This week’s episode features Andrew Harris, the producing artistic director at Stage One, a performing arts organization for children in our city. If you live in Louisville, you have either attended a Stage One production as a child or as the parent of a child, and the shows are always magical. Andrew chats with us about his career in theater, the unique attributes of children’s shows, and why children’s theater is essential to adult theater.

Stage One has a couple upcoming plays, which we discuss in this episode: Don’t Tell Me I Can’t Fly at the end of January and early February and Dragons Love Tacos in March and April. Of course, with Omicron, things could change, so be sure to contact Stage One directly for updates.

Books mentioned--

1- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien

2- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson

3- Jamie Whatever by Keith McGill

4- 5- Don't Tell Me I Can't Fly by Y. York

6- Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin

7- The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gordichec

8- Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman

9- Circe by Madeline Miller

10- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

10- The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

11- The Raven and the Reindeer by T. Kingfisher

In this episode, we talk to Gwenda Bond, a New York Times best-selling author whose scope of work includes middle grade and young adult fiction, most with definitive fantasy elements. Her most recent book published this past fall, however, is her very first adult rom-com, a paranormal romance titled NOT YOUR AVERAGE HOT GUY, that involves the son of Satan. An anticipated sequel is due to hit bookstores in April 2022.

Gwenda has vast experience in the literary world; she has published over 10 books, has been a writer for publisher’s weekly magazine, collaborated to write a serial podcast, and been chosen by the Duffer brothers, creators of the megahit Netflix series "Stranger Things", to write a novel that explores what Eleven’s mother’s story.

The thing that unites all these pieces is simple; it’s definitely not boring. Gwenda revels in the wacky and weird and she was a ton of fun to chat with this week.

Books discussed in this episode:

1- Not Your Average Hot Guy by Gwenda Bond

2- The Date From Hell by Gwenda Bond

3- Stranger Things: Suspicious Minds by Gwenda Bond

4- Girl on a Wire by Gwenda Bond

5- The Supernormal Sleuthing Service by Gwenda Bond and Christopher Rowe

6- Lois Lane series by Gwenda Bond

7- Strange Alchemy by Gwenda Bond

8- The Birds by Daphne du Maurier

9- Monkey's Paw by W W Jacobs

10- The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell

11- The Only Good Indians by Stephen Graham Jones

12- A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

13- A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

14- Bellweather Rhapsody by Kate Racculia

15- Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts by Kate Racculia

16- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin

Podcasts mentioned--

1- Dead Air by Gwenda Bond

Shows mentioned--

1- Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)

We take a look back at 2021 reads and what’s on tap for 2022.

Books mentioned in this episode:

1- Sharks in the Time of Saviors by Kawai Strong Washburn

2- The Book of Eels by Patrik Svensson

3- This Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith

4- Murmur of Bees by Sofia Segovia

5- Eat a Peach by David Chang

6- Lakewood by Megan Giddings

7- Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

8- Sick Souls, Healthy Minds by John Kaag

9- Once & Future Witches by Alix Harrow

10- Stone Sky by NK Jemisin

11- Whisper Man by Alex North

12- World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

13- Pax by Sara Pennypacker

14- The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein

15- Cork Dork by Bianca Bosker

16- Speckled by Beauty by Rick Bragg

17- As You Wish by Cary Elwes

18- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

19- Memorial Drive by Natasha Trethaway

20- Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

21- Sorry I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come by Jessica Pan

22- The Round House by Louise Erdrich

23- A Very Punchable Face by Colin Jost

24- The Hummingbird's Gift by Sy Montgomery

25- Piranesi by Susannah Clarke

26- Where I Can't Follow by Ashley Blooms

27- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

28- Fox and I by Catherine Raven

29- Another Appalachia: Growing Up Queer and Indian in a Mountain Place by Neema Avashia

30- City of Brass by SA Chakraborty

31- Mordew by Alex Pheby

32- Lucia by Alex Pheby

33- The Storyteller by Dave Grohl

34- The Witch's Heart by Genevieve Gordichec

35- The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

36- She Wouldn't Change a Thing by Sarah Adlakha

37- Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

38- Dread Nation by Justina Ireland

39- Deathless Divide by Justina Ireland

40- The World-Ending Fire by Wendell Berry

41- The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson

42- Dune by Frank Herbert

43- Will by Will Smith

44- The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley

45- The Carrying by Ada Limon

Our guest this week, Alia Volz, wrote a book titled Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and The Stoning of San Francisco about her experience growing up in San Francisco in the late 1970s and 80s. Alia’s parents were the owners of Sticky Fingers Brownies which made pot brownies that were known all over the city. While these brownies were the source of relaxation and fun for many people, when HIV and AIDS hit San Francisco, Sticky Fingers became a lifeline for many gay men who were devastated by the disease because the pot brownies helped them with pain and appetite.

