Chris was called away on a years-long shipping voyage by a conniving relative, so he can’t be with us today. In his stead, Mary returns! You may remember her from such episodes as this past October’s The Phantom of Manhattan, 2021's Die Hamletmachine, and our now beloved E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial in His Adventure on Earth episode from 2023.

We discuss our experience reading Fanny Hill by John Cleland, originally published in 1748 and since routinely banned as the first known published English-language erotica. Mary found a copy of this in a little free library years ago and since then, it has taken up permanent residence in her mind and she has talked about it off and on. I figured it’d be a fun one for the show since we, somehow, have yet to feature 18th century erotica on TBC.

In addition to our usual barnyard language, today’s episode includes coerced/trafficked sex work, graphic sex, and sexual assaults as this book is mid-18th century pornography.

Links & References:

• Fanny Hill in Bombay: The Making & Unmaking of John Cleland by Hal Gladfelder
• Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson
• Joseph Andrews and Shamela by Henry Fielding
• Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady by Samuel Richardson
• The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot
• Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue by Marquis de Sade
• Juliette by Marquis de Sade

We revert to our previous format this week with both Chris and Paris reviewing today's book. The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You was published in the last week of January of 2025 by Apple Books and immediately caught our attention since Paris has been obsessed with Severance since it debuted and Chris was recruited into the madness this year. We thought it would be fun to check out a prop from a TV show that had become a real book. Listen as we do Ricken's self-help exercises and become severed in real-time!

If you are trying to keep yourself completely pure before watching Severance, there are some mild Severance spoilers from early in Season 1 between 1:12:00 - 1:15:45

Links & References

• The You You Are: A Spiritual Biography of You by Dr. Ricken Lazlo Hale, PhD
• Dr. Dolly Chugh: How to let go of being a "good" person — and become a better person

This week, Paris turns up the Perturbator records, dons some aviators and a trenchcoat, and heads out into the rainy nights of 1980s Milwaukee to help our Patron Fred.

Fred wrote to us saying, “...the sheer notion of a murder mystery with Happy Days characters that is apparently officially sanctioned by whoever owns the rights is enough to give me pause. I can’t even find any information about why th[is] book was made and I just end up asking myself, “Who is this for?” because while I don’t doubt that Happy Days still has a large fan base, I don’t think many people would want to read a book about how one of the best characters on the show gets murdered.”

We hope you enjoy this episode, Fred! Thank you so much for supporting TBC.

Remember that if you, too, would like to have us read and review a book of your choice on the show, you can gain that power by joining our Patreon at the appropriate tier.

Today’s episode includes our usual barnyard language in addition to infidelity, kidnapping, murder, and one brief moment of drug use.

Additional Links:

• Interview with James Boice (2011)

• Interview with James Boice about his writing of Who Killed the Fonz? (2019)