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Perks of Being a Book Lover is a show about books, people who read, and how reading, at its very best, is a social experience. Whether it be a book club, a poetry slam, or the production of a play; words are meant to be shared. Keep up with us on FB.
Episodes
Wednesday Jul 06, 2022
Wednesday Jul 06, 2022
In this last episode of Season 6, we feature a writer who we had the pleasure of meeting in real life at Carmichael’s Bookstore during a leg of her book tour. Courtney Maum is a celebrated author of literary fiction but her latest book is a memoir about how a return to horse riding in her late 30s helped her rediscover herself. It isn’t uncommon at all for women to lose themselves in their roles as mothers or wives or employees and forget what it is that brings them joy and passion and a sense of fun.
Courtney’s book, The Year of the Horses, follows her through personal losses and professional challenges and her ultimate decision to saddle up and not only ride again but take on a new equine endeavor–polo. Her book has been named "A Best Read for Mental Health" by The Today Show and also appears on Amazon's list of Best Books of 2022.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- The Year of the Horses by Courtney Maum
You can find Courtney Maum on Instagram @cbmaum
FB Courtney Maum and her website courtneymaum.com
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Wednesday Jun 29, 2022
Wednesday Jun 29, 2022
We love independent bookstores and try to feature one each season, but this can be difficult. As small business owners, it is often difficult to carve time out of their weeks to speak with us. So we are always grateful when the stars align and we can make it happen.
This week’s episode features Michelle Haring, owner of Cupboard Maker Books in Enola, PA. She tells us about how she first sold rare books, then more widely used books, then new books. And the bookstore has also joined forces with a local nonprofit to “carry” (yes, we’re putting this in air quotes), adoptable cats. There are three store cats that visitors can always see–Mouse, Annika, and Zak. And what goes better with a cozy book than a cat on your lap (at least in Carrie’s estimation).
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
You can find Cupboard Maker Books on Instagram and FB at Cupboard Maker Books and at their website www.CupboardMaker.com
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Wednesday Jun 22, 2022
Wednesday Jun 22, 2022
This is the time of year when lots and lots of people travel so it makes sense to have a travel memoirist on our show. Kate Wickers is a British writer who has spent 25 years or so writing about her extensive travel experiences and publishing in magazines and newspapers all over the world. When COVID hit, she decided to turn her many travels with her husband and three sons into a collection of essays about what travel has meant to their family and the lessons they’ve learned from the experiences travel has given them.
Her memoir, Shape of a Boy, offers a collection of really great stories that will make any parent who has traveled with children go down their own memory lane to remember both the highs and lows of travel when kids are involved. And we’re not the only ones who think her memoir is pretty awesome. National Geographic Traveller listed it as one of the “9 Best Travel Books for 2022.”
You can find Kate Wickers on Instagram at @wickers.kate and at her website katewickers.com
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned In This Episode:
1- Shape of a Boy by Kate Wickers
Wednesday Jun 15, 2022
Wednesday Jun 15, 2022
Once again we have our favorite local bookseller, Sam Miller, of Carmichaels Books in Louisville KY on the show to talk about summer reads. She is like our in house book seller who joins us every summer and winter to tell us what is new and notable in bookstores.
Not all of these books are the typical fluffy summer books about the beach and booze; we have her cover all genres—sci/fi, cookbooks, local authors, YA, and literary fiction. We always enjoy when Sam visits us. And this week besides us, she also got to visit with resident cat Miso who was spreading the love around in the studio while we were recording.
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- Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod
- For show notes for any episode, go to our website at perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned In This Episode:
Wednesday Jun 08, 2022
Wednesday Jun 08, 2022
In this episode, we chat with debut novelist Donna Gordon. While she has a long background as a poet and short story writer, she ventured into writing a novel when two ideas began swirling around in her head.
Her novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me, tells the story of two characters, Lee and Tomás, who seem to have nothing that connects them and yet they do. It’s a novel that deals with some heavy topics in a way that doesn’t leave you despondent but instead you feel strangely hopeful. It was recently named one of "45 Books We're Excited About from Indie Presses in 2022" by the Indepdendt Book Review. Donna’s book hits bookstore shelves today.
You can find Donna Gordon on instagram at @donnagordon8994 and at her website donnagordon.com
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- Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod to see what we're up to.
- For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Wednesday Jun 01, 2022
Wednesday Jun 01, 2022
Readers have heard of the big 5 publishing companies that include Harper Collins, and Penguin/Random House. But there is something really special about university presses. Unfortunately, they don’t often get the attention they deserve. Sarah Munroe, Marketing Manager and Acquisitions Editor at West Virginia University Press, is our guest this week who talks to us about what makes a university press special and how they operate differently from the big 5.
One of the unique things about them is that they can and do feature more diverse voices and topics than what major publishers are willing to put out there. Former guest Neema Avashia, author of Another Appalachia, was published by WVU Press and she is just one of the diverse voices that readers can find at smaller publishers. WVU Press has made some pretty important headlines lately after their author Deesha Philyaw’s book The Secret Lives of Church Ladies became a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020.
While we definitely book nerd out with Sarah, we hope you stay tuned to what was supposed to be her 3 in the Third Degree where we asked only one question but learned a ton about her abiding love for dinosaurs and how they were part of her wedding ceremony with her husband.
