Four Books a Fortnight

The customers are cranking through the Shop at 9 a.m. on Monday morning as Hannah is literally live from the Book Shop (yay, mute button) and we are ready to crank through some books, starting first with "TransElectric," the revelatory musician memoir from Cidny Bullens, who used to be Cindy Bullens (and we talk about that), back-up singer to Elton John (we talk about "Me," as well) and so much mo...

Return to Clearwater Pond! Hannah and Sam are spending Memorial Day trying to read while being interrupted by their father. Luckily, Hannah had already finished "Yellowface" before arriving and so we can have a good chat about the industry's hottest novel and why it's supposed to make us uncomfortable (and succeeded: "I wouldn't do that!"). This leads to a long discussion on the worry of having so...

Sam is feeling good about himself, having made some customers happy with recommendations in the Shop this past weekend, and maybe even fueled some important TikToks. Unfortunately, he mistakes Vice and Vox, and thinks Vulture is going out of business, but isn't. Regardless, check out Bookshop.org . And our Events page . Oh, and Elliot Bostwick Davis was at the Met, in addition to the MFA, where Sa...

Independent Bookstore Day is over, and we have thoughts. It was great, but it could have been better (this leads to a long conversation on why we need new art, if we do, and a discussion of Hannah's new favorite book "Chain-Gang All-Stars," which is better than "The Hunger Games," for lots of reasons). Then we talk about Hannah's coming-of-age-novel panel from the Newburyport Literary Festival (se...

Hannah is in the Berkshires (or someplace) digging for ramps and concerned about her to-be-read list, but she made some time to talk books, including "Rough Sleepers" (the next Book Club book ), which leads to a big discussion of why people do good works. Sam thinks it's anger. Heavy cynicism ensues. As a palate-cleanser, we then engage in a discussion of note-taking — Hannah won't write in her ha...

Hannah is back from a three-day weekend up at Sugarloaf, thanks to the efforts of our friendly booksellers, and ready to talk books, such as "Rough Sleepers," next month's book club pick — because book club is back! Three people showed up to talk "Noor" (it's not just for employees!). But we quickly transition to a discussion of workplace novels like "Homebodies" (you're late! It's 9:02) and "Ever...

Still a bit high on her PBS debut, Hannah gives us some backstory on her " Stories from the Stage " experience before we dive into what we're reading. From there it's "wearing books like clothes," Elmore Leonard, an extended bit on Rebecca Makkai (it's "Jackal" Sam is thinking of, which also isn't about a podcaster), and a brief aside about our general dislike of epistolary novels, before we launc...

Hannah is in Paris and the bookstore owners are just going right ahead and asking her to take over their shops. Not happening! But she did buy three books from the Red Wheelbarrow, with a train theme of sorts that she didn't plan, a couple of which aren't available yet here in the States. We then chat briefly about "Saxophone Colossus" (don't miss the special episode Sam recorded, EP35), and a boo...

In this special episode, Hannah is away in France, so of course Sam decides to interview Aidan Levy, author of the brand-new "Saxophone Colossus," a definitive biography of the great jazz musician Sonny Rollins. In addition, we're joined by Carl Smith, a fellow Mainer and the authoritative archivist of Rollins' live recordings. Even if you're not a huge jazz fan, take a listen to hear about puttin...

This episode, we come out firing, dicussing the editing of Roald Dahl texts, which we are very much troubled by. So, you die and then they change your texts? That seems dangerous and a search for fool's gold. Children are not some delicate class that needs to be protected from all potential language harms. This leads seamlessly into a discussion of Tom Crewe's "The New Life," an important new piec...

It was the morning after the Grammys, so we were thinking about literary awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Awards, which have nominated friend-of-the-pod Morgan Talty's debut book of short stories for their John Leonard Prize. Have we read any of the other nominees? A few, but we have thoughts, in general. How is it we've never even heard of at least one of these (Lewis Mumford wa...

It's a jam-packed episode this week, as Hannah is knee-deep in sticky (sorry, POST-IT) notes full of the books we and you love with all your hearts. It's a bit of Valentine's Day fun that has taken on a life of its own in the Book Shop windows, thanks to Twitter (a friendly wasteland), and offers up some great suggestions for books to check out that you might love, too. Can you believe Hannah has...

