In this week’s episode, we chat with Erin Flanagan, an author whose debut novel Deer Season won a 2022 Edgar Award for Best First Novel; her most recent book that published this past summer is a thriller called Blackout. Blackout revolves around a sociology professor named Maris who begins having blackouts despite the fact that she gave up drinking seven months before and then discovers other women in her community are experiencing the same thing. It’s a bit of a #metoo novel with some speculative science and some vodka thrown in. In addition to being an award-winning writer, Erin is also a creative writing professor at Wright State University in Ohio.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Deer Season by Erin Flanagan

2- Blackout by Erin Flanagan

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

4- Shit Cassandra Saw by Gwen Kirby

5- The Damage by Caitlin Wahrer

6- They Never Learn by Layne Fargo

7- The Case of the Missing Marquess (Enola Holmes #1)by Nancy Springer

8- The Case of the Left-Handed Lady (Enola Holmes #2) by Nancy Springer

Movie Mentioned

1- Enola Holmes - 2020 (Netflix)

TV series mentioned:

1- Severance - 2022 (Apple +)

This week we speak with Cassie Moses, a mom from a small town in Central Kentucky. Cassie grew up in Eastern Kentucky at the Hindman Settlement School where her father was the administrator and where she met and befriended lots of Kentucky artists through the Appalachian Writers Workshop.

Cassie began a book club several years ago with her three daughters, and it has offered a way for her to read books that they’ve selected and have special one-on-one time with each of them to discuss these books while doing something special, like going out for ice cream or lunch. We also spend a few minutes speaking with her oldest child, Riley, who shares some of the great books she’s read with her mom.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt

2- Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin

3- Diary of Anne Frank

4- Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

5- Lovely War by Julie Berry

6- House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune

7- Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

8- Same Sun Here by Neela Vaswani and Silas House

9- The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu

10- A River Enchanted by Rebecca Ross

11- The Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley

12- Percy Jackson series

13- Ariadne by Jennifer Saint

14- Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel

15- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

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

17- The Book Woman's Daughter by Kim Michele Richardson

18- I'll Show Myself Out: Essays on Midlife and Motherhood by Jessi Klein

This week is a hybrid episode as we slowly creep back into a recording schedule after a nice long summer break. We’ve got Appalachia and Eastern Kentucky on our minds because of the recent catastrophic flooding in parts of the state so we decided that we’d rebroadcast part of an earlier episode with Kendra Winchester, founder of Read Appalachia on Instagram, who champions Appalachian writers on her feed.

But we also had the opportunity to speak this week with Bobi Conn, an Appalachian author and friend of the show who we interviewed in June of 2020 about her debut memoir "In the Shadow of the Valley", a raw and unflinching look at growing up in Eastern Kentucky and her dysfunctional family. Bobi has a new novel coming out at the end of August that incorporates more family stories she heard about her great grandpa, a moonshiner, and her great grandmother, who held the family together.

We will be back next week with the true start of Season 7 and an all new episode. Happy Reading!

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- A Woman in Time by Bobi Conn

2- In the Shadow of the Valley by Bobi Conn

3- Too Bright to See by Kyle Lukoff

4- Embers on the Wind by Lisa Williamson Rosenberg

5- Finna by Nino Cipri

6- Defekt by Nino Cipri

7- Percy Jackson & The Olympians by Rick Riordan

8- Sabriel by Garth Nix

9- Books by Tamora Pierce

10- Twilight by Stephanie Meyer

11- Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

12- Rise to the Sun by Leah Johnson

13- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

14- The Birds of Opulence by Crystal Wilkinson

15- Affrilachia by Frank X. Walker

16- Southernmost by Silas House

17- Black Bone: 25 Years of Affrilachian Poets edited by Bianca Lynne Spriggs and Jeremy Paden

18- Water Street by Crystal Wilkinson

19- Hillbilly Elegy by JD Vance

20- 3Even As We Breathe by Annette Saunooke Cladsaddle

21- Step Into the Circle: Writers in Modern Appalachia edited by Amy Greene and Trent Thomson

In this last episode of Season 6, we feature a writer who we had the pleasure of meeting in real life at Carmichael’s Bookstore during a leg of her book tour. Courtney Maum is a celebrated author of literary fiction but her latest book is a memoir about how a return to horse riding in her late 30s helped her rediscover herself. It isn’t uncommon at all for women to lose themselves in their roles as mothers or wives or employees and forget what it is that brings them joy and passion and a sense of fun.

