The Perks Of Being A Book Lover Podcast

The Perks of Being a Book Lover 2021Year in Review and What’s New in 2022 1-5-22

Carrie and Amy take a look back at books they read in 2021 and choose their favorites.  Plus, past guests from 2021 share their top reads of the year.

Books mentioned in this episode:

1- Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn
2- The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson
3- This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith
4- Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia
5- Eat a Peach by David Chang
6- Lakewood by Megan Giddings
7- Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
8- Sick Souls, Healthy Minds by John Kaag
9- Once & Future Witches by Alix Harrow
10- Stone Sky by NK Jemisin
11- Whisper Man by Alex North
12- World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
13- Pax by Sara Pennypacker
14- The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
15- Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker
16- Speckled Beauty by Rick Bragg
17- As You Wish by Cary Elwes
18- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
19- Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethaway
20- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan
21- Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come by Jessica Pan
22- The Round House by Louise Erdrich
23- A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost
24- The Hummingbird's Gift by Sy Montgomery
25- Piranesi by Susannah Clarke
26- Where I Can't Follow by Ashley Blooms
27- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
28- Fox and I by Catherine Raven
29- Another Appalachia: Growing Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia
30- City of Brass by SA Chakraborty
31- Mordew by Alex Pheby
32- Lucia by Alex Pheby
33- The Storyteller by Dave Grohl
34- The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gordichec
35- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
36- She Wouldn't Change a Thing by Sarah Adlakha
37- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders
38- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland
39- Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland
40- The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry
41- The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson
42- Dune by Frank Herbert
43- Will by Will Smith
44- The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley
45- The Carrying by Ada Limon

 

 

 

 

REPLAY Ep. 86 Turn The Page and Tour The World with guest Melissa Joulwan 4-21-21

COVID has been hard for those among us who like to travel, but one of our favorite ways to assuage that desire is to read books set in different locations. Sweeping meadows. Mountains that touch the sky. Exotic locales. These places can whisk us from our humdrum homes.

A Strong Sense of Place is both a podcast and a website where readers can find interesting bookish conversations with our guest this week, Melissa Joulwan, and her husband David, two expatriates living in Prague located in the Czech Republic. In this week’s episode, she tells us about how they select the places they will visit each season, why place in a book has to meet very stringent specifications, and how roller derby helped her make some big life decisions.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

Podcasts mentioned--
Strong Sense of Place (strongsenseofplace.com)

Books mentioned--
1- Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume
2- Forever by Judy Blume
3- The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders
4- Archy McNally series by Lawrence Sanders
5- Lord of the Flies by William Golding
6- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
7- My Antonia by Willa Cather
8- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
9- The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
10- The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova
11- She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb
12- The Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood
13- Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell
14- Less by Andrew Sean Greer
15- A Room With a View by E.M. Forster
16- The Curse of Jacob Tracy by Holly Messinger

Movies or TV adaptations mentioned in this episode:

1- Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (Amazon)
2- A Room With a View (1985 movie)
3- Jane Eyre (1945 movie with Orson Welles)
4- Jane Eyre (2011 movie with Michael Fassbender)
5- Jane Eyre ( 2006 BBC miniseries with Toby Stephens)

 

 

 

 

REPLAY Ep. 87 A Shot of Bourbon With a Dash of Law with guest Brian Haara

**We have a rebroadcast this week.  We will resume all new episodes in Season 6 mid-January.

 

This week we are getting in the “spirit” of the first Saturday of May; a date that is sacrosanct for many Kentuckians because of the running of the Kentucky Derby. A love of horses and bourbon whiskey are high on the list of things that Kentuckians are proud of and want to export to the rest of the world. Bourbon is big business in our region and has had a surge in popularity over the last decade; around 90 percent of all bourbon is produced here in the Bluegrass State. At no other time of the year is bourbon more popular in Louisville KY than during Derby season.

Our guest this week, Brian Haara, is an attorney who developed an interest in bourbon through his work in the industry. He started by writing a bourbon history and law blog and has been featured in bourbon documentaries. His book, Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America, is a deep dive into the history of bourbon law that goes back almost to the founding of our country and highlights how bourbon cases have affected all types of commercial law, including consumer protections and trademark law. He wanted to tell the stories of how our country and bourbon grew up together. He is also a bourbon connoisseur who gives tasting notes on various bourbons on his blog and throughout the book.

He chats with us about how he fell down the literary “Poe” hole as a teen, how Victoria’s Secret benefited from bourbon law, and he gives me and Carrie some suggestions of bourbons to buy for the bourbon drinkers in our life; whether they be newbies or long time fans.

