Book Dreams

Latest Episodes:

Ep. 89 - Reading Between the Subway Lines, with Uli Beutter Cohen Jan 20, 2022

Show notes

Deep beneath the asphalt streets of New York City lurks a breed of creature that’s haunted the subway’s subterranean labyrinth for over a century. No, it’s not sewer alligators or radioactive rats. Instead, we’re speaking of…bookworms. And documentarian Uli Beutter Cohen has been on the hunt to capture their travels.

In 2014, Uli founded the viral Instagram account Subway Book Review, which documents her conversations with subway riders about the books they’re reading. After spending nearly a decade exploring the literary landscape of the underground, Uli has learned: “Readers will tell you what's coming in culture.” Now she’s compiled 170 of her favorite bibliophile encounters in her first book, Between the Lines: Stories from the Underground, which features conversations about books with notable authors like Ta-Nehisi Coates, Min Jin Lee, Roxane Gay, and more. In his debut episode as a guest host, Book Dreams producer Gianfranco Lentini sits down with Uli to discuss her experiences and to consider…what does it mean to belong in a city of 8 million people?

Subway Book Review has been featured on TV, in print, and online by New York Magazine, Esquire, Forbes Women, Glamour, Bustle, Vogue, The Guardian, Refinery 29, The Atlantic, BBC and more. Uli’s interview work and writing about human connection and belonging has been published by The Washington Post, Here Magazine, The Creative Independent, and HuffPost. Today, contributors to Subway Book Review are reporting from 20 cities around the world.

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Ep. 88 - Lost & Found, with Kathryn Schulz Jan 13, 2022

Show notes

“I think a lot about how to map the scale of our own lives against the scale of existence.” –Kathyrn Schulz

Not long after Kathryn Schulz fell in love with the woman she would marry, her beloved father died. Now she’s written a memoir, Lost & Found, in which she shares these deeply personal stories and expands them into a consideration of the ways that loss and discovery and joy and grief affect, and intermingle in, all of our lives. In our Book Dreams conversation with Kathryn, we discuss everything from the jaw-droppingly fascinating childhood of Kathryn’s father, to the surprisingly rich history–and all-too-often overlooked complexity–of the word “and,” to the meaning that scarcity bestows on life.

Kathryn Schulz has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2015. In 2016, she won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing and a National Magazine Award for “The Really Big One,” an article about seismic risk in the Pacific Northwest. Her memoir Lost & Found grew out of a piece called “Losing Streak,” which was originally published in The New Yorker and later anthologized in The Best American Essays. Her other essays and reporting have appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing, The Best American Travel Writing, and The Best American Food Writing. Kathryn is also the author of the bestselling book Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin.

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Ep. 87 - What Dreams Are Made of, with Sidarta Ribeiro Jan 06, 2022

Show notes

What are dreams made of? What role can they play in predicting the future, and why? To what extent have they shaped the past? What can we glean when we know the content of our dreams, and what does science have to say about why that is? And should we all be taking naps?

In this Book Dreams episode on–you guessed it–a book on dreams, Brazilian neuroscientist and dream researcher Sidarta Ribeiro offers answers to these questions and more. Author of The Oracle of Night: The History and Science of Dreams, Sidarta discusses with Julie and Eve the profound impact dreams have had on the history and evolution of humanity. He says, “Dreams are an integral part of our past. And if we are to have a future, they must be rescued.” Sidarta also talks about why a connection to dreaming has been lost for many people today and what can be done to restore it.

Sidarta Ribeiro is the Founder and Vice Director of the Brain Institute at Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte in Brazil where he currently serves as the Professor of Neuroscience. He received a PhD in animal behavior from Rockefeller University. His research topics encompass: memory, sleep and dreams, neuroplasticity, symbolic competence in non-human animals, computational psychiatry, and psychedelics.

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Ep. 86 (Re-Release) - The Truth About the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, with Ariel Sabar Dec 30, 2021

Show notes

(RE-RELEASE) What happens when a Harvard professor puts the weight of her reputation behind an alleged ancient gospel with monumental implications for the Roman Catholic Church, and the gospel turns out to be a fake? In 2012, Karen King, the Hollis Professor of Divinity at Harvard’s Divinity School, announced the discovery of a gospel in which Jesus refers to “my wife.” Investigative reporter Ariel Sabar, author of Veritas: A Harvard Professor, a Con Man, and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, was present at the announcement and helped uncover the actuality of the gospel’s forgery.

