Book Cougars Podcast: Two Middle-Aged Women on the Hunt for a Good Read

Latest Episodes:

Episode 199 - Our 2024 Reading Intentions Jan 16, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to Episode 199! We have read A LOT since our last regularly recorded episode in December, so be prepared! In our “Just Read” segment, we talk about books by Lois Hamill, Hisashi Kashiwai, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, Josie Silver, James R. Benn, Alice Hoffman, Kate Jacobs, Tiago Forte, Julie Alvarez, Luanne Rice, Elizabeth Acevedo, Ann Hood, and Abraham Verghese. Phew! Spot any of your favorite authors in that list? The funny thing is, we are also currently reading a bunch of books. Go figure! We also have some fun Biblio Adventures to tell you about. Chris went to the New Bedford Whaling Museum for part of their 2024 Moby-Dick Marathon and then had a lovely browse through the New Bedford Free Library. Emily attended Katherine May’s Book Club with special guest Diane Henry, author of the cookbook Roast Figs Sugar Snow. As always, there is a lot more in the episode than we include in our blurb. But we also want to remind you that our first quarter readalong for our year of reading romance is Indigo by Beverly Jenkins. We hope you’ll join us. Happy Listening & Happy Reading!

Episode 198 - Top Ten Reads of 2023 with BookTuber Russell Gray of Ink and Paper Blog Jan 02, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to our fourth annual Top Ten Reads of the Year episode with BookTuber Russell Gray of Ink and Paper Blog! We each talk about our top ten reads of 2023. Some books were published in 2023, and others are a bit older, but they all stirred our hearts and minds and we want to sing their praises. Russell, Emily, and Chris all have such different reading tastes that there is sure to be at least one book in this bunch of 30+ (some people cheated) that you will want to add to your TBR list. We don’t know one another’s lists beforehand, so this is always an exciting episode for us. We also share some of our favorite Biblio Adventures and three books each that we are looking forward to in 2024. And we announce the first quarter pick for our 2024 Readalong theme, ROMANCE! Top Ten Lists are not just about us – we would love to know what your top 10 reads of 2023 were! If you’d like to share, please add them to this handy Google form: https://bit.ly/BookCougarsListenerTopTenBooksof2023. We’ll share Listener Top Ten Reads of 2023 in January.

Episode 197 - Author Spotlight with Pip Williams Dec 19, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to our last episode of the year! We reflect on our 2023 reading intentions, announce our 2024 readalong theme, and have a delightful conversation with Australian author Pip Williams to cap off our year of reading Books About Books. Some of the books we just read & discuss: – THE HELSINKI AFFAIR by Anna Pitoniak – THE QUEEN OF DIRT ISLAND by Donal Ryan – UNNATURAL DEATH by Patricia Cornwell – THE MAID by Nita Prose – THE BOOKBINDER by Pip Williams In Biblio Adventures, we had a wonderful joint jaunt to Glastonbury, CT where we shopped at River Bend Bookshop’s new location and then walked wide-eyed through the gorgeously renovated Welles-Turner Memorial Library. Emily visited her daughter in Michigan and returned to Bay Books in Suttons Bay where she purchased THE RECIPE BOX by Viola Shipman. Chris attended two virtual events: Robert Darnton’s talk at the Boston Athenaeum about his new book, THE REVOLUTIONARY TEMPER: PARIS, 1748-1790, and Alan B. Farmer’s lecture on “Lost Books: The Dark Matter of the Early Modern English Book Trade” at the Harry Ransom Center. Thank you all for a fantastic year of books, authors, libraries, bookstores, and, in a few cases, mushrooms and mosquitos. Happy Reading!

Episode 196 - Trying Not To Go Viral Dec 05, 2023

Show notes

Once again, we are grateful for the miracle of modern technology that allowed us to record this episode from two locations. Chris was recovering from the flu and, to keep Emily healthy, we recorded over Zoom. In our Just Read segment, we talk about nine very different books in a variety of genres: epic poetry, memoir, biography, and novels, including a graphic novel. Both Cougars finished THE BOOKBINDER by Pip Williams, our last readalong in our year of reading Books About Books. Chris finally finished THE PARADISO by Dante Alighieri and is happy to have THE DIVINE COMEDY under her belt. She also finished Megan Marshall’s fascinating biography, The PEABODY SISTERS: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism. Taking a break from historically-minded reading, she listened to Ruha Benjamin’s award-winning book, VIRAL JUSTICE: How We Grow the World We Want. Emily dove into history and read THE PROFESSOR AND THE MADMAN: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester. Then she switched things up with a middle-grade graphic novel, SEA CHANGE by Frank Viva. She read two books that look at grief through very different windows: Sloan Crosley’s memoir about the death of her best friend, GRIEF IS FOR PEOPLE, and a new inspirational rom-com by Emma Grey, THE LAST LOVE NOTE. As always, we also discuss what we’re currently reading, what we look forward to reading, and Biblio Adventures. We hope you enjoy this episode, and we wish you lots of Happy Reading! Listen here https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2023/episode196 or wherever you get your podcasts.

