The Perks Of Being A Book Lover Podcast

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. 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

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Daria Lavelle at www.darialavelle.com and on IG at @daria.lavelle.author What is a food that, when you smell it or taste it, reminds you of a person or a place? Our guest this week, Daria Lavelle, has written a novel titled Aftertaste that asks what would happen if you could summon ghosts with food. This isn’t a horror novel, so these ghosts aren’t here to haunt us in the traditional sense. But the main character, Kostya, is a chef who helps his clients find closure from their loss and grief through food memories. Lavelle’s novel is super unique, and she talks to us about her own Ukrainian-American family’s passion for food, how Covid and Russia’s war on Ukraine heavily affected its writing, and how love becomes the crux of all the book’s momentum. Our book rec segment of the show features women in STEM doing all kinds of cool sciency, techny, engineery, and mathy things. We’ve got women doing research in the Amazon and under the sea, women physicists, young girls learning botany, Regency period women studying fossils, and female scientists who bring back a woolly mammoth. Books Mentioned In This Episode 1- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 2- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller 3- The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh 4- The Everlasting by Alix E. Harrow 5- A Wish in the Dark by Christina Soontornvat 6- Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy by Mary Roach 7- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Kris N. @theretiredlibrarian - Beth is Dead by Katie Bernet 8- The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly 9- The Last Animal by Ramona Ausubel 10- Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier 11- The Woman Who Split the Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner by Marissa Moss 12- State of Wonder by Ann Patchett 13- Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield Media Mentioned -- 1- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight (2024) 2- Bringing Back Wooly Mammoths - https://www.npr.org/2026/03/04/nx-s1-5704318/colossal-woolly-mammoth-dire-wolf

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Books with Betsy at https://www.bookswithbetsy.com/ and on IG at @books_with_betsy This week, we chat with Chicago resident Betsy Tomszak who by day is a kindergarten teacher who reads lots and lots of picture books. After school hours, though, she is a reader of all kinds of other genres and the host of the podcast Books with Betsy. She was kind enough to invite us to be guests last summer, and we’re finally able to return the favor so she can tell our listeners all about her show. We get the nitty gritty about why she started the podcast and why she wanted to talk to regular readers. Our book recommendation segment of the show this week is about characters in disguise. Sometimes a disguise is just to mask one’s appearance, but in other situations it is not only a physical disguise but an assumption of an entirely different personality and back story. We offer you historical fiction novels set in Napoleonic France and Nazi Germany, a Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, a novel based on a medieval legend, a National Book Award winner, and a memoir. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 2- My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for his Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar 3- Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë 4- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone: A Therapist, Her Therapist, and Our Lives Revealed by Lori Gottlieb 5- Say Hello to My Little Friend by Jennine Capo Crucet 6- So You Wanna Be On Top? by Sarah Hartshorne 7- Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica 8- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Hartman 9- Rules of Civility by Amor Towles 10- A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles 11- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver 12- Summerdale by David Jay Collins 13- The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai 14- The Wilderness by Angela Flournoy 15- The Authenticity Project by Clare Pooley 16- Sundial by Catriona Ward 17- A Five Start Read recommended by Fellow Book Lover Jeanine Neale @jeans_stacked_shelf - Nobody Knows You are Here by Bryn Greenwood 18- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas 19- Master Slave, Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom by Ilyoon Woo 20- Journey to Munich by Jacqueline Winspear 21- Pope Joan: A Novel by Donna Woolfolk Cross 22- Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl 23- The Good Lord Bird by James McBride Media mentioned: 1- Wuthering Heights (2026) 2- Shrinking (Apple +, 2023 - present) 3- The Good Lord Bird (2020) 4- Jateska Cultural Center - https://jasteka.org 5- Artwork by Vian Sora - -https://jasteka.org/abcs-events 6- Run and Read Chicago - https://www.readandrunchicago.com

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. This week we talk to Rachel Ray, CEO of the International Book Project, a nonprofit organization in Lexington, KY that helps make book lovers out of people all over the world. She talks to us about the logistics of shipping books and how close relationships with the Peace Corps and other nonprofits help get English-language books into people’s hands. And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on spies, but these definitely aren’t of the James Bond variety. We offer up 6 book suggestions that stretch our understanding of an espionage story. We are light on books set during the Cold War or World War II but instead focus on outside-the-box spy characters. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé 2- The White Heart of the Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert by Edna Brush Perkins 3- Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams on the Edge of Death Valley by Brent Underwood 4- Guards, Guards! (Discworld series) by Terry Pratchett 5- The Storyteller of Casablanca by Fiona Valley 6- Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson 7- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Jenni Scott @storytimereviews - Theo of Golden by Allen Levi 8- Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park 9- Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht 10- An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole 11- Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead 12- Mr. Nice Spy by Tiana Smith 13- The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix Media Mentioned: 1- Murder in Glitterball City (HBO Max 2026) 2- John Hendrix's link to The Faithful Spy research - https://goose-hawk-c589.squarespace.com/bonhoeffer-research 3- Terry Pratchett Puzzle - https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-world-of-terry-pratchett-1000-piece-puzzle-a-discworld-jigsaw-by-paul-kidby-terry-pratchett/29dbddde082184ce?ean=9781399620697&next=t&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=%7Bcampaignname%7D&utm_content=6443417794&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=16235479093&gbraid=0AAAAACfld41whhyxRMyYH28KslljMJPpx&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIieS7rND8kgMVYCBECB3sphbOEAQYByABEgIRtvD_BwE

