Season 13, Episode 265 The Read Freely Project and Rediscovered Books with guest Rebecca Leber-Gottberg
The American Library Association’s Banned Books Week is October 5-11, so we’re sharing an interview with one of the co-owners of Rediscovered Books in Boise, Idaho, a store that has pioneered a program in their city to push back against book banning in their state. Rebecca Leber-Gottberg talks to us about the history of the bookstore, her role there, and books that folks in Boise have been buying, but she also explains the bookstore’s Read Freely Project, which is their effort to get banned and threatened books dispersed throughout the community.
And in our book rec section, we’re jumping into spooky season with books related to ghosts, but if you don’t like horror, don’t worry: a lot of these “ghostly” books aren’t horror, and some of them may only seem to be about ghosts. We’ve got a historical fiction about the Sri Lankan civil war, a detective story in which ghosts are witnesses, a nonfiction book about unexplained phenomena which may or may not involve ghosts, a funny novella, a supernatural suspense, and a ghostly gothic novel set in Mexico.
Books Discussed in this Episode:
1- A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
2- The Shift: One Nurse, Twelve House, Four Patients' Lives by Theresa Brown
3- American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America's First Paramedics by Kevin Hazzard
4- The Queen Bees of Tybee County by Kyle Casey Chu
5- The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer
6- Trans History: A Graphic Novel by Alex L. Combs and Andrew Eakett
7- Lone Women by Victor LaValle
8- Wild Tongues Can't be Tamed: 15 Voices from the LatinX Diaspora edited by Saraciea J. Fennell
9- Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray
10- Shout by Laurie Halse Anderson
11- House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
12- On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder
13- The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
14- Firekeeper's Daughter by Angleine Boulley
15- Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
16- Sisters in the Wind by Angeline Boulley
17- The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
18- Culpability by Bruce Holsinger
19- Songs for Other People's Weddings by David Levitan
20- A Five Star Read Recommended by Claire @bookishly_claire - Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
21- The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida by Shehan Karunatilaka
22- The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde
23- Rivers of London by Ben Aaronovitch
24- Ghost Tamer by Meredith R. Lyons
25- The Haunting of Alma Fielding: A True Ghost Story by Kate Summerscale
26- The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas
27- This is Going to Hurt by Adam McKay
Media Mentioned:
1- The Pitt (Max 2025)
2- ER ( 1994- 2009)
3- This is Going to Hurt (2022, Amazon Prime)
4- The Craft Lit Podcast - https://craftlit.com/