The Perks Of Being A Book Lover Podcast

A literary salon sounds so posh, doesn’t it? I imagine the Lost Generation of writers–Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Gertrude Stein–sitting around in a Parisian flat, discussing the newest trends in literature. But what exactly is a salon? Or what can it be? Our guest this week, Cindy Burnett, hosts a literary salon in Houston, Texas, called Conversations from a Page, and tells us all about what...

Did you know it is National Humor Month? Neither did we but now we do and so do you. Which means this week we are talking about books that make us laugh. For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover. Books We Mentioned: 1- The Peripheral by William Gibson 2- Foundat...

This week our guest is Lydia Welker, the digital communications coordinator for the Appalachian Prison Book Project based in Morgantown, West Virginia. This organization does a lot of things, including sending books to prisoners in six states and hosting book clubs for inmates. I discovered Appalachian Prison Book Project on social media where they often put out requests for specific books prisone...

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover Books Mentioned In This Episode Books mentioned-- 1- American Cheese by Joe Berkowitz 2- Blue by Kai Kupferschmidt 3- Bike Riding in Kabul: The Global Adventures of a Foreign Aid Practitioner by Jamie Bowman 4- Nala's Wor...

This week we chat with Kelsey Madges, an Ohio middle school librarian and book lover. We talk about the highs and the lows of working in school libraries. If you’re like us, it’s been almost 40 years since you were a middle schooler and lots has changed for kids and the librarians who help them, such as the use of Chromebooks in classes and the current prevalence of book bans. But Kelsey is a book...

This week we are focusing on butterflies and biking in book form. Sara Dykman is an adventurer and wildlife biologist whose focus is primarily amphibians. Several years ago, however, she felt a calling to bring awareness to the plight of the Monarch butterfly. So she took her adventurer spirit and migrated on her bike along with the Monarch from Mexico to Canada and back again. Her 10,000 mile jou...

It's "MIddle Grade March" so this week we talk about why book lovers, (even adults!) should try a middle grade book. We give you 10 titles that definitely deserve a spot on your TBR list. For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover. Books mentioned in this episode:...

This week we’re chatting with Lygia Day Peñaflor, the author of several YA novels, her most recent being Creep: A Love Story. If you’ve listened to the radio or any kind of streaming service, you’ve almost certainly heard Radiohead’s song Creep, and it was this song that partly inspired Lygia’s story. We chat with Lygia about obsession among the young adult crowd and how her work as a teacher of c...

With the Academy Awards just around the corner, This week we take a look at some of our favorite book to movie adaptations. For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a BookLover Books mentioned in this episode: 1- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl 2- The Witches...

Our guest this week is St. Clair Detrick-Jules, a Brown University graduate who is a filmmaker and a new author. Her book My Beautiful Black Hair: 101 Natural Hair Stories from the Sisterhood debuts on September 28 and features essays by and photographs of Black women who have come to some deeper understandings about what their hair and how they wear it means to them. We talk to St. Clair about ch...

This week we welcome special guest Rachel Harper to Perks. Rachel is on the faculty at Spalding University’s Naslund-Mann Graduate School of Writing in Lousiville, KY and is the author of three novels. Her most recent, The Other Mother, was published in 2022 and has racked up the accolades. It was named one of Amazon’s Best Books of 2022, was a Good Morning America Buzz Pick, and has been awarded...

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover Books Mentioned in this Episode-- 1- Dirtbag, Massachusetts by Isaac Fitzgerald 2- Two Nights in Lisbon by Chris Pavone 3- Truth and Other Lies by Maggie Smith 4- Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck 5- A Separate Peace by J...

Our guest this week, Jayne Moore Waldrop traded legal briefs of a law practice for her writing journals in an MFA program. Her first book, Drowned Town, is a novel in linked stories about the families who lost their homes in the 1960s when President Kennedy announced the creation of Land Between the Lakes, a national recreation area that resulted from damning several rivers and taking land from re...

