This week on Cracked Spines, Cyrus and Sarah dive into Sarah's latest obsession with Chinese history, cracking open several books by...mostly white authors in the 60's-80's. Okay, so it may not be an scholastically accurate or ethical deep dive, but it is fascinating. Listen as Sarah infodumps on Cyrus about the perils of learning the Chinese language, poetry translation, and gendered nouns.

Content warning: humorous mentions of suicide and absolute butchering of French, Spanish, and Chinese languages.

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Say "I do" to checking out this weeks episode on Marriage, A History by Stephanie Coontz! See, I did a wedding pun, this description writing stuff is easy. Cyrus and Sarah tackle nonfiction this episode, and have a rollicking discussion about marriage as a centrally organizing pillar of society, women's work, relationships as a capitalist construct, and the equitable division of labor in a platonic lifemate situation. Also how hot they are in Cyrus' bedroom, and how cute Scurvy's little snores are.

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It's finally happening - Cyrus and Sarah have finally read The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson! Turns out they loved it, but isn't that always the way with books you've been putting off? Baru Cormorant is a twisty turny hard fantasy novel about the devastation of empire, with fabulous worldbuilding, fantastic characters, and also it's kinda gay. We love to see it. Topics of discussion include the belief structures behind imperialism, the joy of an unreliable narrator, and what the fuck a 'murre' is.

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