Christine is joined by special guest, actor Kelly AuCoin, who plays "Dollar" Bill Sterns on Billions and Pastor Tim on The Americans (among many other roles!). They discuss "Life of Brian," the 1979 Monty Python sensation that was banned instantly for its irreverence and satire. This dark comedy still speaks incredibly well to our own particular age, and Christine and Kelly analyze the legacy of the film then and now--and do a lot of British impressions.

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Steph Karpuek is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Join us next week as Christine and Jessica discuss Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo! Make sure you watch our Instagram account for more updates!

Links for Episode 2:

• Kelly Aucoin's website
• Find out more about the incredible nonprofit, KultureCity, that Kelly's on the board of
• Info on Monty Python's "Life of Brian"
• Mary Whitehouse's background info
• A great behind-the-scenes documentary, "The Secret Life of Brian"

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

Send us a text

In Episode 1 of Season 2, Christine and Jessica discuss I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou. This book has been deeply influential in Jessica's life since her 10th grade teacher, Ms. Snow, gave her a copy of the book. Christine--a longtime fan of Angelou's "Phenomenal Woman" and other poems--reads the book for the first time. Join us as we dive deep into one of the most important works of the last century, written by one of the greatest writers of our lifetime.

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Steph Karpuek is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Join us next week as Christine discusses Monty Python’s "The Life of Brian" with special guest Kelly AuCoin from Billions! Make sure you watch our Instagram account for more updates!

Links for Episode 1:

• Link to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
• Soundcloud of Angelou talking about her name (her voice is incredible!)
• Angelou's bio
• Obituary of Robert Loomis, Angelou's longtime editor
• Interview of Angelou talking about her "souped-up bus"
• New African article about Angelou, "the most banned author in the US"
• History.com article about mailing actual children through the post office in the 1930s

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

In this special bonus episode, Christine and Jessica recorded a conversation with NPR's Maureen Corrigan live at Wilkes University! Listen in to this incredible, wide-ranging conversation as Maureen--who recorded a Great Course about banned books throughout history--shares her vast knowledge with Christine, Jessica, and their audience.

COMING SOON: Season 2 launches in THREE WEEKS, on September 3!

As we're busy reading and prepping for our next season, we could use your help more than ever. If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwalddesigned our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Special thanks this episode to Wilkes University, especially David Hicks, Patti Naumann, Dawn Leas, and Lee Michaels. Thanks also to Julie Sidoni and WVIA News for their coverage of the event.

Links for this Bonus Episode:

• About Maureen Corrigan
• "Banned Books, Burned Books: Forbidden Literary Works," by Maureen Corrigan for The Great Courses (a great resource for schools and libraries especially!)
• 1974 Kanawha County, West Virginia battle over books
• Thomas Morton's New English Canaan: more about it and a link to order
• Ron Charles's newsletter, "Book Club," for the Washington Post

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

In Part 2 of the season finale, Christine and Jessica watch and discuss the second half of Birth of a Nation (screenplay by D.W. Griffith and Frank E. Woods). Part 2 is...well, bonkers doesn't cover it. The racist wheels are OFF! What a way to end the season!

Today is release day for Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration! It was selected by the New York Times Book Review as one of their "Summer Nonfiction Picks"!! It had a great review in the New York Times, but our favorite line is from the starred Kirkus review: "Expect to see bans of this powerful book, one that every Texan should read."

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

We'll see you again in August with the launch of season 2! Make sure you watch our Instagram account for more updates!

Links for Episode 17:

• Link to Birth of a Nation on Youtube (it's in the public domain, so anyone can watch for free)
• What's giving Christine hope right now: "This Scientist Has an Antidote to Our Climate Delusions," an interview in the NYT with Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson
• What's giving Jessica hope right now: "Four years later, has the racial-justice movement lost the fight?," a reflection by Robert Samuels and Tol

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

In Part 1 of the season finale, Christine and Jessica watch and discuss the first half of Birth of a Nation (screenplay by D.W. Griffith and Frank E. Woods). The movie, which was the catalyst for the resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan in the late 1910s and early 1920s, is groundbreaking technically and cinematically; it is also a deeply offensive propaganda film. It was challenged and banned in eight states after its release. Roger Ebert famously said in his review that Birth of a Nation "is not a bad film because it argues for evil...it is a great film that argues for evil. To understand how it does so is to learn a great deal about film, and even something about evil."