Websites mentioned--
sippncorn.blogspot.com
brianhaara.com

Books mentioned--
1- Bourbon Justice: How Whiskey Law Shaped America by Brian Haara
2- Poe anthology (Edgar Allan Poe)
3- Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
4- The Hobbit by J. R.R. Tolkein
5- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D.Salinger
6- Once and Future Witches by Alix Harrow
7- The 10,000 Doors of January by Alix Harrow
8- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
9- The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
10- Basketball and Philosophy: Thinking Outside the Paint by Jerry L. Walls (editor)

TV shows mentioned--
The Wire ( 2002-2008)

Season 5 Ep. 117 In The Weed(s) with Memoir and History with Guest Alia Volz

Our guest this week, Alia Volz, wrote a book titled Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and The Stoning of San Francisco about her experience growing up in San Francisco in the late 1970s and 80s. Alia’s parents were the owners of Sticky Fingers Brownies which made pot brownies that were known all over the city. While these brownies were the source of relaxation and fun for many people, when HIV and AIDS hit San Francisco, Sticky Fingers became a lifeline for many gay men who were devastated by the disease because the pot brownies helped them with pain and appetite.

The book covers a lot of territory, not the least of which is Alia’s parents’ backgrounds and what it was like for her to grow up in San Francisco in a family that couldn’t really talk about what it did because of the illegal nature of their business. Her book was a 2020 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. It’s a fascinating read which shows the social history leading to the legalization and wider use of cannabis for medical use in the US through the lens of her own family's story.

Books Discussed in this Episode:
1- Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz
2- Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews
3- The Stand by Stephen King
4- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
5- Dune by Frank Herbert
6- Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul Offitt
7- In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women are Still on Trial by Mona Chollet
8- Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa
9- The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn Universe #0.3)by P. Djeli Clark
10- The Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe #1)by P. Djeli Clark
11 - A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe #0.1) by P. Djeli Clark
12- The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark
13- Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe

Season5 Episode 116 Real Life Virginia Book Women with Guests Lisa Signorelli and Kristen Thrower

Social media can be awful but it can also be a great way to discover wonderful things happening around the globe that give me hope. Our guests this week are an example of that. When I saw a Facebook post about a pair of teachers in Virginia that had been inspired by a book to launch a bookmobile service in their town, I wanted to know more.

The novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson which is about women who served as pack librarians in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and brought reading materials to remote areas during the Depression is the one that Lisa Signorelli and Kristin Thrower looked to to guide them in their mission. They were concerned that their students in Chesterfield public schools on the outskirts of Richmond who didn’t have easy access to WIFI while school was virtual last year were being forgotten.

Lisa and Kristin decided to start delivering books to the students. The endeavour that began out of the back of their cars has now progressed to a full book mobile that gives away free books to students and their families.

In this episode, Lisa and Kristin talk about how they met through a mentor teacher friend named Ms. Clark, how their collaboration resulted in the book mobile, and what it adds to their teaching experience.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson
2- Books by Louis L'Amour
3- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
4- Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare
5- Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger
6- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle
7- The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
8- The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi
9- The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi
10- Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson
11- Cackle by Rachel Harrison
12- Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
13- A History Lover's Guide to Richmond by Kristin Thrower

Media mentioned--
1- Jason Reynolds on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
2- Mysteries at the Museum

 

 

 

 

Season 5 Ep. 115 Page-Turning Artistry with Guest Valerie Saverie

Every guest we’ve had on our show thus far has been someone who interacts with books as Amy and I do--with our eyes and ears. But Valerie Saverie interacts with books in a unique way--she is a book sculptor who uses books as both her inspiration and her canvas.

Based in Colorado, Valerie is the owner and a founding member of Valkarie Gallery & Studio as well as an artist whose work is shown and sold in New York, Oregon, California, and Pennsylvania. In this episode, she talks to us about how books inspire her and what her process is for turning an already magical work into something that goes even further into creativity and the imagination.

To see all of Valerie’s art you can check her out on instagram @valeriesaverie or at her website www.valeriesaverie.com. On her site, she is offering Perks listeners a 20% discount on anything they purchase from her store for 30 days. Use the code PBBL22.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
2- Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
3- Dreams by Olive Schreiner
4- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
5- The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by MT Anderson and Eugene Yelchin (Gildart Jackson narrates)
6- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick
7- Gobbledy by Lis-Anna Langston

Movies mentioned--
Blade Runner (1982)
Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

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Website : www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Season 5 Ep. 114 Bringing Book People Together with Guest Anna Ford

I love a good bookclub. Carrie and I have been in one together for 15 years. I am the designated book club organizer, and even though bookclubs have been one of the great passions of my adult life, keeping them organized can be an annoying process; finding a date that meets everyone’s needs, making sure everyone knows about the meetings and the books, choosing books. The administrative bookkeeping tasks are not things most people are anxious to do. But there is a relatively new website and free app called Bookclubz (that is Bookclub with a z) that can help streamline the process.

Our guest this week, Anna Ford is the CEO and founder of Bookclubz which started out as a simple computer program she used to help keep her own large bookclub organized. Over time, what was a rudimentary program has been featured in Forbes magazine and has blossomed into a business that helps tens of thousands of book clubs all over the world.