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Eiren Caffal at her website eirencaffall.com or on IG @eirencaffall We chat this week with Eiren Caffall, a Chicago writer whose memoir, The Mourner’s Bestiary, sat on Carrie's shelf staring at her for a year until she finally made time to read it but she is so glad I did. In this creative nonfiction work, Eiren talks about her family’s long history with a chronic illness (specifically, polycystic kidney disease (PKD)) and connects that to the health of the waterways and living creatures in Maine. It is a master work that merges scientific writing with poetic language. We also talk about her novel, All the Water in the World, which came out less than six months after The Mourner’s Bestiary. It is also about water, but in a fictional dystopian setting where New York City has flooded due to the melting of the ice caps. If you enjoyed Station Eleven, you must give this novel a try. And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on Old Dudes!! Carrie has a soft spot in her heart for curmudgeonly and/ or cuddly elderly men, so we are giving you six ideas of books that feature crotchety (or not) male senior citizens. We have a memoir, a children’s book series, a book translated from Swedish, novels featuring LGBTQ protagonists, and literary fiction. Books Discussed in this Episode: 1- The Mourner's Bestiary by Eiren Caffal 2- All the Water in the World by Eiren Caffal 3- Howards End by E.M. Forster 4- Stolen by Ann-Helén Laestadius 5- Ignition by MR O'Connor 6- Hotshot: A Life on Fire by River Selby 7- The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Story of a Donner Party Bride by Daniel James Brown 8- The Wager: A Tale of Shipwreck, Mutiny, and Murder by David Grann 9- The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by Stephen Graham Jones 10- Queen Bee by Cierra Geraghty 11- The List of Suspicious Things by Jennie Godfrey 12- A Five Star Read Recommended by a Fellow Book Lover - In a Lonely Place by Dorothy Hughes 13- The Very Long Very Strange Life of Isaac Dahl by Bart Yates 14- The Last Days of Ptolemy Gray by Walter Mosley 15- The Happiest Man on Earth by Eddie Jaku 16- The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson 17- The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle by Matt Cain 18- Mr. Putter and Tabby series by Cynthia Rylant 19- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City: Murder, Secrets, and Scandal in Old Louisville by David Dominé Media Mentioned: 1- 'Murder in Glitter Ball City' - https://www.wdrb.com/news/murder-in-glitter-ball-city-hbo-documentary-explores-2010-old-louisville-murder/article_1b4cc513-c22b-4543-b609-5b6267e1dce2.html 2- Our Episode with David Dominé - https://ThePerksofBeingaBookLover.podbean.com/e/season-5-episode-108-sex-drugs-and-true-crime-vibes-with-guest-david-domine-10-13-21/ 3- True Detective Night Country (HBO Max, 2024)

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. This week we talk to Rachel Ray, CEO of the International Book Project, a nonprofit organization in Lexington, KY that helps make book lovers out of people all over the world. She talks to us about the logistics of shipping books and how close relationships with the Peace Corps and other nonprofits help get English-language books into people’s hands. And for our book recommendation section of the show, we are focusing on spies, but these definitely aren’t of the James Bond variety. We offer up 6 book suggestions that stretch our understanding of an espionage story. We are light on books set during the Cold War or World War II but instead focus on outside-the-box spy characters. Books Mentioned In This Episode: 1- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Dominé 2- The White Heart of the Mojave: An Adventure with the Outdoors of the Desert by Edna Brush Perkins 3- Ghost Town Living: Mining for Purpose and Chasing Dreams at the Edge of Death Valley by Brent Underwood 4- Discworld series by Terry Pratchett 5- The Storyteller of Casablanca by Fiona Valpy 6- Poets Square: A Memoir in Thirty Cats by Courtney Gustafson 7- A 5 Star Read by a Fellow Book Lover Jenni Potter Scott @storytimereviews - Theo of Golden by Allen Levi 8- Oxford Soju Club by Jinwoo Park 9- Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht 10- An Extraordinary Union by Alyssa Cole 11- Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead 12- Mr. Nice Spy by Tiana Smith 13- The Faithful Spy: Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Plot to Kill Hitler by John Hendrix Media Mentioned: 1- Murder in Glitterball City - HBO Max, 2026 2- John Hendrix - Link to The Faithful Spy research - https://goose-hawk-c589.squarespace.com/bonhoeffer-research

