Episode 160 - Biographical Fiction & Fictional Biographies

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

This episode we’re talking about Biographical Fiction & Fictional Biographies! We talk about metafiction, superhero origins as cover songs, spaceship detectives, cat biographies, amendments to amendments, alien abductions, and more!

You can download the podcast directly, find it on Libsyn, or get it through Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, or your favourite podcast delivery system.

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Nat Tate: An American Artist: 1928-1960 by William Boyd
  • Wikipedia
• Maigret's Memoirs by Georges Simenon, translated by Howard Curtis
  • Matthew was wrong about how many books in this series came out in one month, but based on the French Wikipedia article four titles (including this one) were released in 1951.
• Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg
  • Jack Sheppard (Wikipedia)
• The Dreamer by Pam Muñoz Ryan and Peter Sís
• Orlando: A Biography by Virginia Woolf (Wikipedia)
• Summertime by J.M. Coetzee

Other Media We Mentioned

• Oscar Wilde Murder Mysteries Series by Gyles Brandreth
• Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
• Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
• Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life by Philip José Farmer
• What Is the What by Dave Eggers
• Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (Wikipedia)
• Blonde (2022 film) (Wikipedia)
• Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates
• Smile (2022 film) (Wikipedia)
• Bastard Out of Carolina by Dorothy Allison
• The Limits of Autobiography: Trauma, Testimony, Theory by Leigh Gilmore
• The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
• The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
• Summer Fun by Jeanne Thornton
• Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf (Wikipedia)
• A Field Guide to the Aliens of Star Trek: The Next Generation by Joshua Chapman (zine series)
  • We can’t find a good link for the zines, but it’s been collected as a book
• Interview with the Vampire (film) (Wikipedia)
• A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
• The Big Lebowski (Wikipedia)
• Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal by Christopher Moore

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 143 - Amish Romance
• Episode 119 - Regence Romance
• Episode 094 - Chick Lit Romance
• Episode 070 - Erotic Romance
• The 7 Best Library Podcasts
• Fictionalized biography (Encyclopædia Britannica)
• Autofiction (Wikipedia)
• Isekai (Wikipedia)
• Oliver Cromwell (Wikipedia)
• Epistolary novel (Wikipedia)
• Episode 111 - Happy Birthday Dracula
• Episode 128 - Plucky Kid Detective
• Episode 136 - Hearts of Magic: Threads Entangled
• List of biblical figures identified in extra-biblical sources (Wikipedia)
• List of Dewey Decimal classes (Wikipedia)
• National Library of Medicine classification (Wikipedia)
• Zaphod Beeblebrox (Wikipedia)
  • “Vell, Zaphod’s just zis guy, you know?”
• False memory: Mandela Effect (Wikipedia)

17 Fictional Biographies books by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) Authors

Every month Book Club for Masochists: A Readers’ Advisory Podcasts chooses a genre at random and we read and discuss books from that genre. We also put together book lists for each episode/genre that feature works by BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Colour) authors. All of the lists can be found here.

• Carolina Built by Kianna Alexander
• Clotel: or, The President's Daughter by William Wells Brown
• Pocahontas by Joseph Bruchac
• American Woman by Susan Choi
• The Black Rose by Tananarive Due
• The Reason for Crows: A Story of Kateri Tekakwitha by Diane Glancy
• Stone Heart: A Novel of Sacajawea by Diane Glancy
• Driving the King by Ravi Howard
• Delayed Rays of a Star by Amanda Lee Koe
• Leo Africanus by Amin Maalouf, translated by Peter Sluglett
• Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
• Dancing in the Dark by Caryl Phillips
• Douglass' Women by Jewell Parker Rhodes
• I the Supreme by Augusto Roa Bastos, translated by Helen Lane
• Empress by Shan Sa
• The Book of Salt by Monique Truong
• Black Cloud Rising by David Wright Faladé

Give us feedback!

• Fill out the form to ask for a recommendation or suggest a genre or title for us to read!

Check out our Tumblr, follow us on Twitter or Instagram, join our Facebook Group, or send us an email!

Join us again on Tuesday, October 18th for our SpoooooOOOoooky Halloween episode we’ll be talking about the concept of Hate Reads!

Then on Tuesday, November 1st we’ll be discussing the genre of Investigative Journalism!