Episode 149 - Author and Podcaster Bianca Marais Stops By for a Chat

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

– Currently Reading – [:40]
Savory Dinner Pies: More Than 80 Delicious Recipes from Around the World – Ken Haedrich (EF)
War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (CW)
Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of
Human Experience – Brene Brown (EF)
The Woman All Spies Fear: Code Breaker Elizebeth Smith Friedman and Her Hidden Life – Amy Butler Greenfield (CW)
Goliath – Tochi Onyebuchi (EF)
Free Love – Tessa Hadley (EF)
On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World’s Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer – Michael P. Branch (CW)(EF) release date 3/1/22 

– Just Read – [13:03]
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them – Elif Bautman (CW)(audio)
The Swimmers – Julie Otsuka (EF) release date 2/22/22 
You Should Have Left – Daniel Kehlmann (translated by Ross Benjamin) (CW)
Furia – Yamile Saied Méndez (EF)
Goodnight Moon – Margaret Wise Brown (illustrated by Clement Hurd) (CW)
Harold and the Purple Crayon – Crockett Johnson (CW)
The Prynne Viper – Bianca Marais (CW)(EF)

Books discussed on previous Just Read’s that are now available:
The Magnolia Palace – Fiona Davis
Small World – Jonathan Evison
Black Cake – Charmaine Wilkerson
Dead Silence – S.A. Barnes
Love & Saffron: A Novel of Friendship, Food, and Love – Kim Fay

– Biblio Adventures – [30:33]
Chris and Emily went on a joint jaunt together to Northampton, MA. Stops included Noodles Restaurant, Smith College Campus including the campus bookstore, the Forbes Public Library, and Old Bookstore – a used bookstore.

Emily listened to the most recent episode of How I Built This. Guy Raz interviewed Otis and Elizabeth Chandler the founders of Goodreads.

Chris attended an online event with C19: Society of Nineteenth Century Americanists First Book Event.
Books discussed included:
Love and Depth in the American Novel – Ashley Barnes
Star Territory: Printing the Universe in the Nineteenth-Century – Gorden Fraser
Oceans at Home: Maritime and Domestic Fictions in Nineteenth-Century American Women’s Writing – Melissa Gniadek
Useful Objects: Museums, Science, and Literature in Nineteen-Century America – Reed Gochberg
Founded in Fiction: The Uses of Fiction in the Early United States – Thomas Koenigs
Liminal Whiteness in Early US Fiction – Hannah Lauren Murray
Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America – Xine Yao
Lyrical Strains: Liberalism and Women’s Poetry in Nineteenth-Century America – Elissa Zellinger

Emily attended a Buzz Books Editor panel via the American Bookseller’s Association in partnership with Publishers Lunch, hosted by Emma Straub author and owner of Books are Magic in Brooklyn.
Books discussed included:
Blood Orange Night: My Journey to the Edge of Madness – Melissa Bond release date 6/14/22
A Tiny Upward Shove – Melissa Chadburn release date 4/12/22
Brother Alive – Zain Khalid release date 7/12/22
With Prejudice – Robin Peguero release date 5/17/22 
Take My Hand – Dolen Perkins-Valdez release date 4/12/22
Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt release date 5/3/22 

– Upcoming Jaunts – [44:34]
Emily hopes to visit The Next Chapter Bookstore in West Hartford

– Upcoming Reads – [50:07]
Index, The History of the: A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age – Dennis Duncan (CW)
A Snake Falls to Earth – Darcie Little Badger (CW)(EF)

– Author Spotlight with Bianca Marais – [49:55]
Bianca is the author of Hum If You Don’t Know the Words, If You Want to Make God Laugh, and The Prynn Viper.
She is also the host of the podcast The Shit No One Tells You About Writing.

You can learn more about Bianca and follow her events on her website.

– 20th Readalong –
A Snake Falls to Earth – Darcie Little Badger

The discussion will drop on March 1st via Episode 150, please get questions/comments to us by February 22nd.
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.

Check out the YouTube video showing off the book.

– Also Mentioned –
Pie Academy – Ken Haedrich
The Complete Maus – Art Spiegelman
Mystery Scene Magazine
The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For – Alison Bechdel
Wench – Daniel Perkins-Valdez
A Man Called Ove – Fredrik Backman

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