Episode 195 - Hooked by Nonfiction November & 2023 Holiday Gift Ideas Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

Welcome to our 8th Annual Bookish Holiday Gifts episode! The first time we recommended holiday gift ideas was on Episode 2, way back in December 2016. Listeners enjoyed it so much that we’ve done it every year since. We hope you enjoy our ideas this year. Links to items discussed are in the show notes. We would like to note that none of our suggestions are ads or affiliates. They are things we have used or, in the case of custom bobbleheads, something we would like to try! #NonfictionNovember hooked us this year and we are currently reading or have read: Big Heart Little Stove: Bringing Home Meals & Moments from the Lost Kitchen by Erin French The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism by Megan Marshall Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family by Rabia Chaudry Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America by Heather Cox Richardson The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden by Camille T. Dungy In Biblio Adventures, Emily attended some in-person author events. She went to Bank Square Books in Mystic, CT to see Sigrid Nunez discuss her newest novel, The Vulnerables, with Willard Spiegelman whose most recent book is Nothing Stays Put: The Life and Poetry of Amy Clampitt. She also saw Michael Cunningham discuss his new novel, Day, with Amy Bloom at R.J. Julia in Madison, CT. Chris had a lovely visit to Mystic Seaport Museum where she wandered aboard the last wooden whaleship in the world, The Charles W. Morgan, an experience that never gets old! She’s considering a re-read of Moby Dick in 2024. Reminder: our 4th quarter readalong discussion of The Bookbinder by Pip Williams is Sunday, December 3rd at 7 pm (ET). Email us if you’d like to participate in the Zoom discussion. Listen here – https://www.bookcougars.com/blog-1/2023/episode195 – or wherever you get your podcasts. Happy Listening and Happy Reading!

Episode 194 - Author Spotlight with Sarah MacLean Nov 07, 2023

Show notes

Episode 194 is bookended by Poetry and Romance. We begin with the poem “Only Love” by James Crews from the poetry collection, THE PATH TO KINDNESS: Poems of Connection and Joy. We end with an Author Spotlight with Sarah MacLean. Sarah is a powerhouse reader, advocate, and writer of romance fiction. Her new release is KNOCKOUT, book three in her Hell’s Belles series. We had a great time talking with Sarah about romance cover art, how she got into writing romance, and the un-patriarchal idea that we all deserve love and happy endings. It was both fun and enlightening for us, and we think you’ll enjoy our conversation whether or not you are a romance reader. In between, we talk about a bunch of books we’re currently reading – THE ART OF LIBROMANCY by Josh Cook, FAMILY LORE by Elizabeth Acevedo, and HOW TO MARRY A MILLIONAIRE VAMPIRE by Kerrelyn Sparks – and those we have finished reading like THE DICTIONARY OF LOST WORDS by Pip Williams, THE GOLDEN GATE by Amy Chua, and COUNTRY PLACE by Ann Petry which we both read for the Vintage Book Club. We also recap some Couch Biblio Adventures we’ve enjoyed such as SLOW HORSES, RENFIELD, and KILLERS OF THE FLOWER MOON. We hope you are finding some peace, comfort, and stimulation through your reading. Happy Reading! Chris & Emily

Episode 193 - Book Club Fundamentals with Davina Morgan-Witts Founder & Publisher of BookBrowse Oct 24, 2023

Show notes

Chris and Emily were thrilled to sit down and talk with Davina Morgan-Witts, the Founder and Publisher of BookBrowse. Founded in 1998, BookBrowse is one of the earliest independent online book resources. Davina and her team of editors and reviewers are committed to being “Your guide to exceptional books.” If you are not yet familiar with BookBrowse, check it out. It is a helpful and fun resource for solo readers and book clubs. Since our last episode, Emily was on the road again and visited two public libraries in Maine. The Curtis Library in Brunswick had a Robert McCloskey exhibit featuring his books Blueberries for Sal, Time of Wonder, One Morning in Maine, Burt Dow Deep-Water Man, and Make Way for Ducklings. She also browsed the Wiscasset Public Library, which claims to be “the oldest continuous circulation library in the country.” (We understand such claims are dicey in the library world and so encourage you to research the matter for your own biblio-edification if you so desire.) Meanwhile, back in Connecticut, Chris enjoyed several Couch Biblio Adventures. She watched Eye of the Needle via Kanopy, a 1981 adaptation of Ken Follett’s novel of the same name; the first episode of Lessons in Chemistry an Apple TV series based on the novel by Bonnie Garmus; and The Fall of the House of Usher, Mike Flanagan’s new horror mini-series on Amazon Prime that’s an homage to several of Edgar Allan Poe’s classic tales. And we have been reading some great books! Emily is currently reading C. Pam Zhang’s LAND OF MILK AND HONEY, a dystopian novel, while Chris is following Dante’s rise to the Light of God’s Divine Love via THE PARADISO. Some of the books we discuss include COUNTRY PLACE by Ann Petry, AFTERLIFE by Julia Alvarez, MY ROOMMATE IS A VAMPIRE by Jenna Levine, THE QUICKENING by Elizabeth Rush, THE PURGATORIO by Dante Alighieri, AND THE GOTH HOUSE EXPERIMENT by SJ Sindu. We hope you enjoy this episode. As always, if you have any questions or comments, find us on social media or email us at bookcougars@gmail.com. Happy Reading! Chris & Emily

