Episode 232 - Author Spotlight with Eowyn Ivey

Author Spotlight with Eowyn Ivey

Episode 232 Show Notes

– Currently Reading –
The Good House – Tananarive Due (CW)
Food Person – Adam Roberts (EF) release date 5/20/2025

– Just Read –
Happy Land – Dolan Perkins-Valdez (CW)
Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life Through the Power of Storytelling – Matthew Dicks (EF) (audiobook)
Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World – Cal Newport (CW) (audiobook)
The Griffin Sisters Greatest Hits – Jennifer Weiner (EF)
Old New York – Edith Wharton (CW)
Black Woods Blue Sky – Eowyn Ivey (EF)
The North Mail by Amelia B. Edwards from The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce (CW)(EF)

– Episode Sponsor –
LOVE IS FOR ALL OF US: Poems of Tenderness and Belonging from the LGBTQ+ Community and Friends co-edited by James Crews and Brad Peacock, illustrated by Lisa Congdon.
Learn more James Crews here.

Watch our conversation with James Crews over on BookTube.

– Biblio Adventures –

Chris and Emily went on a joint jaunt via the Mark Twain House to hear Ethan Rutherford in conversation with Amity Gaige about her novel Heartwood. Ethan’s novel is North Sun, or the Voyage of the Whaleship Esther.

Chris participated in a virtual book club event via The Mount discussing Edith Wharton’s A Son at the Front and Willa Cather’s One of Ours.

Chris joined the Zoom conversation for Colleen’s Cather reading challenge  where they discussed by Willa Cather and follow her at https://www.instagram.com/colleenka/.

– Upcoming Jaunts –
On April 16, Chris and Emily are heading on a joint jaunt to Bank Square Books to see Maura Casey discuss her memoir Saving Ellen. Check out our conversation with Maura here.

On April 23rd Chris and Emily will be attending Matthew Goodman’s event at the Guilford Free Library. His new book is Paris Undercover. Matthew was featured in an Author Spotlight on Episode 95 discussing his book The City Game: Triumph, Scandal, and a Legendary Basketball Team.

On May 4th Emily will be attending Matthew Dick’s one man show Shovel at the Hartford Theater works. You can purchase tickets here.

– Upcoming Reads –
The Belgian Girls – Kathryn J. Atwood (CW) release date 5/8/2025
Paris Undercover: A Wartime Story of Courage, Friendship, and Betrayal – Matthew Goodman (EF)(audiobook)
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier (EF)
Anne Brontë Nightwalker: A Brontë Blood Chronicle – Gea Haff (CW)
The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce up next is The Signal Man by Charles Dickens. If you would like to join us there is a schedule available on Goodreads or we can email a copy.

– Author Spotlight with Eowyn Ivey –
We talk with Eowyn about her book Black Woods Blue Sky.
Learn more about Eowyn here.
Take a tour of Eowyn’s writing cottage.

– 2025 Readalong Theme and 2nd Quarter Book –
Our theme for 2025 is Ghost Stories! Click here to follow everything Ghost Stories 2025.
There is a ghost story discussion thread on Goodreads. Come tell us about your favorite ghost stories or those you are interested in reading.

The 2nd Quarter Readalong and our Episode 230 Giveaway is The Good House by Tananarive Due. The Zoom conversation will take place on Sunday, June 8th at 7pm (ET). Send us an email if you would like to join. You can join the online conversation via the Goodreads discussion thread.

Over the course of the year, we will be reading The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories: From Elizabeth Gaskell to Ambrose Bierce, one story at a time. If you would like to join us there is a schedule available on Goodreads or we can email a copy.

– Also Mentioned –
The Guncle by Steven Rowley
The American Queen by Vanessa Miller
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins
A Little Bit Country by Brian D. Kennedy
Robert Elsmere by Mary Augusta Ward
Also by Eowyn: The Snow Child and To The Bright Edge of the World
True Grit by Charles Portis
The film An American Werewolf in London
Author Annie Dillard
Author Robin Wall Kimmerer
Wild by Cheryl Strayed
Booktuber Melinda at A Web of Stories
Swann’s Way by Marcel Proust
On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron
The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Jane Austen’s Bookshelf by Rebecca Romney
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Odyssey by Homer

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audiobook platform: Follow this link and use promo code: bookcougars
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Episode 176 - We're in a New York State of Mind

Book Cougars Episode 176

Episode One Hundred Seventy Six Show Notes
KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

– Patreon Giveaway News –
Congratulations to Julie who won the February Patreon giveaway: The Wise Hours: A Journey into the Wild and Secret World of Owls by Miriam Darlington.
The upcoming Patreon giveaway is Bright and Deadly Things by Lexie Elliott. Check out Our Mystery Man, John Valeri, in conversation with Lexie on Episode 128 of Central Booking. To be automatically entered to win, become a Patreon by March 15th.  

