Episode 201 - Weird West

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

It’s episode 201 and time for us to discuss the genre of Weird West! (Just in time for Halloween!). We talk about the potential temporal and geographic restrictions on western fiction, folklore, tall tales, and more!

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

In this episode

Anna Ferri | Meghan Whyte | Matthew Murray 🦇 | Jam Edwards

Things We Read (or tried to…)

• Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian, narrated by John Pirhalla
• The Gunslinger by Stephen King, narrated by George Guidall
• Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
• The Sixth Gun Omnibus, vol. 1 by Cullen Bunn, Brian Hurtt, Bill Crabtree, and Tyler Crook
• The Witch Owl Parliament by David Bowles and Raúl the Third
• Lone Women by Victor LaValle
• River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey

Other Media We Mentioned

• Vermilion: The Adventures of Lou Merriwether, Psychopomp and Molly Tanzer
• The New Adventures of the Lone Ranger (Probably the version Matthew saw)
• Lucky Luke
• The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout
• The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaValle

Links, Articles, and Things

• Episode 029 - Westerns
• Episode 082 - Steampunk
• Episode 106 - Alternative/Alternate History
• Episode 183 - One Book One Podcast: Upright Women Wanted
• Space Western (TVTropes)
• Skin-walker
• Land-grant university
• Map shows where Colorado’s 8 known free-roaming wolves wandered in September
• Libro.fm’s Audiobook Listening Copy Program
• Jonah Hex

10 Weird Western Books by BIPOC 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.

• The Witch Owl Parliament by David Bowles and Raúl the Third
• Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Cañas
• The Good Luck Girls by Charlotte Nicole Davis
• Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland
• The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones (forthcoming 2025)
• Sisters of the Wild Sage: A Weird Western Collection by Nicole Givens Kurtz
• Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
• The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu by Tom Lin
• Tread of Angels by Rebecca Roanhorse
• How Much of These Hills Is Gold by C Pam Zhang

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Join us again on Tuesday, October 15th when it’s time for our “We All Read the Same Book” episode as we discuss A Wizard’s Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher.

Then on Tuesday, November 5th we’ll be discussing the genre of Dark Academia.