Episode 188 - Transportation and Transit Non-Fiction

Book Club for Masochists: a Readers’ Advisory Podcast

All aboard! This episode we’re discussing the non-fiction genre of Transportation and Transit! We talk trains, buses, bicycles, spaceships, 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…)

• The Art of the Locomotive by Ken Boyd
• Iron Empires: Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America by Michael Hiltzik
• Ghost Train (four part podcast by Denver Public Radio)
• Transit Maps of the World: The World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth by Mark Ovenden
• Transit Maps of the World: Expanded and Updated Edition of the World's First Collection of Every Urban Train Map on Earth by Mark Ovenden
• Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town by Charles L. Marohn Jr.
• Canadarm and Collaboration: How Canada’s Astronauts and Space Robots Explore New Worlds by Elizabeth Howell
• Links between two cities: historic bridges between Ottawa and Hull by Lucien Brault.

Other Media We Mentioned

• The Platform Edge: Uncanny Tales of the Railways by Mike Ashley
• Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie
• Orient Express by Graham Greene
• Maiden Railways by Asumiko Nakamura
• Heaven's Design Team, Vol. 1 by Hebi-Zou, Tsuta Suzuki, and Tarako
• For 2 Weeks, Switzerland Has A Rail Replacement Helicopter
• Vancouver's Expo Line 1990 vs 2020
• Mini Metro
• Soviet Bus Stops by Christopher Herwig
  • There’s a documentary movie!
• Soviet Metro Stations by Christopher Herwig
• How To F#€k Up An Airport (five part podcast by Radio Spaetkauf)
• Some YouTube channels and videos about trains and transport things:
  • CityNerd
  • Not Just Bikes
    • Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere)
    • Crossing the Street Shouldn't Be Deadly (but it is) (See the building Anna and Matthew used to live in!)
  • RMTransit
  • The Tim Traveller
  • This New LA Metro Station Should be PACKED - Here’s Why It’s Not
  • Denver’s Transit System is Problematic
• Freight Trains: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
• A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments by David Foster Wallace

Links, Articles, and Things

• Note to self: Make “derail” joke about conversation going off topic.
• Train_Station-Katowice_Poland.wav by jgrzinich
• Rail replacement bus service (Wikipedia)
• Slow television (Wikipedia)
  • “It was popularised in the 2000s by the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK), beginning with the broadcast of a 7-hour train journey in 2009.”
• Fort Collins Trolley
• ‘I am done’: Amid rider woes, is Ottawa’s transit system a victim of its own success?
• Heritage Minutes: Avro Arrow

12 Transit/Automotive/Planes/Trains/Boats 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.

• Traveling Black: A Story of Race and Resistance by Mia Bay
• Driving the Green Book: A Road Trip Through the Living History of Black Resistance by Alvin Hall
• Empire's Tracks: Indigenous Nations, Chinese Workers, and the Transcontinental Railroad by Manu Karuka
• Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance by Adonia E. Lugo
• Making a Chaputs: The Teachings and Responsibilities of a Canoe Maker by Joe Martin with Alan Hoover
• Taxi!: Cabs and Capitalism in New York City by Biju Mathew
• Crash Course: If You Want To Get Away With Murder Buy a Car by Woodrow Phoenix
• Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship Before the Civil War by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor
• Why Flying Is Miserable: And How to Fix It by Ganesh Sitaraman
• Driving While Black: African American Travel and the Road to Civil Rights by Gretchen Sorin
• Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America by Candacy A. Taylor
• The Diary of Dukesang Wong: A Voice from Gold Mountain by Dukesang Wong, translated by Wanda Joy Hoe

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Join us again on Tuesday, February 6th just in time for Valentine's day we’ll be discussing the genre of Humorous/Funny Romance!

Then on Tuesday, February 20th we’ll be talking about our reading resolutions for 2024! (2024? That can’t be right. That’s definitely the future.)