The book covers a lot of territory, not the least of which is Alia’s parents’ backgrounds and what it was like for her to grow up in San Francisco in a family that couldn’t really talk about what it did because of the illegal nature of their business. Her book was a 2020 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography. It’s a fascinating read which shows the social history leading to the legalization and wider use of cannabis for medical use in the US through the lens of her own family's story.

Books Discussed in this Episode:

1- Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco by Alia Volz

2- Flowers in the Attic by VC Andrews

3- The Stand by Stephen King

4- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

5- Dune by Frank Herbert

6- Pandora's Lab: Seven Stories of Science Gone Wrong by Paul Offitt

7- In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women are Still on Trial by Mona Chollet

8- Daughters of Smoke and Fire by Ava Homa

9- The Haunting of Tram Car 015 (Dead Djinn Universe #0.3)by P. Djeli Clark

10- The Master of Djinn (Dead Djinn Universe #1)by P. Djeli Clark

11 - A Dead Djinn in Cairo (Dead Djinn Universe #0.1) by P. Djeli Clark

12- The Secret Lives of the Nine Negro Teeth of George Washington by P. Djeli Clark

13- Bunnicula by James and Deborah Howe

The novel The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michelle Richardson which is about women who served as pack librarians in the mountains of Eastern Kentucky and brought reading materials to remote areas during the Depression is the one that Lisa Signorelli and Kristin Thrower looked to to guide them in their mission. They were concerned that their students in Chesterfield public schools on the outskirts of Richmond who didn’t have easy access to WIFI while school was virtual last year were being forgotten.

Lisa and Kristin decided to start delivering books to the students. The endeavour that began out of the back of their cars has now progressed to a full book mobile that gives away free books to students and their families.

In this episode, Lisa and Kristin talk about how they met through a mentor teacher friend named Ms. Clark, how their collaboration resulted in the book mobile, and what it adds to their teaching experience.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Book Woman of Troublesome Creek by Kim Michele Richardson

2- Books by Louis L'Amour

3- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4- Romeo & Juliet by William Shakespeare

5- Catcher in the Rye by J D Salinger

6- The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor Lavalle

7- The Changeling by Victor Lavalle

8- The Secret Keeper of Jaipur by Alka Joshi

9- The Henna Artist by Alka Joshi

10- Monday's Not Coming by Tiffany D. Jackson

11- Cackle by Rachel Harrison

12- Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey

13- A History Lover's Guide to Richmond by Kristin Thrower

Media mentioned--

1- Jason Reynolds on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

2- Mysteries at the Museum

Based in Colorado, Valerie Saverie is the owner and a founding member of Valkarie Gallery & Studio as well as an artist whose work is shown and sold in New York, Oregon, California, and Pennsylvania. In this episode, she talks to us about how books inspire her and what her process is for turning an already magical work into something that goes even further into creativity and the imagination.

To see all of Valerie’s art you can check her out on instagram @valeriesaverie or at her website www.valeriesaverie.com. On her site, she is offering Perks listeners a 20% discount on anything they purchase from her store for 30 days. Use the code PBBL22.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis

2- Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

3- Dreams by Olive Schreiner

4- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

5- The Assassination of Brangwain Spurge by MT Anderson and Eugene Yelchin (Gildart Jackson narrates)

6- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick

7- Gobbledy by Lis-Anna Langston

Movies mentioned--

Blade Runner (1982)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Our guest this week, Anna Ford, is the CEO and founder of Bookclubz which started out as a simple computer program she used to help keep her own large bookclub organized. Over time, what was a rudimentary program has been featured in Forbes magazine and has blossomed into a business that helps tens of thousands of book clubs all over the world.

Go to their website at www.bookclubz.com

Books discussed in this episode:

1- The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols

2- Our Own Worst Enemy: The Assault from Within on Modern Democracy by Tom Nichols

3- The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker

4- The Secret Lives of Groceries: The Dark Miracle of the American Supermarket by Benjamin Lorr

5- The Speckled Beauty by Rick Bragg

6- Just Kids by Patti Smith

7- The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion

8- The Education of an Idealist by Samantha Power

9- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

10- The Men We Reaped by Jesmyn Ward

11- Books by Elena Ferrante

This week’s guest, Jeremy Hance, writes about three topics in his most recent book that we are always drawn to; mental health, travel, and animals. Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-trotting Hypochondriac is a memoir that uses humor to help readers understand what life is like for someone who has a mental health issue like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In Jeremy’s case, his anxiety is always worse when he travels. While traveling to all corners of the globe is one of the best parts of his life as an environmental writer and is necessary for the work he does, travel is also fraught with rumination and fear.

