In this succinct episode of LP, Fung-Ling and Derek try out a new format, the Teaser Section. FL gives an old-fashioned reading update on a fantastic non-fiction book, From the Ruins of Empire: the Revolt against the West and the Remaking of Asia, by Pankaj Mishra. Derek talks about his favourite movie to watch on airplanes.

Writers react to Taylor Swift's most recent album, The Life of a Showgirl, and discuss why it's not great.

This day is finally upon us... Licensed Poetics react to the biggest instagram poet of them all, Rupi Kaur. Rupi, if you are listening, we're sorry.

This week, FL comes back with a good old-fashioned reading update, talking about Junji Ito’s adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s classic novel No Longer Human. Then the hosts pivot to reading lyrics/poetry. Derek reads John Cooper Clark’s Full-time Loser. P.S. if you noticed the lack of outro, leave a comment! :D

No intro music this week! The reason will become apparent as you listen :)

LP film club continues!! One host watched this film during high school, the other host wishes she did. One host is still impressed by Fincher's cinematography after all these years, but less impressed by the message of the film. The other host was surprised by how literary (and wanky) this film is.

BFL emerges from her reading slump with some fantastic reading updates. Derek picked the film Office Space, which inspires an interesting discussion on their philosophy of work.

Unfortunately the LP team didn’t like the second half of the book as much as the first half - maybe it went downhill right after the main character and the love interest started having sex? Sigh. Jokes aside, reading this book has taught us important lessons, and for that, author Emily Henry, we’re grateful.

00:00 Intro

11:17 Sexual tension

41:05 The fantasy of safe love

54:53 Contrived endings

Take a shot every time we say porn in this episode… Derek asserts that people who think they’re better than this book should read this book. LP’s first venture into the romance genre generated such a productive discussion that we’ve had to split it into 2 episodes!