Reading Envy Podcast 125: Strong Tea and Suspicious Penguins

Luke and Juliane are back to chat books, comedy, and library apps.  Everyone shares what they've been up to this summer, and we start accidentally sportscasting, and have to refocus on books. But we get there. Stay tuned to hear Jenny and Luke disagree about a book, and to hear Jenny talk about birds in Alaska. I admit I'm a bit out of practice with three people, so this episode is a bonus fifty percent longer than a normal episode. You're welcome.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 125: Strong Tea and Suspicious Penguins

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Books Discussed:

James Acaster's Classic Scrapes by James Acaster
The Kangaroo Chronicles by Marc-Uwe Kling
Farthing by Jo Walton
Planet Funny: How Comedy Took Over Our Culture by Ken Jennings
Passage to Juneau by Jonathan Raban


Other Mentions: 

James Acaster - Repertoire (Netflix special)
QualityLand by Marc-Uwe Kling (German language)
Ross without laugh track
Garfield Minus Garfield
Silence of the Lambs recut trailer
Among Others by Jo Walton
Connie Willis
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Omnibus podcast
Hannah Gadsby - Nanette (Netflix, but don't read the comments, people must be really threated by Hannah)
The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
Prador Moon by Neil Asher
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
SFBRP episode on Aurora
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
Binti by Nnedi Okorafor
Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor 


Related Episodes:

Episode 017 - Homeric Radiation at Lake Inverness with guest Luke Burrage
Episode 032 - Her Smoke Rose Up Forever with Luke Burrage, crosspost with SFBRP podcast
Episode 037 - Breakdancing to Bach with Juliane Kunzendorf
Episode 044 - Of Survival and Memory with Luke Burrage
Episode 069 - Evil Librarian/SFBRP Crossover Episode with Luke Burrage and Juliane Kunzendorf

Stalk us online:

Juliane's Website
Juliane at Goodreads
Luke Burrage on Twitter
Luke's podcast/blog, Science Fiction Book Review Podcast
Luke at GoodReads
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter
Jenny is @readingenvy on Instagram and Litsy

Reading Envy 063: Desolation Road

Jenny does another round of book speed dating to meet her 2016 reading goals, and decides to go with the #scifijuly theme. Then she shares books on grief, death and dying, a theme she has been following through literature lately. Jenny is visited in her office at the very end by a future guest!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 063: Desolation Road.

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner
Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe
Or listen through TuneIn
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Part 1: Book Speed Dating Project #4 of 2016

Books discussed:

Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh
Midnight Robber by Nalo Hopkinson
The Bug by Ellen Ullman
The Colony by Jillian Weise
Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky
The Snow Queen by Joan D. Vinge
The Shards of Heaven by Michael Livingston
Desolation Road by Ian McDonald
The Peripheral by William Gibson
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson

Other mentions:
Neuromancer by William Gibson
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Reamde by Neal Stephenson
Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson
The Dervish House by Ian McDonald
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

Part 2: Books on Grief

Books discussed:

The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
Grief is the Thing with Feathers by Max Porter
Staying Alive: Real Poems for Unreal Times edited by Neil Astley
The Ark by Ed Madden
Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death by Joan Halifax
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
The Holders and The Seers by Julianna Scott (I called her Julianna Holden on the recording)
The Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger
Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger
Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Other mentions:
"How to Lift Him" TED Talk with Ed Madden
Book Riot: "How to Read when the World is Terrible"
"Late Fragment" by Raymond Carter

Stalk us online:
Jenny at GoodReads
Jenny on Twitter

Library Books Mid-December 2015

These piles represent the second half of (New Zealand) November and the beginning of the last month of the year, where I know I will have more time to read over the holidays but the interlibrary loan deadlines happen early. So get ready. I actually had to take pictures in batches because I checked out and finished so many already, and then got a bunch more.

The Whale Rider by Witi Ihimaera
Potiki by Patricia Grace
The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
Far Eastern Cookery by Elinor Burt
The Adventures of Vela by Albert Wendt
When Sun And Moon Collide by Briar Grace-Smith
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Ilustrado by Miguel Syjuco
Sam Choy's Polynesian Kitchen by Sam Choy
The Ethnomusicologists' Cookbook by X Williams

The Williams, Choy, and Burt were research for cooking baking in Oceania, to coincide with my reading. The Burt was useless, more like mid-19th century processed food recipes with a few Polynesian ingredients like canned pineapple. I loved the Williams and will probably need to own it - each featured country also has a bibliography of recommended readings (usually ethnographies) and music to listen to. It was a great connection to my former life in an ethnomusicology grad program.

I went to the stacks to pull a few books from New Zealand. If you know the Library of Congress system at all, you know that literature is shelved first by country and then by author. I grabbed the Grace-Smith and Ihimaera but then just a few shelves away found the Wendt. I had a brief lapse where I forgot I wasn't including Southeast Asia in this year's big reading project; Ilustrado has been returned to the library and will wait for another year. I requested the Grace through interlibrary loan after the recommendation from a Goodreads friend.

I wanted to read the Dick before watching the television series, although now that I have finished the book and started the show, I know that they are vaguely related. One does not necessarily need to be consumed before the other. Ah well. It wasn't my favorite Philip K. Dick novel but it was fine. I finished the Nelson this weekend - this book I got through interlibrary loan after Carrie Brownstein mentioned it in the Q&A of her audiobook recording for Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl.

 
Sons for the Return Home by Albert Wendt
Dear Thief by Samantha Harvey
The Spell of the Pacific by Stroven & Day
Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson
African Kitchen by Josie Fison
The Soul of a New Cuisine: A Discovery of the Foods and Flavors of Africa by Marcus Samuelsson

The bottom two cookbooks give a clue about next year's regional reading project. The Wendt and Stroven are both for reading Oceania - the large tomb is a result of reading a mention of it in a book I recently finished - Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All.  The Harvey was one of the many books listed in the Tournament of Books Longlist for 2016, and sounded interesting. I also hadn't heard of it yet, while many of their books were known to me.

Reading Envy 045: Worlds Collide with Ross O'Brien

Jenny was pleased to sit down with Ross O'Brien in her morning and his evening, discussing books across the globe in the ever expanding Reading Envy Pub.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 045: Worlds Collide.

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Book selections:


Submission by Michel Houellebecq
Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
Fire on the Mountain by Terry Bisson
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Pure by Timothy Mo
Slade House by David Mitchell


Other mentions:
Flow Bookshop (Hong Kong)
Anthony Burgess
V.S. Naipaul
The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq
Albert Camus
Once Were Warriors by Alan Duff
New Zealand rugby team (the "All Blacks") at the World Cup, doing the haka
The Bone People by Keri Hulme
The Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific by Paul Theroux
The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding by Robert Hughes
The Plot Against America by Philip Roth
The Black Count: Glory, Revolution, Betrayal, and the Real Count of Monte Cristo by Tom Reiss
Mythago Wood by Robert Holdstock
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
An Insular Possesion by Timothy Mo
Sour Sweet by Timothy Mo

Related podcast episodes:
Reading Envy Episode 031: Hideous Realism with Steen and Jesse

Stalk us online:
Ross on Twitter
Ross on the Dystopian Present podcast
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter