tabacoychanel

On Know Your Enemy, Osita Nwanevu joins hosts Matt Sitman and Sam Adler-Bell to explain “if you are frustrated by the design of our democracy, it is because it was designed to frustrate you.” The life-changing magic of realizing the Founders did not give a shit about democracy! They cared a lot about stability though. Nwanevu has a new book out and his thesis is simple: 1) Democracy is good 2) America is not a democracy 3) we should try to be one. This is the rare leftist podcast that galvanizes me while loading up my Nonfiction TBR. I finally started pledging to their Patreon so I could have Discord access and I guess I’m joining yet another book club ...

On The Stacks, Traci Thomas and Alexis Madrigal discuss Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This made me remove Braiding Sweetgrass from my TBR because while it sounds entirely deserving of its “abolitionist classic” status, it also sounds like a text that rewards dipping into and out of rather than reading cover to cover. Alexis and Traci have a thought-provoking conversation about how we police language rather than the hierarchies that gave rise to that language (are realtors really listing houses as having a “primary bedroom” instead of “master bedroom”??).

On Life on Books, my favorite “we don’t read lowbrow genres” snobs (affectionate) Tony and Andrew react to an email from a listener who’s mad they don’t read enough books by women. Tony and Andrew are not super pressed about it (Tony and Andrew just released an episode for Women in Translation month). In the next episode, Tony and Andrew tell their supporters to simmer the fuck down. As creators, it was a net positive for them to yammer about this (critical but not rude or threatening) email because what else were they going to talk about on their weekly podcast?! Everything is fodder for the content mines, obviously.

Sep. 28th, 2025