S14: Ep 277 - The Folger Shakespeare Library Book Club with guest emma poltrack + Books about Book Clubs - 4/15/26

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You can find Folger Shakespeare Library at www.folger.edu

 

Now you may be familiar with the Folger Shakespeare Library’s editions of Shakespeare’s works. In fact, Carrie is still using some of  hers from high school. But she had no idea this world-famous research library in Washington DC had a book club. As a Shakespeare enthusiast, she was definitely intrigued, and we are so excited that emma poltrack, the Arts Engagement Program Manager for the Folger Shakespeare Library, agreed to join us and tell us all about the book club. 

 

Our book rec segment this week are books about…..book clubs! We’ve got two memoirs about book clubs–one made up of professor friends and the other between a mother and son. We’ve got a horror novel with a book club that battles vampires, an intergenerational mystery-solving book club in England, a women’s fiction novel about a book club that asks its members to present the book that matters most, and a writing and reading group for Punjabi women in London that’s breaking boundaries.

 

Books Mentioned in this Episode

 

1- The Last Garden in England by Julia Kelly 

2- The Calculating Stars (A Lady Astronaut series) by Mary Robinette Kowal

3- The Martian Conspiracy by Mary Robinette Kowal 

4- Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma 

5- Tastes like Shakkar by Nisha Sharma 

6- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin 

7- The Death I Gave Him by Em X. Liu 

8- Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell 

9- Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson 

10- Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton 

11- Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons 

12- Well Met by Jen DeLuca 

13- Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Faeries by Heather Fawcett 

14- Booth by Karen Joy Fowler 

15- The Fraud by Zadie Smith 

16- It Goes So Fast by Mary Louise Kelly 

17- The Beheading Game by Rebecca Lehman 

18- The Night We Became Strangers by Lorena Hughes 

19- Shibby Magee by Carrie Kabak 

20- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Abigail @nobadbooks - Lady Tremaine by Rachel Hochhauser 

21- The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix 

22- The Book That Matters Most by Ann Hood 

23- The Toni Morrison Book Club by Juda Bennett, Winnifred Brown-Glaude, Cassandra Jackson, and Piper Kendrix Williams 

24- The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe 

25- The Busybody Book Club by Freya Sampson 

26- Erotic Stories for Punjabi Widows: A Novel by Balli Kaur Jaswal 

 

Media Mentioned:

1- For All Mankind (Apple +, 2019 - present)

2- But That's Another Story Podcast (featuring Will Schwalbe)

3 - Whitehall House and Gardens Book Club - https://www.historicwhitehall.org/whitehall-book-club