Reading Envy 025: Mule and Plow

Jenny is joined by Jason, who first appeared on Reading Envy back on Episode 014: Flannery O'Connor with Zombies. This time he brought three books to talk about, and both settled in at the Reading Envy pub for a long reading chat.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 025

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Book selections:



Justine by Lawrence Durrell
One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories by B.J. Novak
The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? by Jared Diamond
Battleborn: Stories by Claire Vaye Watkins
Us Conductors by Sean Michaels
The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family by Jim Minick

Other books and authors mentioned:
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
Cormac McCarthy
Laura van den Berg
William Gay
Ron Rash
The Isle of Youth: Stories by Laura van den Berg
what the world will look like when all the water leaves us by Laura van den Berg
Find Me by Laura van den Berg
Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman
Almost Famous Women: Stories by Megan Mayhew Bergman

Other links mentioned:
Episode 014: Flannery O'Connor with Zombies
The Office (USA version)
Episode 003: 3 of 5 Stars (another mention of BJ Novak!)
Young Lions Award for Fiction (from the NYPL)
Guggenheim Fellowship
Scotiabank Giller Prize
Said the Gramophone
Music in & On the Air performed by Clara Rockmore

Stalk us online:
Jason on Twitter
Jenny at GoodReads
Jenny on Twitter

Jenny's Books Added March 2015

Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan
Tenth of December by George Saunders
Open City by Teju Cole
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-Rae Lee
Among the Ten Thousand Things by Julia Pierpont
More Mexican Everyday by Rick Bayless
City Lights Pocket Poets Anthology edited by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

This month the books I've brought in have a wide range and purpose.

There is a great author series down at the University of South Carolina called The Open Book, and I'm going to be able to go see Chang-Rae Lee, Teju Cole, and just saw George Saunders.  That was the reason for ordering their books this month, although I had already read the Saunders and Cole (I had an audiobook of the Saunders and a library book of the Cole, but nothing that could be signed.)

The Bayless, Pierpont, and City Lights anthology are review copies from either Edelweiss or NetGalley.  The poetry anthology is here just in time for National Poetry Month!

The Flanagan was a deal in Amazon, and I had signed up to take a MOOC on Australian lit where this was one of the reading selections.  Since I have yet to do any of the reading for the MOOC and already read a Flanagan in the last year, I'm thinking that will linger a while before I get to reading it.

Reading Envy 024: The Attention of Humanity

Jenny sits down in the Reading Envy pub with two guests, Seth Wilson and Barret Newman.  Books discussed range from media to space, Naples to the Hebrides. (Listen to the end for a surprise uninvited guest.)

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy Episode 24

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner

Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe

Books discussed:


How to Watch TV News by Neil Postman and Steve Powers
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman
The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan
Neuromancer by William Gibson
My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
Contact by Carl Sagan

Other books and authors mentioned:

Kurt Vonnegut
Ernest Hemingway
Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner
Toni Morrison
Stephen King
Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman
The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains by Nicholas Carr
The Glass Cage by Nicholas Carr
The Truth is a Cave in the Black Mountains by Neil Gaiman (audiobook)
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
Sandman (series) by Neil Gaiman
Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman
The Pluto Files  Neil deGrasse Tyson
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
Count Zero by William Gibson
Mona Lisa Overdrive by William Gibson
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Spook Country by William Gibson

Other items mentioned in passing:

Reading Envy Episode 007 - Top Secret Dance Off
The 50 Year Argument (documentary on The New York Review of Books)
Page One (documentary on the New York Times)
Cosmos with Carl Sagan
Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson
StarTalk Radio Show with Neil deGrasse Tyson
Cyberpunk subgenre
Posthuman subgenre (Worlds Without End calls it "human development")
Tron
The Matrix

Stalk us online:
Jenny at GoodReads
Jenny on Twitter
Barret on Twitter

Jenny's Library Books Mid-March 2015

True confession: I had returned three of these books to the local public library, forgetting I would need them for a photo shoot. By the time I realized my mistake, they were already routed to their original branches and rather than do the rational thing and just put cover images in this post, I re-requested them and took their picture right outside the public library. I got a few weird looks but that's okay! Anything for my devoted readers.

This pile represents three book club books, one recommended book, and two kismet books!

Us Conductors by Sean Michaels
How to Train a Wild Elephant: And Other Adventures in Mindfulness by Jan Chozen Bays
The Last Unicorn by Peter Beagle
The Pleasure of Eliza Lynch by Anne Enright
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman

Book club picks included the Beagle (for Misfit Readers, and I am reading at the very slow pace set out for us by the discussion leader), the Enright (for League of Extraordinary Dorks), and the Addison (for Sword and Laser, and most recently named as a Nebula Prize nominee.) The Enright was a huge miss for everyone but we still enjoyed discussing the book, as the historical character of Eliza Lynch is fascinating, the mistress of one of the worst dictators ever known. One of the people in that book club is Paraguayan so of course that added to the discussion.

I came across the Gaiman when I picked up the Addison at the library. It was one of those books I was sure to read eventually but it beckoned me and I followed the call! The Michaels was a book I should have known about for many reasons but I don't remember reading about it, but once I read the description I knew I'd love it.  I will discuss it on a future podcast, so keep an eye out.

The elephant book is a practical, hands-on book to help give ideas for being more mindful. I tried a few of them and then returned the book; this is one it would be better to own.

Not pictured, because I always forget something:

Told: the Art of Story by Simon Aboud
Marketing Today's Academic Library: A Bold New Approach to Communicating with Students by Brian Mathews