Book It!

BOOK CLUB IS BACK...ish! In this first installment of Backlist Book Club, Michael and Jill chat all about the 2021 novel The Reading List by Sara Nisha Adams!

Michael and Jill revisit a favorite genre of writing: the middle-grade novel! What makes a good middle-grade novel? When are you too old for middle-grade novels? Hear them chat all about it, plus hear their middle-grade recs at the end!

What makes a memorable plot twist? In this episode, Michael and Jill chat about the best fictional surprises they've read in books, plus one real-life plot twist Michael would like to forget (spoiler alert: old stucco and rain after nine decades don't mix!)

So you're reading a book, and you're not loving it. Do you keep on reading it or do you DNF it? In this episode, Jill and Michael chat about DNFing (or "did not finish") books. Do they DNF? When do they choose to DNF? And what books have they DNF'd or wished they'd DNF'd? Listen to find out!

The Kindest Lie. The Daughters of Erietown. Revival Season. Red at the Bone. We've read countless books together over the last three seasons, and many of them have this similar thread: complicated family dynamics. In this episode, we chat all about family in fiction, the good, the bad, and the ugly!

Book burnout. It happens. What do you when you call yourself a reader and the joy of reading is on hiatus? Michael and Jill tackle this topic with some tips on what you can do to help!

What do pneumonia, football, and Lurlene McDaniel have in common? Nothing, other than taking up space in our brains. Welcome to our first of many "sidebar" episodes, where we just catch up, talk about life, with a little helping of books, too!

Trust me, you're not ready. In this episode, Michael and Jill (finally!) read romance novels that range from the purely sweet to the totally spicy, and their lives are changed forever. For good or bad, who knows.

They've talked adaptations, now they're casting their own! In this episode, Michael and Jill look back on some of the books they've talked about over the years and dream cast them out!

Featuring:

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

The Kindest Lie by Nancy Johnson

Less by Andrew Sean Greer

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Guncle by Steven Rowley

"Hi yeah sorry, I can't come in to work today. I have a book hangover."

You know that feeling where you finished a book and, for better or worse, it just won't leave your system? On today's episode, Michael and Jill are chatting about the books that just wouldn't leave them alone!