This week is one of the funniest shows we’ve done simply because our guests are delightful. In fact this show may be just a tad longer than normal because we almost couldn’t bear to cut any of our conversation out. They are the author/illustrator and husband/wife team of Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr whose Cookie Chronicles books are a big hit among the 8-12 year old crowd, although, honestly, their stuff is good no matter how old you are.

They recently completed a year long cross-country trip called the Busload of Books Tour in a remodeled school bus with their four kids and grumpy dog to do school visits to Title I schools in the continental United States. They teamed up with a nonprofit to fund the trip and provide books for children. We talk with Matthew and Robbi about their cross-country trip, what “thing” they collected along the way, and Robbi’s favorite scent that you can’t buy.

Books Mentioned In this Episode:

1- Ben Yokohama and the Cookie of Doom (Cookie Chronicles series) by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr

2- The Real McCoys by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr

3- Babies Ruin Everything by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr

4- Sunrise Summer by Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr

5- Praying with Jane Eyre: Reflections on Reading as a Sacred Practice by Vanessa Zoltan

6- Why Fish Don't Exist: A Story of Loss, Love, and the Hidden Order of Life by Lulu Miller

7- A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russian Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life by George Saunders

8- Dirty Birds by Morgan Murray

9- Charm City Rocks by Matthew Norman

5 Star Read Recommended by a Fellow Book Lover-

Liltle Thieves by Margaret Owen recommended by Amber @amber.always.reading

Podcasts mentioned--

Harry Potter and the Sacred Text podcast

Websites mentioned--

Fireball.imo.net

You can find our guests at their website robbiandmatthew.com/

This week we have a book recommendation episode. We hunker down for November and embrace fall. We call this our Free For F(all) episode because we each give you a recommendation in 5 November themed categories: Autumn, Native American Heritage Month, Diwali, Day of the Dead/ All Soul's Day, and No-Shave November.

Books mentioned in this episode:

1- Rez Dogs by Joseph Bruchac

2- We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman

3- Waiting for Birdy: A Year of Frantic Tedium, Neurotic Angst, and the Wild Magic of Growing a Family by Catherine Newman

4- Love Deleted by Paul Indigo

5- An Event in Autumn by Henning Markell

6-Deer Season by Erin Flanagan

7-Sees Behind Trees by Michael Dorris

8- Winter Counts by David Heska Wanbli Weiden

9- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

10- A People's History of Heaven by Mathangi Subramanian

11- The Orphan of Cemetery Hill by Hester Fox

12- The Forgetting Time by Sharon Guskin

13- Where the World Ends by Geraldine McCaughrean

14- These Honored Dead (A Lincoln and Speed mystery) by Jonathan F. Putnam

15- Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will by Robert M. Sapolsky

16- Plight of the Living Dead: What Real Life Zombies Reveal About Our World and Ourselves by Matt Simon

A 5 star book recommendation by a fellow book Lover -

The Change by Kirsten Miller. recommended by Anne Persico @annother_bookstagram

Podcasts mentioned--

1- Ologies with Alie Ward

www.alieward.com/ologies/neuroparasitology

Movies mentioned--

1- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

2- Fargo (1996) - movie

3- Fargo - (2014 - present, FX) - TV series

Bookish news--

She challenges one book a week:

www.washingtonpost.com/education/202…spotsylvania/

1 parent is responsible for a book ban in North Carolina-

www.npr.org/2023/09/08/11983736…behind%20the%20move.

Scholastic Book Fair Dilemna

www.nytimes.com/2023/10/25/us/sch…-race-gender.html

Erin Flanagan podcast episode episode:

ThePerksofBeingaBookLover.podbean.com/e/s-7-…17-22/

Robert Sapolsky doesn't believe in free will

www.nytimes.com/2023/10/16/scienc…ill-sapolsky.html

Carrie happened upon the audiobook Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe on Libby and was riveted by how the horror novel explored the postpartum period while also bringing in supernatural elements. It totally sucked her back into the early weeks after delivering her first child and left her with that same sense of shellshock, and she thought, “OF COURSE having a baby is a horror story.”

We reached out to Katrina to see if she would be interested in chatting with us, and we’re so glad she was. We talk with her about Graveyard of Lost Children and her first novel They Drown Our Daughters and about why motherhood and the mother-daughter relationship are perfect topics to write about because they are steeped in fear and confusion, and inspire terror at times.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

2- They Drown our Daughters by Katrina Monroe

3- Graveyard of Lost Children by Katrina Monroe

4- Goosebumps series by RL Stine

5- The School for Good Mothers by Jessamine Chan

6- Nothing But Blackened Teeth by Cassandra Khaw

7- The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

8- The Changeling by Victor Lavalle

9- The Electric Woman by Tessa Fontaine

10- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

11- Under an Outlaw Moon by Dietrich Kalteis

12-Just Another Missing Person by Gillian McAllister

13- Wrong Place Wrong Time by Gillian McAllister

14- A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness

5 Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Jen @bookedupgirl - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Movies/Shows mentioned--

1- The Woman in Black (2012)

2- The Fall of the House of Usher (Netflix - 2023)

3- Midnight Mass (Netflix - 2021)

4- The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix - 2018)

5- Goosebumps TV series (1995)

6- Goosebumps (Netflix - 2023)

7- The Changeling (Apple + - 2023)

8- Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

9- A Monster Calls (2016)

In episode 86, we first spoke with Melissa Joulwan during the COVID pandemic. She is one of the co-hosts of the Strong Sense of Place podcast. Melissa has been one of our favorite guests to date. You will here the original interview in the second half of the show. For something a little new, you will hear us chat this time around to both Mel and her partner David Humphreys. Since we last spoke with Melissa in 2021, they have added a short weekly podcast to their lineup called the Library of Lost Time in which they each recommend a book and a fun distraction. In this remix, they tell us all about this short concept podcast and they each share a book about a library with us! (Carrie is now reading David’s suggestion.)

A Strong Sense of Place is both a podcast and a website where readers can find interesting bookish conversations with our guest this week, Melissa Joulwan, and her husband David, two expatriates living in Prague located in the Czech Republic. In this week’s episode, she tells us about how they select the places they will visit each season, why place in a book has to meet very stringent specifications, and how roller derby helped her make some big life decisions.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

Podcasts mentioned--

Strong Sense of Place (strongsenseofplace.com)

The Library of Lost Time

Books mentioned--

1- Pockets: An Intimated History of How we Keep Things Close by Hannah Coulson

2- The City of Brass by S.A. Chakraborty

3- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty

3- Revenge of the Librarians by Tom Gauld

4- Unseen City by Amy Shearn

5- Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret. by Judy Blume

6- Forever by Judy Blume

7- The First Deadly Sin by Lawrence Sanders

8- Archie McNally series by Lawrence Sanders

9- Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

10- My Antonia by Willa Cather

11- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

12- The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

13- The Shadow Land by Elizabeth Kostova

14- She Walks These Hills by Sharyn McCrumb

15- The Phryne Fisher mysteries by Kerry Greenwood

16- Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

17- Less by Andrew Sean Greer

18- The Curse of Jacob Tracy by Holly Messinger

Movies or TV adaptations mentioned in this episode:

1- Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries (Amazon)

It has been one year since Louisville welcomed a horror bookstore to its ranks of cool, independent offerings. Butcher Cabin Books is a mother/daughter labor of love; Jenny Kiefer and her mother run the show. Jenny has been a horror fan since she was a child and also happens to be a horror writer whose debut novel titled This Wretched Valley will be published in January 2024 by Quirk Books. It has a wild inspiration story which she tells us about in this episode. Her dog Rye also gets in on the interview action, although his horror tale was that dinner might be delayed.

Butcher Cabin Books prides itself in having a large selection of books in stock from not only the Big 4 publishers but also small independent presses where so much of the exciting new horror literature is produced. Via their website, you can get these indie press scary favorites shipped to your door.

Last but not least, the store is sponsoring Butcher Cabin BookFest in Lexington KY on Oct. 18 from 5-9 at Pivot Brewing to benefit the Lexington Public Library. There will be a mass meeting of great horror writers to sign books and chat with readers, including Cynthia Pelayo, JH Markert, Andrew Shaffer, and Laurel Hightower. There will also be book bingo, silent auctions, and more.

Books mentioned--

1- This Wretched Valley by Jenny Kiefer

2- The Eyre Affair (Tuesday Next series) by Jasper Fforde

3- Women Talking by Miriam Toews

4- The Shining by Stephen King

5- Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

6- Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

7- The Troop by Nick Cutter

8- Bunny by Mona Awad

9- We Need to Do Something by Max Boot III

10- Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle

11- Boys in the Valley by Philip Fracassi

12- 101 Horror Books to Read Before You're Murdered by Sadie Hartmann

13- Ghost Girl by Ally Malinenko

14- Coraline by Neil Gaiman

15- Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

16- The Marigold by Andrew F. Sullivan

17- Sadie by Courtney Summers

18- The Skull by Jon Klassen

19- The Last Devil to Die (The Thursday Murder Club series) by Richard Osman

Films mentioned--

1- Women Talking (2022)

2- The Shining (1980)

3- It Follows (2014)

4- The Haunting of Hill House (Netflix - 2018)

Historic Events mentioned-

Dyatlov Pass

It is officially Halloween season so we’re talking all about witches this week. We’ll each share 5 bewitching books, 10 total, that you should put on your TBRs.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Leslie “F*cking” Jones by Leslie Jones

2- Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann

3- My Friend Anne Frank by Hannah Pick-Goslar

4- Anne Frank’s Diary: The Graphic Adaptation by Ari Folman

6- Everything/Nothing/Someone by Alice Carriere

7- Circe by Madeline Miller

8- Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman

9- Nettle and Bone by T. Kingfisher

10- Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire

11- The Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

12- Cackle by Rachel Harrison

13- Akata Witch–Nnedi Okorafor

14- Akata Warrrior by Nnedi Okorafor

15- Hester by Laura Lico Albanese

16- The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

17- The Last Witch by Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher series)

18- Blood of Elves by Andrzej Sapkowski (The Witcher series)

19- A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

20- Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

23- The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

24- Macbeth by William Shakespeare

25- Dragons in a Bag by Zetta Elliott

26- The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare

27- My Evil Mother by Margaret Atwood (Amaaon Original Story)

28- Beaverland: How One Weird Rodent Made America by Leila Philip

29- Loot by Tania James

30- Night watch by Jayne Anne Phillips

*5 Star Read Recommended by Book Lover Meghan Geary @biblioactivist203

Celine by Peter Heller

Movies and or TV series mentioned—

1- Ghostbusters (2016)

2- Killers of the Flower Moon (2023)

3- The Witcher (2019 - present, Netflix))

4- Discovery of Witches - (2018-2022 AMC)

Shows Mentioned—

Wicked (Broadway)

Our guest this week, Kika Hatzopoulou, grew up in Greece with the foundation of Ancient Greece and its mythology all around her. She now lives in London and until recently was an acquisitions editor for a Greek publisher, where she read and recommended books being published in the US and Britain for acquisition and translation for Greek audiences. She tinkered with the idea of writing a book herself, combining the Greek mythology stories she learned as a child with the detective stories and gritty noir that she loves reading. The result is Threads that Bind.

The novel Threads That Bind is about three sisters who are descendants of the Fates (also known as the Morai), the three mythological sisters who hold everyone’s destinies in their hands via threads. Io, the youngest sister, is a private investigator who discovers that someone is kidnapping women, tampering with their threads and essentially turning them into zombies. She has numerous potential suspects from Greek mythology: the Furies, the Oneroi (who control dreams), the Graces (who bestow artistic gifts on humans), and the Keres (who are the spirits of violent death). It is a novel that opens up a world of mythological characters you may not know much about.

A sequel to Threads that Bind titled Hearts that Cut comes out in summer 2024.

In addition to being our novelist guest, she also serves as this season’s global reader since we talk to her about Greek education and writers. She also turns the tables on us during the Fast and the Furious, the first guest to have ever done so, and we were unprepared.

You can find Kika at her website at kikahatzopoulou.com/ and on Insta at @kikahatzapoulou

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Threads That Bind by Kika Hatzopoulou

2- Hearts That Cut by Kika Hatzopoulou

3- Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

4- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith

5- Frindle by Andrew Clements

6- Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes

7- Their Vicious Games by Joelle Wellington

8- Good Girls Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

9- Suddenly a Murder by Lauren Munoz

10- Orpheus and Eurydice (the original Greek myth)

11- Lore by Alexandra Bracken

12- Girl Goddess Queen by Bea Fitzgerald

13- Mythology by Edith Hamilton

14- Princess Diaries by Meg Cabot

15- The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

16- Simon & the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli

17- What Bees Want: Beekeeping as Nature Intended by Susan Knilens

18- The Scholomance Trilogy by Naomi Novik

19- The Prison Healer by Linnette Noni

20- Wesley Yorstead Goes Outside by Stephanie Harper

5 Star Read Recommended by a Fellow Book Lover Fabee @devouredpages

1- The Ill-Made Mute by Celicia Dart-Thornton (and all of The Bitterbynde Trilogy)

Movies mentioned--

Rear Window (1954)

Theatre mentioned--

Hadestown

This week we are featuring books by Latino authors in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Molly's Tuxedo by Vicki Johnson

2- Story of Your Life by Ted Chiang (short story)

3- Our Wives Under the Sea by Julia Armfield

4- Fever by Mary Beth Keane

5- The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo

6- Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

7- Why Didn’t You Tell Me by Carmen Rita Wong

8- Ghetto Klown by John Leguizamo

9- The Last Cuentista by Barbara Donna Higuera

10- The Murmur of Bees by Sophía Segovia

11- The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation’s Neglect of a Deadly Disease by Daisy Hernandez

12- The Last Stop on Market Street by Matt de la Peña

13- Carmela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Peña

14- In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

15- Her Body and Other Parties by Carmen Maria Machado

16- The House of the Spirits by Isabel Allende

17- Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake by Anna Quindlen

18- The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake by Aimee Bender

19- I'll Be Gone in the Dark by Michelle McNamara

20- Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward

21- Starling House by Alix E. Harrow

22- Leech by Hiron Ennes

5 Star Book Recommendation by a Fellow Book Lover - Ciera Oldham @Disappearherebookblog

- Delilah Green Doesn't Care by Ashley Herring Blake

Movies mentioned--

1- Arrival (2016)

2- The Afterparty (Apple + TV, 2022 - present)

Article about Cuban community in Louisville:

www.nytimes.com/2023/08/26/us/cub…lle-kentucky.html

Article about wasps and figs:

www.bonappetit.com/story/figs-and-wasps

We always enjoy chatting with people we find on Instagram who are doing bookish things, and Kristine Eckart is one of those folks. She is the creator of Gilmore Book Club, which offers all kinds of book blogs, discussions, videos, and lists associated with the show Gilmore Girls. As if that wouldn’t keep her busy enough, she also hosts a book club for people with chronic health conditions (and we’re including the link to it in our show notes) and is working on creating book-related content for other beloved shows, such as Gossip Girl and The Office.

You can find Kristine on Insta and Youtube at @gilmorebookclub and at her website www.gilmorebookclub.com. Her Chronic Illness Bookclub can be found at www.thechroniconcommunity.com/share/_diU…rce=manual

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Blacktop Wasterland by S.A. Cosby

2- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

3- Anna Karenina Fix: Life Lessons From Russian Literature by Viv Groskop

4- Cujo by Stephen King

5- Tortall series by Tamora Pierce

6- Harry Potter series by JK Rowling

7- Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

8- Moby Dick by Herman Melville

9- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells

10- The Vampyre by John Polidori

11- Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw

12- Resilient: How to Grow an Unshakeable Core of Calm, Strength, and Happiness by Rick Hanson

13- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway

14- The Paris Wife by Paula McClain

15- The President’s Wife by Tracey Enerson Wood

16- The Banned Bookshop of Maggie Banks by Shauna Robinson

17- The Personal Librarian by Marie Benedict

18- Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

19- The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux

5 Star Read Recommended by a Fellow Book Lover

1- A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness recommended by Kim Layman @the_read_rat

Shows mentioned—

1- Gilmore Girls (Netflix, 2000)

2- Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life (Netflix, 2016)

3- Gossip Girl - (HBO Max 2007 - 2012)

4- The Office (2005-2013)

5- White Lotus - (HBO Max 2021 - present)

6- The Good Witch - (Netflix 2015-2021)

7- Anne with an "E" - (Netflix 2017 - 2019)

Sometimes when people have experienced a loss or some kind of traumatic event, they are encouraged to write about it, which gives them an outlet for their feelings and a way to help them process the experience. Our guest this week, Willie Carver Jr. was the 2022 Kentucky Teacher of the Year but he experienced loss and trauma when both he and his students were targeted because he is gay. He began putting his thoughts and feelings into poetic lines and stanzas.

The book of poems that resulted, Gay Poems for Red States published by University Press of Kentucky, helped him look back at prejudices he had experienced as a child living in rural Kentucky, as a gay man, and as a teacher offering a place of security for his students. The poetry served as an impetus for him to engage more as an activist, even testifying before the House Subcommittee on Civil Liberties and Civil Rights concerning the need for rights for LGBTQ students and educators. Book Riot has named Gay Poems for Red States one of the best of the year.

You can find Willie Carver on Instagram @williecarverjr or on his website at www.williecarver.com.

Books Mentioned in this Episode:

1- Gay Poems for Red States by Willie Carver Jr

2- The Awakening by Kate Chopin

3- Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer (audiobook)

4- Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll narrated by Sally Field (audiobook)

5- The Eyre Affair series by Jasper Fforde (audiobook)

6- What Moves the Dead by T. Kingfisher

7- The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe

8- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

9- Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

10- Theoretical Tiger Society by Brian Fuchs

11- With a Hammer for My Heart by George Ella Lyon

12- Undercooked: How I Let Food Become My Life Navigator and How Maybe That's a Dumb Way to Live by Dan Ahdoot

Five Star Recommendation by Fellow Book Lover Michael DeConzo, author of Welcome to the Arcade and Two Nickels

1- Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier

Podcast mentioned

1- Green Eggs and Dan