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover Books mentioned in this episode: 1- Truly Devious series by Maureen Johnson 2- The Book Thief by Markus Zusak 3- His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman 4- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson 5- Ender's Game by Orson Scot...

This week we chat with Tracy Clark, an author whose latest book Hide is set in Chicago and features a seasoned black female police detective who has joined a new precinct and not only has to navigate a new professional network but also solve a recent murder on the waterfront. This is Tracy's fifth novel but the first in this new series featuring detective Harriet Foster. By day Tracy is a puzzle e...

For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagram @ perksofbeingabookloverpod  and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover. Books Mentioned in This Episode: 1- The Mist by Ragnar Jónasson 2- Snowblind by Ragnar Jónasson 3- Who is Vera Kelly? by Rosalie Knecht 4- Burial Rites by Hannah Kent 5- Salt to the Sea by Ruta Sepetys 6- The Island of A...

We got together on the first day of 2023 to review our top books of 2022 and we’re already busy reading books to discuss this year. Time was too short to talk about all of our favorite books but you can see a full list of our 5 star reads from 2022 as well as a list of all the books we mention in this episode on our website at perksofbeingabooklover.com. Our year in review episode is always fun be...

**Carrie and I are taking a much needed holiday break. We will be back in Mid-January with all new episodes. Until then, we have some replay episodes. New Year’s Eve is just a few days away and often we think of toasting with a glass of sparkly at the stroke of midnight. Historical fiction writer Rebecca Rosenberg’s love of wine and sparkling wine in particular took her on travels to France to vis...

**Carrie and I are taking a much needed holiday break. We will be back in Mid-January with all new episodes. Until then, enjoy some replay episodes. This week we have a replay of our interview with the New York Times best-selling humorist Andrew Shaffer, author of the Obama Biden mystery series. He spoke with us in 2020 about his book Secret Santa, a 80’s horror satire about an office holiday part...

Each season we like to speak to someone from an independent bookstore, but this can be especially challenging during the December holiday shopping crush. We’re very glad Amanda Zirn Hudson from Bethany Beach Books in Delaware was able to make time to speak with us. Bethany Beach Books started its own book subscription program several years ago called The Book Drop. Amanda tells us all about how sh...

This week we chat with fellow book lover and grant writer Bethany Planton who runs a book club for fellow members of her profession. When she began her own consulting company, she met several other grant writers from around the country through a twitter chat, and they quickly realized that besides sharing a profession, they also shared a love of books. The Grant Pro Bookclub started 6 years ago an...

Our guest this week, Rijula Das, is originally from India but now makes her home in Wellington, New Zealand. She is an author and a Bengali-to-English translator. Her debut novel A Death in Shonagachhi was published in India last year but has come to the United States with a different title, Small Deaths. Her book was named by the website Crime Reads as a “must read” and Gone Girl author Gillian F...

This is our holiday gift-giving episode with Sam Miller from Carmichael’s Bookstore. Sam always gives us great recommendations for what to buy from literary fiction to cookbooks to picture books. To see Carmichael’s Holiday Gift guide visit their website at  www.carmichaelsbookstore.com . For show notes for any episode, go to our website at  www.perksofbeingabooklover.com . We are also on Instagra...

We love finding people who do interesting bookish things that are a little out of the ordinary, and our guest this week is costume designer and author Jacqueline Firkins who combines her amazing dressmaking skills with her love of novels. She creates dresses based on book covers that you can see on her Instagram page or her website. Located in Vancouver, Jacqueline teaches at the University of Bri...

We are back with a global reader episode this week and are traveling to Australia using the magic of the internet. We had the pleasure of chatting with Lily Raiti, an avid reader who lives outside Melbourne and has worked as a personal trainer for 16 years and also does some freelance copyediting on the side. It’s always fun to hear about what book lovers in other places are reading and Lily had s...