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.

Episode 217 - Author Spotlight with James R. Benn

Author James R. Benn

Episode 217 Show Notes

– Currently Reading –
A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens (CW)
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf: A Rare Bookseller’s Quest to Find the Women Writers Who Shaped a Legend – Rebecca Romney (CW)
Listen to our conversation with Rebecca Romney on Episode 207.
That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in American – Amanda Jones (CW) (audiobook)
The Mighty Red – Louise Erdrich (EF) release date 10/1/2024

– Just Read –
Envy – Sandra Brown (CW)(EF) (audiobook)
The Most – Jessica Anthony (EF)
The Gathering – C.J. Tudor (CW)
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver (EF) (audiobook)
Out at the Plate: The Dot Wilkinson Story – Lynn Ames (CW)

Emily read two short stories:
“The Miracle Years of Little Fork” by Rebecca Makkai from the collection Music for Wartime and published in Summer 2015 Ploughshares literary magazine. “Why Were They Throwing Bricks?” by Jenny Zhang from the collection Sour Heart and published in Spring 2017 n+1 literary magazine.

– Biblio Adventure –
Chris and Laura continue to rewatch the Harry Potter movies.

Emily had two couch biblio adventures, Slow Horses season four based on the book Spook Street by Mick Herron and she finished Presumed Innocent based on the novel by Scott Turow.

Emily visited the New Canaan Public Library.

– Upcoming Jaunts –
Chris and Emily will be attending portions of the Windham Campbell festival. The Lydia Davis lecture “Why I Write” is available to watch here.  

Chris and Emily are going on a joint jaunt to Chester, CT for the grand opening of Montgomery & Taggert, Connecticut’s first Romance Bookstore!

On October 9th Chris and Emily are heading to The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA.

– Upcoming Reads –
Murder in the Smithsonian – Margaret Truman (CW)(EF)
Swan Song – Elin Hildebrand (EF)
Classic’s Club is doing a “sync read” of all of Jane Austen’s novels. Learn more here.

– Out Now –
Death at the Sign of the Rook: A Jackson Brodie Book – Kate Atkinson
So Thirsty – Rachel Harrison
If Anything Happens to Me – Luanne Rice

– Author Spotlight with James R. Benn –
We talk with James R. Benn about his new novel The Phantom Patrol
Learn more about James and his book tour here.

– Also Mentioned –
Download the Romance Bingo Card!
Author Marcie Rendon
Author Cal Newport
Enter the Aardvark by Jessica Anthony
James by Percival Everett
The Chalk Man by C.J. Tudor
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Broadstairs in Kent
McNally Jackson booksellers
The New Yorker Magazine
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust [check out #ProustPilotProject and ]
Why I Write by George Orwell
Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
Author David Niven
Author J.D. Salinger; The Stranger short story and Catcher in the Rye
Author Jean Conan Doyle
Author Philip Kerr
Author Ian Fleming

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.