This week we chat with Brittany Thurman, a native of Kentucky, who has recently published her first children’s picture book titled FLY illustrated by Anna Cunha. She worked as a children's specialist at the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh which is where the idea to write her own book occurred, and she even took inspiration from one of the children who would come to her storytimes. FLY is the story of a young girl who wants to enter a double dutch jump rope competition but doesn’t know how to double dutch. She asks her friends for tips and while they don't know how either, they each give her a piece of knowledge that helps her be more confident in her dreams.
In this episode, she tells about the creation of this book as well as other books that she has in the pipeline, including one about the first public library built for and staffed by African Americans in the United States, which is the Western branch of the Louisville Free Public Library system. Brittany is a very busy new author.
You can find Brittany on instagram at @britjanee and at her website at www.brittanythurman.com.
Follow us on Facebook at The Perks of Being a Book Lover or on Instagram at @perksof beingabookoverpod to see what we're up to. For show notes for any episode, go to our website at www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Fly by Brittany Thurman and Illustrated by Anna Cunha
2- Fearless: Boulevard of Dreams by Mandy Gonzalez with Brittany Thurman
3- Forever and Always by Brittany Thurman
4- Addie Walker--American Girl series
5- Goosebumps series by R.L.Stine
6- Replica series by Marilyn Kaye


7- Mary Kate & Ashley series
8- A Surgeon in the Village: An American Doctor Teaches Brain Surgery in Africa by Tony Bartelme
9- Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese
10- Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi
11- Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
12- Stunt Boy, in the Meantime by Jason Reynolds
13- A Comb of Wishes by Lisa Stringfellow
14- Red, White and Whole by Rajani LaRocca

Perks REPLAY - Double Dutch Debut with guest Brittany Thurman

Perks of Being a Book Lover is a show about books, people who read, and how reading, at its very best, is a social experience. Whether it be a book club, a poetry slam, or the production of a play; words are meant to be shared.  Keep up with us on FB.

Education

Training

Language Courses

Higher Education

K-12

Educational Technology

Language Learning

We are on hiatus for the month of June.  This replay episode originally aired June 2023.
 
 
This week we celebrate all the special days of June! Want a book rec for Pride month? We have one. What about Juneteenth or Father's Day? We have you covered. And did you know it's National Audiobook Month? It's new to us as well but we love audiobooks so we give you some recommendations for that too. And we throw in one wildcard category - one of those random National Days or Months that always makes you wonder why there needs to be a month for that:)
This is the last episode for Season 8. We are taking a month off for summer family travel and some rest and relaxation. We will be back the late July/ early August with all new episodes. Until then, we will air some of our favorite past episodes in case you missed them the first time around.
Happy Reading!
For show notes for any episode or to contact us, go to our website at perksofbeingabooklover.com. We are also on Instagram @perksofbeingabookloverpod and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover.
Books Mentioned in this Episode:
1- Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
2- The Road by Cormac McCarthy
3- No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
4- Changes: A Love Story by Ama Ata Aidoo
5- Our Sister Killjoy by Ama Ata Aidoo
6- The Scent of a Garden by Namrata Patel
7- The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel
8- The Scent of Burnt Flowers by Blitz Bazawule
9- Fun Home: A Famliy Tragicomic by Alison Bechdel
10- Dykes to Watch Out For by Alison Bechdel
11- And Then the Grey Heaven by RE Katz
12- Lone Women by Victor Lavalle
13- The Changeling by Victor Lavalle
14- Invasion of the Body Snatchers by Jack Finney
15- The Door of No Return by Kwame Alexander
16- The Sweetness of Water by Nathan Harris
17- The Chosen by Chaim Potok
18- Inheritance: A Memoir of Genealogy, Paternity, and Love by Dani Shapiro
19- The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin
20- The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery
21- Phallacy: Life Lessons from the Animal Penis by Emily Willingham
22- The Good One by Polly Stewart
23- On Earth as it is on Television by Emily Jane
Shows/movies mentioned--
1- No Country For Old Men ( 2007)
2- My Octopus Teacher (Netflix, 2020)
Articles Mentioned:
1- Ama Ata Aidoo, Ghanaian writer who was voice of African women, dies at 81
2- The convoluted world of best-seller lists, explained

REPLAY - June Holidays: A Book Rec Episode - 6/13/24

We are on hiatus for the month of June.  This is a replay episode from 2023.
 
