Booklovers

The group discusses not a year in books but a year in reading, including

reading habits, goals and tools for reading.

We live in a context where the boundaries of reality are constantly tested by scientific discoveries, new technologies, and attempts to describe our world. Weird fiction is a genre-spanning tendency with a long history that attests to this shifting sense of the real. On this episode, we survey weird fiction from Lovecraft and Kafka to the present, focusing on contemporary innovators and trends in speculative writing that keep our minds focused on the weird. Along the way, we consider talking animals, how cockroaches might inspire dancing, and the pervasive weirdness in TV, movies, and video games.

Hopefully, by the time you’re reading this, James Bond superfan Jess is tucked into her seat in the theater with a bucket of popcorn the same size as her head, ready to watch No Time to Die. The vaunted 25th (or 27th, if you’re feisty) film in the Bond franchise has seen its release rescheduled four times now due to rehires and the COVID-19 pandemic; it was originally meant to hit the big screen in November 2019, but here we are, two years later, hoping for the best. But even while the film limps toward the finish line, there’s still plenty of Bond to go around. In this episode, Jess is taking Carmanita and Joseph on a deep dive into the world of Bond, not just in movies but also in books, graphic novels, and even video games.

As a film franchise, James Bond is among the oldest, starting in 1963 with Dr. No. But the books predate the first film by over a decade, and the first time the world is introduced to Mr. Bond is in 1953, with the release of Casino Royale. And ever since, the world has been subject to the charms of the Walther PPK-wielding, martini-sipping, tux-donning spy with a license to kill. But what is it about Bond that keeps us coming back for more? Does 2021 still have room for a character like James Bond, and how do these stories stay relevant into the future? So to celebrate what is hopefully the release of No Time to Die, we’re digging in.

We’re here with our first official mini-episode! And what better place to start than with a format that is near and dear to all of our hearts? Celebrating annual and lifelong achievements in the comics industry, the Eisner Awards have been presented since 1988 at San Diego Comic-Con (or at least as long as there isn’t a global pandemic they are). We’ve taken a good hard look at this year’s winners and nominees, and we’re here with a rundown of the big stories from the Eisners, plus some of our favorites from both this year’s pool of winners and pools from years past.

Fall is in the air and Halloween is only two months away, so that means it's the perfect time to talk about horror fiction and horror movies. While we start with a general discussion of the scary stuff we love (or appreciate at a safe distance), we then turn to the author Stephen Graham Jones and discuss his award-winning novel "The Only Good Indians" and his latest book, "My Heart is a Chainsaw." We're huge fans and we hope you will pick both of them up.

If you liked this episode and you want to hear Jones read from and discuss his work, join us at SCPL for "A Nightmare on Church Street," our virtual event with the author on September 17th at 7:00 PM. Go to spartanburglibraries.org and click on the event banner at the top of the page to sign up!

One of the things all three of us have noticed over time is that a lot of readers have a question about audiobooks:

Is it really reading if I’m only listening to it?

Audiobooks are a format that tends to have its own stigma—that listening to a book instead of reading it with your eyeballs is somehow a lesser effort, one that takes something away. But we’re here to say that is patently untrue: for some readers, by audio is the optimal format, and there’s no reason to believe that listening to a story is any less of a concentrated effort than seeing it on the page. Audiobooks have their own history, including multiple types of awards like the Audie Awards, which are celebrated annually by the Audio Publishers Association. We don’t think about it much, but audiobooks actually add a new dimension, which is the voice of the narrator, to sometimes bring new depth to a story.

On this episode we’re talking about our experiences with audiobooks and Audie Award winners, and why the format is so loved—and so stigmatized—by many. If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re already prepared to try an audiobook, so we’re also recommending some of our faves and suggestions for a good place to start listening to audiobooks.

