Reading Envy 074: The Books We Didn't Love in High School

I visited a new podcast guest and we recorded this episode, talking about the books we did read (or should have read) in high school, books that have been made into movies and tv shows, and a few more surprises. Listen to the entire episode to find out who the dog is named after!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 074: The Books We Didn't Love in High School.

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Books discussed:



The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
Travels with Charley in Search of America by John Steinbeck
Epitaph for a Spy by Eric Ambler
Queen Sugar by Natalie Baszile
In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
Voices in the Night: Stories by Steven Millhauser

Other mentions:
Anthony Trollope
R.F. Delderfield
Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens
The Muppet Christmas Carol (film)
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
John Dos Passos
East of Eden by John Steinbeck
The Mask of Dimitrios (film)
A Coffin for Dimitrios by Eric Ambler
Topkapi (film)
North by Northwest (film)
The Man Who Knew too Much (film)
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The 39 Steps by John Buchan
Queen Sugar (tv show) 
Island of Sheep by John Buchan
Mister Standfast by John Buchan
Sugar in the Blood by Andrea Stuart
The Honk and Holler Opening Soon by Billie Letts
The Librarian is In (NYPL) podcast
T.C. Boyle
LitWit podcast 
The Able McLaughlins by Margaret Wilson
Empire Falls by Richard Russo
Empire Falls (film)
Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis
Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis
Here Lies the Librarian by Richard Peck
Alexander McCall Smith
Stamped from the Beginning: the Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi
Paulina Chiziane

Related Episodes:
Episode 049 - The Legendary Cheese with Holly and Caroline
Episode 055 - Too Late for an Autopsy with Julie Davis

Stalk us online:
Jenny at Goodreads
Jenny on Twitter

Library Books April 2016

Vacation, Bailey's Prize shortlist, and other random reasons to get books from the library!

Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine
The Miernik Dossier by Charles McCarry
The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman
The Vacationers by Emma Straub
The Meursault Investigation  by Kamel Daoud
The Past by Tessa Hadley
Ruby by Cynthia Bond
The Improbability of Love by Hannah Rothschild
Koreatown: the Cookbook by Deuki Hong and Matt Rodbard

When we went on vacation a few weeks ago, I went impulse book picking at the library. I brought home the Straub (which I read in the low country) and the Hoffman (which I didn't.) The Daoud was a pick earlier in the year of one of my book groups, but it took a while for my library hold to come in and I had to read The Stranger first. I checked out the McCarry on a whim, after reading a review for a book later in the series.

The Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist was announced earlier this week. I had already read A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara and The Green Road by Anne Enright. At the library I found two more (which I probably ordered) - the Bond and the Rothschild. Koreatown was just sitting there begging to come home with me, and the Rankin I requested from interlibrary loan (also ordered a copy for our library to have later.)

The Hadley is the first group read of a new reading group I joined in Goodreads, which focuses entirely on super recent (as in published this year or last year) literary fiction. I'm looking forward to it!

New Books In - March 2016

This was a lighter month for buying books and most of them were for vacation!

The Water is Wide by Pat Conroy
Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh
All the Old Knives by Olen Steinhauer
Light Years by James Salter

We spent a few days in Beaufort, SC, and considering Pat Conroy's recent passing and Beaufort being his longtime home, I thought bringing one of his earlier books with me would be wise. Of course I didn't end up reading it this time around, and will probably save it for our next trip to the low country. The McIntosh was one of the Amazon Kindle daily deals, although I'd had it on my to-read list. The Salter was a book I'd gotten from interlibrary loan but knew I wasn't going to enjoy reading the type and yellowed pages, so bought a paperback. Haven't cracked it! The Steinhauer was my response to my husband asking me to pick an audiobook for us to listen to on our drive down, and is the only book from this list that I have finished.

Have you brought any new books home lately?

Reading Envy 030: Bring Back the Guillotine!

Jenny sits down with Bryan Alexander (from Reading Envy Episodes 002, 011, and 019) and Steen Hansen at the Reading Envy Pub to discuss books.  It should be said that until we sat down, we had not known the books would fit so well together. Just a normal day of reading serendipity!

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 030: Bring Back the Guillotine!

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Featured books:



The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan
The Opposite of Loneliness: Essays and Stories by Marina Keegan
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber
Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis by Robert Putnam
On Such a Full Sea by Chang-rae Lee
Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty

Other mentions of books, authors, movies, and blog posts:

One of Ours by Willa Cather
All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
The Riddle of the Sands by Erskine Childers
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells
Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene
The Quiet American by Graham Greene
A Spy Among Friends: Kim Philby and the Great Betrayal by Ben Macintyre
Declare by Tim Powers
The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John le Carré
The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
The 39 Steps - movie
The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin
Under the Skin by Michel Faber
Larry Niven
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
Embassytown by China Miéville
Jack Vance
Ursula K. Le Guin
Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community by Robert D. Putnam
Bryan Alexander's blog discussion of Our Kids by Robert Putnam
Norton Critical Editions
The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
Apocalypse Now - movie
Bernie Sanders
The Wire - tv series
Kim Stanley Robinson article about the Booker Awards - through New Scientist magazine (requires subscription)
Robert Graves
Margaret Atwood
Last Week Tonight with John Oliver - interview with Edward Snowden

Stalk us online:

Jenny at GoodReads
Jenny on Twitter
Bryan at his blog
Bryan at GoodReads
Bryan on Twitter
Steen will remain mysterious.
 

Jenny's Library Books Mid-May 2015

Life has been crazy since the beginning of April. New dogs (yes, that's plural), the end of the semester, the start of the May term (where I teach a storytelling class) - I'm surprised I've read anything at all! I brought home a few more books from the library and think it's fun to talk about.

 

I took this first picture when I had to return some books I had borrowed through interlibrary loan. One duplicates April's list, and another appears on both piles. Did I mention I'm not sleeping much with the yelping puppy?

 

Library Wars: Love & War #1 by Kiiro Yumi

The Opposite of Loneliness by Marina Keegan

Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris

Southern by the Grace of God by Lewis Grizzard

The Hired Man by Aminatta Forna

Bad Feminist: Essays by Roxane Gay

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on love and life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed

Your Face Tomorrow v. 1: Fever and Spear by Javier Marías

Back in the Day Bakery Made With Love by Cheryl and Griffith Day

The Adventures of Odysseus by Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden

The Marías and Yumi were recommended to me, the Forna was for my International book club and the Grizzard was the moderator pick for my Southern literature book club. The rest I either came across in my reading or on the shelf at the library. The Keegan will be discussed on an upcoming episode of the podcast, and I hope to meet the Days tomorrow at the SC Book Festival. 

Doyle the boxer mix puppy