Ariel talks with Eve and Julie about what it was like to be in the room, across the street from the Vatican itself, when Karen King unveiled the alleged gospel. He describes the steps taken to establish that the document was forged, and his own, successful efforts to identify the man who is almost certainly the mastermind behind the forgery. And he discusses what this saga illustrates about the nature of truth and the significance of authenticity, with a consideration of the influence of Karen King’s postmodernist thinking. (This episode was originally released on 9/2/21.)

Ariel Sabar is an award-winning journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, Smithsonian Magazine, Harper's Bazaar, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal. He's worked as a staff writer at the Providence Journal, The Baltimore Sun, and Christian Science Monitor. Ariel won the National Book Critics Circle Award for his first book, My Father's Paradise: A Son’s Search for His Jewish Past. Veritas, his book about Karen King and the Gospel of Jesus’s Wife, was a finalist for the Edgar Award for best true crime book of the year and for the investigative reporters and editors book award.

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Ep. 85 - LIVE from Miami Book Fair 2021, with Jane Smiley Dec 23, 2021

Show notes

LIVE EPISODE: If you love Jane Smiley, this episode is for you. Eve and Julie are joined by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author in an interview that was recorded live for Miami Book Fair 2021. They discuss Jane’s most recent book, Perestroika in Paris, as well as Jane’s writing process, beloved pets, and what it’s like to be a writer in Paris.

Unlike every other interview we’ve aired so far, this interview is completely unedited. Typically, our interviews last close to an hour, and then we edit them down to 20-25 minutes before adding our own interstitials to make an episode. If you’ve ever wondered how we do what we do, here’s your chance to experience the “before” of the Book-Dream process.

Miami Book Fair is an “eight day literary party” founded by Miami Dade College that’s been held every November in Miami, Florida since 1984. The Fair plays host to more than 450 international authors reading and discussing their work, as well as more than 250 publishers and booksellers exhibiting and selling books, with special appearances by antiquarians showcasing signed first editions, original manuscripts, and other collectibles. Many thanks to our friends at Miami Book Fair for coordinating this episode with Jane.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

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Ep. 84 - How Memory Works and How to Make Yours Better Dec 16, 2021

Show notes

MINI EPISODE: Do you lose your keys, your wallet, your glasses…in your own home? Do you forget the names of people you met two minutes ago? How often do you start a sentence with what’s that word I’m thinking of? Yeah, us too.

This is the second in a series of “mini episodes” where Eve or Julie picks a book on a topic she needs help with, and then they come together to assess whether the book actually helped. In this episode, Eve seeks explanations for why “my memory sucks, and it gets worse as I get older.” She turns to Remember: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting, by neuroscientist Lisa Genova, author of the New York Times bestselling novel Still Alice (the basis for the 2014 award-winning film of the same name starring Julianne Moore). The book demystifies absentmindedness by breaking down the three types of memory and explains why “memory failures are normal outcomes of our brain's design.” Tune in to find out whether Eve is able to remember what she read.

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Ep. 83 - To Infinity and Beyond, with Astronomer Emily Levesque Dec 09, 2021

Show notes

“Today we're learning things as fundamental as the shape of our universe, or how the universe might've begun or ended. We are learning new things about planets and solar systems beyond our own that could potentially host life. And these … [findings are] fundamental to who we are as humans and who we are as planet citizens.”

In this episode of Book Dreams, award-winning astronomer Emily Levesque joins Eve and Julie for an exhilarating exchange about the cosmos. Author of The Last Stargazers: The Enduring Story of Astronomy's Vanishing Explorers, Emily shares what it’s like–and why it matters–when scientists search the heavens with massive telescopes using mirrors that can measure twenty, thirty, and even forty feet across. Emily explains red supergiants and how they help us understand the universe, how she and her colleague discovered a new type of star, and how ladybugs and cobras can derail years of work in a matter of minutes. If you’ve ever sat through a physics class feeling clueless and frustrated, this is the episode for you! And, yes, Julie asks whether there’s intelligent life out there.

