Save Me From My Shelf Podcast
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smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Save Me From My Shelf Podcast
@smfmspodcast.bsky.social
640 followers 1.9K following 92 posts
A literature comedy podcast by two friends and academics. We take classic texts off their pedestal by making fun of them. Hosted by
@DrAbigailBoucher and @dcjenkin-smith

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savemefrommyshelf.com
savemefrommyshelf@gmail.com
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smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Some of you guessed our clue correctly:

For International Men's Day (19 November), we will be release the most laddish book we've ever read on the show: William Golding's 1954 anti-colonialist schoolboy castaway narrative, 'Lord of the Flies'.

No girls allowed, and 'Sucks to your Auntie!'
Book cover of Lord of the Flies, showing a bunch of (presumably) masked naked stick-figure lads dancing around with spears, on a red background that's dotted with flames, and also there is a big snake there. Book cover for Lord of the Flies showing a chaotic drawing of a jungle with loads of tiny lads looking lost in between the plants. Book cover of Lord of the Flies, showing a boy's face peering out from a bush, or perhaps wearing a sort of headdress mask thing made of leaves. I don't precisely know what I'm looking at. There are also a bunch of flies on a tree trunk or something in the foreground by his jaw. Book cover for Lord of the Flies showing a Rubenesque young lad in a schoolboy's uniform, with a fuck-off great big fly behind and over him, looking like it's almost going to pick him up. There are a pair of shattered glasses separate from this image, below the book's title.
November 4, 2025 at 11:21 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Happy Halloween, Shelfers!

We receive the ultimate honour (and Abby has been able to scratch this off her bucket list): a listener went as not one, but BOTH hosts for Halloween this year. Posted here with permission.

Apologies that we don't have their socials--please tag yourself if this is you!
Listener dressed up as Abby, with a light blonde wig and green dress, looking suitable louche and reading a copy of Rebecca. Listener dressed up as Daniel, with short dark hair and a long-sleeved cord shirt, holding a cup of tea and reading a book that looks suitably dry and academic.
October 31, 2025 at 12:58 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
It's time to guess the clue to our next episode, which will be released on International Men's Day (19 November).

For this episode, we don't want to hear a woman in our text. We don't even want to SEE a woman. And turns out, neither do any of the male characters.

What are we reading?
A still from the film '12 Angry Men', showing 11 angry men facing the camera. Still from the 1982 film The Thing, showing Kurt Russell and his stupendous hair pointing a gun at something off camera, while four other men look nervously on. Still from The Shawshank Redemption showing 10 prisoners in denim standing around and looking judgmentally at the camera. Still from the film Lawrence of Arabia, showing three men kitted up in their Arabian war gear and looking fucking fabulous, if concerned.
October 26, 2025 at 12:37 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
When you're going through hell, just keep going. Or so says The Divine Comedy!
Join us (and medieval heresy expert Justine) to discuss Dante (Caesar fanboy, civil engineering girlie, cringe bisxeual), and to hear Daniel's increasing anger over Abby's chosen circle.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
Minimalist cover of Dante's Divine Comedy, showing a gate that is one half Art Nouveau (heaven) and one half red spikes and fire (hell). Cover of the Divine Comedy, with Dante showing us a book in front of a Hieronymous Bosch-style Hell and Purgatory, presumably. No heaven. Cool medieval (?) illustration of the nine circles of hell, in roughly the shape of a tornado Okay cover of the Inferno, showing a silhouette of Dante, but his body is filled in with leverls of earth (the forest) and descending down through hell (fire, spikes, more fire, with Satan on the bottom.
October 15, 2025 at 8:41 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
For our spoooooky Halloween text, we will recap Dante's Divine Comedy (major focus on the 'Inferno' section).

And to help us do this, we will be joined by medieval heresy historian (and Abby's best friend/Daniel's enemy), Justine!

Tune in 15 Oct. for Dante's embarrassing self-insert Bible fanfic.
Cover of Dante's Divine Comedy showing two men standing in front of a wall of fire but looking up at the sun while angels fly overhead. Cover of Dante's Inferno showing two men looking unnerved as a positive tornado of lost souls swirls around overhead. Cover for Dante's Inferno. It's just some poorly-drawn fire. Cover for Dante's Divine Comedy, appropriately showing a painting of the poet (and kind of uggo) Dante in profile--he really makes this text all about him, so this is apt.
October 7, 2025 at 9:37 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
We've had a lot of guesses about our clue to the next episode (a text that's both hotter than 'Fahrenheit 451' and also ice cold), but no one has come close to getting it right.

