Takeaway: A Book Podcast

The focus of this episode is on R.F. Kuang's Babel, a book where four students studying at the Royal Institute of Translation come to face their morals and identity when Britain goes to war with China over imperialistic and colonialist motivations. This episode picks apart the books major themes and how the characters and symbols tie in to those same themes in a fun and interesting discussion. This episode is NOT spoiler free, so we highly encourage you to read the book before listening.

In this special bonus episode, we discuss our worst and best reads of 2025, or as Eliza put it "the good the bad and the ugly". In addition, we discuss our future reads of 2026 and hope to follow through.

Eliza Lemoine and Jay Calloway dive deeper into the text "A Darker Shade of Magic" by V.E. Schwab to unpack how the themes and symbols of the Novel relate to the world we live in through lighthearted and comedic discussion! The Londons of each world in the book have so many hidden layers and our two hosts take on the challenge of peeling them back. This episode is NOT spoiler free :)

In this episode, we dive into Leigh Bardugo's novel Six of Crows where we discuss characters, symbols, themes, and more! Six of Crows is a novel that follows Six thieves from Ketterdam, a nation in Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse, that attempt to pull off an impossible heist. This podcast is NOT spoiler free and we suggest you read the book so you can better follow along with our discussion :)