Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Reading Envy 014: Flannery O'Connor with Zombies

Scott and Jenny are joined by Jason Roland, who Jenny knows from the Goodreads group On the Southern Literary Trail.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy 014

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner

Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe

Book selections:



The Reapers are the Angels by Alden Bell
Snow Hunters by Paul Yoon
The Future for Curious People by Gregory Sherl
Welcome to Lovecraft (Locke & Key #1) by Joe Hill
I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay
How to Be Both by Ali Smith

Books mentioned otherwise:
Exit Kingdom by Alden Bell
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zura Neale Hurston
Winter's Bone by Daniel Woodrell
Smonk by Tom Franklin
The Walking Dead  (series)
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
Zone One by Colson Whitehead
Once the Shore by Paul Yoon
The Isle of Youth: Stories by Laura van den Berg
Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan (series)
The Sandman by Neil Gaiman (series)
Horns by Joe Hill
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
The Fifth Head of Cerebrus by Gene Wolfe
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mendel
Lila by Marilynne Robinson

Follow Jason on Twitter!








More stalking:
Jenny at GoodReads
Scott at GoodReads
Jenny on Twitter
Scott on Twitter
Scott on his blog

Friday, October 17, 2014

Jenny's Library Books October Edition


For the Time Being by Annie Dillard
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard
Holy the Firm by Annie Dillard
Always Apprentices: the Believer Book of Even More Writers Talking to Writers
To Show and to Tell by Phillip Lopae
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
An American Childhood by Annie Dillard 
Firebird by Mark Doty
Heaven's Coast by Mark Doty
How to be Both by Ali Smith
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee

I previously mentioned that I am auditing a class on creative non-fiction, and my stack of books is a clear reflection of that!  I needed to re-read how David Foster Wallace writes about tornadoes, and I was trying out Mark Doty for a muse but went with Annie Dillard (for a class assignment. I liked Doty but he was too death-based for my current family situation!).  Always Apprentices came up in passing in one of the readings for the class, and the Lopate is assigned reading as well.

The bottom three books are from the Booker shortlist! I did finish the Flanagan before he won the prize this year.  I did not end up finishing the Mukherjee and returned it to the library.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Reading Envy 013: The Secret Central Force

Josh and terpkristin joined Jenny to discuss the second most popular book group on Goodreads - the Sword and Laser Book Club, with over 20,000 members. Both of them were members from the beginning - before it moved to GoodReads from Ning, before a podcast was associated with it. We talk about what it's like to be in an online book club, our favorite books we read because of it, and more.

This is the first of three episodes we will have about book clubs in 2014.

First a bit more about our guests!

terpkristin can be found in Goodreads or Twitter.  Josh can be followed in Twitter or Goodreads, but really would love a visit to his website: Nom a Song.

Download or listen via this link: Reading Envy Episode 013

Subscribe to the podcast via this link: Feedburner

Or subscribe via iTunes by clicking: Subscribe
 
 


Books mentioned:
Dawn by Octavia Butler
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe
Dance of Cloaks by David Dalglish
Memoirs Found in a Bathtub by Stanislaw Lem
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
The Orphan's Tales by Catherynne M. Valente
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
The Sheep Look Up by John Brunner
Stand On Zanzibar by John Brunner
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell
Hyperion by Dan Simmons
Unshapely Things by Mark Del Franco
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
A Song of Ice and Fire by George R. R. Martin
Foundation by Isaac Asimov
Blindsight by Peter Watts
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut


Other mentions:
Tom Merritt
Veronica Belmont
Sword and Laser Book Club on Goodreads (open to anyone)
Sword and Laser Book List
Sword and Laser Podcast
Borderlands Books
 
 
The Sword & The Laser - song collaboration between The Clive Royal Project (aldenoneil / Barry O'Neil) and The New Old Men (Josh and his friend Karl Eifrig):
 



Sword & Laser Theme song

Sword & Laser Theme song future variation