On the newest episode of the DMPL Podcast, Jes and Sarah give book recommendations for each sign of the zodiac. It's a nice warm-up for the next big Flash Recommendation event, coming up on Wednesday, October 16.

What is Flash Recommendations? It's an event on our social media pages where you give us some information and our Book Chat team gives you a book recommendation. On October 16, head over to our Facebook or Instagram page and let us know a genre and your Zodiac sign. Then you'll get a book rec. It's that simple! Be sure to listen to this episode of the podcast to get some general recs as well.

Don't forget about the last event in our Fall Author Series - Daniel Kraus will be stopping at the Central Library on Wednesday, October 23, at 7 PM.

 

What We're Reading

• Jes
  • The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey, by Astrid Dahl
  • Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, by Elena Ferrante
  • The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio
• Sarah
  • City of Brass, by S.A. Chakraborty
  • The Black Bird Oracle, by Deborah Harkness

 

Picks of the Zodiac

• Aries
  • 1Q84, by Haruki Murakami
  • Hell of a Book, by Jason Mott
• Taurus
  • The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker
  • The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben
  • The Cottage Around the Corner, by D.L. Soria
• Gemini
  • Open Throat, by Henry Hoke
  • The Light Eaters: How the Unseen World of Plant Intelligence Offers a New Understanding of Life on Earth, by Zoë Schlanger
• Cancer
  • The Unlikely Adventures of the Shergill Sisters, by Balli Kaur Jaswal
  • What the Fireflies Knew, by Kai Harris
  • Black Candle Women, by Diane Merie Brown
• Leo
  • ​​​​​​​Maeve Fly, by CJ Leede
  • Perfume & Pain, by Anna Dorn
• Virgo
  • ​​​​​​​Astrid Parker Doesn't Fail, by Ashley Herring Blake
  • The Secrets We Kept, by Lara Prescott
  • Election, by Tom Perotta
• Libra
  • ​​​​​​​Evenings and Weekends, by Oisín McKenna
  • Cleopatra & Frankenstein, by Coco Mellors
• Scorpio
  • ​​​​​​​The Bandit Queens, by Parini Shroff
  • When We Were Birds, by Ayanna Lloyd Banwo
  • Portrait of a Thief, by Grace D. Li
• Sagittarius
  • ​​​​​​​The Husbands, by Holly Gramazio
  • All I Want is You, by Falon Ballard
• Capricorn
  • ​​​​​​​The Violin Conspiracy, by Brendan Slocumb
  • Educated, by Tara Westover
  • For the Wolf, by Hannah Whitten
• Aquarius
  • ​​​​​​​Craft: Stories I Wrote for the Devil, by Ananda Lima
  • That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America, by Amanda Jones
• Pisces
  • ​​​​​​​Stay True, by Hua Hsu
  • The Dreamers, by Karen Thompson Walker
  • Peaces, by Helen Oyeyemi

Iowa native and upcoming Fall Author Series guest Austin Frerick joins the DMPL Podcast. Austin is the author of Barons: Money, Power, and the Corruption of America's Food Industry.

Austin discusses how the genesis of this book started in a dive bar in Des Moines, the challenges he had as an academic writer writing for a general audience, and more.

Austin will be on Des Moines on Wednesday, September 25, at 7 PM at the Central Library as part of the 2024 Fall Author Series.

Listen to the podcast on YouTube

 

Show Notes

• Austin Frerick at the Fall Author Series
• Checkout Barons at the library
  •  The Always Available Audiobook

On the newest episode of Beyond the Shelves, Jes and Sarah find new versions of old classics they want to recommend for their listeners, including the best readalikes for books like The Great Gatsby, 1984, Moby Dick, and more.