For show notes for any episode, go to our website at perksofbeingabooklover.com. We are also on Instagram @perksofbeingabookloverpod and on FB Perks of Being a Book Lover.
This week are celebrating AAPI Heritage Month (Asian American Pacific Islander) and we give you a list of 10 (plus maybe a few more) of our favorite books to add to your TBR written by authors with family heritage from this part of the world. We give you books in a variety of genres; literary fiction, historical fiction, memoir, food writing, graphic novels, horror, poetry, and middle grade.
So join us this week as we explore the big wide world of Asia and the Pacific Islands heritage in literature. Plus, we talk about the most recent Jane Austen film adaptation we've watched, a new environmentally friendly product we've tried, and why sometimes it might be nice to be a disembodied head.
Books mentioned--

1- Persuasion by Jane Austen
2- Emma by Jane Austen
3- Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
4- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
5- Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
6- The Girls of Fall by Jessica Minyard
7- You Should Have Known by Rebecca Keller
8- An Elderly Lady is Up to No Good by Helen Tursten
9- Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
10- Another Appalachia by Neema Avashia
11- The Candid Life of Meena Dave by Namrata Patel
12- When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
13- The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
14- The Best We Could Do by Thi Bui
15- Buttermilk Graffiti: A Chef's Journey to Discover America's New Melting-Pot Cuisine by Edward Lee
16- American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang
17- The Fervor by Alma Katsu
18- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
19- Two Brown Dots by Danni Quintos
20- World of Wonders by Aimee Nezhukumatathil
21- A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
22- The Milk Lady of Bangalore by Shoba Narayan
23- Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson
24- Moloka’i by Alan Brennert
25- Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
26- The Cheating Cell: How Evolution Helps Us Understand and Treat Cancer by Athena Aktipis
27- A Place to Hang the Moon by Kate Albus
28- The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
29- Walking with Sam: A Father, a Son, and 500 Miles Across Spain by Andrew McCarthy
Movies mentioned--


1- Persuasion (Netflix 2022)
2- Ted Lasso - Season 3 (Apple TV 2023)
3- Jury Duty (Amazon 2023)
4- Enchanted (2007)
5- The Terror (Hulu 2018)

REPLAY AAPI Month: A Book Rec Episode - 6/5/24

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.

Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod

Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover.

To send us a message go to our website and click the contact button.
We will be on a much needed hiatus for the entire month of June and a smidge into July. You will get replays of some of our book recommendation episodes from last year, but toward the end of June, we may have a remix episode where we catch up with a former guest.
This last episode of Season 10 is about a very important topic. Although May is almost over, it isn’t too late to recognize books for Mental Health Awareness month. Carrie and I both know and appreciate that mental health is part of total health. Your brain is a really big, extremely powerful, exceedingly important part of your body. If it ain’t happy, no other part of you is happy either. It’s no different than your kidneys or heart not performing their best. This week we give you some book recommendations, both fiction and nonfiction, that highlight mental health or bring some exposure to mental health issues.
Books Mentioned in This Episode:
1- Being Henry: The Fonz…and Beyond by Henry Winkler
2- Firekeeper’s Daughter by Angeline Boulley
3- Warrior Girl Unearthed by Angeline Boulley
4- And Then, Boom! by Lisa Fipps - A 5 star read recommended by fellow book lover Cassie Sanders @allroadsleadtoausten
5- Starfish by Lisa Fipps
6- Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb
7- The Professor and the Madman: a Tale of Murder, Insanity and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester
8- The Sleeping Beauties by Suzanne O' Sullivan
9- Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson
10- Wesley Yorstad Goes Outside by Stephanie Hunter
11- All Fall Down by Jennifer Weiner
12- Homer and Langley by EL Doctorow
13- The Trauma Cleaner by Sarah Krasnostein
14- The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
15- The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
16- Sylvia Plath: A Biography by Linda Wagner-Martin
17- Anne Sexton: A Biography by Diane Wood Middlebrook
18- The Act of Disappearing by Nathan Gower
19- The Year of the Horses by Courtney Maum
20- Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac by Jeremy Hance
21- The Color of Magic by Terry Pratchett
22- Jingo by Terry Pratchett
23- Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
24- Mort by Terry Pratchett
25- Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Shows/podcasts mentioned—
1- Barry (HBO, 2018 - 2023)
2- Reservation Dogs (Hulu, 2021 - 2023)
3- Good Omens (Amazon Prime, 2019 - present)
4- Dear Therapists with Lori Gottlieb and Guy Winch - podcast

S10:Ep224 - Mental Health Awareness Month : A Book Rec Episode- 5/29/24

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.

Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod

Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover.