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Christina Henry at christinahenry.net or on IG @authorchristinahenry In this week’s episode, our focus is on houses that are so important to a story that they essentially become a character. When we started thinking about this idea, we realized that Chicago writer Christina Henry would be a perfect guest because her last two novels are focused on houses. Her most recent is titled The Place Where They Buried Your Heart and is about a neighborhood house that lures people in, causing heartache for neighbors as well as a sense of family among a handful of them. Prior to this novel, Christina wrote The House That Horror Built. We talk to Christina about the importance of houses in her stories and how a house can straddle setting and character. In our book rec section, we continue the house idea with a range of titles in which houses are critically important—-we’ve got a memoir, a National Book Award winner, children’s fantasy, classic literature, and propulsive literary fiction. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- The Place Where They Buried Your Heart by Christina Henry 2- The House That Horror Built by Christina Henry 3- Howards End by E.M. Forster 3- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 3- Viewfinder: A Memoir of Seeing and Being Seen by Jon M. Chu 4- Double Indemnity by James Cain 5- From the Moment They Met It Was Murder: Double Indemnity and the Rise of Film Noir by Alain Silver and James Ursini 6- Out by Natsuo Kirino 7- Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata 8- Earthlings by Sayaka Murata 9- The Mantis by Kotaro Osaka 10- Three Assasins by Kotaro Osaka 11- Bullet Train by Kotaro Osaka 12- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Kris Wyatt @froggyreadteach - The Labors of Hercules Beal by Gary D. Schmidt 13- Cabin: Off the Grid Adventures with a Clueless Craftsman by Patrick Hutchison 14- House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus III 15- The Yellow House by Sarah broom 16- Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones 17- The House with the Clock in it's Walls by John Bellairs 18- Behind the Waterline by Kionna Walker LeMalle 19- The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson 20- Rebecca by Daphne duMaurier Media Mentioned: 1- If I Had Legs I'd Kick You (2025) 2- Platonic (Apple +, 2023 - present) 3- Train Dreams (2025) 4- The Studio (Apple +, 2025) 5- Howards End (1992) 6- Howl's Moving Castle (2004) 7- The House with the Clock in it's Walls (2018) 8- House of Sand and Fog (2003)

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Jessica Walker on IG @hellojessicawalker In this week’s episode, we’re talking to debut novelist and assistant professor of fine arts at Parsons School of Design Jessica Walker, whose novel Amy discovered late last year. The Secret Astronomers is an illustrated novel, which is not the same as a graphic novel. This is a novel that is written on sticky notes between two people inside a book. It’s in full color and really eye-catching. Although it is technically geared towards young adults, it is a feast for the eyes for any age reader. The story is about two girls who keep their identities secret from each other and converse through an old astronomy textbook in the school library. This new take on the epistolary novel takes the reader on an adventure to solve a mystery in this small West Virginia town. And in our book rec section, inspired by the West Virginia setting of The Secret Astronomers, we’re giving you other books set in The Mountain State. We have a mystery, a Pulitzer Prize winner, several historical fiction, and an investigative nonfiction. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- The Secret Astronomers by Jessica Walker 2- I Am The Messenger by Markus Zusak 3- Neanderthal Opens the Door to the Universe by Preston Norton 4- Floreana by Midge Raymond 5- What You are Getting Wrong About Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte 6- Yellow Singing Sail: A Memoir of an Only Child in China by Yinfan Huang 7- Otto: A Palindrama by Jon Agee 8- Griffin & Sabine: An Extraordinary Address Book by Nick Bantok 9- My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for a Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq by Ariel Sabar 10- The Doorman by Chris Pavone 11- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover Karla @karla_bookishlife - Blood Like Ours and Blood Like Mine by Stuart Neville 12- The Road to Blair Mountain by Charles Keeney 13- The Lost Story by Meg Shaffer 14- The Unquiet Grave by Sharyn McCrumb 15- Night Watch by Jayne Anne Phillips 16- The Quiet Zone: Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence by Stephen Kurczy 17- The Third Rainbow Girl by Emma Copley Eisenberg 18- Foote: A Mystery Novel by Tom Bredehoft 19- The Coffin Quilt: The Feud Between the Hatfields and McCoys by Ann Rinaldi Media Mentioned: 1- Footnotes and Tangents Substack - War and Peace 2- Eden (Netflix, 2024) 3- Our episode with Meg Shaffer - https://ThePerksofBeingaBookLover.podbean.com/e/s12ep249-the-lost-story-with-guest-meg-shaffer-11525/ 4- Article about Reading Resetting the Nervous System - https://www.hellomagazine.com/healthandbeauty/health-and-fitness/873671/why-reading-cures-overactive-nervous-system-experts-explain/

