Reads and Weeds

LET'S CELEBRATE Y'ALL!!! It's our 50th episode! What better way to celebrate than hanging with author Tiffany 'T Barb' Barber and Cannabis Chef Gigi eating Gigi's ridiculously gorgeous medicated(holding on to my chair for dear life by the end of the show)salad. Follow Gigi! Hire her for private dinners. She wants to teach you how to cook! You will love her. And maybe stalk her for 6 months like I...

Between 2011-2017 there was this tiny lovely theater in a carriage house in Ann Arbor, called Carriage House Theater, appropriately. The directors were always on the lookout for scripts that would work in this tiny setting. Nina Shengold's HOMESTEADERS was a perfect fit and the production enjoyed an extended run. In this episode, that exact cast reunited and Shelly got to be the only audience memb...

Bonus Track! Erik originally recommended this book and wasn't able to join us on the recording day. We have a great conversation about his personal journeys with Ayahuasca ceremonies, the importance of honoring the plant and integration, and holding space.

Shelly joins with Jim Salame, Julie Barron, and Matt Pancone from the Michigan Psychedelic Society to discuss The Fellowship of the River, A Medical Doctor's Exploration into Traditional Amazonian Plant Medicine, by Dr. Joseph Tafur. Beginning with the story of his own healing journey, he weaves the worlds of science and shamanism together to share how ancient plant medicine, specifically Ayahuasc...

Shelly and Claire have a fabulous virtual hang with Heather Jay Harris to talk about her book Maybe Shorty Should Be a Detective, which we loooooooved! Heather is a comic and writer native to Detroit and if you are from Detroit you will feel like you KNOW alllll these amazing characters and even if you aren't you will laugh out loud. If you like whodunits, great characters with real relationships,...

Shelly is joined by the inimitable Cynthia Shelby Lane to talk about Packing for Mars-The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach. I have loved Roach's books for so long and can't think of a better person to geek out about it with on this show than Cynthia. She has applied to be an astronaut MANY times and keeps the dream alive WHILE serving the cannabis industry as an MD, researcher, an...

Shelly hangs with author Joshua Joseph Valdez to discuss his book Earth Life Big Brain Project:2033. Valdez wasn't TRYING to predict the future when he started writing this over 10 years ago but now that it is only 13 years away it feels pretty possible/likely that he has. He just had alllll kinds of ideas and time on his hands and is really smart and he wrote and wrote and wrote. But I desperatel...

Shelly sits down with Mike Fate, Kayla Teresa(thepathlesstraveledhp), Justin Hatchett(TopShelforDie), and Colin Macdougal(MichiganPsychedelicSociety) to talk about lyrics from Mike's newest album BLOOM. Yay we are finally talking about LYRICS!!!! So good! AND we are back at CRB studio(with LOTS of partitions and masks, etc to protect us)which feels great. This album is a lovely groove with heavy e...

Shelly hangs with Nicole P'Simer, Nathan Corliss, and Scott Mooney to talk about Scott's new novel 'Screaming Beauty' the 2nd in the Poisoned Apple series. If you haven't yet, read 'Pricked' too! (the first book in the series and also the discussion of Reads and Weeds Episode 24). It is a totally entertaining new adult fantasy novel that you will not be able to put down. I realllllly want these to...

Shelly and Kris are joined by Pastor and 6th grade English teacher Alan Ruff from Boiling Springs, SC(whoa it has been over 20 years!) to talk about a couple of his short stories, old school Boiling Springs things, the state of affairs of cannabis in SC(progress.....buuuuut needs improvement/LOTS of room for growth), and which graphic novels his students are loving. I was so surprised when Alan ra...

Shelly is joined by Kris, Kristen Hartnagel(new reader!) and Jilleien Franquelli Rippey(producer/host of Conversations with Mary Jane podcast) to talk about the creepy weird Six Swans fairy tale. LOTS of assumptions and unanswered questions here. Ha! How did the family react when the king brought home a random naked girl who doesn't talk that he found in a tree? Were the swan brothers stealing stu...

Shelly and Kris discuss Hemingway's first novel with the intention of bashing it. However, after a deeper dive, we become forgiving about everything and decide that he was in fact the voice of a lost generation and really we just don't like boring drunk people conversations. The not so clear info about Jake's injury being made clearer would have REALLY helped but I get it. It was an era of talking...

This week we are 4 women talking about Miriam Toews' award winning novel Women Talking, and there is MUCH to talk about. Shelly is joined by FIRST TIME GUEST! @staceysimpsonduke(improv friend, co pastor of the First Baptist Church of Ann Arbor)and also Lauren and Claire(good friends and damn good writers themselves). Based on true events-see 'Ghost Rapes of Bolivia', this novel often reads like a...