To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.
You can find Nathan Gower at his website www.nathangower.com or on IG @nathan_gower_
Our guest this week is Nathan Gower, a writer with roots in Kentucky, having earned degrees from Spalding University and the University of Louisville. He now serves as a professor of English at Campbellsville University. His debut novel, The Act of Disappearing, publishes on May 28 with Mira Books, an imprint of HarperCollins.
The novel is about a woman named Julia, who her friends call Jules. Julia has been trying to make a name for herself as a fiction writer, but she works at a bar to make ends meet. It is there that she meets a famous older man named Jonathan Aster who gives her a photograph and offers to pay her to tell the story of the woman in the picture: the woman in the photo is jumping off a bridge holding a baby. Julia begins a quest to discover who this woman is and learns about herself in the process.
He also talks to us about how terrifying it was to write a book from a female point of view, how the women in his family inspired this story, and the sci-fi book he just read and thoroughly enjoyed even though he doesn’t like sci-fi.
Books Mentioned in This Episode:
1- The Act of Disappearing by Nathan Gower
2- Dark Matter by Blake Crouch
3- Dead Boy Detectives by Neil Gaiman
4- Out of the Easy by Ruta Sepetys
5- Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table by Sara Roahen
6- The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
7- The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Chakraborty - A 5 Star Read Recommended by Fellow Book Lover Claire Boswell @clairesbookobsession
8- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
9- The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
10- The Man In The Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas
11- Made for You by Jenna Satterthwaite
12- Johanna Porter is Not Sorry by Sara Read
Entertainment mentioned—
1- Beetlejuice (1988)
2- Beetlejuice (Broadway Across America)
3- Seinfeld (1989- 1998, Netflix)
4- Dark Matter (2024, Apple+)
5- The Dead Boys Detective (2024, Netflix)
6- Locke & Key (2020, Netflix)
7- The Man in the Iron Mask (1998)
Photograph mentioned—

time.com/3456028/the-most-bea…h-an-immortal-photo/

S10:Ep223 - The Act of Disappearing with Guest Nathan Gower - 5/22/24

Our website - www.perksofbeingabooklover.com.

Instagram - @perksofbeingabookloverpod

Facebook - Perks of Being a Book Lover.

To send us a message go to our website and click the Contact button.
This week we have our annual summer reading episode with our favorite bookseller, Sam Miller, store manager at Carmichaels Bookstore in Louisville, KY. By this point in our spring season, we are tired, so having Sam on and letting her do the heavy lifting on book suggestions is what we’re about. Sam clues us in to some new fiction, nonfiction, traditional summer reading, mysteries, sci-fi/fantasy, and children’s books you may want to scoop up.
Books Mentioned in This Episode:
1- James by Percival Everett
2- Hamilton by Ron Chernow
3- We All Want Impossible Things by Catherine Newman
4- Sandwich by Catherine Newman
5- Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult
6- By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult
7- Long Island by Colm Tóibín
8- Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín
9- Peace Like a River by Leif Enger
10- I Cheerfully Refuse by Leif Enger
11- The Summer Pact by Emily Giffen
12- Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy
13- Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder
14- Knife by Salman Rushdie
15- The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larsen
16- 1974 by Francine Prose
17- The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan
18- Sociopath by Patric Gagne
19- An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin
20- The Searcher by Tana French
21- The Hunter by Tana French
22- One Perfect Couple by Ruth Ware
23- Midnight Feast by Lucy Foley
24- Highway 13 by Fiona McFarland
25- This Bright River by Liz Moore
26- God of the Woods by Liz Moore
27- The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley
28- Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
29- The Book of Elsewhere by Keanu Reeves and China Miéville
30- Service Model by Adrian Tchaikovsky
31- House on the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune
32- Somewhere Beyond the Sea by TJ Klune
33- The Deading by Nicholas Belardes
34- Unicorn Woman by Gayl Jones
35- Eva’s Man by Gayl Jones
36- You Are Here edited by Ada Límon
37- Black Gold by Marguerite Henry
38- The Kentucky Oaks by Avalyn Hunter
39- Bourbonland by Edward Lee
40- Smoke and Pickles by Edward Lee
41- Buttermilk Graffiti by Edward Lee
42- The Gaga Mistake by Emma Straub
43- Julian is a Mermaid by Jessica Love
44- The Squish by Brianna Carzoo
45- The Berlin Letters by Katherine Reay
46- Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix
47- Finna by Nino Cipri
48- The Divorcees by Rowan Beaird
49- I’m Afraid You Have Dragons by Peter S. Beagle
50- The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
Apps mentioned—

Merlin app (birds)

Perks REPLAY - Double Dutch Debut with guest Brittany Thurman

Download our free app to listen on your phone