The Terrible Reading Club
The Terrible Reading Club is a podcast about great books for truly terrible times.
Each episode centers a book that deals with Hard Stuff and features an interview with the author about their work. And the best part about this reading club? You don’t need to read the book ahead of time!
Latest Episode
In 2014, 12-year-old Payton “Bella” Leutner was stabbed 19 times by two other tween girls. The crime was well publicized as the Slenderman stabbings because the two girls who committed the stabbing said a fictional character named Slenderman told them to do it. The girls were tried as adults for attempted murder (Payton lived) and…
Featured Episodes
23. “Slenderman” with Kathleen Hale
January 7, 2024 • Ep. • 58 min 41 sec
In 2014, 12-year-old Payton “Bella” Leutner was stabbed 19 times by two other tween girls. The crime was well publicized as the Slenderman stabbings because the two girls who committed the stabbing said a fictional character named Slenderman told them to do it. The girls were tried as adults for attempted murder (Payton lived) and…
22. “Christmas Orphan Club” with Becca Freeman
December 3, 2023 • Ep. 22 • 1 min 5 sec
Tis the season for a holiday read, and Becca Freeman has written the coziest novel that ticks all the boxes: friendship, romance, and just a sprinkle of grief and trauma. Nora and Becca share all about their past holidays, favorite Christmas movies, and more.
18. “This Story Will Change” with Elizabeth Crane
October 8, 2023 • Ep. 18 • 46 min 19 sec
Elizabeth Crane didn’t want to get divorced, but her husband did. Thus, her memoir, This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After, was born — a book about the death of a marriage, the start of a new life and everything in between. Elizabeth joins Nora to talk about how her views on marriage have…
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23. “Slenderman” with Kathleen Hale
In 2014, 12-year-old Payton “Bella” Leutner was stabbed 19 times by two other tween girls. The crime was well publicized as the Slenderman stabbings because the two girls who committed the stabbing said a fictional character named Slenderman told them...
January 7, 2024
22. “Christmas Orphan Club” with Becca Freeman
Tis the season for a holiday read, and Becca Freeman has written the coziest novel that ticks all the boxes: friendship, romance, and just a sprinkle of grief and trauma. Nora and Becca share all about their past holidays, favorite...
December 3, 2023
21. 2023 Gift Guide!
Happyish Holidays and welcome to our first ever TRC gift guide! Nora and Kara (and our awesome TRC community) have compiled book recs for everyone on your gift list — from the youngest of picture book readers to the father...
November 19, 2023
20. “This Time Tomorrow” with Emma Straub
When author Emma Straub's dad got sick, he told her one night in the hospital, “You should write a book about a daughter visiting her father in the hospital.” So that's what she did, and that book became This Time...
November 5, 2023
19. I Read That: “The Woman in Me” by Britney Spears
Everyone knows who Britney Spears is … or do we? For many people, Britney is frozen in time circa 2002. For others, she faded away after 2008 until her gut-wrenching testimony about her 13-year conservatorship in 2021. Much of Britney's...
October 29, 2023
18. “This Story Will Change” with Elizabeth Crane
Elizabeth Crane didn't want to get divorced, but her husband did. Thus, her memoir, This Story Will Change: After the Happily Ever After, was born — a book about the death of a marriage, the start of a new life and...
October 8, 2023
17. September Read/Reading/TBR
Join Nora for her first monthly book check-in to see what she loved, what she's currently reading, and what's next on her list. Wanna read the books? When you purchase from Bookshop.org, you help support our show! This episode's featured books...
September 24, 2023
16. “How To Stay Married” with Harrison Scott Key
When Harrison Scott Key discovered his wife was cheating on him, he wasn't about to break his wedding vows. He was going to save his marriage, and that quest involved taking a good hard look at how he'd failed his...
September 10, 2023
15. I Read That with Kate Kennedy
Nora sits down with author, podcaster, pop culture critic and friend, Kate Kennedy of Be There in Five, to talk about the politics of being a parent online, why we're so quick to dismiss the work of influencers and why...
August 20, 2023
14. “On Our Best Behavior” With Elise Loehnen
What does it really mean to be a good person? Have you ever wondered why you consider one public figure to be “good” and another “bad”? Where those frameworks for so-called goodness came from? Turns out they date all the...
August 3, 2023
13. “All The Gold Stars” With Rainesford Stauffer
Journalist and writer Rainesford Stauffer has a complicated relationship with ambition, and it started when she was just a kid. She published a book, wrote for top publications and never stopped reaching for the next golden ring — until she was forced...
July 13, 2023
12. New Episodes Beginning July 13th!
The Terrible Reading Club is a podcast about great books for truly terrible times. Host Nora McInerny knows a thing or two about this kind of literature, because's she's written several books herself about tough subjects like grief and loss...
June 29, 2023
11. .”Griefstrike!” With Jason Roeder
Grieving is a lonely experience. Many of us who have been through it wish there was a handbook to lead us through the experience. When comedy writer Jason Roeder lost his mom, he decided to write the guidebook that he...
June 27, 2023
10. “How To Keep House While Drowning” With KC Davis
Self-help books sell mostly because they are selling you a way to solve a problem, and the problem is you. It's never something that's out of your control, or bigger than you, it's just… you. But today's book, even if...
June 27, 2023
9. “The Night The Lights Went Out” With Drew Magary
Our brains and our minds are fragile, and they're housed in our fragile little human bodies that just break unexpectedly. That's where Drew Magary found himself: the owner of a broken skull and a badly damaged brain. But you'd really never...
June 27, 2023
8. “You’d Be Home Now” With Kathleen Glasgow
Adolescence is generally a pretty terrible part of a person's life. Being a teenager is hard! It (often) sucks! But reading about teenagers doesn't suck, and one of Nora's favorite YA authors is Kathleen Glasgow. In this episode, Nora talks...
June 27, 2023
7. “We Are Not Like Them” With Christine Pride
For the past few years, the U.S. has been in the midst of a racial reckoning, and though today's book is a piece of fiction it is, like all fiction, a reflection of the real world that we live in. In...
June 27, 2023
6. “Conversations With People Who Hate Me” With Dylan Marron
Part of what's terrible sometimes is how easy it is for people to hate each other. And how hard it is for people to TALK to each other in meaningful ways when we disagree. And while it's certainly not a...
June 27, 2023
5. “Saving Us” With Katharine Hayhoe
If you're sent into an anxiety spiral every time you hear the words “climate change,” you're not alone. Everything we read these days tells us that the clock is ticking down, and there is nothing we as individuals can do...
June 27, 2023
4. “The Ugly Cry” With Danielle Henderson
There are people in the world who were once kids who grew up without the kind of parents you see on '90s sitcoms, kids whose parents abdicated all responsibility, who walked off the job, who just didn't do the one...
June 27, 2023
3. “Between Two Kingdoms” With Suleika Jaouad
When sickness has become the center of your life, when the goal posts move from “get better” to “live,” you do not simply wake up better and get on with it. In today's episode, Nora talks with Suleika Jaouad, author of...
June 27, 2023
2. “The Anthropocene Reviewed” With John Green
John Green is one of Nora's favorite observers of humanity, in part because of how gentle he is with even the most maddening parts of human existence: illness (both mental and physical), human foibles and failures. And maybe most impressively,...
June 27, 2023
1. “Dusk, Night, Dawn” With Anne Lamott
When Nora lost her dad, her second pregnancy, and her husband in the fall of 2015, people gifted her a lot of books. Why? Because people want to say and do the right thing when times are hard … want...
June 27, 2023