Books That Make You Podcast

How much of your digital life are you actually choosing? In this episode of Books That Make You, author Heather Henderson joins Desireé Duffy to discuss her book, Reclaim: How to Stop Scrolling Through Your Life and Start Living It, and the subtle ways technology can shape our attention, habits, choices, and relationships. After spending a decade working inside technology companies including Google and Uber, Heather saw firsthand how deeply our digital environments can influence the way we live. She also experienced the personal cost of constant achievement and connection, including a stress-induced asthma attack while working at Google that forced her to reconsider the way she was living. Heather explains why she believes technology itself is not the enemy. Instead, the challenge is recognizing when unconscious habits begin making decisions for us. The conversation explores the five human needs Heather says we often turn to technology to meet: ease, distraction, connection, growth, and impact. She also introduces her digital regulator archetypes, including "the watcher," and explains how identifying the emotional needs behind our digital habits can help us make more intentional choices. Heather and Desireé also discuss "growth theater," the habit of consuming endless self-improvement content without applying what we learn, and Heather's one-to-one rule for turning information into action. What would change if you stopped measuring your life by what you captured, posted, or consumed—and started paying closer attention to the moments you were actually living? Reclaim: How to Stop Scrolling Through Your Life and Start Living It Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Reclaim-Scrolling-Through-Start-Living-ebook/dp/B0HB7BKZDH/

How do you keep going when life gives you every reason to stop?

In From Broken to Brave, author and publisher Amy M. Le shares the deeply personal experiences that shaped her life, from escaping the Vietnam War as a five-year-old child to undergoing life-saving open-heart surgery shortly after arriving in America.

Amy joins the Books That Make You Show to discuss why, after years of writing fiction and helping other authors tell their stories, she knew it was finally time to tell her own.

Her memoir explores survival, identity, family, discrimination, homelessness, trauma, and the complicated experience of growing up between Vietnamese and American cultures. Amy also shares how reconnecting with a college friend helped her recover a missing piece of her past and gave her what she needed to finally complete the book.

But From Broken to Brave is about more than what Amy survived. It is also about what came afterward.

Amy discusses finding her voice, becoming an author, writing with her son, and building Quill Hawk Publishing, a hybrid publishing company focused on amplifying diverse voices. She also explains why community has been so important throughout her writing career and offers a simple piece of advice to aspiring authors: find your tribe and don't try to do it alone.

Amy's journey shows how storytelling can connect generations, preserve history, create community, and help us make meaning from experiences we once struggled to understand.

Can listening to a book create a richer experience than reading it on the page?

Becky Parker Geist, CEO of Amplify Audiobooks and Pro Audio Voices, joins Books That Make You to explore how the human voice can transform a story. She explains why skilled narration does more than read the words—it draws listeners into the characters, atmosphere, emotions, and meaning of a book.

Becky also takes us behind the scenes of professional audiobook production. From manuscript preparation and casting to recording, editing, proofing, mastering, distribution, and marketing. Every decision helps shape the listener's experience. She shares why the right narrator must connect with the specific book and why authors should only narrate their own books when they feel genuinely excited and prepared to do so.

The conversation also examines the challenges independent authors face after investing in an audiobook. Becky explains how traditional retail platforms can limit royalties, pricing control, marketing options, and direct relationships with listeners.

Amplify Audiobooks was created to offer another approach. The platform brings authors, narrators, and listeners together through live events, real-time audiobook clubs, direct communication, promotional tools, and Reflections, a feature that works like writing in the margins of an audiobook.

Discover how audiobooks can become shared experiences rather than simple transactions—and why supporting authors through a different listening platform may be easier and more rewarding than you may realize.

#Audiobooks #AudiobookProduction #IndependentAuthors #BookPublishing #Narration #AmplifyAudiobooks

Amplify Audiobooks: https://amplifyaudiobooks.com/

Pro Audio Voices: https://proaudiovoices.com/

What happens when doing the right thing comes at a deeply personal cost?

