Left on Read: The Five

I just read this book and it made me crazy and so so mad. Like in a good way though.

writtenology is absolutely the cooler name

Really enjoyed this discussion. I confess that I haven't read the book but the podcast version was excellent. The dismissal of the Ripper reminds me of the bit in The Fall where all the male police officers are fanboying over the killer and Gillian Anderson basically says he's a pathetic loser. Which is a good bit to remember.

There's currently a podcast that does cool history stuff called left unread lolol.

Sorry, one more name thing: you should pronounce the name of the show the way Flora Gill pronounces it.

Riley had his softest voice on for this one!

Have you considered Norman Cohn "the pursuit of the millennium" or something by Ladurie?

Please change the name of this imprint show every month; it's a bit of a fun tech parody.

This could be the story of any of hundreds of missing or murdered indigenous women whose disappearance goes uninvestigated every year in the US. It's like we came here and just found a way to transfer the fate of English peasant women onto someone else, including the moral judgement and dehumanizing of them when the desperation of their circumstances drive them to drugs and alcohol and prostitution.

Peter Watts «Blindsight» episode when?

So good I bumped up to the $10 level. Idk if that even gets you a second one of these your shows are just so good

Ok, but have you considered "writtenology?"

What was that Tennyson reference?

The name is just going to change every month isn't it

i keep hearing polly nichols as if she were an american television mobster called paulie nickels for what are implied to be spectacularly gruesome reasons

what a banger of a name, writtenology will be in my heart forever

So happy this book is covered. Ever since I read it, I wanted to hear a good discussion of it

A lot of overlap here with Helen Mathers' book Josephine Butler: Patron Saint of Prostitutes, about a social reformer who opposed the late-19th century CD Acts (which gave police the authority to detain and forcibly examine any women they believed to be sex workers). At least in Mathers' telling, what makes Butler stand out from her contemporaries is that despite a Christian faith we would today consider fundamentalist, she was adamant that people had to come by God of their own free will. As such she opposed many of the punitive measures other social reformers accepted and campaigned against the CD Acts in India long after most of her allies had stopped caring. Today we're used to the UK being the most poor-hating country in Europe, but I think at least in the 19th century, the particulars of English laissez-faire often meant less help for the poor but also less intervention in their lives. Prior to the CD Acts there was no real UK equivalent to the Police des Mœurs or the state-sanctioned brothels of France and Belgium, who frequently colluded to the detriment of workers.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/06/22/1075405/the-people-paid-to-train-ai-are-outsourcing-their-work-to-ai/

“Keen eyed listeners” is a fun phrase

I doubt anyone needs book recommendations ever for any reason, but I was reminded of Jen Manion's Female Husbands a couple times while listening -- a similar struggle to write history when the extant records that detail a life are primarily Victorian police and press

it's me the Brane Zone Book Club misser

Writtenology was a *much* better name...

I think Writtenology is better.

I think there's still time for a few more name changes

RIP to Writtenology, the worst name ever, you were too beautiful for this world

Jack the Ripper would be a good name for a bong

The new name for the series is very good congrats 🐖