Courtney’s book, The Year of the Horses, follows her through personal losses and professional challenges and her ultimate decision to saddle up and not only ride again but take on a new equine endeavor–polo. Her book has been named "A Best Read for Mental Health" by The Today Show and also appears on Amazon's list of Best Books of 2022.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Year of the Horses by Courtney Maum

2- Sing, Unburied, Sing by Jessmyn Ward

3- Navigate Your Stars by Jessmyn Ward

4- It's Great to Suck at Something: The Exceptional Benefits of Being Unexceptional by Karen Rinaldi

5- What's So Funny: A Cartoonist's Memoir by David Sipress

6- Woman Eating by Claire Kohda

7- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

Movies mentioned--

1- Interview With the Vampire (1994)

2- Bob and the Trees (2015)

3- Down With the King (2021)

We love independent bookstores and try to feature one each season, but this can be difficult. As small business owners, it is often difficult to carve time out of their weeks to speak with us. So we are always grateful when the stars align and we can make it happen.

This week’s episode features Michelle Haring, owner of Cupboard Maker Books in Enola, PA. She tells us about how she first sold rare books, then more widely used books, then new books. And the bookstore has also joined forces with a local nonprofit to “carry” (yes, we’re putting this in air quotes), adoptable cats. There are three store cats that visitors can always see–Mouse, Annika, and Zak. And what goes better with a cozy book than a cat on your lap (at least in Carrie’s estimation).

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell

2- One Day We'll All Be Dead and None of This Will Matter by Scaachi Koul

3- Love, Chai, and Other Four-Letter Words by Annika Sharma

4- Maggie Moves On by Lucy Score

5- Things We Never Got Over by Lucy Score

6- Riley Thorn series by Lucy Score

7- Notes on an Execution by Danya Kufafka

8- Death Motor series by Michelle Haring

Shows mentioned--

1- Stranger Things, Season 4 (2022)

2- Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

This is the time of year when lots and lots of people travel so it makes sense to have a travel memoirist on our show. Kate Wickers is a British writer who has spent 25 years or so writing about her extensive travel experiences and publishing in magazines and newspapers all over the world. When COVID hit, she decided to turn her many travels with her husband and three sons into a collection of essays about what travel has meant to their family and the lessons they’ve learned from the experiences travel has given them.

Her memoir, Shape of a Boy, offers a collection of really great stories that will make any parent who has traveled with children go down their own memory lane to remember both the highs and lows of travel when kids are involved. And we’re not the only ones who think her memoir is pretty awesome. National Geographic Traveller listed it as one of the “9 Best Travel Books for 2022.”

You can find Kate Wickers on Instagram at @wickers.kate and at her website katewickers.com

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- Shape of a Boy by Kate Wickers

2- The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

3- Lycanthropy and Other Chronic Illnesses by Kristen O'Neal

4- The Marmalade Diaries: The True Story of an Odd Couple by Ben Aitken

5- The Gran Tour: Travels with My Elders by Ben Aitken

6- Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

7- Da Vinci's Cat by Catherine Gilbert Murdock

Once again we have our favorite local bookseller, Sam Miller, of Carmichaels Books in Louisville KY on the show to talk about summer reads. She is like our in house book seller who joins us every summer and winter to tell us what is new and notable in bookstores.

Not all of these books are the typical fluffy summer books about the beach and booze; we have her cover all genres—sci/fi, cookbooks, local authors, YA, and literary fiction. We always enjoy when Sam visits us. And this week besides us, she also got to visit with resident cat Miso who was spreading the love around in the studio while we were recording.

www.carmichaelsbookstore.com

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- The Tale of Halcyon Crane by Wendy Webb

2- Shirley Jackson: A Rather Haunted Life by Ruth Franklin

3- In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet

4- This Time Tomorrow by Emma Straub

5- Horse by Geraldine Brooks

6- Wrath Goddess Sing by Maya Deane

7- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

8- The Storied Life of AJ Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

9- Carrie Soto is Back by Taylor Jenkins Reid

10- How to Be Eaten by Maria Adelmann

11- Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi

12- Elsewhere by Alexis Schaitkin

13- A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow

14- A Spindle Splintered by Alix E. Harrow

15- Little Brother by Sallie Bingham

16- The Silver Swan: In Search of Doris Duke by Sallie Bingham

17- Half-Blown Rose by Leesa Cross-Smith

18- Shifty’s Boys by Chris Offut

19- These Killing Hills by Chris Offut

20- Kentucky Straight by Chris Offut

21- These Prisoning Hills by Christopher Rowe

22- River of the Gods by Candice Millard

23- The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper by Hallie Rubenhold

24- You Never Forget Your First by Alexis Coe

25- Rogues: True Stories of Grifters, Killers, Rebels and Crooks by Patrick Radden Keefe

26- Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

27- Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe

28- I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong

29- An Immense World by Ed Yong

30- Tree Thieves by Lyndsie Bourgon

31- The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben

32- Counterfeit by Kirstin Chen

33- The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager

34- The Pallbearers Club by Paul Tremblay

355- Daisy Darker by Alice Feeney

36- Red, White, and Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston

37- We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

38- Family of Liars by E. Lockhart

39- The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert

40- Our Crooked Hearts by Melissa Albert

41- The World Belonged to Us by Jacqueline Woodson

42- Wretched Waterpark by Kiersten White

43- I Dream of Dinner So You Don’t Have To by Ali Slagle

44- Snacks for Dinner by Lukas Volger

45- Watermelon and Red Birds by Nicole Taylor

46- Passersthrough by Peter Rock

47- My Old Kentucky Home by Emily Bingham

48- How The Word is Passed by Clint Smith

49- Heartbreak: A Personal and Scientific Journey by Florence Williams

50- Six Days in Rome by Francesca Giacco

51- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van Der Kolk

Shows mentioned—

Justified (FX and Hulu 2010-2016)

In this episode, we chat with debut novelist Donna Gordon. While she has a long background as a poet and short story writer, she ventured into writing a novel when two ideas began swirling around in her head.