Pre-order Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, coming June 18!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Join us next week for Part 2 of our season finale about Birth of a Nation!

Links for Episode 16:

• Link to Birth of a Nation on Youtube (it's in the public domain, so anyone can watch for free)
• Link to Roger Ebert's review
• Popular reactions to The Birth of a Nation from the Library of Congress
• "100 Years Later, What's the Legacy of 'Birth of a Nation'?" NPR, 2015

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

Jessica tells Christine about Fun Home by Alison Bechdel, an utterly beautiful graphic memoir about Bechdel's coming of age as a queer artist and the death of her father. The layered narrative is funny, poignant, brilliant, and heartbreaking. It's also one of the few books we've talked about to be challenged or banned at the post-graduate level. Come hear what all the fuss is about with this revolutionary, genre-bending book!

Pre-order Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, coming June 18!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for part one of our season finale about the film The Birth of a Nation!

Links for Episode 15:

• Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
• Alison Bechdel's biography
• Bechdel's website, "Dykes to Watch Out For"
• Michael J. Rosenfeld, "Moving a Mountain: The Extraordinary Trajectory of Same-Sex Marriage Approval in the United States"
• Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere
• Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

Christine tells Jessica about A Doll's House by Henrik Ibsen. The groundbreaking play premiered in 1879, and yet it's shockingly relevant today. Christine goes into the history of the play, the fascinating plot, and her own personal connection with the twists of this devastating story.

Preorder Jessica's book, We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, which comes out June 18 with Viking, and come see her on tour!

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for our discussion of Fun Home by Alison Bechdel!

Links for Episode 14:

• Buy A Doll's House
• Learn more about Henrik Ibsen's life
• A history of women's rights in the US (yay for credit cards?!?)
• A history of ender and revolution in Europe

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!

Jessica tells Christine about The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown, and the wild number of rabbit holes she went down in researching this fast-paced, often bonkers thriller: she's never seen so many papyrus-font-fueled conspiracy theories in her life.

If you haven’t yet become a Patreon subscriber, you can join now for just $3 a month. In addition to joining the Banned Geeks Book Club, your $3 helps us stay the course by highlighting banned works and bringing you these conversations each week. Thank you for your support! The success of this podcast depends on you!

"The Beautiful and Banned" is produced by Jessica Goudeau and Christine Renee Miller. Follow us on social media: @beautifulandbannedpod, @christinereneemiller, and @jessica_goudeau.

Pre-order Jessica's next book We Were Illegal: Uncovering a Texas Family's Mythmaking and Migration, coming June 18!

If you’d like to advertise with us, visit the "Contact Us" page on our website. If you liked our show, please rate and subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to podcasts. The best way to support a new podcast is to share it with your friends!

Our co-producer, Rob Heath, wrote and performed our theme music. Kalin Siegwald designed our logo. Jackson Rodriguez is our amazing podcast assistant. This is A Sisters By Different Misters Production.

Tune in next week for our discussion about THE DAVINCI CODE by Dan Brown!

Episode 13 links:

• Dan Brown's website
• The Da Vinci Code (if you haven't already picked it up at a little free library or from your grandparents' basement bookshelves)
• More about Dan Brown's life
• The truly wild story of Dan Brown's first book
• The lawsuit against Dan Brown's UK publisher
• The lawsuit by Dan Brown's ex-wife
• An overview of some of the books written in response to The Da Vinci Code
• One of the many series on the internet "debunking" the book (don't worry, this one does not use papyrus)

We'd love to hear from you! Send us a text to suggest books, plays, films, or guests, or just share your thoughts!