You can find WVU Press at their website, www.wvupressonline.com and on instagram and twitter @wvupress and Facebook at West Virginia University Press.
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned In This Episode:
1- Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia
2- Bad Tourist by Suzanne Roberts
3- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw
4- Deer Season by Erin Flanagan
5- Even As We Breathe by Annette Sanuooke Clapsaddle
6- Ghosts of New York by Jim Lewis
7- Foote: A Mystery Novel by Tom Bredehoft
8- Lioness by Mark Powell
9- Curing Season by Kristine Langley Mahler
10- Kindred by Octavia Butler
11- Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin
12- Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James
13- Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James
14- The Kill by Richard House
15- City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty
16- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Greene
17- Eragon by Christopher Paolini
Podcast mentioned:
Strong Sense of Place hosted by Melissa Joulwan and David Humphreys
Wednesday May 25, 2022
Wednesday May 25, 2022
It's travel season and a great time to revisit our episode with travel writers and illustrators Amber Share and Suzanne Roberts. This week’s episode is jam-packed with travel writing. .
Our first guest is not a writer, but a graphic designer who began making cool illustrated posters of national parks on an Instagram account called Subpar Parks. Amber Share couples her illustrations with terrible one-star Yelp reviews those parks receive from visitors who weren’t terribly impressed with majestic things like The Grand Canyon and Old Faithful. Those illustrations have gone viral and she recently collected them all in book format and included facts about each national park from park rangers. Her book, SubPar Parks: America's Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors is a New York Times Bestseller.
Our second guest is writer Suzanne Roberts, who National Geographic named a “Next Great Travel Writer.” Her most recent book, Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love and Travel, has received many awards including the Independent Publisher Book Award and National Indie Excellence Awards. She weaves a story of maturing as a woman and becoming a veteran traveler. Her book will make you laugh but it also gets serious, and those serious essays make her humor seem all the more poignant.
You can find Amber Share on social media at @subparparks or at her website www.ambersharedesign.com. And Suzanne Roberts can be found on instqgram @suzanneroberts28 or on her website at www.suzanneroberts.net
Books Mentioned in This Episode:
1- SubPar Parks: America's Most Extraordinary National Parks and Their Least Impressed Visitors by Amber Share
2- Bad Tourist: Misadventures in Love & Travel by Suzanne Roberts
3- My Antonia by Willa Cather
4- Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather
5- Shadows on the Rock by Willa Cather
6- The Innocents by Michael Crummey
7- The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
8- Dispatches from Pluto: Lost & Found in the Mississippi Delta by Richard Grant
9- The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World by Eric Weiner
Wednesday May 18, 2022
Wednesday May 18, 2022
Namrata Patel has been writing for 20 years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that she had more time to work on it. She had always been interested in dual culture and challenges of the diaspora, specifically Indians who had moved to the United States. The isolation of COVID really brought home how lonely life can be if you don’t feel like you fit anywhere. Her debut novel The Candid Life of Meena Dave follows a photojournalist who inherits an apartment from a stranger. The apartment in Back Bay Boston surrounds her with a close-knit network of other Indian-Americans. Meena comes to learn more about herself and her culture, as well as understands the gift of found family and friendship through this experience.
The book comes out June 1 but those book lovers who have Amazon Prime can download her book for free during the month of May with their First Reads program. If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you are able to download 1 free book a month from their First Reads selections which are editor favorites hitting bookshelves the following month. Just search First Reads in the search bar.
You can find Namrata Patel on instagram at @namratapatelauthor, on Twitter at Nampatel or on her author website, nampatel.com.
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned In This Episode:
1- A Room With a View by E. M. Forester
2- Six Days in Rome by Franscesca Giacco
3- My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith
4- The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel
5- Books by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni
Wednesday May 11, 2022
Wednesday May 11, 2022
This week we talk to our first mystery series author: Jess Montgomery. The first book in her 4-book Kinship mystery series is The Widows which introduces us to Lilly Ross, a wife and mother in 1920s rural Ohio whose husband Daniel, the county sheriff, is killed in the line of duty. The town council asks Lilly to take over the sheriff’s position for the rest of the term and the first crime she wants to investigate is the murder of her husband. Lilly Ross is inspired by a real Ohio woman named Maud Colins who also became one of the first female sheriffs in the United States after her husband, also the sheriff, was murdered.
Jess’ most recent novel, The Echoes, was published this past March and follows Lilly and the townspeople of Kinship, OH as they reckon with ghosts of World War 1 some 10 years later. Many of the men served. While some, like Lilly’s brother, died in The Great War, many others came back with emotional scars that affect their personal choices and the town at large.
You can find Jess Montgomery on instagram at @jessmontgomeryauthor or on her author website, www.jessmontgomeryauthor.com .
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod.
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
Thursday May 05, 2022
Thursday May 05, 2022
Our guest this week, Court Stevens is outreach director for a public library and the author of 6 young adult suspense novels. Her most recent, We Were Kings, came out this past February and is her contemporary version of an Agatha Christie locked room mystery where our main character, Nyla King’s dysfunctional family and juicy secrets means everyone is a suspect of a murder that took place 20 years earlier.
You can find Court Stevens on instagram at @quartland or on her author website, www.courtneycstevens.com.
To find out more about Foxing Books, go to their Instagram at @foxingbooktore.
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover or on Instagram at @perksofbeingabookoverpod.
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned in this Episode: