Episode 167 - Author Spotlight with Kelcey Ervick

Book Cougars Episode 167 Author Spotlight with Kelcey Ervick

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

– Announcing our 23rd Readalong –
Murder on the Red River – Marcie R. Rendon
You can purchase an e-book directly from Soho for $7.99, the paperback from Bookshop.org or the audiobook from Libro.fm to support the Book Cougars.

Please send an email if you would like to participate in the Zoom conversation on Sunday, December 4th at 7 PM (ET). And we would love for you to join the online conversation on the Goodreads thread.

– Currently Reakding – [1:15]
Sweet Thursday (Cannery Row #2) – John Steinbeck (CW)(EF)
All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake – Tiya Miles (CW)

– Just Read – [4:11]
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck (CW)(EF)
The Fall Girl – narrated by Marcia Clark and Cathy LePard (CW)(EF)
Small Game – Blair Braverman (CW)(EF)
Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan (EF)
The Mad Women’s Ball – Victoria Mas (translated by Frank Wynne) (EF)
Library Girl: How Nancy Pearl Became America’s Most Celebrated Librarian – Karen Henry Clark (illustrated by Sheryl Murray)(CW)
Dark Rivers to Cross – Lynne Reeves (EF) release date 11/8/2022
Miss Grief and Other Stories – Constance Fenimore Woolson (edited by Anne Boyd Rioux) (CW)
Open Water – Caleb Azumah Nelson (EF)
Lovecraft Country – Matt Ruff (CW)
The Salt Path – Raynor Winn (audio)(EF)
The Lunar Housewife – Caroline Woods (EF)

– Biblio Adventures –  [44:02]
Emily was in Martha’s Vineyard where she visited Bunches of Grapes bookstore and four of the public libraries on the island: West Tisbury, Oak Bluffs, Vineyard Haven, and Edgartown libraries.

Chris attended a virtual event through the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library about The World in Maps.

Chris and Emily had a Couch Biblio Adventure via Simmons University with Malinda Lo discussing her book Last Night at the Telegraph Club.

Chris and Emily went on a Joint Jaunt meeting Aunt Ellen in Brooklyn. They made stops at The Center for Fiction, Books Are Magic bookstore, the Brooklyn Public Library at Carroll Gardens, then to an event at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church with Maggie O’ Farrell talking about her book The Marriage Portrait.
Books purchased:
Queer Little Nightmares: An Anthology of Monstrous Fiction and Poetry – David Ly and Daniel Zomparelli  
Laserwriter II – Tamara Shopsin
The Between – Tananarive Due
Yellow Jessamine – Caitlin Starling

Food Eaten:
Smith Street Bagels
La Vara NYC
Magnolia Bakery

– Upcoming Jaunts – [1:02:52]
Emily is heading to Savoy Bookshop & Cafe on November 3rd at 5:30 to hear James Hannaham discuss his new book Didn’t Nobody Give a Shit What Happened to Carlotta.

Emily is headed back to Brooklyn on November 5th & 6th to attend Cooks & Books hosted by Cherry Bombe at the Ace Hotel.

Chris and Emily are headed to The Mount in Lenox, MA. The hope to read some stories from Wharton’s New England: Seven Stories and Ethan Frome. The ghost stories include The Triumph of Night, Bewitched, and All Souls.

– Upcoming Reads – [1:06:00]
The Foundling – Ann Leary (EF)
The Midcoast – Adam White (EF)
His Only Wife – Peace Adzo Medie (EF)
Fatty Fatty Boom Boom: A Memoir of Food, Fat, and Family – Rabia Chadry (EF) release date 11/8/2022
Slow Cooked: An Unexpected Life in Food Politics – Marion Nestle (EF)
Inciting Joy: Essays – Ross Gay (EF)
Hotel Cartagena – Simone Buchholz (translated by Rachel Ward) (CW)
Blue Night – Simone Buchholz (translated by Rachel Ward) (CW)
Carmilla – Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu

Out Now: 
Signal Fires – Dani Shapiro

– Author Spotlight with Kelcey Ervick – [1:10:10]
We talk with Kelcey about her new graphic memoir The Keeper: Soccer, Me, and the Law That Changed Women’s Lives.

You can learn more about Kelcey here.

– Also Mentioned –
BOOK CLUB On the Go   
East of Eden – John Steinbeck
Jane Austen
Tattered Cover Bookstore
Lovecraft Country series
Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail – Cheryl Strayed
A Scatter of Light – Malinda Lo
Bleak House – David Copperfield
Demon Copperhead – Barbara Kingsolver
Hamnet – Maggie O’ Farrell
The Good House – Ann Leary
Book of Delights: Essays – Ross Gay
The Artist’s Way – Julia Cameron

You can help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm audiobook platform: Follow
this link for the monthly membership. (promo code: bookcougars)
We are an affiliate of Bank Square Books and Savoy Bookstore & Café, click
HERE to start shopping.
Bookshop.org – support us and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member. You can
DONATE HERE. If you would prefer to donate directly to us, please email bookcougars@gmail.com for instructions.

Join our
Goodreads Group!

We have a BookTube Channel – please check it out
here, and be sure to subscribe!

Please subscribe to our
email newsletter.

Episode 164 - Talking About the Booker Prizes with Russell Gray from Ink and Paper Blog

Episode One Hundred Sixty Four Show Notes
KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

– 22nd Readalong –
Our Third Quarter readalong is The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson. The Zoom discussion will take place on Sunday, September 18th at 7pm (ET). Send us an email if you would like to join in. You can join the Goodreads discussion here. You can purchase directly from Milkweed Press with free shipping using the Promo Code: SEEDKEEPERCOUGARS

– Currently Reading – [1:27]
How to Read Now: Essays – Elaine Castillo (CW)
Finlay Donovan Knocks ‘em Dead: A Mystery – Elle Cosimano (EF)
Finding Dora Maar: An Artist, an Address Book, a Life – Brigitte Benkemoun, translated by Jody Gladding (CW)

– Just Read – [6:52]
We Are Water Protectors – Carole Lindstrom, illustrated by Michaela Goade (EF)
A Ghost of Caribou – Alice Henderson (CW) release date 11/6/2022
Listen to our conversation with Alice Henderson on Episode 141
Small World – Laura Zigman (EF) release date 1/10/2023
Are They Women?: A Novel Concerning the Third Sex – Aimée Duc, translated and edited by Margaret Sönser Breen and Nisha Kommattam (CW)
Black, White, and the Grey: The Story of an Unexpected Friendship and a Beloved Restaurant – John O. Morisano and Mashama Bailey (EF)
Miss Nobody from Nowhere – Elizabeth Jordan (CW)
Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship – Annabel Abbs narrated by Ell Potter, Bianca Amato (EF)
The Displacements – Bruce Holsinger (EF)

– Biblio Adventures – [40:00]
Chris met Kate in Norwalk to eat lobster rolls and discuss Mansfield Park by Jane Austen. Kate gave her a copy of Exiles by Jane Harper (release date 1/31/2023).

Emily and The Gentleman Caller visited several little free libraries by foot and by bike.

Chris is watching The Outlander series on Netflix based on the novels by Diana Gabaldon.

– Upcoming Jaunts – [44:36]
Chris and Emily are looking forward to The Zoom discussion of the The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson which will take place on Sunday, September 18th at 7pm (ET). Send us an email if you would like to join in.

Emily is hoping to get to Pop! Art Books Culture in Boardman, Ohio.

Chris is planning to attend the Provincetown Book Festival, particularly the session with Melissa Homestead and Scott Bane discussing his book A Union Like Ours: The Love Story of F.O. Matthiessen and Russell Cheney.

– Upcoming Reads – [47:20]
The Seed Keeper – Diane Wilson (CW)(EF)
Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures – Merline Sheldrake  (EF)
On the Rooftop – Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (EF)

Out Now:
Sweet and Sour – Debbi Michiko Florence
Lucky Girl: How I Became a Horror Writer – M. Rickert

– The Booker Prize conversation with Russell Gray – [50:10]
You can watch Russell on his YouTube channel.

Learn more about The Booker Prizes.

The 2022 Short List of Books:
Glory – Noviolet Bulawayo
Small Things Like These – Claire Keegan
Treacle Walker – Alan Garner
The Trees – Percival Everett
The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida – Shehan Karunatilaka
Oh William! – Elizabeth Strout

– Also Mentioned –
The Ski Jumpers by Peter Geye
University of Minnesota Press
Finlay Donovan is Killing It: A Mystery – Elle Cosimano
The Address Book: What Street Addresses Reveal About Identity, Race, Wealth, and Power – Deirdre Mask
Also by Alice Henderson: A Solitude of Wolverines and A Blizzard of Polar Bears
Broadview Press
Miss Nobody From Nowhere – Elizabeth Ashton
Rebecca – Daphne du Maurier
The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration – Isabel Wilkerson
The Only Wonderful Things: The Creative Partnership of Willa Cather & Edith Lewis – Melissa J. Homestead
The Revisioners – Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Trust – Hernan Diaz

You can help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm audiobook platform: Follow
this link for the monthly membership. (promo code: bookcougars)
We are an affiliate of Bank Square Books and Savoy Bookstore & Café, click
HERE to start shopping.
Bookshop.org – support us and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member. You can
DONATE HERE. If you would prefer to donate directly to us, please email bookcougars@gmail.com for instructions.

Join our
Goodreads Group!

We have a BookTube Channel – please check it out
here, and be sure to subscribe!

Please subscribe to our email newsletter
here

Episode 163 - Author Spotlight with Shelley Puhak

Shelley Puhak author of The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World

Episode One Hundred Sixty Three Show Notes KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

 – 22nd Readalong –
Our Third Quarter readalong is The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson. The Zoom discussion will take place on Sunday, September 18th at 7pm (ET).
Send us an email if you would like to join.
Find the Goodreads discussion here.
You can purchase directly from Milkweed Press with free shipping using the Promo Code: SEEDKEEPERCOUGARS


– Currently Reading – [2:06]
A Ghost of Caribou – Alice Henderson (CW) release date 11/6/2022
The Electricity of Every Living Thing – Katherine May (EF)(audio)
Young Mr. X – Elizabeth Jordan (CW)
Small World – Laura Zigman (EF) release date 1/10/2023

– Just Read – [6:20]
Oh William! – Elizabeth Strout (EF)
Lucy by the Sea – Elizabeth Strout (EF) release date 9/20/2022
The Barrens – Kurt Johnson and Ellie Johnson (CW)
Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt (EF)
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (CW)
The Battle of Little Bighorn – Mari Sandoz (CW)

– Biblio Adventures – [36:09]
Chris and Emily went on a joint jaunt to New Hampshire to visit all three Toadstool Bookshops.
They also stopped at the Peterborough Public Library and their Friends of the Library Used Bookstore, the
Dublin Public Library, and Yankee Publishing.

Emily attended a virtual event with Elizabeth Strout and Cynthis D’Aprix Sweeney author of The Nest via Harvard Bookstore, Politics and Prose, and Books & Books. You can watch it here.

Emily had a Couch Biblioadventure via Episode 133 of Friends & Fiction with Jamie Ford author of The Many Daughters of Afong Moy and Jason Mott author of Hell of a Book.

Chris has been doing some accessioning work at the Coast Guard Academy Library and came across a copy of My Heart Leaps Up and Other Poems by William Wordsworth. (The poem “My Heart Leaps Up”) She also went to the Institute Library in New Haven to search for books by Elizabeth Jordan where she found a copy of Young Mr. X.

– Upcoming Jaunts – [59:23]
The Newberry Library in Chicago is offering a course Contemporary Native American Detective Fiction starting on October 5th. Learn more about it here. The reading list includes Murder on the River by Marcie R. Rendon.

Coming up on September 10th at 3:00 pm (ET),  Bank Square Books is hosting a book launch for Sweet and Sour by Debbi Michiko Florence.

Grab tickets for the world premiere of Magpie by Laura Thoma on September 9-11 at Drama Works Theatre in Old Saybrook. Purchase tickets here.

– Upcoming Reads – [1:03:02]
The Seed Keeper – Diane Wilson (CW)(EF)
Miss Eliza’s English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship – Annabel Abbs (EF)
Buffalo Calf Road Woman: The Story of a Warrior of the Little Bighorn – Rosemary Agonito and Joseph Agonito (CW)

– Author Spotlight with Shelley Puhak – [01:09:09]
We had the opportunity to chat with Shelley about her book The Dark Queens: The Bloody Rivalry That Forged the Medieval World.

You can learn more about Shelley here.

– Also Mentioned –
Also by Alice Henderson: A Solitude of Wolverines and A Blizzard of Polar Bears
Separation Anxiety – Laura Zigman
My Name is Lucy Barton – Elizabeth Strout
Mansfield Park directed by Patricia Rozema
The Killer Angels – Michael Shaara
Entangled Life: How Funghi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, & Shape Our Futures – Merlin Sheldrake
Edith Wharton’s House – The Mount
Olive Kitteridge – Elizabeth Strout
Cannery Row and Sweet Thursday by John Steinbeck
Wake: The Hidden History of Women-Led Slave Revolts – Rebecca Hall, illustrated by Hugo Martinez

You can help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm audiobook platform: Follow
this link for the monthly membership. (promo code: bookcougars)
We are an affiliate of Bank Square Books and Savoy Bookstore & Café, click
HERE to start shopping.
Bookshop.org – support us and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member.
You can
DONATE HERE. If you would prefer to donate directly to us, please email bookcougars@gmail.com for instructions.

Join our
Goodreads Group!

We have a BookTube Channel – please check it out
here, and be sure to subscribe!

Please subscribe to our email newsletter
here.

Episode 162 - Just Us and the Insects (or not)

Episode One Hundred Sixty Two Show Notes
KEY: CW = Chris Wolak and EF = Emily Fine

– 22nd Readalong –
Our Third Quarter readalong is The Seed Keeper by Diane Wilson. The Zoom discussion will take place on Sunday, September 18th at 7pm (ET). Send us an email if you would like to join in.
Join the Goodreads discussion here.
Purchase directly from Milkweed Press with free shipping using the Promo Code: SEEDKEEPERCOUGARS

– Currently Reading – [:22]
Lucy by the Sea – Elizabeth Strout (EF) release date 9/20/2022
The Warmth of Other Suns – Elizabeth Wilkerson (CW)(audio narrated by Robin Miles)
You can join Chris’s buddy read here.
The Electricity of Every Living Thing – Katherine May (EF)(audio)
The Electricity of Every Living Thing dramatic adaptation – Katherine May (EF)(audio)
Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (CW)
Read Chris’s guest blog post on Roof Beam Reader.

– Just Read – [9:26]
Lessons in Chemistry – Bonnie Garmus (EF)
Vampire Slayer, The Vol. 2 – Sarah Gailey, Michael Shelfer (Illustrations), Sonia Liao (Illustrations) (CW)
When Women Could Fly – Megan Giddings (EF) (audiobook narrated by Angel Pean)
A Lost Lady – Willa Cather (CW)
You can listen to Chris chat about the book on The Mooks and The Gripes – Episode 34
The Many Daughters of Afong Moy – Jamie Ford (EF)(audio)
Natures Best Hope: A New Approach to Conservation That Starts in Your Yard – Douglas W. Tallamy (CW)
Learn about his event at Guilford High School here.

– Biblio Adventures – [35:11]
Chris and Emily went on a Joint Jaunt to the Madison Art Cinemas to see the movie Where the Crawdads Sing based on the novel by Delia Owens.

Emily took the Gentleman Caller to the Book Barn in Niantic to search for Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Which they didn’t find but Emily found a copy of Black, White, and the Grey by Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano.

Chris and Laura went on a road trip to New Hampshire where she came across an historical marker for Sarah Josepha Buell Hale located in Newport, New Hampshire.

Emily went to Barnswallow Books in Rockport, Maine for a workshop with Elissa Altman and Katherine May authors of Wintering and Motherland.  She also spent a workday at the Camden Public Library.

Chris attended a virtual event through Savoy Bookshop & Café with Dr. Mark Harper about his book Chill: The Cold Water Swim Cure. You can watch the video here.

– Upcoming Jaunts – [1:07:04]
Chris and Emily are heading to Mystic to work at the Mystic & Noank Library and an in-person event at the Westerly Library sponsored by Bank Square Books, Savoy Bookshop & Café, and The New London Day with Jamie Ford discussing his book The Many Daughters of Afong Moy.

– Upcoming Reads – [1:09:27]
The Great Bridge – David McCullough (EF)
Reading for Our Lives: A Literacy Action Plan from Birth to Six  – Maya Payne Smart (EF)
Remarkably Bright Creatures – Shelby Van Pelt (EF)

– Also Mentioned –
Also in the Amgash Series by Elizabeth Strout: My Name is Lucy Barton, Anything is Possible, and Oh William!
Roof Beam Reader
Buffy comics fan world: https://buffy.fandom.com/wiki/Buffy_the_Vampire_Slayer_comics
Dark Star Comics
Lakewood – Megan Giddings
Margaret Atwood
Octavia Butler
A Lost Lady 1934 film
Bringing Nature Home – Douglas W. Tallamy
Pat Conroy
Katherine May’s the Wintering Sessions
Enchantment: Awakening Wonder in an Anxious Age – Katherine May

You can help support the Book Cougars via our affiliates:
Libro.fm audiobook platform: Follow
this link for the monthly membership. (promo code: bookcougars)
We are an affiliate of Bank Square Books and Savoy Bookstore & Café, click
HERE to start shopping.
Bookshop.org – support us and independent bookstores!

If you’d like to help financially support the Book Cougars, please consider becoming a Patreon member. You can
DONATE HERE. If you would prefer to donate directly to us, please email bookcougars@gmail.com for instructions.

Join our
Goodreads Group!

We have a BookTube Channel – please check it out
here, and be sure to subscribe!

Please subscribe to our email newsletter
here.