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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 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:
Tuesday Apr 26, 2022
Tuesday Apr 26, 2022
Our guest this week, Chelsea Hofmann, loves to feel her pulse quicken and gets excited by the idea that anything could happen. She lives her life spontaneously so her love of the thriller genre with its twists, turns, and surprise endings fit her personality just fine.
After finishing college and moving to Southern California with her husband, she wanted to reconnect with her love of reading books that she had as a child but none of the book clubs she tried felt like a good fit. So she started a virtual book club on the Instagram platform called Thrillers By The Bookclub. As that virtual club became became popular with members all over the globe, people started asking her about in-person book clubs. Chelsea nurtured this idea, encouraging book lovers to start their own Thriller By The Book Club chapters. There are now over 27 chapters and more are still forming. We chat with Chelsea in this episode about all the thrilling books she reads.
- You can find Chelsea on instagram at @thrillerbookbabe.
- To find out more about Thrillers By The Book club, to see if they have a chapter in your area or to get more information about starting your own, check out their instagram at @thrillersbythebookclub .
- Local Louisville listeners , there is a chapter in town. @txbc_louisville
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:
Wednesday Apr 20, 2022
Wednesday Apr 20, 2022
Today is going to be a little different. Unfortunately we had some scheduling difficulties and therefore don’t have a new episode for you this week.
But, we do have a “New To You” episode because we have been lucky enough to be guests on several other podcasts. So, today we are offering up our appearance on The Modern Life Podcast, hosted by Tabby Pawlitzki. On the Modern Life Podcast, Tabby and guests read a book and then watch the screen adaptation and then pick apart all the things they loved and the things they loved to hate. And which was better? The book or the movie?.
Carrie and I were guests to Tabby’s podcast back in December to discuss The Princess Bride written by William Goldman which was then directed in 1987 by Rob Reiner.
This was our second time being a guest on Tabby’s show and we always adore nerding out with her.
You can find Modern Life podcast on all the major podcast platforms and follow her on Instagram at @Modernlifepod.
Wednesday Apr 13, 2022
Wednesday Apr 13, 2022
April is National Poetry Month and whether you love poetry or not, you’ve likely heard of poet laureates. You may not know what that distinction means, however. There are all kinds of poet laureates—of countries, or states, of cities, and of even smaller areas. A poet laureate is appointed by a head of government for her or his accomplishments and may publish poems for special occasions. It is an honor that comes with a lot of flexibility.
In this week’s episode, we chat with Luisa A. Igloria, a native of the Philippines who came to the US to attend graduate school and is one of only four poet laureates of color for the state of Virginia. She was appointed to the position right as Covid took over our lives in 2020. She talks about the three cornerstone projects she wanted to launch in order to make poetry a larger part of the community.
You can find Luisa on instagram at @poetslizard.
To see the Poetry Postcard Project and Young Poets in the Community, go to her website at www.luisaigloria.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 and Poetry mentioned--
1- Maps for Migrants and Ghosts by Luisa A. Igloria
2- "Song of Meridians" by Luisa A. Igloria
3- "Blue Bucket" by Naomi Shihab Nye
4- Cartography by Luisa A. Igloria
5- "Vacation" by Wendell Berry
6- Sapiens: A Graphic History Vols 1 and 2 by Yuval Noah Harari, David Vandermeulen, Daniel Casanave
7- Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari
8- Homo Deus: A History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari
9- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
10- Rise: A Pop History of Asian America from the Nineties to Now by Jeff Yang, Phil Yu, and Philip Wang
11- Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia, and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World by Anthony Doerr
12- All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
13- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Wednesday Apr 06, 2022
Wednesday Apr 06, 2022
We’ve talked about many books on this podcast with an Appalachian setting. And in the Trump and post-Trump era, talking heads have been trying to understand Appalachia. After the publishing of Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance, a book about Appalachia that many people love to hate, a whole slew of books by diverse Appalachian writers came out that showed other versions of this complicated region of the country. Neema Avashia’s new book of essays, Another Appalachia: Growing Up Indian and Queer in a Mountain Place really demonstrates those contradictions and strong sense of place.
Neema is a middle school teacher who lives in Boston, but she grew up in a small West Virginia town that was built up around the chemical industry that used the state’s coal to power its plants. Her parents migrated from India and Neema had what she felt was a magical childhood. But as much as she loved her hometown and home state, as she became an adult she had to to come to terms with what home means when you are Indian-American, Hindu, vegetarian, and queer growing up in a place that is overwhelming white, meat and potatoes, and Christian. Her essays ask interesting questions about what it means to love a place that doesn’t always love you back.