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Archer Sullivan at her website archersullivan.com or on IG @archer_sullivan. We are back with all new episodes, book recommendations, and, most importantly, guests! To start the new season with a bang, we have author Archer Sullivan whose book The Witch’s Orchard is the first in a new series featuring Private Investigator Annie Gore, who travels to small town North Carolina to solve the mystery of young girls who have disappeared. What makes the cases even more creepy is that an Appalachian apple face doll is left in place of the child. Archer draws on her personal knowledge of place as a 7th-generation Appalachian, although she now resides in Los Angeles, and is always looking for a reason to come home. The novel was a nominee for the 2025 Goodreads Choice Awards in the Best Debut Novel Category. The next Annie Gore installment comes out in August of 2026. Our book rec section for this episode is a call back to what a lot of people were doing the past two weeks–taking planes, trains, and automobiles to family and friends to celebrate the holidays. We give you two books set on planes, two on trains, and two in automobiles, which you can look into whenever you’ve got travel plans in 2026. Books Mentioned In This Episode: 1- The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan 2- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy 3- Sous Chef: 24 Hours of Working on the Line by Michael Gibney 4- Marrying the Ketchups by Jennifer Close 5- Brimstone Hollow by Archer Sullivan 6- Dragonsbane by Barbara Hambly 7- The Curse of Chalion by Lois Bujold 8- The Wizard of Earths by Ursula K. LeGuin 9- Silver Medal Lover by Tanith Lee 10- The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison 11- Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson 12- The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo 13- A Five Star Read by Fellow Book Lover - Babel by R.F. Kuang 14- West With The Night by Beryl Markham 15- Circling the Sun by Paula McClain 16- Turbulence by David Szalay 17- Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool 18- Border Crossing by Emma Pick 19- Mrs. Nash's Ashes by Sarah Adler 20- The Road to Tender Hearts by Annie Hartnett Media Mentioned: 1- Simon Haisell's Slow Read at Footnote and Tangents Substack - https://footnotesandtangents.substack.com 2- From the Front Porch Podcast - Patreon Conquer a Classic 3- The Bear on Hulu

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. Our first show of Season 14 will begin on January 7, 2026. We’ve been coming up with ideas for book recommendations and will soon be recording with guests. But until then, Amy is going to make merry, and Carrie is going to begrudgingly deal with the holidays. And in this episode, we’re reviewing some of the notable books that we have loved over the last 12 months. Some of these are backlist titles, and some are new releases—we cannot keep up with the publishing industry, nor do we really try. You will also hear from some of our guests from this year who share their favorites of 2025. Books Discussed In This Episode: Carrie's Favorites of 2025 1- Angel Down by Daniel Kraus 2- On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder 3- The Millicent Quibb School for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon 4- The Lost Year by Katherine Marsh 5- Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug Amy's Favorites of 2025 1- Miss Benson's Beetle by Rachel Joyce 2- You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith 3- Culpability by Bruce Holsinger 4- The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve Hours, Four Patients' Lives by Theresa Brown, RN 5- Paris Letters: A Travel Memoir About Art, Writing, and Finding Love in Paris by Janice MacLeod Other books mentioned 1- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman 2- The Nature of Pain by Mandi Fugate Sheffel 3- The Strange Case of Jane O by Karen Thompson Walker 4- The Devils by Joe Abercrombie 5- Everything's Fine by Cecilia Rabess 6- The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb 7- I Have Some Questions For You by Rebecca Makkai 8- Just One Damned Thing After Another by Jodi Taylor 9- Starling House by Alix E. Harrow 10- Dead Man Blues by S.D. House 11- God of the Woods by Liz Moore 12- The Road to Blair Mountain: Saving a Mine Wars Battlefield from King Coal by Charles B. Keeney 13- Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O' Yea 14- Carpool Detectives: A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case by Chuck Hogan 15- Anima Rising by Christopher Moore 16- The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest by Aubrey Hartman 17- The Husbands by Holly Gramazio 18- Grace and Henry's Holiday Movie Marathon by Matthew Norman 19- Seven Days of Us by Francesca Hornak