Emily Levesque, a professor in the University of Washington's astronomy department, is the recipient of the 2020 Newton Lacy Pierce Prize and the 2014 Annie Jump Cannon Award from the American Astronomical Society. She's also a 2019 Cottrell Scholar and a 2017 Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow. Her research program is focused on improving our overall understanding of how massive stars evolve and die. The Last Stargazers, Emily's first popular science book, is an Amazon Best Book of 2020, a finalist for the PEN/EO Wilson Literary Science Writing Award, a finalist for the AAAS/Subaru SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books, and a 2021 Alex Award official nominee.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

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Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

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Ep. 82 - The Mutual Haunting of Past and Future, with Sunjeev Sahota Dec 02, 2021

Show notes

“It's a piece of family lore or legend that I've been hearing since I was a quite young boy.” In this week’s episode of Book Dreams, acclaimed author Sunjeev Sahota shares with Eve and Julie the family and personal experiences that helped shape his latest, transfixing novel, China Room. Set in both 1920s rural India and 1990s small-town England, the book originates with the story of Sunjeev’s great-grandmother, who as a young bride didn’t know which of four brothers was her new husband. Woven into both the novel and our conversation are themes of connection, belonging, heritage, class, and reputation. The two intergenerational storylines reveal a “mutual haunting” of future and past, with the past shaping the future and the future “reverb[ing] back” to transform the past.

Sunjeev Sahota was named one of Granta’s 20 Best of Young British Novelists of the Decade in 2013. In addition to China Room, he's the author of Ours Are the Streets and The Year of the Runaways, which was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and the Dylan Thomas Prize, and was awarded a European Union Prize for Literature. China Room was longlisted for the 2021 Booker Prize and a finalist for the American Library Association’s Carnegie Medal.

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Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

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Ep. 81 - A History-Making Librarian with a Lifelong Secret, with Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict Nov 25, 2021

Show notes

Belle da Costa Greene. Morgan Library visionary. One of the most prominent and influential librarians in history. Democratizer of museums. And, until two decades after her death, no one outside her family knew she was passing as white.

We know a lot about public-facing Belle: she was JP Morgan's personal librarian from 1905 until his death in 1913, and she continued to build and direct The Morgan Library until shortly before her own death in 1950. She was responsible for shaping the museum’s collections, and her vision was no less than to tell the history and importance of the early printed word. One of the most powerful people in the art world, she traveled the globe, buying art and manuscripts at auction and socializing with Astors and Vanderbilts. Constantly featured in newspapers and magazines, she was widely known for her gorgeous clothes and her glittering personality. But that extravagant personal style life was a mask meant to distract the public from the real Belle who was in fact the daughter of Richard T. Greener, one of the most prominent Black civil rights activists of his day.

In this episode of Book Dreams, Julie and Eve talk about Belle with Victoria Christopher Murray and Marie Benedict, co-authors of the novel The Personal Librarian–a New York Times bestseller and Good Morning America Book Club Pick–which gives us a fully formed sense of inner Belle. They discuss Belle's upbringing, her intimate relationship with JP Morgan, her motivations and struggles, and the sacrifices she made in order to conceal her identity.

Victoria Christopher Murray is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 30 novels. Her novel Stand Your Ground won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work of Fiction. Two of her novels, Lust and Envy, have been made into TV movies for Lifetime.

Marie Benedict is a novelist dedicated to unearthing the hidden historical stories of women. She's the author of the USA Today bestselling Carnegie's Maid; the New York Times bestseller The Only Woman in the Room; the international bestseller Lady Clementine; and the New York Times and USA Today bestselling The Mystery of Mrs. Christie.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

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Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

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Ep. 80 - Pigeons, A Love Story, with Rosemary Mosco Nov 18, 2021

Show notes

Pigeons: rats with wings or wonder birds? Rosemary Mosco, science writer and naturalist, enters the dovecote with Eve and Julie to settle the debate. The author and illustrator of A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching: Getting to Know the World’s Most Misunderstood Bird, Rosemary defends her feral, feathered friends with an extraordinary (yet widely unknown) historical and anatomical tour. She discusses how the once-wild rock pigeon grew into a domesticated military tool capable of turning “the global tide of politics.” And, in a Book Dreams first, Rosemary illustrates what it would mean for a pigeon to be endowed--yes, that kind of endowed. As Julie’s grandmother would say, this episode has “got some sexy in it.”

Rosemary Mosco is a science communicator, acclaimed cartoonist, and speaker on all things bird. She’s the creator of the web comic Bird and Moon, which won the National Cartoonists Society's Award for Best Online Short Form Comic. Rosemary is the author of many science books for young people, including The New York Times bestselling Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World's Most Adventurous Kid. She's also a writer for the PBS kids show Elinor Wonders Why.

Find us on Twitter (@bookdreamspod) and Instagram (@bookdreamspodcast), or email us at contact@bookdreamspodcast.com.

We encourage you to visit our website and sign up for our newsletter for information about our episodes, guests, and more.

Since you’re listening to Book Dreams, we’d like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows about literature, writing, and storytelling like Storybound and The History of Literature.

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