Show Notes What They're Reading

• Jes
  • Story of a New Name, by Elena Ferrante
  • Cue the Sun: The Invention of Reality TV, by Emily Nussbaum
  • We Used to Live Here, by Marcus Kliewer
• Sarah
  • A Fate Inked in Blood, by Danielle L. Jensen
  • Winter Lost, by Patricia Briggs

 

Classics, Reimagined CLASSIC TITLE UPDATED CLASSIC The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald Normal People, by Sally Rooney Lord of the Flies, by William Golding String Follow, by Simon Jacobs The Metamorphosis, by Franz Kafka Nightbitch, by Rachel Yoder Of Mice and Men, by Jon Steinbeck The Sweetness of Water, by Nathan Harris 1984, by George Orwell Chain Gang All-Stars, by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah Moby-Dick, by Herman Melville The Essex Serpent, by Sarah Perry The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger Martyr, by Kaveh Akbar To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee Where the Crawdads Sing, by Delia Owens Walden, by Henry David Thoreau Upstream, by Mary Oliver David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

 

Book Bulletin

• Former president Barack Obama's Summer Reading List
• The It Ends With Us press tour controversy
• Authors sue Claude AI chatbot creator Anthropic for copyright
• The Pairing controversy

Fall Author Series author Shawntelle Madison joins us on the latest episode of the DMPL Podcast! Madison will be the first author in this year's Fall Author Series, visiting the Central Library on Thursday, September 5, at 7 PM at the Central Library. Her newest book, The Fallen Fruit, comes out on Tuesday, September 3.

Show Notes

• Fall Author Series: Shawntelle Madison
• Shawntelle Madison books at the library
  • The Fallen Fruit
  • Other books
• The Fallen Fruit review on Kirkus
• What Shawntelle's reading:
  • The Next Mrs. Parrish, by Liv Constantine
  • The Luminous Dead, by Caitlin Starling

On the newest episode of Beyond the Shelves, Jes and Sarah talk with Kathleen, a Central Library Librarian that works with The Library of Things and Tech Central. She talks about developing the Library of Things, what items are most popular, how they decide what to purchase, and more!

• Borrow items from the Library of Things
• Borrow Board Games
• Borrow Family Board Games

 

What Everyone's Reading

• Two Twisted Crowns, by Rachel Gillig
• The Wishing Game, by Meg Shaffer
• Icebreaker, by Hannah Grace
• Brat, by Gabriel Smith
• Bad Habit, by Alana Portero
• My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante
• The Wars of the Roses, by Dan Jones
• The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi, by S.A. Chakraborty
• Beautyland, by Marie-Helene Bertino

 

In honor of Disability Pride Month, Jes and Sarah are discussing some of their favorite books that center characters with disabilities. They also discuss the history of Disability Pride Month and the importance of audiobooks.

You can also listen to the podcast on YouTube.

 

Disability Pride Month Picks:

• Get a Life, Chloe Brown, by Talia Hibbert
• Being Heumann, by Judith Huemann
• Golem Girl, by Riva Lehrer
• Seven Days in June, by Tia Williams
• All the Little Bird-Hearts, by Viktoria Lloyd-Barlow
• True Biz, by Sarah Nović

 

What Jes and Sarah are reading:

• All Fours, by Miranda July
• Bury Your Gays, by Chuck Tingle
• The Wedding People, by Alison Espach
• Margo's Got Money Troubles, by Rufi Thorpe
• This is How You Lose the Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone
• The Book That Broke the World, by Mark Lawrence
• Barons, by Austin Frerick

 

Book Bulletin

• The first draft of Rebecca Yarro's next book, Black Onyx, is complete
• Ransomware attack at Seattle Public Library - full service is "weeks or even months away"
• Hoopla has started providing content ratings on books and concerns on soft censorship
• Libro FM's 10 best selling audiobooks of all-time

  Audiobook Information

• 2016 Rogowsky study on Audiobooks
  • Summary
  • Full Study
• 2019 Neurological Study on Written vs Spoken Word
  • Summary
  • Full Study

Local sportscaster and debut author Scott Reister joins us on the latest episode of the DMPL Podcast. Reister's new middle grade novel, Baseball Spy, was one of the bestselling baseball books for kids up on its debut in April. Scott says the idea for this book has been in his head since he was taking little league at-bats.

Scott talks about turning the idea into the novel, including how librarians helped. He also discusses his journey through the pubishing process and what the next book in the series entails, among other topics.

Show Notes

• Check out Baseball Spy from the library
• Scott Reister's Author Page

 

 

We're celebrating Pride Month on Beyond the Shelves! Jes and Sarah have combed through our catalog and found some of the best titles for kids this month. These books tell LGBTQ+ stories and celebrate sexuality and gender orientation. Happy Pride!

 

Show Notes

Book Picks

• Kid/Picture Books
  • The Good Hair Day, by Christian Trimmer (he/him) and illustrated by J Yang (he/him)
  • Free to be Fabulous!, by David McMullin (he/him) and illustrated by Robbie Cathro (he/him)
  • Strong, by Rob Kearney (he/him) & Eric Rosswood (he/him) and illustrated by Nidhi Chanani (she/her)
  • ABC-Deconstructing Gender, by Asley Molesso (she/her) and Chess Needham (he/him)
• Middle Grade Books
  • Paige Not Found, by Jen Wilde (she/they) 
  • Sir Callie and the Champions of Helston, by Esme Symes-Smith (they/them)
  • Just Lizzie, by Karen Wilfrid (she/her) 
  • Cross My Heart and Never Lie, by Nora Dåsnes (she/her)
• Teen Books
  • Canto Contigo, by Jonny Garza Villa (they/them) 
  • Escaping Mr. Rochester, by L.L. McKinney (she/her) 
  • Icarus, by K. Ancrum (she/her)  
  • This Day Changes Everything, by Edward Underhill (he/him)
  • The Princess and the Grilled Cheese, by Deya Muniz (they/them)

 

What We're Reading

• Jes
  • God of the Woods, by Liz Moore
  • Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk, by Kathleen Hanna
  • Poppy War, by RF Kuang
  • In Universes, by Emet North
• Sarah
  • Winter’s Orbit, by Everina Maxwell
  • The Ministry of Time, by Kaliane Bradley
  • The Catch, by Amy Lea 
  • You, Again, by Kate Goldbeck

 

What’s Happening at DMPL? 

• Summer Reading Challenge is Underway!
• AViD Presents: Jasmine Guillory
  • Thursday, June 13 | 7PM | Central 
  • Moderated by Denise Williams 

Upcoming AViD author Joyce Carol Oates joins us on the latest episode of the DMPL Podcast! She talks about her latest book, Butcher, writing about the dark side of the human psyche, and how exercise helps her writing process.

Joyce Carol Oates will be at the Central Library on Thursday, May 30, at 7 PM for AViD. The event will be moderated by Talk of Iowa host Charity Nebbe.

 

Show Notes

• Joyce Carol Oates' AViD event
• Butcher at the library
• Other Joyce Carol Oates titles at the library

On the latest episode of Beyond the Shelves, Jes and Sarah discuss Book Chat, a reader's advisory service at the Des Moines Public Library. They talk about how to use it, why it's helpful, how they assign Book Chat requests, and more. Plus, an extra long Book Bulletin where we run through some of the controversies and news in the literary world.

Watch the podcast on YouTube >>>

What Jes and Sarah are Reading

• The Poppy War, by R.F. Kuang
• Funny Story, by Emily Henry
• Yours Truly, by Abby Jimenez
• Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang
• If You'll Have Me, by Eunnie
• The True Love Experiment, by Christian Lauren
• Winter's Orbit, by Everina Maxwell

 

Book Bulletin

• Nora Roberts takes on some of her readers in a blog post
• Readers Take Denver was a disaster
  • Note: In the time since this was recorded, they have canceled the 2025 Readers Take Denver event)
• PEN American cancels 2024 Award Ceremony
• The Freydís Moon author scandal
• 5 major book publishers suing state of Iowa over book banning