In the 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s, Westerns proliferated across film, television and books. Oh, the books, with their staunch brown covers, gunslingers and paint ponies, staring down the reader as though they were coming directly for us. But since then, the Western—especially the Western novel—has taken a backseat to other genres of exploration, especially other types of historical fiction and science fiction. So what is a Western, exactly? And who is still reading them? And how, exactly, does the Western genre diversify while still staying true to its historical definitions?

In this episode, we’re delving into these questions, with John Larison’s recent novel Whiskey When We’re Dry as the vehicle for the discussion. The novel, which takes place in the 1880s in Missouri, follows young Jess, who is left on the family ranch to fend for herself after her brother runs off and her father dies. Hedging her bets, Jess decides to disguise herself as a man and sets off in search of her brother, falling in with the staff of the dangerous Governor as a prized gunslinger. What follows is an adventurous, emotional story told through Jess’s indelible voice. The old West still has a lot to teach its readers, especially as it shifts and incorporates more diverse stories of the early Chinese, American Indian, and Black explorers whose stories were often shunned in Western storytelling for those of white men. We also talk about identity and Jess’s quest to understand where she comes from, which is hard enough to define in the early days of a nation, but even harder when you don’t know your own family.

If you listened to our previous episode, during which we discussed Carmen Maria Machado’s memoir In the Dream House, then you’ve heard us talk about the importance of preserving stories, both good and bad, especially about the LGBTQ+ community. And The Prettiest Star holds a similar place in queer literature, telling the uncomfortable but important story of a young man who returns home to his small town in Ohio after contracting HIV in New York City. In 1986, Brian’s return, which would under normal circumstances be a joyous occasion for any family, is instead fraught and stressful for his parents and his younger sister, who learned to live without him. As Brian chronicles his final summer alive, the family grapples with love, loss, and what community and family truly mean, especially for gay men. We’re discussing The Prettiest Star to celebrate SCPL’s virtual event with Carter Sickels on July 1st, and we encourage you to sign up at spartanburglibraries.org if you’re interested in joining us.

After extricating herself from a psychologically abusive relationship that lasted over a year, Carmen Maria Machado went in search of the kind of book we talk about a lot on this podcast: one that would help her process what she had experienced. But instead of finding a sea of options, as there would be for the loss of a parent, joining a new community, or raising a child as a single parent, she found nothing that would help her deal with the destructive whirlwind that had cut a path through her life. So Machado did what so many queer women before her have done: she carved out a space to tell the untold story of abuse in lesbian relationships. The result, In the Dream House, is a highly experimental memoir that pulls elements of horror, psychological thriller, academic study, and even folklore together to reveal a deep, devastating, and surprisingly funny story of the relationship’s rise and fall.

In this episode, we’re attempting to pull apart the many, many aspects of In the Dream House that make it so unique and creative, especially Machado’s monumental ability to design a unique memoir and the essential need to document untold stories, particularly those in the queer community.

In July of 2020, we were all struck by Bryan Washington’s short story collection Lot, which takes readers deep into the Hispanic and Black neighborhoods of Houston, describing the lives of apartment complexes and storefronts via the people who occupy and care for them. So to prepare for Summer Reading and our kickoff event with the man himself, we’re reading and discussing Washington’s novel Memorial. Memorial returns to Houston via couple Benson and Mike, who are pretty much definitely at the end of their relationship. A wrench is thrown into their lives when Mike finds out his dad is dying of cancer, and he leaves for Japan just as his mother arrives to visit. Mitsuko and Benson are left together in a thumbprint-sized apartment, despite never having met each other, while Mike lands in Osaka to take care of his father, Eiju, who abandoned the family when Mike was young.

Memorial has so many layers that it’s hard to pull them into one cohesive podcast episode. But we think we’ve done it with this one! We’re digging into the concept of home, the essence of change, and most importantly, how weird it is to cook in someone else’s kitchen. We also take a look the characters Washington creates for both of the “hometowns” in Memorial: Houston and Osaka.