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Daniel Kraus at his website danielkraus.com or on IG at @kraus_author. This week our episode features Daniel Kraus, a writer who has published over 20 books, but among moviegoers he may be best known as the co-author with Guillermo del Toro of The Shape of Water. The film of this story won four Oscars in 2018. Daniel’s 2023 novel Whalefall is being turned into a 20th Century Fox motion picture, and I hope that at some point his latest novel, Angel Down, will also be on film. Both the premise and writing in Angel Down are unique. It is the story of a group of World War I soldiers told to go into No Man’s Land to rescue what they think is a wounded soldier. What they find is an angel. If you enjoy war novels, and even if you don’t, I recommend giving this book a read. Our book rec section of the show features books related to women in politics. If you are interested in politics yet hate the nuttery of American government at the moment, these books can provide a reprieve. We have contemporary fiction, biography, memoir, alternative history, and electoral nonfiction. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Whalefall by Daniel Kraus 2- Angel Down by Daniel Kraus 3- The Shape of Water by Guillermo del Toro and Daniel Kraus 4- Frankenstein by Mary Shelley 5- The Leaphorn and Chee Series by Tony Hillerman 6- Hearts of the Missing by Carol Potenza 7- The Death and Life of Zebulon Finch by Daniel Kraus 8- Wolf at the Table by Adam Rapp 9- From Under the Truck by Josh Brolin 10- Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali 11- The Rachel Incident by Caroline O'Donoghue 12- A Five Star Read recommended by fellow Book Lover State Katz @all.da.bookish.things - The Witch's Orchard by Archer Sullivan 13- Cleo McDougal Regrets Nothing by Alison Winn Scotch 14- Charlotte Walsh Likes to Win by Jo Piazza 15- The Partisan Gap: Why Democratic Women Get Elected But Republican Women Don't by Laurel Elder 16- Rodham by Curtis Sittenfeld 17- Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton 18- A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Arden Media Mentioned: 1- Frankenstein (2025-Netflix) 2- Dark Winds (2022 - present, Netflix) 3- The Shape of Water (2017) 4- 1917 (2019) 5- Whalefall (Upcoming Fall 2026) 6- Michelle Obama Says US Not Ready for a Female President - https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/michelle-obama-says-us-not-ready-woman-president-rcna244136

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find out more about Kristine and Meet Me At Luke’s at www.gilmorebookclub.com or on IG at @gilmorebookclub. This week we catch up with Kristine Eckart, the founder of the online Gilmore Book Club. When we first spoke to her in Season 9, Episode 188 (2023), she talked about creating this book club, which is based on the books read by the characters in the beloved bookish TV show The Gilmore Girls. This year the show is celebrating its 25th anniversary since it first aired, and to commemorate this occasion, Kristine has written a book titled Meet Me at Luke’s, which is a compendium of essays about the show and its impact on Kristine and other book lovers. If you have a Gilmore Girl fan in your life, this might be the perfect holiday gift. In this remix episode, you’ll hear an update from Kristine as well as clips from her initial visit on The Perks. Books Mentioned in This Episode: 1- Meet Me At Luke's by Kristine Eckart 2- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway 3- The Vampyre by John Polidori 4- Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw 5- Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakeable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness by Rick Hanson 6- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway 7- The Paris Wife by Paula McClain 8- The President's Wife by Tracey Emerson Wood 9- The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson 10- A 5 Star Read Recommnended by a Fellow Book Lover Kim Layman @the_read_rat - A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness 11- The Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons from Russian Literature by Viv Groskop Shows Mentioned: 1- The Gilmore Girls (2000-2007) 2- Gossip Girl (2007-2012) 3- The Office (2005-2013) 4- Anne with an E (2017-2019) 5- White Lotus (MAX, 2021-present) Link to previous Perks episode: https://www.perksofbeingabooklover.com/episodes/blpks3ktgywx9fx-x9wxe-p3aft-j9j3f-pk2fn-wbdd3-dbsfp-hhfrc-ep6yz-alk6z-hl34a-dhhaz-l9x4z-88zrd-rh699-xd584-r9src-wkdf3-aegrx-hhnhf-zsc5j Whitehall Historic Home and Gardens - https://www.historicwhitehall.org/whitehall-book-club

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find JH Markert at jamesmarkert.com or on IG at @jamesmarkert74 This week we chat with JH Markert who we spoke to pre-Covid in the before times when he was writing historical fiction. Over the last couple of years, he has changed gears and returned to the genre that first made him an avid reader: horror. JH has been cranking out horror novels and finding a great deal of success with them. We catch up with James and discuss his transition to horror and what that has been like after writing five previous historical fiction novels. His most recent release that came out in September, Spider to the Fly, is dark horror suspense that deals with a serial killer, a true crime influencer, and a family with some bizarre dynamics. And for our book rec section, we are talking about notable nonfiction. These are nonfiction books we’ve read in the last year that have made us think differently about a topic or stood out for us in some way (even though these books might not have been published in the last year). We’ll talk about a micro-history, a biography, a true crime, a memoir, a study of morality and politics, and a niche book about cussing. Books Mentioned In This Episode: 1- Spider to the Fly by J.H. Markert 2- Molokai by Alan Brennert 3- A White Wind Blew by James Markert 4- Nightmare Man by J.H. Markert 5- Mr. Lullaby by J. H. Markert 6- Sleep Tight by J.H. Markert 7- Midnight at the Tuscany Hotel by James Markert 8- The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb 9- Dietrich Bonhoeffer: In the Midst of Wickedness by Janet and Geoff Benge 10-The Vanishing Place by Zöe Rankin 11- Five Star Read by a Fellow Book Lover Jasper Adams-Smith - Be Kind, My Neighbor by Yugo Limbo 12- For F*ck's Sake: Why Swearing is Shocking, Rude, and Fun by Rebecca Roache 13- The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies by Jason Fagone 14- The Bookshop: A History of the American Bookstore by Evan Friss 15- The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion by Jonathan Haidt 16- Playing to Lose: How a Jehovah's Witness Became a BDSM Model by Ariel Anderssen 17- The Carpool Detectives: A True Story of Four Moms, Two Bodies, and One Mysterious Cold Case by Chuck Hogan 18- The Friend by Sigrid Nunez Media Mentioned: 1- The Friend (2024) 2- Chief of War (Apple +, 2025) 3- The Outsider (HBO Max 2019) 4- Sinners (2025) 5- Nosferatu (2025)