Go to their website at www.bookclubz.com

Books discussed in this episode:
1- The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols
2- Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy by Tom Nichols
3- The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker
4- The Secret Lives of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr
5- The Speckled Beauty by Rick Bragg
6- Just Kids by Patti Smith
7- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
8- The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power
9- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
10- The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward
11- Books by Elena Ferrante

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Website : www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Season 5 Ep 113 Around the World in an Anxious Mind with Guest Jeremy Hance 11-17-21

Our guest this week, Jeremy Hance, writes about 3 topics in his most recent book that we are always drawn to; mental health, travel, and animals. Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-trotting Hypochondriac is a memoir that uses humor to help readers understand what life is like for someone who has a mental health issue like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In Jeremy’s case, his anxiety is always worse when he travels. While traveling to all corners of the globe is one of the best parts of his life as an environmental writer and is necessary for the work he does, travel is also fraught with rumination and fear.

Jeremy is an environmental journalist who is currently a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac by Jeremy Hance
2- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
3- The Princess Bride by William Goldman
4- My Antonia by Willa Cather
5- The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani
6- Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein
7- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
8- A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermer
9- Sorry, I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes by Jessica Pan

Websites mentioned
news.Mongabay.com

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Instagram - @perksofbeingabookoverpod
Website : www.perksofbeingabooklover.com

Season 5 Ep. 112 Early Bird Holiday Book Buys with Bookseller Sam Miller 11-10-21

In this week’s episode, we talk to our favorite bookseller, Sam Miller from Carmichael’s Books, about the holiday gift giving season. You’ve probably heard the warning to “shop early’ this holiday season because of shortages. So we are giving you the gift of new book ideas for all the booklovers in your life.

We love inviting Sam on the show twice a year to tell us all about books to look forward to for summer reading and holiday gift buying. She gives us suggestions in all the categories.

1- Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
2- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich
3- The Every by Dave Eggers
4- The Circle by Dave Eggers
5- Palmares by Gail Jones
6- Tell the Bees That I'm Gone (Outlander 9) by Diana Gabaldon
7- The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
8- Dune by Frank Herbert
9- Foundation by Isaac Asimov
10- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
11- All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
12- Mordew by Alex Pheby
13- A Fortnight in September by JC Sherriff
14- Jim the Boy by Tony Earley
15- The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
16- First Christmas: A Story of New Beginnings by Stephen Mitchell
17- Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer
18- It's Beginning to Look a Lot like F*ck This by Andrew Shaffer
19- Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris
20- It's Beginning to Look Like Zombies: The Book of Zombie Christmas Carols by Michael Spradlin
21- Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian
22- Silverview by John Le Carre
23- The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries by Otto Penzler
24- Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Jay Cooper and Maureen Johnson
25- Smile by Sarah Ruhl
26- The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg
27- The Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg
28- Renegades: Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama
29- The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones
30- The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson
31- Best Wishes, Warmest Regards by Dan Levy and Eugene Levy
32- Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci
33- Cooking at Home by David Chang and Priya Krishna
34- Black Food by Bryant Terry
35- Garlic and the Vampire by Bree Paulsen
36- All the Marvels by Douglas Wolk
37- The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo
38- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Domine
39- The Strange Case of Isaac Crawley by James Markert
40- Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin
41- Theft by Finding Diaries by David Sedaris
42- The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins
43- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
45- Circe by Madeline Miller
46- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
47- Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee
48- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
49- Eligible: A modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld
50- Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson
51- Shirley: A Novel by Susan Scarf Merrell
52- The Letters of Shirley Jackson edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman
53- The Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith
54- Whiskey and Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith

Shows mentioned
1- Foundation series (2021)
2- Shirley (2020)

Podcasts mentioned
1- Renegades

Ep. 111 Existential Book People Problems with guest Bailey from ‘The To Read List Podcast‘ 11-3-21

This week we had a great time talking about book people problems with our guest Bailey, host of the To Read List Podcast. She doesn’t work alone on the podcast: her co-hosts include her brother Andrew, her friend Toby, and her husband Dillon who is the sound recordist. Through this podcast, they attempt to get through all the books on their shelves. Every other week they each read a book from their collections that is randomly selected. And at the end of the episode they have to decide if their books stay on their shelves or whether a new home needs to be found; like a free little library.

So this episode is filled with discussion of problems that are particular to book lovers like how many books is too many, can you have too many e-books downloaded on your Kindle, should we keep all the books we read, is 'dnfing' ok? You get the picture. We talk all about of book neuroses on this episode. It’s like a book group therapy session.

You can find the To Read List Podcast:
thetoreadlistpodcast.libsyn.com
and on Instagram @thetoreadlistpodcast

Books mentioned--
1- The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
2- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
3- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
4- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susannah Clarke
5- Moby Dick by Herman Melville
6- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
7- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
8- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
9- Sadie by Courtney Summers
10- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
11- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe
12- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
13- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
14- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
15- The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo
16- Dracula by Bram Stoker

17- Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
18- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
19- Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket
20- The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket
21- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

21- The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah One Jewett

Movies mentioned-
Inception (2010)

Social Media mentioned--
The To Read List podcast
Karen Puzzles (Youtube)

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