You can find Neema on instagram at @avashia and at her author website www.neemaavashia.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 Discussed in this Episode:
1- Another Appalachia: Coming Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia
2- The Cat Who Saved Books by Sosuke Natsukawa
3- Drowned Town by Jayne Moore Waldrop
4- Death in the Air: The Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City by Kate Winkler Dawson
5- Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America by Erik Larson
Articles mentioned--
What Does the Image of the Cat Signify in Japanese Literature? by Dee Das
bookriot.com/cats-in-japanese-fiction/
Wednesday Mar 30, 2022
Wednesday Mar 30, 2022
Our guest this week is author and podcaster, Maggie Smith. Maggie’s second act in her professional life is as a novelist. She spent over 25 years running a business but when it began to feel boring and she needed to use her creativity, she attended a writer’s workshop where the instructor asked everyone to write down something they could never write about; Maggie wrote about mother daughter relationships. This idea transformed itself into a novel about where mothers/ daughters/ and mentors intersect titled Truth and Other Lies.
One of the thematic ideas of the book is how important heroes are—they inspire us and make us feel a sense of empowerment. But sometimes we move into hero worship, where we fail to see that our heroes sometimes have big glaring unbelievably unethical behaviors that we could see if we opened our eyes. Of course, the blindness that keeps us from seeing the truth about our heroes is similar to the blindness that keeps us from seeing our mothers, or parents in general, in a favorable light. The novel covers a lot of ground in a fast-paced story.
You can find Maggie on instagram at @maggiesmithwrites and at her author website www.maggiesmithwriter.com. Her podcast Hear Us Roar for the Women’s Fiction Writing Association can be found on your podcast player of choie.
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- Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith
2- The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
3- The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo (audiobook)
4- Woman on Fire by Lisa Barr
5- Mouth to Mouth by Antoine Wilson (audiobook and text)
6- The Christie Affair by Nina de Gramont
7- The Mystery of Mrs. Christie by Marie Benedict
Podcasts Mentioned--
1- Hear Us Roar, hosted by Maggie Smith
2- Books Are My People, hosted by Jennifer Caloyeras
Movies mentioned--
1- Chinatown (1974)
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
Wednesday Mar 23, 2022
This week’s episode is for true crime enthusiasts. Every city has had murders that make the news, and Louisville is no different. Our guest this week, David Domine', adopted Louisville as his hometown and has a following here as an author, tour guide, and storyteller in the city. He has written a new book called A DARK ROOM IN GLITTER BALL CITY about a sensational murder that was discovered after a domestic disturbance in Old Louisville in 2010. The story includes drugs, drag queens, and maybe even the CIA.
His book is true crime, but it also veers into memoir and history. And it introduces readers to quirky characters whose eccentricities are why we have a saying here to “Keep Louisville Weird.”
His book is getting some attention. Publisher's Weekly gave it a starred review and Amazon named it as one of the top true crime reads of the season.
You can find David Domine’ on instagram, @bluegrasspeasant, on FB David Domine’, The Bluegrass Peasant and at his website www.daviddomine.com. You can find information about David’s historical tours of Old Louisville at www.louisvillehistorictours.com
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé
2- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin
3- When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson Browne
4- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid
5- Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
6- Malibu Rising by Taylor Jenkins Reid
7- The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle by Stuart Turton
8- The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold
9- You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe
Shows Mentioned:
1- Unsolved Mysteries (2020) Netflix
2- Only Murders in the Building - Hulu
You can find us at:
www.perksofbeingabooklover.com
Insta - @perksofbeingabookloverpod
FB - The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Wednesday Mar 16, 2022
Wednesday Mar 16, 2022
This week’s guest, Angela Jackson-Brown, is an award-winning novelist, poet, and playwright. She is also a professor at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana who completed her MFA at Spalding University in Louisville where she is also a member of the creative writing graduate faculty.
Her most recent novel, When Stars Rain Down, was published in 2021 and is a historical fiction story set in 1930s Georgia, and has been nominated for several awards. Angela also has a new novel coming out in July called The Light Always Breaks set in post WW 2 Washington DC that features political and romantic intrigue between a high powered interacial couple. These are stand alone novels but what is cool is that these books’ characters are in the same fictional universe so readers get a chance to reconnect with characters they may have met before.
Angela talks to us about how she uses fiction to write about experiences in her life she wished she’d had, why she started writing plays, and the first book she read as a child that made a big impression on her (and this will surprise you).
You can find Angela on Instagram at @angelajacksonbrownauthor and at her author website angelajacksonbrown.com
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover
Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod
Website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- When Stars Rain Down by Angela Jackson-Brown
2- The Light Always Breaks by Angela Jackson-Brown
3- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl
4- Drinking From a Bitter Cup by Angela Jackson-Brown
5- Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
6- Roots by Alex Haley
7- The Color Purple by Alice Walter
8- The Prophets by Robert Jones Jr.
9- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
10- The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: The Mysterious Howling by Maryrose Wood
11- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
12- We Are Not Like Them by Christine Pride and Jo Piazza
13- Girl at War by Sara Nović
14- True Biz by Sara Nović
Movies mentioned
1- Child's Play (1988)
2- The Conjuring (2013)