Shelly is joined by former Zingerman's colleagues Lynn Fiorentino(legendary all around Zingernaut) and Ji Hye Kim(proprietor of the super yummy Miss Kim restaurant in Ann Arbor).The name Pachinko refers to the Japanese pinball type gambling game that is pervasive in Japan but THIS BOOK is an deep, human saga of 5 generations of a Korean family surviving in Japan. Lee's book is so rich and moving,...

First solo venture here. First Facebook live. This was the first week during quarantine that I let the weight of everything get to me. I lost some audio from a previous show and beat myself up for it. I was staying up later and sleeping later. Bleh. BUT! I became aware of Fiona Apple's new album Fetch the Bolt Cutters. She creates at such a high level and listening to her made me get up off the fl...

We have this Women's Circle, a group of women connected through the cannabis industry that supports each other. We were going to have a big ole gathering with weed and food to talk about this book. Eliot Cowan writes about his long journey to understanding the mystery of how plant spirits heal. It was affirming to us to hear the stories of the healers. We couldn't hold the gathering of course but...

Shelly is joined by her remote 'quaranteam' Kris(in Boulder)and Lauren(in Indiana) to talk with the Wilde Award winning author(Clutter-Best New Script 2017) Brian Cox!(right down the street from me) about his short story The Surrogate Initiative. This story about an AI psychologist and the first court case using AI jury selection was selected for Best American Mysteries of 2020! First of all, we l...

Shelly is joined by Claire Forster and Jeff Miller(NEW READER!)through ZOOM while in isolation to read delicious poetry during the coronavirus pandemic. March 29, 2020. We talk about anxiety, the uncertain new normal, and gratitude. We read lots of poetry, including Mary Oliver, Rudy Francisco, Ada Limon, John Donne, Jim Harrison, and some of Claire's own wonderful work. The show(and connecting wi...

Wow. The day we recorded this episode, March 8, 2020, was a beautiful sunny 60 degrees in southeast Michigan. Shelly was with Nathan, Laura, Mat, Jim and Jen at Fundamental Sound Co and we had a wonderful time reading The Whale by Samuel D. Hunter. The cast read scenes between Charlie, an obese man confined to his home who teaches online writing classes, and the very few people that he interacts w...

If you grew up in America during the late 70's or early 80's you will KNOW the world that is created in this week's read: The Electrician. Shelly is joined by Colleen Kennedy from Pott Farms and Jeff Muir, the co-author of this "bloated auto-bio novel" (ref: Cloud Atlas). Let's dive into The Electrician! This is being released on St. Patrick's Day 2020, which is fitting since the subtitle is, "Fro...

Claire and Shannon are back with Shelly and Nicole P'Simer-NEWWWW REEEEEADER!!!!!!and we love all over The Stars and the Blackness Between Them by Junauda Petrus . What a groovy heavy honest sweet sad story about love and friendship and justice. We learn the wonderful acronym C.H.U.R.C.H. Come Here You Rebel Come Here. This book also led us to the wondernasty.com website. Beautifully written chara...

Kris is back! and Jewlee!(NEW TO THE CREW-YAY) with Shelly to discuss the first book in the Neapolitan series by Elena Ferrante. Long time coming to get this scheduled and worth it because of the honest gritty truth and beauty of this one. We love Elena. We want to smoke with her and ask a million questions. And what better way to discuss this story of two girls becoming lifelong friends that shar...

Shelly is joined by several members of the former cast of so called '2 hour Hot Girl Hamlet' for a superbowl preparty like you've never seen. Callie, Heather, and Beth along with Nathan and Jim read all about the troubled Danish prince. If you loved Game of Thrones AND you loved The Lion King......you'll LOVE Hamlet. Castles and murder and ghosts and love and people going crazy. We learn about lim...

Shelly and Claire(Claire is back!) have a blast discussing 'I'm Judging You' which encourages us to be better people, one side eye at a time. Author Luvvie Ajayi pulls no punches taking on everything from washing your bra to white supremacy and it is SO FUN. She makes up words, and we love that. We learned the phrase 'Island Peen Syndrome'. She loves Jesus and makes me realize I need way more Nige...

Shelly, Jeff Muir, Colin, and Mark and Susan Sweetman, discuss Kyle Cease' "The Illusion Of Money-How Chasing Money is Stopping You From Living". How do you free yourself from the thoughts about money that control you so that you can live a more truly abundant life. We eat Colleen's yummy full spectrum brownies. THIS BOOK! I love this shit. I'm all about attracting that high vibration life y'all....