Another clue:

After a long hiatus, the hosts will be joined by Abby's best friend, and MEDIEVAL SCHOLAR, Justine.
Photo collage of three photos, each showing two women from behind, one with long blonde hair and one with short dark hair, walking or standing with their arms around each other's waists.
October 2, 2025 at 10:44 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Time to guess the clue to our next episode!

This summer, we did a mini-season of texts that were 'Hot' (Streetcar), 'Hotter' (Fanny Hill), and 'Hottest' (Fahrenheit 451).

But can we find a text that is *even hotter* than Fahrenheit 451? Or maybe it's not hot at all. Maybe it's ice cold.
Photo of a rugged, harsh-looking snow-covered mountain.
October 1, 2025 at 7:19 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
'I really miss seeing racists and misogynists on TV' - verified Abby quote in Bookends 23, out today!

ALSO: outtakes from the 'Catcher in the Rye' episode, erotic imaginings of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and a massive upset involving Henry Fielding.

podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/s...
September 24, 2025 at 12:21 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Hey, ya phonies! Enjoying back-to-school? Well, our (anti)hero sure isn't! Join us for JD Salinger's 1951 ode to teen angst, 'Catcher in the Rye'.

Let's all have Buckfast at Tiffany's, put on weird hats, and argue about who has it worse in winter: ducks or fish.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
Book cover for Catcher in the Rye showing a young man in a red hunting hat walking between two cliffs, which have rye fields on top, but are also New York skyscrapers. Book cover for Catcher in the Rye showing a young man in a red hunting hat smoking a cigarette and the puffs of smoke turn into ducks flying away Book cover for Catcher in the Rye showing a red hunting hat with no one inside it. Book cover for Catcher in the Rye showing a psychotic looking red carousel horse hovering over a New York cityscape. You know this cover. This is the famous one. It's everywhere.
September 17, 2025 at 9:45 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
If you've been saving up your urine for a rainy day, tune in to our 'Catcher in the Rye' (1951) episode, which includes an investigation into the famous 'Hughes principle': the proposed overlap between aviation and bra technology.

Taking flight this Wednesday!
September 14, 2025 at 4:36 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
You guessed correctly! For the start of the autumn term, we're ... accidentally doing a Christmas book (look, neither of us had read this before).
Join us 17 September for J.D. Salinger's surprisingly funny masterpiece of teenage ennui, ducks, and hostile cab drivers: 'The Catcher in the Rye' (1951)
Catcher in the Rye book cover showing the dark figure of a boy in a red hunting hat standing on the edge of a cliff in a field of rye, but the cliff is also a skyscraper. Catcher in the Rye book cover showing a boy in a hunting hat a winter peacoat, with New York skyline showing on his coat. Catcher in the Rye book cover showing a boy from behind. He's wearing a red hunting hat and scarft and sitting in a field of rye, looking at New York city in the distance. Catcher in the Rye book cover showing a young man in a winter coat and red hunting hat, carrying a suitcase in a winter storm in a jolly-looking city.
September 1, 2025 at 12:41 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Your hosts are in the throes of prepping for a new school year, so we're going to guess the clue to our next episode a little early this time.

This is another pretty obvious clue, but what better way to celebrate the new school term than with someone deciding to play hookey?

What are we reading?
Picture of a boy wearing a baseball cap and a backpack standing with his arms angrily crossed and his back turned to a school bus driving by.
August 26, 2025 at 12:11 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Join us during this heatwave for our hottest text yet: Ray Bradbury's dystopian 'Fahrenheit 451' (1953).
Today we get one step closer to EGOT-ing, see more of Abby's French-Vermonter roots, and discuss some scholastic terms: fridging, Bowlderisation, and Futurismo.
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
August 13, 2025 at 9:04 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Recorded, and released, during a heatwave, we discover in this episode that high temperatures can yield provocative new visions about literature and culture.

Ray Bradbury's 'Fahrenheit 451' (1953) - out tomorrow!
August 12, 2025 at 10:58 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Loads of people guessed correctly! Our next very banned (and, ironically, often burned) book is Ray Bradbury's 1953 dystopia about the perils of anti-intellectualism, 'Fahrenheit 451'.

Tune in on 13 August for a lot of histrionics about technology!
Cover for Fahrenheit 451, showing a very shiny full-face fireman's helmet, reflecting the image of a burning book
August 4, 2025 at 8:43 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
It's time to guess the clue to our next episode in our season on banned books--and this might be the most obvious clue we've ever given.

Our summer texts have been getting increasingly hot. But what could possibly be hotter than our last episode, 'Fanny Hill'?
Image of a thermometer showing 100 degrees fahrenheit and 38 degrees celsius.
July 28, 2025 at 8:29 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Today's episode of SMFMS Bookends is a wild ride.

