Season 15, Episode 284 Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison with guest Britt Lovett
This week we have created a motley episode of different segments all about or set in OH in some way. Think of it as the Frankenstein’s monster episode. First we will be chatting with Britt Lovett, who is the Project Manager for the Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison Project. This year-long celebration running from February 2026-February 2027 focuses on the life, literature, and legacy of Toni Morrison, a native of Ohio and the first African American woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
While Amy has gone to Ohio this year to visit Hocking Hills and the Columbus Book Festival, Carrie has driven to Ohio three times because her youngest son had surgery in June at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. Because this year feels like it has been “All Ohio, all the time,” we’re giving you recommendations for books set in the Buckeye State.
Books Mentioned in This Episode:
1- Assassination Nation by Sarah Vowell
2- The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
3- Sula by Toni Morrison
4- Beloved by Toni Morrison
5- Paradise by Toni Morrison
6- I'll Watch Your Baby by Nina Viel
7- Clutch by Emily Nemens
8- Murder Your Darlings by Jenna Blum
9- Penelope's Bones: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It by Emily Houser
10- The Night Hunter by Natalie Moss
11- Guess Again by Charlie Donlea
12- A Harlem Wedding by Tiffany L. Warren
13- A Hunger to Kill by Kim Mager with Liza Pulitzer
14- Love is a Contact Sport by Frederick Smith
15- The French Winemaker's Daughter by Loretta Ellsworth
16- The Jilted Countess by Loretta Ellsworth
17-We Were Promised: How an Appalachian Grandmother Fought a Corporate Giant by Julia Flint
18- Mosquitoland by David Arnold
19- The Ghosts of Eden Park: The Bootleg King, The Woman Who Pursued Him, and the Murder that Shocked Jazz-Age America by Karen Abbott
20- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
21- The Fertile Earth and the Ordered Cosmos by M. Elizabeth Weiser
22- Kent State by Deborah Wiles
23- To Slip the Bonds of Earth by Amanda Flower
24- The Wright Sister by Richard Maurer
25- Harvey Pekar's Cleveland by Harvey Pekar
Media Mentioned:
1- Death by Lightening (Netflix, 2026)
2- Ohio Celebrates Toni Morrison - https://ohiocelebratestonimorrison.org