Author Becca Moore joins Books That Make You to discuss her memoir, Angel on a Bridge, a story shaped by childhood trauma, family sacrifice, public criticism, and the courage to stand beside young people who need an advocate.

Becca reflects on being adopted by her aunt and uncle at age nine after growing up in an abusive home. That experience changed the direction of her life and taught her that love often requires sacrifice. Years later, that lesson returned when she and her husband were asked to take custody of Thayer Munford, a talented student-athlete facing academic struggles and an unsafe living situation.

Their decision led to court proceedings, media attention, and accusations that questioned their motives. Becca explains why she continued fighting, even when public opinion became harsh, and why she believes success should be measured by far more than athletic achievement.

The conversation also explores mentorship, social media criticism, racial assumptions, the pressures placed on young athletes, and the responsibility adults have to see the person beyond the uniform. Becca shares how writing Angel on a Bridge helped her revisit painful memories, honor the women who changed her life, and recognize the lasting impact of offering someone a safe path forward.

This is a candid conversation about resilience, advocacy, family, and the people who help us cross the bridges we cannot cross alone.

Debbie Bishop on PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING and Becoming Your Own Hero

PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING with Debbie Bishop | Fantasy, AI and Resilience

Debbie Bishop's PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING Blends Fantasy and Real Power

Inside PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING with Fantasy Author Debbie Bishop

Debbie Bishop on Epic Fantasy, Reinvention and PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING

What if no one is coming to save you—and that is actually the good news?

In this episode of Books That Make You, award-winning author and entrepreneur Debbie Bishop joins us to talk about PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING, a sweeping fantasy adventure filled with fey worlds, hidden realms, imprisoned boys, dragon danger, martial arts, strategy, friendship, and the powerful idea of becoming your own hero.

Debbie shares how the story explores resilience, reinvention, and the strength that comes from rising through difficult circumstances rather than waiting for rescue. She discusses the layered world of PILLYWIGGIN: AWAKENING, where characters build bonds, train themselves, challenge stereotypes, and discover courage in unexpected places.

The conversation also moves beyond fantasy into Debbie's own creative life, including her work in Hollywood, her experience reinventing herself after personal and professional setbacks, and her views on creativity, metaphysics, AI, and the future of storytelling. She opens up about learning to stop diminishing herself, step into her own voice, and finally promote the work she has spent years creating.

This conversation is for fantasy readers, creatives, entrepreneurs, and anyone who has ever felt called to break out of their shell and trust their own power.

#DebbieBishop #PILLYWIGGINAWAKENING #FantasyBooks #BooksThatMakeYou #EpicFantasy #AuthorInterview #CreativeWriting #AIAndStorytelling #WomenAuthors

Do you have ADHD and not even know it? For many professionals, the answer may be more complicated than they think.

In this episode, Dr Jennie Byrne MD PhD joins the show to discuss her book, ADHD in Professionals: Embracing Your Brain, and the hidden ways ADHD can show up in high-achieving adults. From doctors and executives to entrepreneurs and leaders, many people appear successful on the outside while privately struggling with focus, emotional regulation, procrastination, overwhelm, shame, and burnout.

Dr Jennie Byrne explains why the phrase "too high functioning to have ADHD" can be misleading, how stigma keeps many professionals from seeking help, and why ADHD may be better understood as a brain variant rather than simply a disorder. She also explores how ADHD can look different in women, why many women are diagnosed later in life, and how workplace support, coaching, medication, therapy, and environmental changes can all play a role.

The conversation also looks toward the future of ADHD care, including AI tools, binaural music, neurofeedback, biosensors, and new approaches that may help people better understand and work with their brains.

If you have ever wondered why success still feels harder than it should, this conversation may help you see your brain in a new way.

#ADHD #ADHDInProfessionals #DrJennieByrne #Neurodiversity #MentalHealth #BooksThatMakeYou

What happens when an enlightened society built on intelligence, healing, magic, and pacifism suddenly faces a threat it is not prepared to confront?

