this episode? Well, I'm not sure it's the best example of our ideas for what the interstitial episodes will look like, but by god it's sure not about books. Cl...

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61:14

This is KINDA an Episode about Murderbot

Cracked Spines ·

2025/02/11

We discuss the new Murderbot novel, System Collapse by Martha Wells! Which came out in... 2023. We're really part of the zeitgeist. And really, we only talk about Murderbot a little bit before the episode just becomes a confessional booth. Our financial habits are tearing this family apart. Our construction projects are tearing our house apart. Here is a link to Emily Axford's journey to flush a cake down the toilet. No one can say this episode didn't go up on Monday. Support the show

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60:04

Vermis: Which Flesh is Your Flesh?

Cracked Spines ·

2025/01/28

Haunted catacombs! Mysterious knights! Rat man! For those looking for a game manual on their quest through Vermis, you couldn't ask for more. For those looking to actually play Vermis, well, we've got bad news. The book is a video game manual for a retro soulslike that doesn't exist. It's a fantastic piece of meta-fiction with amazing art by Plastiboo, and we loved it so much---and had complicated feelings about the sequel. So select your character (Rat Man superiority) and dive in. Chec...

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58:18

Animorphs Part 4: We HAVE to Talk about David

Cracked Spines ·

2025/01/13

Everyone was like, "look out for David *eyes emoji*" and in this episode we find out why. These three books are jampacked with moments that made us scream a little and we discuss them. (Spoiler: RACHEL. I LOVE YOU, QUEEN.) Sarah marvels at Animorph's Pain Per Page ratio. Cyrus ponders if they could fight a whale. None of the characters are happy, but boy did we have a good time. Support the show

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