Episode 230: "Come for the Skiing, Stay for the Library"

Book Cougars Episode 230

Episode 230 Show Notes

– 2025 Readalong Theme and 2nd Quarter Book – Our theme for 2025 is Ghost Stories! Click here to follow everything Ghost Stories 2025.

There is a ghost story discussion thread on Goodreads. Come tell us about your favorite ghost stories or those you are interested in reading.

The 2nd Quarter Readalong and our Episode 230 Giveaway is The Good House by Tananarive Due. The Zoom conversation will take place on Sunday, June 8th at 7pm (ET). Send us an email if you would like to join. You can join the online conversation via the Goodreads discussion thread.

Over the course of the year, we will be reading The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce, one story at a time. If you would like to join us there is a schedule available on Goodreads or we can email a copy.

– Currently Reading –
The Cliffs – J. Courtney Sullivan (EF)
The Many Lives of Anne Frank – Ruth Franklin (CW)
Swann’s Way – Marcel Proust (CW) (audiobook) (CW)
Robin is doing a buddy read, follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robinlgustafson/ and via #ProustPilotProject
Love Is for All of Us: Poems of Tenderness and Belonging from the LGBTQ+ Community and Friends – Edited by James Crews and Brad Peacock, illustrated Lisa Congdon (EF)

– Just Read –
The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain – Annie Murphy Paul (CW)
Murder Under Her Skin: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery – Stephen Spotswood (EF)
Woman, Eating: A Literary Vampire Novel – Claire Kohda (CW)
Tell Me Everything – Elizabeth Strout (EF)
Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism – Sarah Wynn-Williams (CW)
The Ghostwriter – Julie Clark (EF) release date 6/3/2025
Tilda is Visible – Jane Tara (EF)
The Haunted and the Haunters; Or, The House and the Brain by Lytton from The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (CW)(EF)

– Biblio Adventures –
Chris had a conversation with Shawn Breathes Books about Fingersmith by Sarah Waters.

Emily went on a trip to Colorado. She shopped at White River Books in Carbondale, CO where she picked up a copy of Swim Home to the Vanished by Brendan Shay Basham. Next stop was Alpenglow Books and Gifts in Glenwood Springs, where she grabbed a copy of Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? By Bill Martin Jr, illustrated by Eric Carle. On the way home she shopped at several outposts of Barbara’s Bookstore in O’Hare airport.

Emily started watching the series Long Bright River based on the novel by Liz Moore.

– Upcoming Jaunts –
Emily registered for the All CT Reads 2025 Adult Author Talk with Monica Wood author of How to Read a Book on March 27th at 2pm (ET).

Chris mentioned an Author Talk with Jonathan Losos author of The Cat’s Meow: How Cat’s Evolved from the Savanna to Your Sofa at the Yale Peabody Museum on Thursday, March 27 at 6:30 pm (ET).

Chris will be attending the Willa Cather Spring Conference in Red Cloud, Nebraska June 4-7, 2024

– Upcoming Reads –
Tiny Experiments: How to Live Freely in a Goal-Obsessed World – Anne-Laure Le Cunff (CW)
Your Brain on Altruism: The Power of Connection and Community During Times of Crisis – Nicole Karlis (EF)
Raising Hare: A Memoir – Chloe Dalton
The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce up next is The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Braddon. If you would like to join us there is a schedule available on Goodreads or we can email a copy.

– Out Now –
Hot Air – Marcy Dermansky

– Also Mentioned –
Why Are There So Many Female Ghosts? By Nathaniel Scharping
Schlesinger Library – Harvard Radcliffe Institute
Other poetry collections edited by James Crews: A Boxful of Poetry
Author Cal Newport
Fortune Favors the Dead: A Pentecost and Parker Mystery by Stephen Spotswood
Author Louise Penny
River Bend Bookshop in Glastonbury, CT
The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
The Emerald Mile by Kevin Fedarko
Blood Sisters by Vanessa Lillie
The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

Help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm
audiobook platform: Follow this link and use promo code: bookcougars
Shop on Bookshop.org – support the Book Cougars and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member. If you would prefer to donate directly, email for instructions.

Join our Goodreads Group!

Check out our BookTube Channel and be sure to subscribe!

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.

Episode 225 - Top Ten Books of 2024 with Russell from Ink and Paper Blog

Top Ten Books of 2024 with Russell Gray from Ink and Paper Blog

Episode 225 Show Notes

Top Ten Reads of 2024 with Russell from Ink and Paper Blog

– Russell’s Books –
The Most – Jessica Anthony
Sipsworth – Simon Van Booy
Real Americans – Rachel Khong
Hombrecito – Santiago Jose Sanchez
The Safekeep – Yael Van Der Wouden
Our Evenings – Alan Hollinghurst
Tell Me Everything – Elizabeth Strout
Universality -Natasha Brown
Intermezzo – Sally Rooney
Small Rain – Garth Greenwell
James – Percival Everett

– Chris’s Books –
Thirst – Marina Yuszczuk, translated by Heather Cleary
Summer – Edith Wharton
We Got the Beat – Jenna Miller
A Little Bit Country – Brian D. Kennedy
Boyfriend Material – Alexis Hall (audiobook)
River of the Gods: Genius, Courage, and Betrayal in the Search for the Source of the Nile – Candice Millard
The Dragon from Chicago: The Untold Story of an American Reporter in Nazi Germany – Pamela D. Toler
The Vanishing of Carolyn Wells – Rebecca Rego Barry
Finding Margaret Fuller – Allison Pataki
Trial by Ambush: Murder, Injustice, and the Truth about the Case of Barbara Graham – Marcia Clark
Lucy Undying: A Dracula Novel – Kiersten White
The Gathering – C.J. Tudor
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Brontë

– Emily’s Books –
An Exact Relica of a Figment of My Imagination – Elizabeth McCracken
Between Two Kingdoms: A Memoir of a Life Interrupted – Suleika Jaouad
The Frozen River – Ariel Lawhon
The Women – Kristin Hannah
The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle  – Matt Cain  (audiobook)
How to Read a Book – Monica Wood
The One-In-A-Million Boy – Monica Wood
Sandwich – Catherine Newman
We All Want Impossible Things – Catherine Newman
The Cookie That Changed My Life: And More Than 100 Other Classic Cakes, Cookies, Muffins, and Pies That Will Change Yours: A Cookbook – Nancy Silverton and Carolynn Carreno
There's Always This Year: On Basketball and Ascension – Hanif Abdurraqib

Listener Top Tens! We would love to hear about your favorite reads of the year. You can find the form here fill it out by January 15, 2025.

– Also Mentioned –
Powell’s Books
Read By Ryan on Instagram
American Symphony documentary
Shawn Breathes Books
A Midwife's Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812 (Pulitzer Prize Winner) by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
Goodbye, Vitamin by Rachel Khong
The Ghost Writer – Phillip Roth
The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst
Author Agatha Christie
Find all of the novels by Elizabeth Strout here
Margaret Fuller: Collected Writings (Loa #388) by Margaret Fuller, edited by Noelle A. Baker and Megan Marshall
Normal People by Sally Rooney
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
Armadale – Wilkie Collins
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
My Ántonia – Willa Cather

Help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm
audiobook platform: Follow this link and use promo code: bookcougars
Shop on Bookshop.org – support the Book Cougars and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member. If you would prefer to donate directly, email for instructions.

Join our Goodreads Group!

Check out our BookTube Channel and be sure to subscribe!

Subscribe to our monthly newsletter.