It might be the hottest book going right now: "SAM," by Allegra Goodman, set in Beverly, and telling the coming-of-age story of a young girl from age 6 to 19. We've both read it now and so spend a lot of time talking about why it's so good. But we've had a lot of time to read lately! So, we also run through a bunch more titles, something like 24 in all, including thoughts about Bret Easton Ellis,...

It doesn't get any more straightforward than this. We each share five of our favorite books from the past 12 months (maybe Hannah cheated and snuck in six?), and then we spin through the top-20 bestsellers of the past year in the Shop. It's wild. It's crazy. It's the last podcast of the year! Find them all right on our bookstore homepage if you're not finding them on our podcast landing page .  Oh...

Why and how do books make it to the top of the "New York Times" best books of the year list? We have no idea, but we go through the top 10 and give our thoughts as to why these books are so big and what we think about them. We love Jennifer Egan! The rest of these? Well. You'll see. For some of them, we're not sure about the hullabaloo. We also get into why and how we bring books like these into t...

We're decorated, stocked up, and ready to enter the holiday season — with "Shoebert the Traveling Seal." Hear all about Industry Books, our micropublishing house, and our latest project, a children's book that details the travels of the real-life Shoebert, a seal who arrived in a Beverly pond in an industrial park and promptly became a social media star and beloved mascot. It's fun. But we've also...

This week, we're legitimately live from the Book Shop, where we've already got the Christmas crackers out — even Thanksgiving crackers! — and things are heating up. But don't worry: This is just a regular discussion of the books we're reading, including the new Veronica Roth (chased off Twitter, but Hannah remains a fan), the discussion of which reminds Sam of "Andor" and "Station Eleven" and lead...

As teased in Episode 26, Hannah recounts her experience with " Stories from the Stage ," a television show on WGBH, the public broadcasting show where people tell live stories on a theme, hosted by Wes Hazard. For Hannah, the theme was "turning the page," which is obviously relevant to her experience leaving corporate publishing and endeavoring to run a real-live bookstore — in the middle of a glo...

Oh ho! For our 26th episode we bring on a very special guest: Our cousin Rick Pfeifle! Apparently, he goes by Eric in his professional lawyer life, but we have always known him as Rick. Or Ricky. Whatever you call him, he's from Dallas and he's got an active-reading household. How has he raised voracious readers (8 and 10 years old)? What do he and Kate do to keep them reading and not playing vide...

It's a recording from Indigenous People's Day, so everyone's a little groggy, including Liberty Hardy (@FranzenComesAlive), senior contributing writer for Book Riot and host of the " All the Books! " podcast — which has, like, 600 episodes, which is a lot more than us — and a person who reads 700+ books a year! She's never done a podcast like THIS, though, where we're the ones asking the questions...

Hannah and Sam are both back from conferences — Hannah hit the New England Independent Booksellers Association Fall Conference (NEIBA!), Sam was talking cannabis. Hear what the booksellers are buzzing about (succession planning! Kelly Link!), how we really nailed the Morgan Talty book (Episode 18!), and how Maine and Massachusetts are really different cultures but seem to work together a lot. Oh,...

After a not very productive discussion of whether September is the best month, Hannah can't quite bring herself to name the ARC she has read and decided she doesn't like (she "hate read" at points). Can you guess what it is? There are plenty of clues. It's a Christmas book (with no ugly sweaters). Maybe they should have killed the kid. It's unclear. Hannah didn't feel the characters, regardless. T...

Hannah has found some Hope Punk: "A Psalm for the Wild Built"! It is not actually dystopian fiction, but we don't let that stop us from talking about dystopian fiction as well (which doesn't just mean set in the future!). Why is dystopian fiction attractive? Are we writing it for the same reason? How is it a response to utopian fiction (the HG Wells book Sam was thinking of is "Men Like Gods")? Th...

Hannah's tuckered out! The Tax Holiday Weekend Extravaganza was a big success, raising $650 for the Eastern MA Abortion Fund and selling all kinds of used books out of the Garage (which we're now capitalizing), but also rather exhausting. Plus, Sam had to part with some books from the personal collection he was a little sad to see go, but that led to a discussion of which books Sam actually reads...

Hey hey! It's our 20th episode and we're celebrating by just doing the stuff we normally do: Talk about the books we're currently reading and wherever that takes us. And, yeah, we're at camp again, so it's a bit of old and a bit of new, with more reflections on the meanness of the 1990s (Sarah Vowell is apparently a voice actor now, in addition to being a writer), the brand-new "Calling for a Blan...