Revisions, How Our Favorite Books Change Us

Journalist Juliet Jeske (Decoding Fox News) opens up one of her very favorites from childhood and confirms that she was as astounded and disturbed by the horrific fates of female saints when she was seven years old as she is now. Her stories of growing up Catholic will have you laugh-crying, just like the Virgin Mary statue that visited her small town in Missouri when she was a kid.

Check out these book recommendations based on my hilarious and truly cleansing conversation with Juliet!

In revisiting one of her all-time favorites from third grade, Jen remembers all the weird ways she and her sister kept themselves entertained in childhood, and she makes connections to the weird ways she keeps herself entertained in grownupland.

Check out these recs based on this episode!

My mom shares how her older brother's book obsession (he had 72 overdue books one time!) influenced her and encouraged her own love of reading!

I remember she knew every book, she seemed to know everything I ever had a question about. When I needed help with a class project on Emily Dickinson or Nigeria or the Soviet Union or Helen Keller, she seemed endlessly available, open, and wholly focused on me and what I needed, as if there weren’t dirty dishes, ungraded papers, or unfolded laundry waiting for her.

She knew about the lives of authors, she quoted classic poems seamlessly, she helped me uncover deep meanings behind passages in novels I barely understood on the surface.

When I think of books, I think of Mom. When I think of Mom, I think of books. #ilovemom

Check out some of these recs based on our conversation!

After discovering Hiroshima in her older brother's room when she was ten, the book became one of the first that Tony-winning writer, performer, and activist V (One Billion Rising, City of Joy, Vagina Monologues, I Am An Emotional Creature, In the Body of the World) read all the way through. Over the course of our extraordinary interview, she will explore why Hersey's account of six survivors of the atomic bomb affected her so wholly, and how the form and structure of this classic text encouraged her own curiosities, activism and artistic process.

Click here for book recommendations inspired by my incredible conversation with V.

Author Jane Kuo (In the Beautiful Country, Land of Broken Promises) discovers as a child Paterson's Newbery-winning classic around the same time that she learns English. She will explore in our interview the resources that both were and were NOT available to her as a young learner navigating a new language and culture, and we will journey together back to the playground in our effervescent conversation.

Click here for book recommendations based on my beautiful chat with Jane.

Library worker Jonathan found Fellowship in his older brother's room when he was eleven and began his years-long quest toward actually understanding what he was reading. We'll burrow deep into the shire of Jonny's memories of rereading and rereading this novel, and he'll examine what it means to persevere onward, even through the uncertainty, toward Mordor!

Click here for book recommendations based on my conversation with the delightful Jonny!

Author Abby Sher (Love You, Hate You, Miss You, Bye, Sanctuary) deep-dives into seventh grade drama with Jill, Linda, Wendy, Tracy and Mrs. Minish. We'll ex[ore how and why Wendy and her crew get away with their bullying, and we'll recall the mean girl cliques in our schools. In the belly of the conversation, we wonder how this Judy Blume holds up now?

Click here for book recommendations based on my conversation with the amazing Abby!

Comedian Brian Huskey (VEEP, Mr. Neighbor's House, Bob's Burgers, If Google Was a Guy) throws 'er in reverse and backs up to high school English class, where he first discovered Kerouac's classic. In rereading, and throughout our conversation, he'll discover what it may have been that hooked him at that time as well as what he'll carry with him as he shifts gears and coasts on down the road.

Click here for book recs based on my chat with WONDERFUL Brian!

Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon writer Kurt Braunohler discovers all of Kurt Vonnegut Jr's novels in junior high and begins developing his bizarro, brilliant brand of bombedy.

Book recommendations based on my conversation with Kurt!

Beloved picture book author/illustrator & Golden Kite Award winner Daria Peoples begins to understand what it means to live for herself when she discovers Hurston's classic as a young adult.

Book recommendations based on my conversation with Daria!