Author Peter Gribble returns to Books That Make You to discuss The City of the Magicians, his three-book fantasy series exploring what happens when stability begins to crack, ideals are tested, and a culture must decide whether it can survive without losing itself.

In this conversation, Peter looks at the difference between transition and rupture, and why he believes rupture marks the beginning of a deeper breakdown in the systems and assumptions people once trusted. Through the world of The City of the Magicians, he examines nonviolence, integrity, compromise, resistance, and the dangers of becoming too comfortable in the belief that freedom and stability are permanent.

Peter also shares how history, court memoirs, ancient Rome, and real-world social upheaval shaped his worldbuilding. He discusses how speculative fiction and fantasy can create space to explore difficult questions with honesty, depth, and urgency.

Writers will also appreciate Peter's insights into craft, including how he writes toward powerful endings, how characters sometimes interrupt the story, and why some scenes need time to "marinate" before they find their final shape.

Most people know Superman as the heroic figure from Krypton, the mild-mannered Clark Kent who fights for truth, justice, and the American way. But as William Bernhardt reveals in The Superman Wars, the story behind Superman's creation is far more complicated, emotional, and dramatic than many fans realize.

In this conversation, William Bernhardt joins Books That Make You to discuss the decades-long fight of Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel, whose work helped launch the superhero genre and reshape American pop culture. Drawing from legal documents, personal letters, unpublished manuscripts, and interviews with people who had never spoken publicly before, Bernhardt uncovers a story of creativity, commerce, betrayal, persistence, and long-delayed recognition.

The Superman Wars explores how Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster created one of the most recognizable characters in the world, only to spend much of their lives fighting for credit, dignity, and justice. Bernhardt also discusses the larger impact this story had on comic book history, creator rights, and the way artists are treated when their work becomes valuable to powerful companies.

This episode is for comic book fans, writers, creators, pop culture historians, and anyone interested in the real human story behind an American icon.

What happens when the world is rebuilt after catastrophe and the power structure flips, completely? In this episode, author and tech executive D.A. Murray joins us to unpack her debut dystopian novel, Dominion: Ascension. The conversation starts with the central provocation: a society where women hold leadership across civilization and men are pushed into tightly controlled roles, including a "breeder class" shaped by fertility and status. From there, we go deeper into what the book is really examining—how power changes people, how systems enforce obedience, and what gets lost when identity becomes something managed rather than lived.

We also talk about Danny Matthews, the 29-year-old protagonist whose emotional development makes sense inside a world where information is restricted and self-exploration is contained. At the heart of Danny's experience is her relationship with her mother, giving the story a pulse that goes beyond the dystopian frame. D.A. Murray shares why technology in Dominion isn't a sleek promise but a "jagged edge of progress," and how today's AI boom raises real questions about privacy, guardrails, and what it means to stay human while moving fast. Plus, a glimpse at what's coming next in the trilogy, including the second book, Anarchy.

What compels someone to walk away from a lucrative Wall Street career and dedicate their life to eradicating generational poverty? In this episode, we talk with Dr. Abraham George, author of Mountains to Cross and founder of Shanti Bhavan, a residential school in India that transforms the lives of children born into extreme poverty.

Dr. George shares the deeply personal story behind his life's mission, from surviving a dynamite blast as a young officer in the Himalayas to building a financial foundation with a single goal: to serve. His philosophy, the 50/50 life model—spend half your life creating wealth, the other half giving back—is more than theory. It's the driving force behind Shanti Bhavan's global impact.

We dive into the school's powerful success stories, including graduates attending Ivy League schools, and the wider social change sparked by a single opportunity. Dr. George also reveals how his mother's resilience and generosity helped carry his vision through the 2008 financial crisis.

If you've ever questioned how one person can make a difference—or wondered when the right time is to start—this conversation will inspire you to act.