Episode 197 - Author Spotlight with Pip Williams

Book Cougars Episode 197

Episode One Hundred Ninety Seven Show Notes
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KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

– Update on Chris and Emily’s 2023 Reading Intentions – [1:23]
· Both Chris and Emily set their Reading Challenge on Goodreads to 52 books. To date, Chris has read 62 and Emily has read 84.

· Emily’s 2023 year-to-date Cookbook List:
o   Cooking with Mushrooms – Andrea Gentl
o   Snacking Cakes – Yossy Arefi
o   The Wok – J. Kenji López-Alt
o   Mi Cocina: Recipes and Rapture from My Kitchen in Mexico – Rick Martínez
o   What’s for Dessert: Simple Recipes for Dessert People – Claire Saffitz
o   Budmo! Recipes from a Ukrainian Kitchen – Anna Voloshyna
o   Dark Rye & Honey Cake: Festival Baking from Belgium, The Heart of Low Countries – Regula Ysewjin
o   Yogurt & Whey: Recipes from an Iranian Immigrant Life – Homa Dashtaki
o   Bavel: Modern Recipes Inspired by the Middle East – Ori Menashe, Genevieve Gergis, and Lesley Sutter
o   Big Heart Little Stove – Erin French
o   Tenderheart: A Cookbook about Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds – Hetty McKinnon
o   Roast Figs, Sugar Snow: Food to Warm the Soul – Diana Henry

· Chris’s progress on Adam’s TBR challenge:
o   People of the Book – Geraldine Brooks
o   The Warden – Anthony Trollope
o   A Head Full of Ghosts – Paul Tremblay

· Find out more about the Willa Cather Short Story Project.
o   A Reader’s Guide to the Short Stories of Willa Cather by Sheryl L. Meyering
o   Uncle Valentine and Other Stories by Willa Cather

· Check out the 2023 Reading Intentions Thread on Goodreads

– Currently Reading – [10:00]
The Hand That First Held Mine – Maggie O’Farrell (EF)
The Darcy Myth: Jane Austen, Literary Heartthrobs, and the Monsters They Taught Us to Love – Rachel Feder (CW)
The Kamogawa Food Detectives – Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (EF) release date 2/13/2024

– Just Read – [14:03]
The Helsinki Affair – Anna Pitoniak (CW)
The Queen of Dirt Island – Donal Ryan (EF)
Unnatural Death – Patricia Cornwell (CW)
The Maid – Nita Prose (EF)
The Bookbinder – Pip Williams (CW)(EF)

– Episode Sponsor – [34:55]
Book of the Month curated monthly book subscription service
Chris chose a hard cover: No One Can Know – Kate Alice Marshall release date 1/23/2024
Emily chose a hard cover: A Winter in New York by Josie Silver
Use the code FORYOU to receive your first delivery for $5.

– Biblio Adventures – [37:36]
Chis and Emily went on a Joint Jaunt in celebration of their seventh anniversary. They had lunch at Chez Ben Diner in Manchester, CT and went shopping at River Bend Bookshop in Glastonbury, CT. They also strolled through the newly renovated Welles-Turner Memorial Library.

Emily visited Bay Books in Suttons Bay, MI where she purchased a copy of The Recipe Box by Viola Shipman.

Chris attended a virtual Author Talk via the Boston Athenaeum, “Robert Darnton: The Revolutionary Temper: Paris, 1748-1790.”

Chris is joining an online event via the Harry Ransom Center titled “Lost Books: The Dark Matter of the Early Modern English Book Trade” featuring Alan B. Farmer. The video is available here.

– Upcoming Jaunts – [48:55]
Chris is planning a trip to NYC to visit the current exhibits, The Best-Read Army in the World and Whodunit? Key Books in Detective Fiction, at  The Grolier Club and to dig into more archival research at The New York Society Library.

Emily is planning to catch up on two virtual author interviews:
Crime Time with host Hank Phillippi Ryan interviewing Nita Prose about The Mystery Guest, the second book in the Molly Maid series. Watch it here.
Launch of Donal Ryan’s The Queen of Dirt Island via the Glucksman Ireland House at New York University. Watch it here.

– Upcoming Reads – [51:10]
Good Taste: A Novel in Search of Great Food – Caroline Scott (EF)
Mischievous Creatures: The Forgotten Sisters Who Transformed Early American Science – Catherine McNeur (CW)

– Announcing our 2024 Readalong Theme – [56:22]
We are excited to share that our readalong theme for 2024 is ROMANCE!
Read the NY Times article about Nora Roberts here.

– Author Spotlight with Pip Williams – [01:01:45]
We had a chance to chat with Pip about her two companion novels The Dictionary of Lost Words and The Bookbinder.
Learn more about Pip here.

The video referred to in the conversation: Oxford University Press and The Making of a Book.

– Also Mentioned –
Sapphira and the Slave Girl – Willa Cather
Maggie O’ Farrell
The Spinning Heart – Donal Ryan
Sue Grafton
The Mystery Guest – Nita Prose
Parnassus on Wheels – Christopher Morley
The Reading List – Sara Nisha Adams
The Scarlet Letter – Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hester – Laurie Lico Albanese
The Invisible Hour – Alice Hoffman
Drafting the Past podcast
The Doctors Blackwell: How Two Pioneering Sisters Brought Medicine to Women and Women to Medicine – Janice P. Nimura
Russell at Ink and Paper Blog
The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary – Simon Winchester

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