– Currently Reading – [2:42]
Parnassus on Wheels – Christopher Morley (CW)(EF) (audio)
Dragonfly in Amber – Diana Gabaldon (CW)
Fieldwork: A Forager’s Memoir – Iliana Regan (EF)

– Just Read – [8:10]
The Sunwise Turn: A Human Comedy of Bookselling – Madge Jenison (CW)
Moonrise Over New Jessup – Jamila Minnicks (EF)
Sarah and the Big Wave: The True Story of the First Woman to Surf Mavericks – Bonnie Tsui, Illustrated by Sophie Diao (EF)
A Singer’s Romance – Willa Cather (CW) (Learn more about the short story project.)
I Am, I Am, I Am: Seventeen Brushes with Death – Maggie O’Farrell (EF)(audio)
Where Snow Angels Go – Maggie O’Farrell, illustrated by Daniela Jaglenka Terrazzini (EF)
Ms. Demeanor – Elinor Lipman (EF)
Pineapple Street – Jenny Jackson (EF) release date 3/7/2023

– Biblio Adventures – [39:25]
Chris and Emily went to Playhouse on Park and saw the production of Indecent by Paula Vogel and stopped for a browse at Riverbend Bookshop in West Hartford.

Chris and Emily spent two days in New York City. Chris was doing research on Madge Jenison at the main branch of the New York Public Library. Emily got a chance to meet Elinor Lipman at an event via Book the Writer; Chris browsed in Book Culture while Emily was at the event. On day two they had brunch at Russ & Daughters Café with the author Matthew Goodman, visited the Virginia Woolf exhibit and the updated gift shop at the library, and shopped for office supplies at Kinokuniya Books.

Thanks to Anne in Austin, Emily had a virtual biblio adventure watching the first episode of Truth Be Told based on the novel, Are You Sleeping by Kathleen Barber.

Chris attended a lecture through the Bibliographical Society about the library of the Elliots of Minto presented by Meghan Constantinou.

– Upcoming Jaunts – [01:01:56]
Chris is planning to attend an event on Tuesday, February 28th at 4pm (ET) at the Beinecke Library titled Cow, Codex, Collagen: The Many Lives of Parchment with Bruce Holsinger, author of On Parchment: Animals, Archives, and the Making of Culture from Herodotus to the Digital Age.

April 28-30, 2023: Newburyport Literary Festival

May 5-6, 2023: Booktopia at Northshire Bookstore in Manchester, VT

Emily is heading to California to visit Aunt Ellen.

– Upcoming Reads – [01:02:40]
The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox – Maggie O’Farrell (EF)
Speak for the Dead – Amy Tector – (EF) release date 3/14/2023
The Odyssey of Phillis Wheatley: A Poet’s Journeys Through American Slavery and Independence – David Waldstreicher (CW)

– Out Now – [01:05:40]
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age – Katherine May

– Also Mentioned –
Burn the Place – Iliana Regan
Zora Neale Hurston
Pen America Award
Why We Swim – Bonnie Tsui
“Nanette: An Aside” – Willa Cather
The Song of the Lark – Willa Cather
A Gentleman in Moscow – Amor Towles
Jean Hanff Korelitz
Stacy Schiff
Mameve Medwed
Gone with the Wind – Margaret Mitchell
Serial Podcast
The Grolier Club

You can help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm audiobook platform: Follow
this link and use promo code: bookcougars
Shop on
Bookshop.org – support the Book Cougars and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars,
please consider becoming a Patreon member. If you would prefer to donate directly, email for instructions.

Join our
Goodreads Group!

Check out our
BookTube Channel and be sure to subscribe!

Subscribe to our monthly
newsletter.