Episode 147 - Q1 Readalong Pick, 2022 Reading Plans, and 2021 Listener Top 10s

Episode One Hundred Forty Seven Show Notes
KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

– Currently Reading – [5:02]
Honor – Thrity Umrigar (EF)
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read
Them – Elif Bautman (CW)(audio)

– Just Read – [10:55]
Hope at Sea: An Adventure Story – Daniel Miyares (CW)
you can read Chris’s blog post here
I Came All This Way to Meet You: Writing Myself Home – Jamie Attenberg (EF)
you can track Jami’s events here
Magic Lessons, 3: The Prequel to Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman (CW)
Falling – T.J. Newman (EF)(audio)
Rebecca Harding Davis: A Life Among Writers – Sharon M. Harris (CW)
In Love: A Memoir of Loss and Love – Amy Bloom (EF)
Rubyfruit Jungle – Rita Mae Brown (CW)(audio)
The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois – Honoree Fanonne Jeffers (EF)
The Swells – Will Aitken (CW)

Check out the Listeners Top Books of 2021 List on Bookshop.org
Highlights include:
Braiding Sweetgrass – Robin Wall Kimmerer
The House in the Cerulean Sea – TJ Klune
Meet Me at the Museum – Anne Youngson
We Ride Upon Sticks – Quan Barry
The Dictionary of Lost Words – Pip Williams
Alice Henderson: A Solitude of Wolverines and A Blizzard of Polar Bears
Elizabeth Strout: Olive, Again and Oh Wiliam!
Jane Austen – Emma and Pride and Prejudice
Willa Cather – The Song of the Lark and Lucy Gayheart
S.A. Cosby – Blacktop Wasteland and Razorblade Tears

– Biblio Adventures – [54:30]
Emily watched Passing on Netflix based on the novel Passing by Nella Larsen. She also watched Oprah’s Bookclub discussion with Honoree Fanonne Jeffers discussing The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois.

Chris took a walk around Gilette Castle State Park. William Gilette was an actor that played Sherlock Holmes.

– Upcoming Jaunts – [59:50]
Chris will be attending an event through the National Willa Cather Center Author Series. Lynda Beck Fenwick author of Prairie Bachelor: The Story of a Kansas Homesteader and the Populist Movement. You can register for the event on Thursday, January 27 8pm ET here.

Emily plans to attend the kick-off for Reading Across Rhode Island with a Zoom event on January 25th at 7pm ET. The book discussion is The Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angelinne Bouilley. You can register here.

– Reading Goals for 2022 – [1:01:00]
Both Chris and Emily set a goal to read 52 books in 2022. Chris wants to focus on books that she currently owns.
Chris is continuing the Willa Cather Short Story Project. You can learn more about it here.

The Book Cougars are focusing on Indigenous writers in 2022, including a readalong with Jenny Colvin from Reading Envy.

Chris is going to participate in a Larry McMurtry challenge with Libro.fulltime.wordpress.com. She is starting with Dead Man’s Walk the third book in the series that includes: Comanche Moon, Lonesome Dove, and Streets of Laredo. Larry McMurtry also wrote Terms of Endearment.

Emily plans to keep a gratitude journal in 2022 and then start a weekly determination, based on the idea introduced by Saeed Jones determinations in How We Fight for Our Lives: A Memoir, to read something from her library of food writing.

Emily wants to focus on doing some buddy reads with others in 2022.

Chris plans to read a biography of a woman writer. In consideration are:
Sara Orne Jewett: Her World and Her Work by Paula Blanchard
Constance Fenimore Woolson: Portrait of a Lady Novelist by Anne Boyd Rioux

– 20th Readalong –
A Snake Falls to Earth – Darcie Little Badger
The discussion will drop on March 1 via Episode 150, please get questions/comments to us by February 23rd.
The Goodreads discussion thread can be found HERE.
The Zoom discussion will take place on Sunday, February 27th at 7:00 p.m. (EST). If you would like to join please send an email to save a spot.

– Also Mentioned –
Elatsoe – Darcie Little Badger
Also by Jamie Attenberg: Saint Mazie and The Middlesteins
Nathaniel Hawthorne
House of Anansi Press

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