Jeremy is an environmental journalist who is currently a Knight Science Journalism Fellow at MIT.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac by Jeremy Hance

2- The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

3- The Princess Bride by William Goldman

4- My Antonia by Willa Cather

5- The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani

6- Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkein

7- The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein

8- A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermer

9- Sorry, I'm Late, I Didn't Want to Come: One Introvert's Year of Saying Yes by Jessica Pan

Websites mentioned

news.Mongabay.com

Our favorite bookseller, Sam Miller from Carmichael’s Books, talks to us about the holiday gift giving season. We love inviting Sam on the show twice a year to tell us all about books to look forward to for summer reading and holiday gift buying. She gives us suggestions in all the categories.

1- Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

2- The Sentence by Louise Erdrich

3- The Every by Dave Eggers

4- The Circle by Dave Eggers

5- Palmares by Gail Jones

6- Tell the Bees That I'm Gone (Outlander 9) by Diana Gabaldon

7- The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

8- Dune by Frank Herbert

9- Foundation by Isaac Asimov

10- Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr

11- All the Light You Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

12- Mordew by Alex Pheby

13- A Fortnight in September by JC Sherriff

14- Jim the Boy by Tony Earley

15- The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

16- First Christmas: A Story of New Beginnings by Stephen Mitchell

17- Secret Santa by Andrew Shaffer

18- It's Beginning to Look a Lot like F*ck This by Andrew Shaffer

19- Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

20- It's Beginning to Look Like Zombies: The Book of Zombie Christmas Carols by Michael Spradlin

21- Never Saw Me Coming by Vera Kurian

22- Silverview by John Le Carre

23- The Big Book of Victorian Mysteries by Otto Penzler

24- Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Jay Cooper and Maureen Johnson

25- Smile by Sarah Ruhl

26- The Speckled Beauty: A Dog and His People by Rick Bragg

27- The Prince of Frogtown by Rick Bragg

28- Renegades: Born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen and Barack Obama

29- The 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones

30- The 1619 Project: Born on the Water by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renee Watson

31- Best Wishes, Warmest Regards by Dan Levy and Eugene Levy

32- Taste: My Life Through Food by Stanley Tucci

33- Cooking at Home by David Chang and Priya Krishna

34- Black Food by Bryant Terry

35- Garlic and the Vampire by Bree Paulsen

36- All the Marvels by Douglas Wolk

37- The Beatryce Prophecy by Kate DiCamillo

38- A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City by David Domine

39- The Strange Case of Isaac Crawley by James Markert

40- Doctors and Friends by Kimmery Martin

41- Theft by Finding Diaries by David Sedaris

42- The Wife Upstair by Rachel Hawkins

43- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

45- Circe by Madeline Miller

46- To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

47- Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee

48- Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

49- Eligible: A modern retelling of Pride and Prejudice by Curtis Sittenfeld

50- Dark Tales by Shirley Jackson

51- Shirley: A Novel by Susan Scarf Merrell

52- The Letters of Shirley Jackson edited by Laurence Jackson Hyman

53- The Close to Okay by Leesa Cross-Smith

54- Whiskey and Ribbons by Leesa Cross-Smith

Shows mentioned

1- Foundation series (2021)

2- Shirley (2020)

Podcasts mentioned

1- Renegades

This week’s guest is Bailey, host of the To Read List Podcast. With her co-hosts Andrew (her brother), Toby (her friend), and her husband Dillon (the sound recordist), she attempts to get through all the books on her (and their) shelves. Every other week they each read a book from their collections that is randomly selected. And at the end of the episode they have to decide if their books stay on their shelves or whether a new home needs to be found; like a free little library.

You can find the To Read List Podcast:

thetorepadlistpodcast.libsyn.com

and on Instagram @thetoreadlistpodcast

Books mentioned--

1- The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

2- Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace

3- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

4- Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susannah Clarke

5- Moby Dick by Herman Melville

6- White Teeth by Zadie Smith

7- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon

8- One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

9- Sadie by Courtney Summers

10- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

11- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

12- The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

13- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

14- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

15- The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo

16- Dracula by Bram Stoker

17- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

18- Poison for Breakfast by Lemony Snicket

19- The Beatrice Letters by Lemony Snicket

20- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

21—Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

22—The Country of the Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett

Movies mentioned-

Inception (2010)

Social Media mentioned--

The To Read List podcast

Karen Puzzles (Youtube)