We reveal the podcast's best-kept secret (three years and we said nothing!), in addition to our plans to destroy every other podcast that might vie with us for your affections.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
Eraserhead and Baby
July 23, 2025 at 9:20 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
ATTENTION ALL PERVS: our 69th episode, covering John Cleland's 1749 erotic novel 'Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' (AKA 'Fanny Hill'), is out now!

Expect strapping footmen, polite applause during orgies, and plenty of red-hot turtlebilling!

podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/e...
July 16, 2025 at 10:48 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Join us on Wednesday for our episode on John Cleland's seminal (heh) erotic work, 'Fanny Hill' (1748).
In addition to lots of strange euphemisms for body parts, be prepared to learn about some bizarre sex acts, like (the maybe less dirty than originally thought) 'turtlebilling'.
July 14, 2025 at 12:30 PM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
We've had some feverish guessing of our next text and only one person got it right!
For our 69th episode (nice), we'll recap what is debatably the very first pornographic work to use the novel as its form: John Cleland's 'Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure' (1748).
Genitals at the ready!
Cover of Fanny Hill, showing a C18th man on his knees in what looks like a kitchen, pulling a lower-class woman in an apron toward him. Cover of Fanny Hill, showing an illustration of a C18th man and woman passionately kissing. The woman is wearing a cool hat. Cover of Fanny Hill, showing an illustration of what is clearly a late nineteenth- or early twentieth-century woman in her undergarments in her boudoir, smilingly standing against an ajar door through which a man is trying to get in. She doesn't look too bothered, but I am very bothered by the anachronistic cover. Cover of Fanny Hill, showing a 1960s style pulp illustration of a C18th woman lounging on her bed on top of a man, with her dress up around her knees and her stocking showing.
July 6, 2025 at 10:04 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Time to guess the clue to our next episode!
We're labelling our run of summer episodes: 'Hot, Hotter, and Hottest'.
Our next episode (Hotter) covers an erotic text that is also a literary classic and a very, very banned book.
What are we reading?

(it is NOT 'Dennis Reynolds: An Erotic Life')
Illustrated image of a woman reading a book and sexily biting her fingernail. Oooer! Steamy!
June 30, 2025 at 9:18 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Join us today for our Bookends episode on 'A Streetcar Named Desire'. We've gotten a request to show Daniel's famous boots (the ones by which he was diddled by a dodgy cobbler), so here you go.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/s...
A pair of mildly worn black boots with laces, set on a paving stone outside. The same pair of mildly worn black boots on a paving stone outside, but now turned over so we can see the luscious new soles, stronger and heartier than ever.
June 25, 2025 at 9:36 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Happy Pride, everyone! Today we look at Tennessee Williams's slutty 1947 play, 'A Streetcar Named Desire'.
We talk po'boys, suffer through a massive recording equipment failure, and Daniel reveals himself to be both the podcast's Brando AND a thriving gay man. 🌈
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/e...
Cover of Streetcar showing a still from the film, in which a shirtless Marlon Brandon has just made you horny Cover of Streetcar with an illustrated half-naked Stanley calls 'Hey Stella' up to Eunice's apartment. Slightly surreal and colour saturated cover of Streetcar, showing a sexed-up Blanche in a negligee brushing her hair behind a curtain, while men play poker a few feet away. It's all very 'Yoo hoo, boys!' Extremely '60s Mondrian-style colour squares with the words 'A Streetcar Named Desire' over the top. A production directed by Chris Coleman.
June 18, 2025 at 9:57 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
TOMORROW: We cover the first installment in Tennessee Williams' highly popular Historic Tramways of New Orleans Extended Theatrical Universe™: 'A Streetcar Named Desire' (1947).

FEAT: the bleeping out of the word 'tosser'.

Tune in!
June 17, 2025 at 8:43 AM
smfmspodcast.bsky.social
Several of you guessed our clue correctly!
We have labelled our run of summer episodes 'hot', 'hotter', and 'hottest'.
Join us on Wednesday 18 June for our first text, 'hot', as we go down to New Orleans and jump into the familial and delusional boiling pot that is 'A Streetcar Named Desire' (1947).
Abstract cover of Streetcar Named Desire showing a male stick figure wrangling two female stick figures (they're female becaue they have boobies) Illustrated cover of 'Streetcar' showing a New Orleans-style house with a man hanging out of the front door and a woman leaning on the porch. Cover of 'Streetcar' showing a badly illustrated moth near a badly illustrated lightbulb Cover for 'Streetcar' showing a still from the film where a drunken Stanley kneels before Blanche, who is descending the stairs, and leans his head on her stomach.
June 8, 2025 at 12:13 PM