Story Girls
20 episodes - English - Latest episode: about 2 years ago - ★★★★★ - 4 ratingsA fortnightly podcast about books, with a dash of absurdity.
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Episodes
S3 Episode 5: Butter Honey Pig Bread
February 03, 2022 15:17 - 1 hour - 146 MBThis is a book about love, sex, healing, family, food, and home. Its gorgeous prose and vivid characters make it one to revisit again and again. Join us as we try to decide who is the true bolter here.
S3 Episode 4: Gods of Jade and Shadow
January 20, 2022 15:04 - 1 hour - 145 MBA romp through 1920s Mexico with the Mayan god of death. Spoilers abound!
S3 Episode 3: Lolly Willowes
December 22, 2021 01:28 - 1 hour - 143 MBOur bolter this week is Laura "Lolly" Willowes, in a wondrously witchy book about female desire and agency.
S3 Episode 2: Circe
December 08, 2021 01:35 - 1 hour - 199 MBIn which Circe bolts from godhood, and we get into the nitty gritty of Greek mythology.
S3 Episode 1: The Pursuit of Love
November 24, 2021 11:35 - 1 hour - 75.3 MBOur theme for S3 is...Bolters! So, naturally we are kicking things off with Nancy Mitford's The Pursuit of Love, featuring a character known only as "the Bolter."
S2 Ep 8: Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers
October 25, 2020 15:52 - 1 hour - 142 MBAn in-depth look at the final book in the Peter-Harriet quartet, Busman's Honeymoon.
S2 Ep7: Gaudy Night
October 09, 2020 23:48 - 2 hours - 178 MBS2 Ep 7: Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers
S2 Episode 6: Have His Carcase by Dorothy L Sayers
September 21, 2020 21:27 - 1 hour - 98.6 MBHave His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers
S2 Episode 5: Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
September 09, 2020 13:40 - 1 hour - 122 MBWe commence our DLS quartet!
S2 Episode 4: More Work for the Undertaker
March 18, 2020 11:00 - 1 hour - 72.8 MBMore Work for the Undertaker by Margery Allingham is our book this fortnight, and so we take a highly enjoyable trip through an eccentric, absurd, and Dickensian London with amateur detective Albert Campion and his companions. It's a complex, slightly fantastical mystery, but as usual with the Golden Age writers, evoked with deep insight and acute observation. Margery Allingham wrote a plethora of Campion books, so if you loved this one, good news! There are plenty more. As always, spoil...
S2 Episode 3: To Love and Be Wise
March 04, 2020 11:00 - 1 hour - 64.9 MBThis fortnight we are talking about Josephine Tey's To Love and Be Wise, starring the immensely lovable Detective Alan Grant. This is an underappreciated mystery novel by an underappreciated author, in our humble opinions! Josephine Tey is the dark horse of this season, and the author we have shoehorned into our "Queens of Crime" category (displacing the better-known Agatha Christie). Her works are subtle and layered, and we hope that you will give them a try! ...
S2 Episode 2: A Surfeit of Lampreys
February 19, 2020 11:00 - 1 hour - 72.8 MBOur first Queen of Crime is Ngaio Marsh, who was a prolific New Zealand author of the Golden Age, penning 32 books featuring her dapper detective "Handsome Alleyn," as well as a plethora of short stories, stage plays, and non-fiction. We have chosen her witty and surprising novel A Surfeit of Lampreys to hook you in to her work, if you happen to be unfamiliar with it. It's a good one! You can learn more about Ngaio Marsh here. Here is a link to the Ngaio Marsh Theatre at the University of...
S2 Episode 1: Queens of Crime & The Golden Age of Detective Fiction
February 06, 2020 01:41 - 14 minutes - 13.3 MBWelcome to Season 2! This season we are taking a look at four excellent female writers from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction: Ngaio Marsh, Josephine Tey, Margery Allingham, and Dorothy L. Sayers. These authors were writing fiercely intelligent, wonderfully witty, and extraordinarily astute mystery novels in the 1920s and 1930s. Join us for a romp through the Golden Age, feminist-style! Season 2 Reading List: A Surfeit of Lampreys by Ngaio Marsh To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey ...
Castle Minisode 3: Nod to Maud
January 22, 2020 11:00 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBWelcome to our third and final Castle Minisode! This wraps up our first season, so tune in to get your final fix of castles before we move on to season 2! (Spoiler: this minisode has literally nothing to do with castles.) This past autumn we had the pleasure of traveling to The Book Drunkard Literary Festival in Uxbridge, Ontario, where we visited the Leaskdale Manse, the longtime home of L.M. Montgomery. We attended the Nod to Maud event, which included a talk from Montgomery's granddaugh...
Castle Minisode 2: Studio Ghibli
January 15, 2020 11:00 - 22 minutes - 21 MBFor this episode, we are diverting a wee bit from books and authors to give a shout out to Studio Ghibli. This Japanese film production company is a maker of beautiful, whimsical movies that are pure delight. As we mentioned in our Howl's Moving Castle episode, that book was adapted by Studio Ghibli into a film that provokes a bit of disagreement between us! But we both agree that overall the Ghibli films are magical and well worth seeking out. In this minisode we discuss what we love ab...
Castle Minisode 1: Isabella Valancy Crawford
January 08, 2020 11:00 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBHello, folks! After a little break over the winter holidays, we are baaack! To tide you over until our Season 2 debut, we humbly offer the first of three minisodes, which will be released weekly for the next three Wednesdays. These are all mini-episodes that tie, in one way or another, into the books from our Castle theme. This first minisode is a short biography of Isabella Valancy Crawford. Never heard of her? We're not surprised! Crawford was a feisty and significant figure in Canadi...
Episode 4: We Have Always Lived in the Castle
December 11, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 85.1 MBWell folks, buckle in for an extra-long, extra-rambling episode! We get pretty engrossed in our discussion of Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle, and TBQH, our bowl of prompts kinda goes out the window. But fear not! Well, fear a little. Shirley Jackson is, after all, the goddess of terror. This is a gloriously creepy, Gothic tale of sisterhood, anxiety, murder, madness, revenge, and...preserves? Our standard spoiler alert stands, but this time multiply it by about a t...
Episode 3: I Capture the Castle
November 27, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 76.5 MBEpisode 3 is a deep dive into Dodie Smith's classic coming-of-age story, I Capture the Castle. Full of summery vibes, starry nights, and swan-filled moats, this novel is bursting with charm. Its witty and insightful narrator, Cassandra, is just one of a brilliant cast of characters who manage to be both hilariously eccentric and utterly believable. Spoilers abound, so be sure to read first and listen after! Show Notes The version of Clair de Lune by Claude Debussy that we play at ...
Episode 2: Howl's Moving Castle
November 13, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 57.5 MBEpisode 2 carries on with some fairy tale motifs, as we explore another favourite: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones. Some people may know this title because of the Studio Ghibli animated film of the same name, but trust us—watching the film is no substitute for reading this fantastic book. As always, spoiler warning! Read first, listen after. :) Show Notes: If you'd like to learn more about Diana Wynne Jones than we provided in our cursory intro, there is a wonderful collection o...
Episode 1: The Blue Castle
October 30, 2019 01:10 - 1 hour - 81.4 MBTo kick off the podcast, we dive into an old favourite of ours—The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery. If you haven't read this enchanting, fable-esque story that is a love song to Muskoka (as well as a love song to love itself), then we highly, highly recommend that you drop everything and rush out to read it. This episode contains spoilers, so consider yourself warned! Show Notes: The illustrations that we love of The Blue Castle are by New Zealand-based artist Masako Kubo. Here...