Her novel, What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me, tells the story of two characters, Lee and Tomás, who seem to have nothing that connects them and yet they do. It’s a novel that deals with some heavy topics in a way that doesn’t leave you despondent but instead you feel strangely hopeful. It was recently named one of "45 Books We're Excited About from Indie Presses in 2022" by the Independent Book Review. Donna’s book hits bookstore shelves today.

Books Mentioned in This Episode:

1- What Ben Franklin Would Have Told Me by Donna Gordon

2- Lesser Saints by Donna Gordon

3- The Little School by Alicia Partnoy

4- You Can't Drown the Fire: Latin American Women Writing in Exile edited by Alicia Partnoy

5- The Vampire Knitting Club by Nancy Warren

6- Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro

7- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

8- Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro

9- Six Days in Rome by Francesca Giacco

Readers have heard of the big 5 publishing companies that include Harper Collins, and Penguin/Random House. But there is something really special about university presses. Unfortunately, they don’t often get the attention they deserve. Sarah Munroe, Marketing Manager and Acquisitions Editor at West Virginia University Press, is our guest this week who talks to us about what makes a university press special and how they operate differently from the big 5.

One of the unique things about them is that they can and do feature more diverse voices and topics than what major publishers are willing to put out there. Former guest Neema Avashia, author of Another Appalachia, was published by WVU Press and she is just one of the diverse voices that readers can find at smaller publishers. WVU Press has made some pretty important headlines lately after their author Deesha Philyaw’s book The Secret Lives of Church Ladies became a finalist for the National Book Award in 2020.

While we definitely book nerd out with Sarah, we hope you stay tuned to what was supposed to be her 3 in the Third Degree where we asked only one question but learned a ton about her abiding love for dinosaurs and how they were part of her wedding ceremony with her husband.

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia

2- Bad Tourist by Suzanne Roberts

3- The Secret Lives of Church Ladies by Deesha Philyaw

4- Deer Season by Erin Flanagan

5- Even As We Breathe by Annette Sanuooke Clapsaddle

6- Ghosts of New York by Jim Lewis

7- Foote: A Mystery Novel by Tom Bredehoft

8- Lioness by Mark Powell

9- Curing Season by Kristine Langley Mahler

10- Kindred by Octavia Butler

11- Broken Earth trilogy by NK Jemisin

12- Moon Witch, Spider King by Marlon James

13- Black Leopard, Red Wolf by Marlon James

14- The Kill by Richard House

15- City of Brass by S. A. Chakraborty

16- The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Greene

17- Eragon by Christopher Paolini

Podcast mentioned:

1- Strong Sense of Place hosted by Melissa Joulwan and David Humphreys

Namrata Patel has been writing for 20 years, but it wasn’t until the pandemic that she had more time to work on it. She had always been interested in dual culture and challenges of the diaspora, specifically Indians who had moved to the United States. The isolation of COVID really brought home how lonely life can be if you don’t feel like you fit anywhere. Her debut novel The Candid Life of Meena Dave follows a photojournalist who inherits an apartment from a stranger. The apartment in Back Bay Boston surrounds her with a close-knit network of other Indian-Americans. Meena comes to learn more about herself and her culture, as well as understands the gift of found family and friendship through this experience.

The book comes out June 1 but those book lovers who have Amazon Prime can download her book for free during the month of May with their First Reads program. If you subscribe to Amazon Prime, you are able to download 1 free book a month from their First Reads selections which are editor favorites hitting bookshelves the following month. Just search First Reads in the search bar.

Books Mentioned In This Episode:

1- A Room With a View by E. M. Forster

2- Six Days in Rome by Franscesca Giacco

3- My Italian Bulldozer by Alexander McCall Smith

4- The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel

5- Books by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

6- Leonard: My Life as a Cat by Carly Sarosiak

7- The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

8- The Storyteller: Tales of Life and Music by Dave Grohl

9- Word by Word by Kory Stamper

10- Tidepool by Nicole Willson

11- A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket

13- Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

14- Persuasion by Jane Austen

16- FBI/US Attorneys series by Julie James

17- Into Thin Air by John Krakauer

Movies mentioned--

ET: The ExtraTerrestrial (1982)

Shows mentioned--

Lovecraft Country (HBO)