Hey Book Lovers, Carrie and I are on fall hiatus this week so we don't have a new episode for you. But what we do have is your chance to check out a new-to-you book podcast, Books with Betsy, hosted by Betsy Tomsak. This past summer we were guests to the show where we talked about all things in our book lives, maybe even tidbits we have never shared on our own show. It's a fun conversation and we hope you will listen in and give Books With Betsy a follow. We will be back with an all new episode on October 29 when we chat with horror/ thriller writer J.H. Markert about his new release, Spider to the Fly, and give you book recommendations for notable non-fiction we've read recently. We hope you enjoy this episode of Books With Betsy. Happy Reading!

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Rediscovered Books at rdbooks.org/ or on IG at @rdbooks The American Library Association’s Banned Books Week is October 5-11, so we’re sharing an interview with one of the co-owners of Rediscovered Books in Boise, Idaho, a store that has pioneered a program in their city to push back against book banning in their state. Rebecca Leber-Gottberg talks to us about the history of the bookstore, her role there, and books that folks in Boise have been buying, but she also explains the bookstore’s Read Freely Project, which is their effort to get banned and threatened books dispersed throughout the community. And in our book rec section, we’re jumping into spooky season with books related to ghosts, but if you don’t like horror, don’t worry: a lot of these “ghostly” books aren’t horror, and some of them may only seem to be about ghosts. We’ve got a historical fiction about the Sri Lankan civil war, a detective story in which ghosts are witnesses, a nonfiction book about unexplained phenomena which may or may not involve ghosts, a funny novella, a supernatural suspense, and a ghostly gothic novel set in Mexico. Books Discussed in this Episode: 1- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway 2- The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve House, Four Patients' Lives by Theresa Brown 3- American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard 4- The Queen Bees of Tybee County by Kyle Casey Chu 5- The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer 6- Trans History: A Graphic Novel by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett 7- Lone Women by Victor LaValle 8- Wild Tongues Can't be Tamed: 15 Voices from the LatinX Diaspora edited by Saraciea J. Fennell 9- Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray 10- Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson 11- House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune 12- On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder 13- The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf 14- Firekeeper's Daughter by Angleine Boulley 15- Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley 16- Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley 17- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins 18- Culpability by Bruce Holsinger 19- Songs for Other People's Weddings by David Levitan 20- A Five Star Read Recommended by Claire @bookishly_claire - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen 21- The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka 22- The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde 23- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch 24- Ghost Tamer by Meredith R. Lyons 25- The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale 26- The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas 27- This is Going to Hurt by Adam McKay Media Mentioned: 1- The Pitt (Max 2025) 2- ER ( 1994- 2009) 3- This is Going to Hurt (2022, Amazon Prime) 4- The Craft Lit Podcast - https://craftlit.com/