Episode 192 - Author Spotlight with Fancy Feast Oct 10, 2023

Show notes

Author Spotlight: Chris and Emily have a great time talking with Fancy Feast about her new (and debut) essay collection, NAKED: ON SEX, WORK, AND OTHER BURLESQUES. We bid adieu to Scarlet Summer with a recap of our Biblio Adventure to Boston where we visited sites related to Nathaniel Hawthorne. The first stop was the land upon which Brook Farm operated in West Roxbury, MA where we hiked to the crumbling foundation of Margaret Fuller’s cottage. In Boston’s historic district, we had lunch at Chipotle, the current tenant of the Old Corner Bookstore, saw Elizebeth Pain’s headstone in King’s Chapel Burial Ground, and took a tour of the Boston Athenaeum. We ended the day with a stroll down Pinckney Street, a block where, at different times, Hawthorne, the Alcotts, and the Thoreaus all lived and where Elizabeth Peabody held her kindergarten (the first in America). While on vacation at the Cape, Emily visited Herridge Bookstore, the Provincetown Bookshop, Tim’s Used Books, the Provincetown Public Library, and the Eldredge Public Library. She also read WELLNESS by Nathan Hill and NAKED by Fancy Feast. Chris was a guest on Shawn the Book Maniac’s BookTube channel where she shows and talks about two bookmarks from her childhood (which were made in Emily’s hometown!). She got a lot of reading in and finished ADVERSITY FOR SALE by Jay Jeezy Jenkins, MONSTERS: A FANS DILEMMA by Clair Dederer (which she buddy read with BookTuber Britta of The Second Shelf), THE SEPTEMBER HOUSE by Carissa Orlando, and two kids’s books: WHEN A PET DIES by Fred Rogers and STAIRWAY TO DOOM by Robert Quackenbush. Reminder that our 4th Quarter Readalong is THE BOOKBINDER by Pip Williams. Email us (bookcougars@gmail.com) if you’d like to join our Zoom discussion on Sunday, December 3rd at 7 p.m. ET.

Episode 191 - Something So Good It Can Never Be Enough with Poet Shuly Cawood Sep 26, 2023

Show notes

Chris and Emily are happy to welcome back author SHULY CAWOOD to talk about her new poetry collection, SOMETHING SO GOOD IT CAN NEVER BE ENOUGH. Shuly reads a poem and talks about her poetic process, and we ask her to discuss our favorite(s) in the collection. We enjoy Shuly’s poetry in part because it is so accessible. Biblio Adventures are always fun and interesting, and we went on one that opened up a huge new-to-us genre, ROMANCE! We recap a conference we attended at Yale, Popular Romance Fiction: The Literature of Hope. Chris watched the Senate Judiciary Committee’s Hearing on Book Bans. We also had a great day in NYC with Aunt Ellen visiting The New York Society Library, The Corner Bookstore, and Kitchen Arts and Letters. Oysters were also involved. Some of the books we’ve read since the last episode include (not surprisingly) two romance novels. Chris read CLEAT CUTE by Meryl Wilsner and Emily read the first in the Hell’s Belles series by Sarah MacNeal, BOMBSHELL. Chris finished THE INFERNO by Dante. Emily goes out on a limb and declares that PROPERTIES OF THIRST by Marianne Wiggins might land on her top 10 list this year. She also finished THIN PLACES by Kerri Ní Dochartaigh and loved ZORRIE by Laird Hunt which was one of our BookTube buddy Russell of Ink and Paper Blog’s favorites in 2021. So many books! And we are thrilled about it. And also happy that it is Autumn, one of our favorite seasons.

Episode 190 - Haunted by Hawthorne & The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman Sep 12, 2023

Show notes

It’s another 10th episode which means we’re hosting a giveaway for newsletter subscribers! One lucky winner will receive a copy of DEMOCRACY IN CHAINS: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America by Nancy Maclean and THE DANTE CLUB by Matthew Pearl. To be entered to win, head to www.bookcougars.com/subscriber to join our newsletter; the winner will be chosen on September 15th. In between some fantastic Biblio Adventures to Salem, MA, and a Couch Biblio Adventure where we watched the 1934 adaptation of THE SCARLET LETTER, we managed to do some reading. We both read Alice Hoffman’s new novel (and the book that sparked Scarlet Summer), THE INVISIBLE HOUR. Emily devoured LARK ASCENDING by Silas House and Chris took a deep dive into Nathaniel with Brenda Wineapple’s biography, HAWTHORNE: A LIFE. Chris is currently listening to ADVERSITY FOR SALE by Jay Jeezy Jenkins and Emily is listening to THIN PLACES by Kerri Ní Dochartaigh. Scarlet Summer is winding down, but we still have one more Hawthorne-themed Biblio Adventure coming up: on Thursday, 9/21 we are heading to Boston. See you there?

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