Episode 250 - In podcasting years, we’re older than America250
Episode 250 Show Notes
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** Reminder to email a picture of your Ghost Story Bingo Card by December 31st **
– 2025 Reading Intentions Recap –
Emily
· Explore becoming a completist: Anna Quindlen, Alice Hoffman, Erica Wood, Catherine Newman, and Jeanine Cummins.
· Set Goodreads Reading Challenge to 52 books; have read 83 to date.
· Contemplating an essay reading challenge or continuing the weekly short story project. Didn’t do this but did read from the The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (audiobook).
· Aim to post monthly on Ingredient One newsletter,
· Focused Biblio Adventure: The Year of Isabella Stewart Gardner (Chasing Beauty and Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum).
· Consider starting a Book to Film Club.
Chris
· Buddy Reads included in Search of Lost Time by Proust, A New Home Who’ll Follow by Mrs. Mary Clavers, Edith Wharton, and Willa Cather.
· Read more 19th century novels: Old New York by Edith Wharton, Silas Marner by George Eliot, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, and Agnes Grey by Anne Brontë.
· Read Margaret Fuller: Collected Writings (LOA #388).
· Focus on reading fewer books, more deeply, and writing about them. Check out Chris’s blog.
– Currently Reading –
Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line – Elle Cosimano (EF) release date 3/17/2026
The Romance of Certain Old Clothes – Henry James (CW)
Still We Rise: A Love Letter to the Southern Biscuit – Erika Council (EF)
Beth Is Dead – Katy Bernet (CW) release date 1/6/2026
Good Things – Samin Nosrat (EF)
– Just Read –
The Award – Matthew Pearl (CW)
“A Small, Good Thing” from the collection Where I’m Calling From – Raymond Carver (EF)
Jurassic Girl: The Adventures of Mary Anning, Paleontologist and the First Female Fossil Hunter – Michele C. Hollow (CW)
The Last Witch – C.J. Cooke (EF)
“Street haunting: a London adventure” – Virginia Woolf (CW)
A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens (CW)(EF)(audiobook)
Sapphira and the Slave Girl – Willa Cather (CW)
– Biblio Adventures –
Chris watched part of the conversation on Crime Time via A Mighty Blaze between Hank Phillipi Ryan and Matthew Pearl about his new novel The Award. You can watch it here.
Emily watched season five of Slow Horses based on the novel London Rules by Mick Herron.
Chris had a coffee date in New Haven with a friend at Book Trader Cafe, she also took a browse at Atticus Bookstore Cafe.
Emily watched the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light about poet Andrea Gibson.
Emily spent the week in New York City where she visited the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library, Café Con Libros in Crown Heights, and Bibliotheque NYC in Soho.
– Upcoming Jaunts –
January 28th from 6-7 pm (MT) Emily has a virtual season pass to Aspen Winter Words, the first in the three-part series is Susan Orlean and her memoir Joyride.
January 24th Chris registered for Biographer’s International Organization Biography Lab 2026, a daylong forum with keynote David Denby, a staff writer with The New Yorker. His most recent book is Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer.
– Upcoming Reads –
Postmortem – Patricia Cornwell (CW)
Practical Magic – Alice Hoffman (EF)(audiobook)
A Backward Glance – Edith Wharton (CW)
The Kamogawa Food Detectives – Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (EF)
The Restaurant of Lost Recipes – Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (EF)
Menu of Happiness – Hisashi Kashiwai, translated by Jesse Kirkwood (EF)
– Announcing the 2026 Readalong Theme –
Books that have been made into film adaptations!
The 2026 first quarter readalong is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.
– Also Mentioned –
Land by Maggie O’ Farrell
Author Agatha Christie
Trial by Ambush by Marcia Clark
Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat: Mastering the Elements of Good Cooking by Samin Nosrat
“Perhaps the World Ends Here” by Joy Harjo
The Dante Club – Matthew Pearl
Christmas Carol film adaptations: Spirited and The Muppet Christmas Carol
Kindred by Octavia Butler
Beloved by Toni Morrison
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