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/americans-spend-time-reading-fun-time-screens-study/story?id=124807367Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Sam Sussman at www.samevansussman.org or on IG at @sam_sussman. Our guest is debut novelist Sam Sussman whose book Boy From the North Country comes out this week. Sam originally wrote a short memoir piece for Harper’s Magazine that referred to the possibility that he might be Bob Dylan’s son but really the essay focused on his relationship with his mom, who had had a love affair with the musician. Eventually, Sam decided to explode the moment, or the series of moments of his life and with his mother, to get a better handle on who he was and how much that was about who his mom was and how she had raised him, not whether his father was Dylan. The book is receiving high marks in early reviews, and Sam has been making the rounds in newspapers and magazines, including a profile by the New York Times. Publisher’s Weekly, Kirkus, The Library Journal, and the American Library Association have all given Boy From the North Country starred reviews. And for our book rec section of the show, we’re thinking about books that center on male relationships. We realize that our guests and listeners are primarily female, but we thought we would equal the playing field a little by talking about books that deal with father-son relationships, male friendships or brotherly love. We have a multigenerational story about the men in a Mexican-American family, a group of friends in a small town of the American Midwest, a pair of quirky Irish friends, a memoir about two very different guys at Harvard, two Greek heroes and their deep relationship, and boys from different cultures who develop a bond in unlikely circumstances. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Boy From the North Country by Sam Sussman 2- The Celebrants by Steven Rowley 3- The Guncle by Steven Rowley 4- In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust 5- Anima Rising by Christopher Moore 6- The Last Mona Lisa by Jonathan Santlofer 7- The Lost Van Gogh by Jonathan Santlofer 8- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Megan Burnett - The Weight of Ink by Rachel Kadish 9- We Should Not Be Friends: The Story of a Friendship by Will Schwalbe 10- The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza 11- Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Bulter 12- A Forty Year Kiss by Nickolas Butler 13- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller 14- Circe by Madeline Miller 15- Nowhere Boy by Katherine Marsh 16- Leonard and Hungry Paul by Ronan Hession Media Mentioned - 1- The Silent Type: On Possibly Being Bob Dylan's Son- https://harpers.org/archive/2021/05/the-silent-type-on-possibly-being-bob-dylans-son/ 2- School Cell Phone Ban Increases Library Visits - https://www.wave3.com/2025/09/02/school-cell-phone-ban-creates-surge-jcps-library-visits/ 3- Reading for Pleasure Declines - https://abcnews.go.com/Health/americans-spend-time-reading-fun-time-screens-study/story?id=124807367 4- The Four Seasons (Netflix 2025) 5- The Four Seasons (1981) 6- How the Passionate Male Friendship Died --https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2025/05/men-friendship-history/682815/

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Lindy Ryan at her website lindyryanwrites.com or on IG @lindyryanwrites. Books Mentioned in this Episode: 1- Bless Your Heart by Lindy Ryan 2- Another Fine Mess by Lindy Ryan 3- The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman 4- Howl edited by Lindy Ryan 5- The Darkest Night edited by Lindy Ryan 6- But Not Too Bold by Hache Pueyo 7- Play Nice by Rachel Harrison 8- Black Sheep by Rachel Harrison 9- Cackle by Rachel Harrison 10- Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky 11- Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck 12- A 5 Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover @arizonabookstagrammer - Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz 13- All's Faire in Middle School by Victoria Jamieson 14- Geek Love by Katherine Dunn 15- Lewis Sinclair and the Gentleman Cowboys by DMS Fick 16- The Book of Speculation by Erika Swyler 17- Nightmare Alley by William Lindsay Gresham 18- The Electric Woman: A Memoir in Death-Defying Acts by Tessa Fontaine Media Mentioned: 1- The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920, Youtube) 2- Nosferatu (1922, Youtube) 3- Metropolis (1927, Youtube) 4- Nosferatu (2024) 5- The Thursday Murder Club (2025, Netflix) 6- Santa Clarita Diet (2017-2019, Netflix) 7- Chernobyl (2019, Max) 8- Nightmare Alley (2021) 9- Shelby County KY Library books taken - https://www.wlky.com/article/unreturned-library-book-dispute-shelby-county-reformation-church/65875001 10- Travels with Charley Fact Checking - https://www.steinbecknow.com/2020/08/01/travels-with-charley-painting-snapshot/

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Sarah Landenwich on her website SarahLandenwich.com or on IG @sarahlandenwich Books Mentioned in this Episode 1- A Home for Friendless Women by Kelly E. Hill 2- The Fire Concerto by Sarah Landenwich 3- Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi 4- Possession by AS Byatt 5- Plainsong (trilogy) by Kent Haruf 6- Old Souls at Night by Kent Haruf 7- The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse by Louise Erdrich 8- How to Be Well: Navigating Our Self Care Epidemic One Dubious Cure at a Time by Amy LaRocca 9- Say Everything by Ione Skye 10- The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett 11- A Five Star Read recommended by fellow Book Lover Cathleen @wovenfromwords - Harlem Rhapsody by Victoria Christopher Murray 12- Sleepless by Romy Hausmann 13- What Happens in Amsterdam by Rachel Lynn Solomon 14- The Murder Farm by Andrea Maria Schenkel 15- A Death in Door County (Monster Hunter series) by Annelise Ryan 16- Death in the Dark Woods (Monster Hunter series) by Annelise Ryan 17- Belonging: A German Reckons with History and Home by Nora Krug 18- The River is Waiting by Wally Lamb Media Mentioned: 1- Speed Museum Glass Art exhibit - https://www.speedmuseum.org/the-adele-and-leonard-leight-glass-art-award-victoria-ahmadizadeh-melendez/ 2- Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) 3- The Naked Gun (2025)

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Keisha Mennefee at honeymagnolia.co and honeyblossompress.com We have had great luck finding excellent books from small independent publishers, and so we periodically invite one on the show to tell us a little about how they operate. Our guest this week is Keisha Mennefee, a literary strategist who has worked with high profile Black artists like Jada Pinkett Smith and Kennedy Ryan. She recently started her own publishing house called Honey Blossom Press. The mission of this press is to amplify underrepresented voices and powerful narratives that might otherwise go unheard. Some of their new titles include When Forty Blooms by Jacinta Howard and The Divorcetante by Mia Hentzelman. And since it is August, and we’re in the dog days of summer, our book rec section is focused on dogs. Amy especially loves a book where a dog features as a significant character who not only has personality but moves the plot along and helps create the theme. We’ve got some children’s lit, teen lit, Japanese narrative, literary fiction, memoir, and apocalyptic fiction. Books Mentioned In This Episode: 1- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 2- Mrs. Lincoln: A Life by Catherine Clinton 3- The Survivors by Jane Harper 4- Leave Only Footprints: My Acadia-to-Zion Journey Through Every National Park by Conor Knighton 5- Track of the Cat (Anna Pigeon series #1) by Nevada Barr 6- When Forty Blooms by Jacinta Howard 7- This Side of Beautiful by Tiye 8- The Divorcetante by Mia Hentzelman 9- Walk Through Fire: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Triumph by Sheila Johnson 10- The House on the Strand by Daphne duMaurier 11- Alive and Beating by Rebecca Wolf 12- The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angline Boulley 13- Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley 14- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Katelyn @bookclubwithkatelyn - Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley 15- Gather by Kenneth Cadow 16- Heroic Measures by Jill Ciment 17- The Body in Question by Jill Ciment 18- Because of Winn Dixie by Kate diCamillo 19- Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg 20- The Boy and The Dog by Seishu Hase 21- A Boy and His Dog at the End of the World. by C.A. Fletcher 22- Harry the Dirty Dog by Gene Zion 23- Go, Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman 24- Martha Speaks series by Susan Meddaugh Media Mentioned 1- Cat Video Fest - https://www.catvideofest.com 2- The Survivors (Netflix, 2025) 3- Untamed (Netflix, 2025) 4- Because of Winn Dixie (Disney, 2005) 5- 5 Flights Up (2014) 6- Martha Speaks (Prime Video, 2008)

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com. Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover. To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button. You can find Suzy Krause at her website suzykrause.com/ and on IG at @suzykrause Usually, Christmas in July sales feature new cars or mattresses, but we are giving you a Christmas in July book episode. Our guest this week is Suzy Krause, a Canadian novelist whose book I Think We’ve Been Here Before is set in the few weeks leading up to the Christmas holiday in a small town in Saskatchewan. This book is cozy but not in a way you would expect because something terrible is about to happen. A cosmic event is going to end the world, and residents have several weeks to prepare. But this apocalyptic story is hopeful and uplifting and makes you feel good. How can you combine the end of the world with Christmas and make it comforting? That’s what we asked Suzy because she has written a book that is nothing like I’ve ever read. It’s like a little unexpected gift under the tree. For our book rec section of this episode, we are talking about diaries. And no, we’re not going to be reading from our diaries because that would be a snoozefest. We’ve selected both nonfiction and fictional diaries that allow us to get a sneak peek into a historic event or a situation that we don’t know much about. Books Mentioned In this Episode: 1- I Think We've Been Here Before by Suzy Krause 2- We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver 3- A Mother's Reckoning: Living in the Aftermath of Tragedy by Sue Klebold 4- The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin 5- Space Crone by Ursula K. Le Guin 6- The Millicent Quibb Schook of Etiquette for Young Ladies of Mad Science by Kate McKinnon 7- The Cicada Tree by Robert Gwaltney 8- A Five Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Lizzy Roth - Dead Water by C.A. Fletcher 9- The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani 10- These Is My Words: The Diary of Sarah Agnes Prine, 1881-1901 by Nancy Turner 11- This is Going To Hurt: Secret Diaries of a Junior Doctor by Adam Kay 12- The Red Leather Diary: Reclaiming a Life Through the Pages of a Lost Journal by Lilly Koppel 13- Here Comes the Fun: A Year of Making Merry by Ben Aitken 14- The Lost Diaries of Édouard Manet by Maureen Gibbon Media Mentioned: 1- Adolescence (Netflix 2025) 2- We Need To Talk About Kevin (2011) 3- Seeking a Friend for the End of the World (Prime, 2012) 4- Ben Aitken Podcast episode - https://ThePerksofBeingaBookLover.podbean.com/e/s-7-ep-146-a-may-december-friendship-with-guest-ben-aitken-9722/